The Planets

by Sergio Chejfec

  Their first great disappointment took place in Paraguay, where they were disheartened by a panorama overwhelmingly similar to that of Formosa; if they distanced themselves from the memory of the days spent walking and resting, it was as though they had never left. The names of places, which—according to them—should identify particular and distinct environments whose variety would be grounded in difference, were simply denominations of the State. The identical was superimposed over the same; not only was the toponymy astonishingly consistent, it was so precise that it became useless: for example, a gully that had been baptized a gully. Yet nothing made any mention of the horizon. It was the State that baptized the horizon; along that line difference was neither recognized nor represented, the proof of which could be seen precisely in the similarity between Paraguay and Formosa, they complained, indignant. Though they had not set out in search of diversity, they were disappointed by similarity; it made sense that they would wait, expectantly, for the road to provide adventures previously unknown to them.

  They had reached a turning point. Afraid that the similarity would only increase the further north they traveled, they decided to change directions and head south. But they had trouble at the border with Argentina; they simply were not allowed in. No one had slowed them down when they were leaving, but now that they wanted to return, they were bombarded with questions. They were taken for illegal immigrants, two of the many Paraguayans who turned up with the hope of living in a shack in Clorinda before moving on to legality or escape. Thus, once more because of the State, they realized that it was not only the landscape that was the same, but also the people. Their papers were examined in great detail in search of the error that would reveal the truth, the detail that would uncover the lie. Nowhere else had they been detained or asked their nationality, but they were immediately viewed as suspicious for wanting to enter the country, even though there is nothing less mysterious than the desire to return. Through this contradiction they came to understand the mistrust that surrounds travelers. Until that moment, rest and movement had been parallel conditions; something like mutual exclusivity confirmed the implication of one by the other. Now a separate conviction arose, an independent truth of which each felt himself the bearer: stillness and movement were the interchangeable poles of disorder and that everything—the static and the dynamic, the two of them, the people they would meet and the mirages that would catch their attention—would belong to a new kinetic category. Something like a state of perpetual creation in whose breast everything expanded and contracted without interruption, like a heartbeat. The immediate implications of this discovery were also the most profound: the journey as a progression, a collection of actions that seek to realize a goal, was invalidated, as was its opposite: the idea of the detour also became useless. The ideal, then, would be to proceed without pausing at the obvious and, rather than overcoming an obstacle, to ignore it. Though this belief could, in many cases, provoke a lasting feeling of anguish, in theirs it simply resulted in a sense of bewilderment.

  They did not understand the weeks of waiting; every day under the merciless tropical sun with the other immigrants while someone—who knows who—carried on with the examination of their documents. They thought they were being detained not because of something related to them or to their condition, but because of a circumstance—singular, perhaps, but also certainly arbitrary—which, at the end of the day, was external to them: the fact that they had displaced themselves. In reality, they had not been detained for their nature, but rather for their condition. If you think the life of a lawman is hard, it’s nothing compared to what they inflict upon the immigrants, they consoled themselves by whispering into the wire fence of the camp before the evening came to separate them. They watched a flock of parrots approach; as soon as they had passed, their low flight turned into a memory made of light—a few spots of green cut out from the sky—and the fading echo of their raucous calls. They longed for their past freedom, which they had seen as an inexhaustible resource, not realizing that it had actually run out too soon. It may have been brief, but it was of an immeasurable intensity.

  After a few weeks they would learn the customs and limitations of Formosa’s immigration policy. The camp, with its progressive stages of detention—indictment, confinement, freedom—and its rhythms adapted to the arrival of new immigrants, was nothing more than a simulacrum of control. There was no such thing as deportation. The inmates that had been there the longest, having passed through all the stages, were given priority to leave as more people came; in that moment, they were no longer illegal immigrants, but legal ones. The groups of Paraguayans were perfectly happy to accommodate this system, but to citizens of Formosa, like the two protagonists of this story, these machinations bordered on the absurd. After a while they made up their minds: nationality was of secondary importance—they would be Bolivians, Turks, or Paraguayans; they just wanted to get out of there. Their determination was so great that, even if they had needed to declare themselves citizens of Formosa, they would not have hesitated to tell the truth. From time to time a corporal would appear and comment jovially, anticipating some groveling plea for freedom, “Stop your complaining, we’ll kick you out of here soon enough.” He was like a ghost or an angel. These assurances could be repeated for months, but they always came true in the end. It actually did happen that way: one night they were given back their documents, and the next morning, along with hundreds of other prisoners, they saw the cloudless Formosa horizon stretch out before them like the promise of a journey. Without realizing that they had finally made it back to their native land, the vast expanse brought to mind the pictures of the Siberian steppe they had seen so often in their illustrated magazines, though they had to ignore the vegetation—now the silence of midday coincided strikingly with the awed silence that fell over them as they pored over the images. Everyone dispersed through the deserted streets of Clorinda, though only to pass through; soon there was nothing left of the group.

  It happened just as it had on the way, only in reverse: once at the outskirts of town, they thought they were still in Paraguay. Just as nature showed wisdom in its diversity, it was also predictable in its similarity. They rejected the idea of passing through the city of Formosa; they hated the thought of anything that might delay them from getting back on their way. Without border controls, the land to the south seemed limitless; Paraguay represented a stage they had to pass through, while Argentina seemed to swell with opportunities for adventure. And so it was. Over kilometers and kilometers of open countryside, they honed their skills as itinerants. Apart from greater physical resilience and a sense of sight that grew sharper with the passage of time, the first virtue they acquired was that of forgetting the notion of speed and, along with it, any sense of hurry or delay. Just as it would be risky to say that a planet completed its orbit quickly or slowly, time no longer presented itself as a measure applicable to space; distance was anticipation, which, like existence, was pure duration. The momentary could last for days and the permanent, only seconds. Like events, which lacked any finality apart from unfolding and simply “occurring,” the idea of velocity lost its meaning. Sometimes, excited by their new qualities, they would imagine themselves as a group (tribe, clan, family, or sect) that paid no mind to obstacles and for whom the essential thing was the direction in which they were headed, or perhaps the movement itself, but never a destination; the essential could never be a destination. A group that would build a barge rather than go around a lake that blocked their path, or which, if they came upon a mountain, would immediately begin digging a tunnel.

  The second virtue they cultivated was frugality. There is nothing like a journey to foster ascetic tendencies; in their case, the privations of the impassive landscape forced them to subsist on a diet of bland, unvaried roots for days on end. Still, they did not suffer from these hardships; a balance existed between hunger and movement, under the force of which these two forms of abundance converged. This sustained them and cemented the har
mony between them. They were made of lightness. Their fast was not imposed as a precaution: they carried only enough food to keep them until their next meal, and this was sometimes days in coming.

  The third virtue was indecision. They did not hesitate to set out along the road, or when they had to choose between paths, but they did hesitate later; they deferred their actions in a way that went against their own will, though it had nothing to do with that. They also vacillated if they had to read the signs presented by their surroundings: to say that something was to their right or their left revealed an inaccuracy, more than a falsehood, as soon as they turned around; the red sun of the late afternoon was just like that of daybreak. The fact that the landscape changed as they advanced was a secondary detail. The simple tent they were occasionally forced to improvise in the open countryside had a limitless and unknown sphere of influence that was, as such, irrelevant when it came to undertaking any initiative. These two, who invaded all with their wanderings, felt themselves invaded by nothing. They felt insubstantial, transparent, and in this sense saw any decision they could make as secondary and any incident as deeply inconsequential. When they crossed paths with someone, they would exchange greetings and then get the customary question: whether they belonged to a circus or, sometimes, if they were looking for work. No one noticed that they were simply vagabonds. Sighing had become a reflex for them, so they sighed, not seeing the point of the question in light of the fact, so obvious to them, that they lived under the sign of itinerancy. Over time these sighs became automatic, like compulsive blinking.

  One morning, just as they were just setting out, they saw a point in the distance that was stationary, but which looked like a person. They had not come across anyone for quite some time but knew that someone would eventually appear, despite the inhospitable nature of the place. And that was the appointed day. At first they thought only eyes as sharp as their own could discern something so tiny; later they realized that it—or, rather, she—was something naturally small: a little girl. Perhaps it was because she was abandoned or that she was in the wilderness, or because, among nomads, differences in age—among other things—tend to disappear. What was certain was that they saw a distinctly un-childlike disposition in her eyes. The girl paused when she saw them, unsure whether to keep going, turn around, or leave the road and cut across the terrain. The two sensed a kinship in this indecision, and decided to help her. Accustomed to being asked questions, they looked forward to the chance to formulate them. After so many unpleasant experiences, this might be a positive encounter. The little girl realized that she was in no danger and approached them slowly; she was thirsty. They handed her a jar—a rudimentary glass—and waited. The water trickled over the corners of her mouth like a river flooding its banks. Once she had quenched her thirst, she spoke. As soon as they heard her voice, they thought: that same slowness, that same indifferent lassitude. The girl explained that her house was nearby, that she only needed time to find it. She hadn’t seen anyone, not even an animal, for weeks; they were the first. It was right around here, she repeated, but she had been wandering for some time. Her parents and brothers must be out looking for her; she wondered why they hadn’t found her yet. She sat down on a petrified log and said that she once heard a story about a boy who tripped and hit his head on a rock. He wakes up a few hours later in a place he only half recognizes; it is the same one he had walked through before, but now slight changes, especially in its coloring and vegetation, make it seem different. A community of hardworking and, in their way, wise people lives there, but because the boy does not understand their language, he never realizes how aware they are of their own advantages. It was not that they lived in a realm of abundance, but rather that they lived according to their basic human needs. This simple trait, more than the sum of any riches, made the place a paradise. The boy has to change his name, become another, in order to join them; from that moment on, the most profound and personal things in his past seem unreal to him, in that they expressed the present in his old language.

  The girl’s name was Marta. She did not know whether she had wanted to be stopped; without rushing, she had simply started to walk. In the same way, she did not hide, but tried not to attract attention, to make herself invisible, to see without being seen and exist without being present. The night before she left, something had kept her from sleeping; she heard noises. One of the animals must be restless, she thought, as she tossed and turned in her bed. After a while she got up, wondering why no one else had woken. When she reached the shed, her attention was caught by the sudden stillness, which had neither cause nor effect, as though normalcy had returned to stay until the morning. She vacillated between turning back and pressing on, but her curiosity won out. When she opened the door she saw that nothing had ended; in fact, the action was at its apex. There was her favorite older brother, on his knees, pressing a hen to his abdomen. Marta was not shocked. She admired the harmony between skin and shed, between her naked brother and the backdrop of chicken wire, planks, hay, earth, feathers, and excrement; there was more truth in that combination than clothing could ever provide. This surprise would serve as an initiation. She slept badly the rest of the night, not knowing whether she was thinking in her sleep or dreaming while awake. Her innocence kept her from fully understanding the scene, but her intuition hinted at the inescapable presence of a revelation. Early the next morning, the din of the birds reached its usual pitch. She woke up not knowing how she had gotten back to bed. She remembered the unclothed figure of her brother trying to disappear behind the hen, and she was filled with a confused sense of anxiety. After a while, she got up and started walking; she would not be coming back. She walked past her parents, her brothers, even a few neighbors. No one noticed her, each went about their daily activities; she seemed transparent. That was how she left.

  Marta handed back the glass and waited. They did not speak. The sky was turning pale, the afternoon coming to an end; the night would soon impose its own style, that of suspension. She was not afraid of what might come, she insisted, she just wanted to keep going. A little while later they would watch her fade slowly into the horizon, a reversal of how she had appeared. Of all their encounters, this had been the most intriguing. They did not overlook the affinities between them—a mysterious shared disposition, the same penchant for migration, the same diffuse violence enacted upon them by forces they could not name—to the extent that they imagined a life shared between them. Two were simply a pair, but three made the beginning of a tribe. Why not ask her to join them? Why had they not adopted her, even if they had to do so by force? They reproached themselves too late. They blamed their timidity and bemoaned their lack of initiative; sometimes, they thought, a bit of decisiveness is in order (though they forgot this right away).

  The next day was cloudy; the clouds formed an armor-plated ceiling under which not the slightest breeze stirred. The stillness was so complete that they immediately thought of the cold, of those polar days on which everything, time and air, seem to stop. It was sad to see the wind, perhaps the closest natural simile of itinerancy, conspire against them, the consummate wanderers, with its absence. A few days’ journeys followed, one after the other, according to the custom of the road. The trace left by the girl began to dissipate, gradually turning into an imprecise figure and a vague sense of nostalgia. Nonetheless, they occasionally suspended their silence to wonder about her out loud; she was, of course, just a girl, they thought with regret. In those moments, the excuses stuttered by one or the other did little to absolve them; explanations explain, but they rarely justify.

  They would see just how right they were a few days later, shortly after discerning the forms of several people on the unhurried horizon. They were Marta’s parents and brothers, who were shocked to hear that they had let her go on her way alone—she was just a girl, they couldn’t believe it. They asked where she was headed. The two responded with the truth: nowhere in particular. The road, in fact, was straight and there was no other; unless s
he crossed through the countryside she would not have left it. This answer surprised Marta’s family, who took it as a provocation. They found it shocking that the two had nothing else to add. No one passed through there for days on end, there was no way the girl had not given them some explanation. The mother added her own touch of drama: Marta was her only daughter and, as they could see, who knew if she could have any more children. She would not lose her. This argument moved them, so they mentioned the story about the hen, in case they could deduce something from it. The family was unaffected, like someone who, hearing a familiar story, wants only to verify a few of its details. It was always the same dream, they said at the end. Standing in the middle of the road, all seemed to realize at once that there was nothing more to say; their silence took on the shape of a truth. Marta was one, her family, many; they were two. Thanks to divisions such as these, which so often translated into running away, insomnia, or persecution, tribes are formed and continents joined. They said their goodbyes wishing one another luck; they would be sure to share any news.

  Our pair was silent for several days. What Marta had confided in them as a tragic revelation was actually the retelling of a dream (as such, her flight from home might also have been a habitual bit of mischief). On the fourth day, once they had recovered, they picked up their dialogue and reached their own conclusions: just as the girl had made them participants in the dramatic account of her discovery, the family had not only expelled them from that drama, but destroyed it altogether. The days began to blend together again; the color of the countryside varied imperceptibly. In one area they noticed an unusual number of towns named after saints. One evening they came across a sign, but it was dark so they decided to wait; in the morning they were able to read: “Area under Dispute.” This was the sort of thing that would happen. They were far from Marta’s country when a form appeared on the horizon, just as indistinct as on that other day. Their pulse immediately quickened: the scene was exactly the same, it seemed like a repetition. Their impulse was to start running, to hurry the embrace, but the girl’s vacillation left them once again at a loss, preventing any outburst. They kept quiet and waited for her to speak. Lesa sat down on a pile of lustrous bones, skeletal remains that had probably been there for thousands of years, and spoke: Later that same evening, she had felt genuine terror as night began to fall. The countryside that had seemed so limitless during the day turned, in the dark, into a magical cell whose walls were slowly closing in and would eventually crush her. It was impossible to move of her own volition; a secret, industrious force pressed her forward, while the silence and the heavy sky kept her from making out even the slightest reflection among the shadows. On top of all this, it was getting colder and she was afraid of going mad before freezing to death. She called desperately for help for a long time, but could only remember the blow that knocked her over—she hit her head on a rock and slid, unconscious, into a ditch. It would have been the perfect opportunity to dream in colors of a different hue, she remarked, or about a community of wise men, but instead she would awaken the next day as though nothing had happened, with the sun scuttling across her face.