The Wind That Lays Waste

by Selva Almada

  They talked awhile longer, and the Reverend promised to get there in the next few days.

  Reverend Pearson is an outstanding preacher. His sermons are always something to remember, and within his church he is held in high regard.

  Whenever the Reverend steps onto the stage—and he always appears abruptly, as if he had been wrestling with the Devil, who had tried to bar his way—everyone falls silent.

  The Reverend bows his head and raises his arms slightly, with the palms facing forward, then facing up. He remains like that for a moment, showing the faithful his bald crown, beaded with sweat. When he lifts his head, he takes two steps forward and looks at his audience. The way he looks, you know he’s looking at you, even if you’re sitting in the back row. (It’s Christ who’s looking at you!) He begins to speak. (Christ’s tongue is moving in his mouth!) His arms begin to perform their choreography of gestures, only the hands moving at first, slowly, as if they were caressing the listeners’ weary brows. (Christ’s fingertips on my temples!) Gradually his forearms and upper arms begin to move as well. The torso remains still, but already you can sense a movement in his stomach. (It’s the flame of Christ burning inside him!) He glides to one side: one, two, three steps, index fingers extended, pointing at everyone and no one. He comes back to the center: four, five, six. And now he’s gliding—seven, eight, nine—across to the other side. His index fingers point at everyone and no one. (It’s Christ’s finger pointing at you!) Then he comes back to the center again and begins to walk down the aisle. Now his legs join the dance. His whole body is moving, even his toes under the shoe leather. He strips off his jacket and tie. All this without ever ceasing to speak. Because from the moment he lifted his head and looked at the audience, Christ’s tongue has moved in his mouth and will not cease to move. He walks up and down the aisle, goes to the door, and retraces his steps; his eyes are shut and his arms flung wide, his hands moving like radar seeking out the most wretched of all. The Reverend does not need to see. When the moment comes, Christ will tell him who should be taken up onto the stage.

  He reaches out at random and grasps the wrist of a woman who is crying and shaking like a leaf. Although the woman feels that her limbs are not responding, the Reverend takes hold of her and sweeps her up like a leaf in the wind. He places her at the front of the stage. The woman is sixty years old; her stomach is bulging as if she were pregnant. The Reverend kneels in front of her. He rests his face against her belly. Now, for the first time, he stops speaking. His mouth opens. The woman can feel the open mouth, the Reverend’s teeth biting the fabric of her dress. The Reverend writhes. The little bones of his spine move like a snake under his shirt. The woman can’t stop crying. Her tears are mixed with snot and drool. She opens her arms; her flesh sags. The woman cries out and all the others cry with her. The Reverend stands up and turns toward the congregation. His face is red and sweaty, and there is something caught between his teeth. It is slimy and black. He spits it out: a scrap of fabric that reeks of the Devil.

  5

  “Let us give thanks,” said the Reverend.

  Tapioca and the Gringo froze, their food-laden forks halfway between plate and mouth.

  “If you don’t mind,” said the Reverend.

  “Go ahead.”

  The Reverend clasped his hands and rested them on the edge of the table. Leni did the same and lowered her eyes. Tapioca looked at the Gringo and the guests, then put his hands together too. Brauer’s remained apart, one on either side of his plate.

  “Lord, bless this food and this table. Thank you, Jesus, for giving us the opportunity to meet these friends. Praised be thy name.”

  The Reverend smiled.

  “Okay,” he said.

  The four of them dug into the food: lots of rice and a few pieces of cold meat left over from last night’s dinner. They were all hungry, so for a while there was only the sound of the cutlery against the glazed plates. Tapioca and Brauer ate in a rush, as if they were racing to see who would finish first. The Reverend and Leni were slower. He had taught her that it was important to chew your food well before swallowing: good chewing is an aid to good digestion.

  “Have you been living here long?” Pearson asked.

  “Fair while,” said the Gringo, swallowing and wiping his mouth with the back of his hand before taking a gulp of wine chilled with ice. “This was my father’s place. I wandered around for years and years, working in the cotton gins, harvesting, whatever I could find. Going from one place to another. Must have been about ten years ago I settled down here for good.”

  “It’s a lonely sort of place.”

  “I don’t mind being alone. Anyway, now I’ve got Tapioca for company, haven’t I, kid?”

  “Have you been working with Mr. Brauer for long?”

  Tapioca shrugged his shoulders and wiped his plate with a piece of bread, leaving it spotlessly clean.

  “My assistant’s a bit shy,” said the Gringo. “Until he gets to know people, eh, kid?”

  The mechanic finished eating, crossed his knife and fork, and leaned back in his chair with his hands on his swollen abdomen.

  “And what about you? You said you were heading for Castelli?”

  “Yes. We’re going to see Pastor Zack. Do you know him?”

  “Zack. Don’t think so.” The Gringo lit a cigarette. “I knew a Zack, when I was a kid, working at Pampa del Infierno. But he was no man of God, that guy. A Russian, a rough sort. A fighter. Always getting into trouble. There are lots of evangelists around here.”

  “Yes, there are many Protestant churches in the area. Ours has grown considerably over the last few years, thanks be to God. Pastor Zack has done wonderful work.”

  They sat there in silence. Brauer finished his wine and swirled the last little pieces of ice around in the bottom of the glass.

  “Even if he doesn’t believe, your friend, the one you were talking about, he too can enter the Kingdom of Heaven. We all can,” said the Reverend.

  “What’s it like?” asked Tapioca, avoiding the Reverend’s eye.

  “The Kingdom of Heaven?”

  “Come here, I will show you the bride, the wife of the Lamb,” said Leni, butting in. They all looked at her: she had barely said a word since getting out of the car. “And he carried me away in the Spirit to a great and high mountain, and showed me the holy city, Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, having the glory of God. Her brilliance was like a very costly stone, as a stone of crystal-clear jasper. It had a great and high wall. The material of the wall was jasper; and the city was pure gold. The foundation stones of the city wall were adorned with every kind of precious stone. The street of the city was pure gold, like transparent glass. Then the angel showed me a river of the water of life, clear as crystal, coming from the throne of God and of the Lamb, in the middle of its street. On either side of the river were the trees of life, yielding their fruit every month; and the leaves of the trees were for the healing of the nations.” She smiled. “That’s how it goes, isn’t it, Father?”

  “Is that all true?” asked Tapioca, astonished by the description.

  “Of course not. It’s metaphorical,” Leni replied with a sneer.

  “Elena,” said the Reverend severely. “The Kingdom of Heaven is the most beautiful place you can imagine, son. Standing in the grace of God. All the treasures in the world put together couldn’t compare with that. Are you a believer, Mr. Brauer?”

  The Gringo poured himself some more wine and lit another cigarette.

  “I don’t have time for that stuff.”

  The Reverend smiled and held his gaze.

  “Well, I don’t have time for anything else.”

  “To each his own,” said Brauer, getting up. “Clear the table, kid.” Tapioca was sitting there lost in thought, rolling little pellets of bread and arranging them in a row.

  The boy had arrived with his mother, one afternoon. He would have been about eight. They came in a truck that had picked them up in Sáenz Peña. The
driver, who was heading to Rosario, filled up with gas, checked the tire pressure, and ordered a beer. While he was drinking it in the shade of the awning and the boy was playing with the dogs, the woman came over to Brauer, who was cleaning the spark plugs of a car that he had to repair. When he saw her approaching, he thought she must be looking for the bathroom; he had barely noticed her until then.

  But it wasn’t the bathroom she was after, it was something else.

  “I want to talk with you.”

  Brauer glanced at her and went on with his work. She was hesitating; he thought she must be a prostitute. It wasn’t unusual for long-haul truckers to take them from one place to another, and wait around while they turned a trick. Maybe they split the money after.

  She was hesitating, so the Gringo said: “I’m listening.”

  “You don’t remember me, do you?”

  Brauer looked at her more carefully. No, he didn’t remember her.

  “It doesn’t matter,” she said. “We knew each other a long time ago, and not for long. Thing is, that’s your son.”

  The Gringo put the spark plugs in a jar and wiped his hands on a rag. He looked to where she had pointed.

  The boy was holding a branch. He was using it to play tug-of-war with one of the dogs; the others were circling him and jumping, impatient for their turn to play.

  “They don’t bite, do they?” she asked, anxiously.

  “No, they don’t bite,” Brauer replied.

  “Thing is, I can’t go on raising him. I’m going to Rosario to look for work; it’s harder with the kid. I still don’t know where I’ll end up. There’s no one I can leave him with.”

  The Gringo finished wiping his hands and tucked the rag into his belt. He lit a cigarette and offered one to the woman.

  “I’m Perico’s sister. You worked with him at the Dobronich cotton gin in Machagai, if you remember.”

  “Perico. What’s he up to?”

  “Haven’t heard from him in years. He went to Santiago, to work, and never came back.”

  The boy was lying on the ground and the dogs were snuffling at his ribs, looking for the stick hidden under his body. He was laughing like crazy.

  “He’s a good little kid,” said the woman.

  “How old is he?”

  “Almost nine. He does what he’s told and he’s healthy. He’s well brought up.”

  “Did he bring clothes?”

  “There’s a bag in the truck.”

  “All right. Leave him then,” he said and flicked the cigarette butt away.

  The woman nodded.

  “His name is José Emilio, but everyone calls him Tapioca.”

  When the truck pulled away and began to climb slowly toward the road, Tapioca started crying. Standing still, he opened his mouth and let out a howl, and the tears ran down his dirty cheeks, leaving tracks. Brauer bent down to his level.

  “Come on, kid, let’s have a Coke and give those dogs something to eat.”

  Tapioca nodded, still watching the truck, which had climbed right up onto the road now, with his mother inside, taking her away forever.

  Brauer picked up the bag and started walking toward the pump. The dogs had run up onto the verge, following the truck; now they were coming back with their tongues hanging out. The boy sniffled, turned around, and ran after the Gringo.

  Tapioca started clearing the table and Leni got up to help him.

  “Let me do it,” she said, taking the knives and forks he was holding, then briskly gathering the plates and glasses. “Tell me where I can wash them.”

  “Over here.”

  Leni followed him to the back of the little house, where there was a cement tub with a faucet. As she washed up, she handed the things to Tapioca. The wet tableware piled up in his arms.

  “Do you have a dishcloth?”

  “Inside.”

  They went into the single room. It took Leni’s eyes a few minutes to adjust to the darkness. Gradually she identified the shapes: a stove with a gas cylinder, a fridge, a small table, a few shelves nailed onto the wall, two folding beds, and a wardrobe. The bare cement floor was clean.

  Tapioca put the things on the table and picked up a rag. Leni took it from him and started drying.

  “You know where things go; you put them away,” she said.

  They finished the job in silence. When she had dried the last fork, Leni shook out the rag and hung it over the edge of the table.

  “Done,” she said with a satisfied smile.

  Tapioca wiped his hands on the legs of his trousers, ill at ease.

  Leni hardly ever did housework because she and her father didn’t have a home. Her clothes were sent to the laundry; they ate in dining rooms where other people cleared the table and washed the dishes; and the hotel beds they slept in were made and changed by the staff. So she took a certain pleasure in these tasks that another girl might have found tiresome. It was like playing house.

  “What now?” she asked.

  Tapioca shrugged.

  “Let’s go out,” she said.

  When they stepped outside, Leni’s eyes had to adjust again, now to the fierce early-afternoon glare.

  The Reverend was dozing on his chair, and Leni put a finger to her lips, warning Tapioca not to wake him. She walked away from the porch and beckoned to the boy, who followed her.

  “Let’s go under that tree,” she said.

  Tapioca tagged along. Except as a child, with his mother, he had never been in female company. Another boy would have resisted, feeling that the girl was pushing him around.

  They sat down under the leafiest tree they could find. Even so, the hot wind smothered everything in a hellish torpor.

  “Do you like music?” asked Leni.

  Tapioca shrugged. Not that he disliked it. But he wasn’t sure if he liked it, exactly. The radio was always on, and sometimes, when they played one of those cheerful, up-tempo chamamés, the Gringo would turn the volume right up. He’d always give a whoop and sometimes even dance a few steps, which amused Tapioca. Now that he thought about it, he liked the other kind more, the sad ones, about ghosts and tragic love affairs. That music was really beautiful; it made your heart go tight. It didn’t make you want to dance; it made you want to keep still, watching the road.

  “Put this in,” said Leni, helping him to insert one of the little earphones. Then she put the other one into her ear. Tapioca looked at her. The girl smiled and pressed a button. At first, the music startled him: he’d never heard it so close up, as if it were playing in his brain. She shut her eyes; he did the same. Soon he got used to the melody, and it didn’t feel like something that had intruded from outside. It was as if the music came surging up from his core.

  6

  The car had broken down as they were leaving Gato Colorado. Leni was amused by the name, and especially by the two cement cats, painted bright red, sitting on two pillars at the entrance to the town, which was on the border between the provinces of Santa Fe and Chaco.

  The bad noises had begun much earlier, as they were coming in to Tostado, where they had spent the night in a small hotel. Leni said they should get it checked before setting off again, but the Reverend paid no attention.

  “The car won’t let us down. The good Lord wouldn’t allow it.”

  Leni, who had been driving since she was ten and took turns at the wheel with her father, knew when a noise was just a noise and when it was a warning signal.

  “We better get a mechanic to take a look before we leave,” she insisted as they drank coffee early that morning in a bar. “We could ask here if they know someone who’s good and doesn’t charge too much.”

  “If we take it to a garage, they’ll make us wait the whole day. We have to have faith. When has this car ever broken down, eh?”

  Leni kept quiet. They always ended up doing what her father wanted, or, as he saw it, what God expected of them.

  When they’d been on the road for two hours, the car gave one last snort and stopped. The Re
verend tried to start it again, but it was no use. Leni looked through the bug-spotted windshield at the road stretching away and said, without turning, but in a clear and firm voice:

  “I told you so, Father.”

  Pearson got out of the car, took off his jacket, and put it on the back of the seat. He shut the door, rolled up his sleeves, went around to the front, and opened the hood. A jet of smoke made him cough.

  All Leni could see now was the hood with its chrome plating and smoke or steam coming out the sides. Then her father walked past; she heard him open the trunk and shift the suitcases. Two big, battered suitcases, secured with leather straps, which held all their belongings. In his: six shirts, three suits, an overcoat, undershirts, socks, underwear, another pair of shoes. In hers: three shirts, three skirts, two dresses, a coat, underwear, another pair of shoes. The Reverend slammed the trunk shut again.

  Leni got out. The sun was scorching, and it was only nine in the morning. She undid the top two buttons of her shirt, walked around the car, and found her father putting down the triangles. She looked at the triangles and the deserted road. Between Tostado and where they were, they hadn’t seen a single car.

  “Any moment now a Good Samaritan will come along,” said the Reverend, with his hands on his hips and a smile on his face, oozing faith.

  She looked at him.

  “The good Lord won’t leave us stranded here,” he said, rubbing his lower back, ruined by all those years of driving.

  Leni thought that if one fine day the good Lord actually came down from the Kingdom of Heaven to attend to the Reverend’s mechanical mishaps, her father would be more stunned than anyone. He’d fall on his ass. And piss himself too.

  She took a few steps on the road, which was full of cracks and potholes. Her heels clicked on the concrete.

  It was a place that seemed to have been completely forsaken by humans. Her gaze ranged over the stunted, dry, twisted trees and the bristly grass in the fields. From the very first day of Creation, God too had forsaken that place. But she was used to it. She’d spent her whole life in places like that.