The Clouds by Juan José Saer Page B

soldiers had escorted a few friars and some families to Córdoba, Josesito, at that time a fervent Christian living in a reservation south of San Javier, was part of the guard. Accordingto the soldier, whose coarse, somewhat confusing language I translate here to a clearer and more coherent idiom, it was because of a sort of religious dispute that Josesito had deserted civilization, declaring war on the Christians. Osuna, who, at times like these, failed to see when someone had interrupted him and, more importantly, when that person had become the center of attention at his expense, persisted in disagreeing, shaking his head as the other spoke, and when he finally got a word in, he agreed that Josesito, whom he had crossed several times, was in the habit of siding with and later fighting against the Christians out of self-interest and that he, Osuna, aside from horses, white women, and liquor, had no other religion. As he rolled a cigar from one corner of his mouth to the other, its tip emerging from his white and well-trimmed beard (clean enough, too, taking regional customs into account), the caretaker interjected, saying the chief was brave and, as I thought I understood him say, somewhat irritable and erratic, that since childhood he had been quite sensitive to the Christians’ arrogance, and that he was one of those who got offended by the smallest word or gesture he thought out of place. As I deduced from the caretaker’s words, the simple fact that those Christians existed was already humiliating to the chief: By their very nature, white men held contempt for all who were not like them, as Josesito saw it. He, the caretaker, had known him almost since birth because the boy’s father, chief Cristóbal, who was meek indeed and had wanted Josesito educated by priests, used to frequent the mercantile outpost and would bring the boy with him. But since boyhood, Josesito wanted nothing to do with white men. Already at thirteen or fourteen, if, when bartering, some white man made an allusion to his person or treated him in a way he found discourteous, Josesito would shoot him a murderous look. He would not tolerate the smallest familiarity and, of course, was afraid of nothing and no one. Once grown—the caretaker had known him about thirtyyears—he turned ill-tempered, sullen, and when, in the caretaker’s own words, he’d been at the moonshine , he could be brutal, itching for a fight. But he was intelligent, and peaceful with those he was fond of. As he had voluntarily placed himself at the margins of society, and as his bad temper was legendary, people attributed all the cruelties of the insurgent Indians, deserters, and outlaws to him. He had learned to play the violin with the priests, and although he vanished from the reservation at fifteen or sixteen upon his father’s death, returning to the desert to live by the old Indian ways, and although he would later return with the white men and then go back to the desert many times over, he never once parted with his instrument—he had fashioned a leather strap on the side of his saddle for it, and when riding bareback he wore it slung across his shoulder. After the roast, the bottle of liquor passed from hand to hand as we talked, seated in the hut around a huge brazier, and huddled under two or three ponchos whose folds occasionally revealed pairs of callused, chilblain-roughened hands that stretched, palms down, over the coals. When the caretaker trailed off, for a few seconds no one, not even Osuna, spoke up, and that prolonged and slightly unnerving silence seemed to have an explanation that escaped me—but when someone broke it at last, I understood that everyone there, save me, thought the caretaker had depicted Josesito too favorably for some reason. When I commented on this the next day, just as we were getting underway, Osuna, laconic once more thanks to three or four hours of drunken sleep, suggested in the most