Trafalgar by Angélica Gorodischer Page A

marked in that sector.”
    “What is it? Is it dangerous, sinister, all who enter are lost or go crazy or are never seen again?”
    He disillusioned me.
    “It’s too far away. The merchant princes aren’t idiots. A lot of expense for questionable profits. I’m not an idiot either, but I am inquisitive and I had plenty of extra money. I had been selling tractors on Eiquen. Did I ever tell you about Eiquen? A little world, all green, that moves very slowly around two twin suns?”
    “Spare me Eiquen. How did you end up in the court of Isabel and Fernando?”
    “Eiquen is probably a crossroads, or a hinge. Tell me, and if the universe were symmetrical?”
    I liked the idea. So did the cat.
    “Now you’ll see why,” said Trafalgar. “I left the tractors on Eiquen, I charged more than you can imagine, and instead of coming back, I kept going. Don’t forget I’m inquisitive. I wanted to know what there was farther on, so to speak, and on the way see if I could buy something, because I no longer had anything to sell. And I had cash, and I was tired. It was a long trip. I slept, I ate, I got bored, and I didn’t find anything interesting. I was about to turn around when I saw a world that could be inhabited and I decided to land.” He looked sadly at what remained of the coffee. “Of one thing I am sure: if my heart didn’t fail me that time, it never will.”
    “Why? What happened?”
    “Make more coffee. But put in less water. And don’t let it boil. And moisten the coffee first with a few drops of warm water.”
    “I would like to write my memoirs,” I told him, “but I can’t bring myself to get started. Someday I’m going to write yours and I’ll have my revenge.” I began to make more coffee.
    The cat must have given him one of her looks because he continued the story: “The world was blue, gray, green. I got closer and as I descended I began to see Europe, Africa, the Atlantic, and for less than a second it occurred to me that I had returned. I don’t know if you realize how disconcerting the situation was, to put it mildly. A mountain of awful things went through my mind and I even thought I had died at some point between Eiquen and Earth. I calmed myself as best I could and went to check and I found it was the third planet in a system of nine. I said, I’m crazy, and I asked for more data and luckily I wasn’t crazy nor had I died: the spectrum was not entirely the same. Then I got to looking more calmly and there were little things, a few details that did not coincide. It was a world very similar to this one, almost identical, but it wasn’t this one. Don’t tell me the situation wasn’t looking tempting. I, at least, passed from fear to temptation. I turned around and came this way, I mean, I set off toward the part of that world that resembled this one, if there was one. Because if on that world there existed another Europe, another Mediterranean, another Africa, there had to exist another South America, another Argentina, another Rosario. I was half right. The continent existed, but it was empty as a poor man’s pocket, or at least that’s how it seemed to me. I even touched down beside the Paraná, the other Paraná, understand. Nothing was missing for it to be a nightmare: I knew where I was but nothing was as it should have been. There was no one, there was nothing. A viper frightened me, I heard a few roars, it was cold, so I lifted off again. It made me sad: a world like ours and wasted. But again I was mistaken. I flew over Europe and it was populated. I landed in Spain. In Castile. It was summer. This coffee is a little better than the other. I’m not saying it’s good,” he checked me, “it’s a little less undrinkable.”
    “Cretin,” I said. “You could be more agreeable with the future author of your memoirs.”
    He did no more than just barely smile and keep drinking that coffee that according to him wasn’t good for much.
    “Well, and . . . ?”
    “And