The Conversations (New Directions Paperbook) by César Aira Read Free Book Online

other, better ones, and if I had the patience to listen, he would elucidate the situation.
    Aria was a beautiful young Tatar woman, secretary of the Pig-Iron Foundation, whose president the sinister Forion Larionov had become after the death of the previous president, a kindhearted gentleman and Aria’s uncle. She suspected that the accident that had taken her uncle’s life had not really been an accident at all but rather the result of Larionov’s machinations, and she was trying to find some proof of this in the little time left to her, for the new president was replacing the personnel with his supporters, and her days as secretary were numbered. When she found the proof (all she had to do was stay late, enter her boss’s office, and open a drawer, with that ease so typical of the movies), she realized that she could not use it, for the people implicated in the crime included high officials in the government and the armed forces. What’s more: she discovered that she herself had been targeted as the next victim. Th at night, she did not return to her house, which was probably already under surveillance. She had no choice but to flee. Because of her years working at the Foundation, she knew the vast resources this complex and powerful institution had at its disposal, and she decided to use one of them in an act of daring that would be much more cinematic than taking a train: she took a taxi to the Foundation’s private aerodrome to board one of the airplanes that flew every night to Moldova loaded with pig-iron. Her personal identification allowed her passage. But once at the airport, the darkness and the rush of some last-minute furtive maneuvers that took her a while to understand created a mix-up between her and someone else, and she ended up boarding a small jet plane that was departing immediately. Just before takeoff, she hid between the last seat and the back wall of the cabin; once it was airborne, she peeked out to get a look at the other passenger: it was the young and beautiful Varia Ostrov, Larionov’s lover, who looked almost identical to her (they were both played by the same actress). Varia was also fleeing, but for a different reason: she was carrying valuable documents she had stolen from her lover, which she planned to sell to the Moldovan secret service.
    The small fugitive airplane was caught in a storm as it flew over the Coal Mountains, and it crashed into the dark heights. The wind was so furious that the airplane rolled down the rocky mountainside, its wings broken off, until it stopped, caught between a couple of crags. Miraculously, Aria was unhurt. She dragged herself through the twisted tube that the airplane had been reduced to, looked with horror at the dead bodies of Varia and the pilots, and emerged. Once outside, she walked away quickly, fearing an explosion. Because of the ruggedness of the terrain, her hurried escape was treacherous: she tripped, fell, tumbled downhill, the wind swept her off her feet, she sank into the snow, the darkness prevented her from seeing where she was going. It was a second miracle that she didn’t die that night; finally, she happened upon a dry refuge of sorts, where she collapsed and lost consciousness.
    There she was found, the following morning, by the handsome goatherd, who, like every morning, was on his way with his goats to the healthy watering places near the peaks. He picked her up, carried her to his hut, tended to her cuts and bruises (few), wrapped her in coarse blankets, and when she woke up, still in shock, he gave her hot soup to drink. Aria recovered with remarkable speed. Therein began one of those relationships, so typical in the movies, according to my friend (and I agreed with him), between two different worlds that are bridged by love. Th e vast differences between these two worlds were made even more pronounced by the fact that they could not communicate through speech. She assumed that he spoke one of those uncouth dialects that in