La Grande by Juan José Saer Page A

hard-fought individuality, of nerve, of introspection, and of a fierce marginality. Without much emotion, both Nula and Escalante nod their heads, accompanying the movement with a brief and rather conventional smile to show that they’ve discerned, approvingly, the irony of the introduction. When he smiles, Escalante reveals an incomplete set of teeth almost at brown as the skin on his face, and, realizing this, he raises a hand to his lips. The teeth must have been missing for a while, because the gesture seems automatic, and its slight delay could be due to his familiarity with the other players, in whose frequent company he thinks it superfluous—his teeth are no longer a secret to them—but now a reflexive modesty has induced him to conceal his mouth, too late in any case, though Gutiérrez doesn’t seem to have given the matter even the slightest importance.
    As the other players resume the game, Escalante starts walking toward the bar, and Gutiérrez follows, but Nula is delayed by a survey of the damages the walk has caused to what he rightly considers a kind of uniform: the loafers (the left one in particular), as well as the cuffs of his pants, are covered in yellow mud, and a few splatters of this watery substance, which have already begun to dry, managed to reach his fly and even the front of the white pullover, two circles with a tortured circumference and a dense center, like a pair of symbolic bellybuttons drawn on the white material for some cryptic, supernatural purpose. And on the red camper—like on his pant legs—some damp stains around the shoulders illustrate that the shelter offered by Gutiérrez’s multicolored umbrella has been less than perfect. But Nula, after assessing the results of the walk, shakes his head with a smile that, for some reason, unknown even to himself, expresses less annoyance than satisfaction, and, with a few decisive steps, joins the others at the bar.
    â€”What’ll you have? Escalante says.
    Gutiérrez, apparently uncertain, slowly inspects the shelves. The barman, who has left the towel and the glass he was drying on the table, waits, with a calm expression, neither impatient nor servile, for Gutiérrez to decide.
    â€”A vermouth with bitters and soda, on ice, he says finally.
    Escalante asks Nula with his eyes.
    â€”The same, Nula tells the man at the bar.
    â€”Orange for me, Escalante says.
    As the barman starts to make their order, Nula watches the two men. They’ve fallen silent, and don’t seem in a hurry to talk. Finally, without a hint of reproach, Escalante says:
    â€”You left so suddenly. Swallowed up by the earth.
    â€”I was in Buenos Aires for a while, and then I crossed the pond, Gutiérrez says.
    Escalante shakes his head thoughtfully. He’s taller than Gutiérrez, but his extreme thinness, and possibly his seniority, make him look foreshortened in comparison. With his hawk-like nose, his brown skin, his prominent Adam’s apple, and his dark eyes that despite being evasive (due to some ocular handicap, perhaps) gleam when they settle on something, a person, animal, or object, the cruel epithet vulture that people assign to lawyers seems even more apt to him, not to mention the indifference he projects for things of this world, and the self-control—with the exception of the gesture to hide his teeth, a residual concession to aesthetic considerations—so internalized by now that it seems like his natural state, a false cloak against everything that erodes us, ceaselessly, day after day, from the moment we’re born to the moment we die.
    â€”You did the right thing, not saying goodbye to anyone, Escalante says. And Marcos, have you seen him?
    â€”He was the one who told me you lived in Rincón, as far as anyone could tell, Gutiérrez says.
    â€”I used to run into him at the courthouse. But then he got into politics and I retired. I haven’t seen him for