Trafalgar by Angélica Gorodischer Read Free Book Online Page A

saturation in the water of the lower Danube. We were on our way back when the music started and Veri Halabi cried out. It was a cry to stand your hair on end, like a cornered beast, as the science fiction writers say.”
    “And others who don’t write science fiction,” Flynn noted.
    “I don’t doubt it. Apart from science fiction and detective novels, I read nothing but Balzac, Cervantes, and Corto Maltese.”
    “You’ll go a long way with that ridiculous mishmash.”
    “Ridiculous, how? How? They are among the few that have everything one can ask of literature: beauty, realism, entertainment, what more do you want?”
    “Give it up, guys,” said the Albino. “Why’d the girl yell?”
    “One cries out from pain or fear or surprise,” said Flynn. “Less frequently, from happiness. Although I think that was not the case here.”
    “It was not. She cried out. A long cry that seemed to come up from her heels and that scraped her throat. She stood there a moment planted like a stake with her jaw dropping down to her knees and her eyes like the two of coins and afterward she ran off toward the camp. The music sounded very sharp, urgent, but instead of going to see, we followed her, Fineschi at a trot and the rest walking quickly. Simónides went to see her and he found her sitting on the bed, stupefied. This time she hadn’t shut herself in nor did she cover her ears. The good doctor kicked out Fineschi, who was just a pain in the neck trying to talk to her, he looked at her for a while, took her pulse, did all the things quacks do, and left her alone. She didn’t bat an eyelid. We were all a little overwhelmed and the music continued and a few went to see. The rest of us stayed and ate. Fineschi paced and smoked a pipe that went out every two minutes. The others came back, they ate and all of us sat down for a kind of dismal after dinner talk. From time to time, Simónides would go to see her and when he came back he said nothing. Then, when we were about to go to bed, she appeared in the doorway. The music continued and the girl started to talk. The catch was we understood nothing. She talked and talked in an unknown language in which there were many more vowels than it would seem there should be. We listened to her without moving and when Fineschi tried to approach her, the good doctor did not let him. She talked the whole night.”
    “That can’t be,” said Flynn.
    “What do you know? She talked the whole night and we listened to her the whole night. Fineschi cried from time to time. Marina Solim was sitting at my side and she grabbed me by the arm and she didn’t let go until her hand cramped up. When it dawned, which is a pretty literary figure to stick into this story because it doesn’t dawn there, the little violet sun rises and it is less dark and that’s all; when it dawned, the music was still playing and she was still talking. And suddenly she stopped talking but the music did not stop. I was numb and even cold and the others must have been as well but when Veri Halabi went out, we got up and went after her. She walked as if she had to deposit cash at the bank and it was one minute to four, and the rest of us followed behind, toward where the music was. There at the foot of one of the excavated hills, beside the blackish river, the Anandaha-A folk were dancing with so much enthusiasm it seemed as if they had just begun. And Veri Halabi ran and thrust herself among them and danced and while she danced she tore off her clothes and shook her head until her black hair covered her face like all the rest and we could no longer tell her apart. Another hour passed and, crazy with sleepiness and fatigue and with the sense that something more inevitable than death had happened, we retreated to the camp. Simónides and Dalmas had to drag Fineschi, who did not want to leave. We went to bed and we all slept, Simónides last because he went around handing out pills and he gave Montague an injection. I slept