She had never seen such a man before or after him, and now, seeing him again, he seemed so extraordinarily beautiful that her eyes went hazy. The sight of him was like a surprising sunset, when nature puts its danger and its beauty on vivid display.
“So now you like the mud, chamigo!” she shouted. She hoped her voice would come out firm and it did, ironic and warm at the same time. Juan recognized it immediately.
“Tali, what’s with all this? We’re stuck!”
Juan and his son—Gaspar, so grown up now, and so thin—were laughing like crazy. Tali couldn’t believe it. She would have expected to find him just as furious and sad as when she’d seen him a few months back. And yet here he was in the door of her house, bent over laughing with his feet sunk in the mud, telling his son: “It’s the Corrientes quicksand!”
“Just give it a try, che; if you fall, you can take a bath later,” she called.
She leaned against the doorway and relaxed, enjoying this unprecedented show: the Golden God having fun with his own clumsiness, pretending to sink, crying out in mock fear. Gaspar, lighter, got through the mud first, and Tali ushered him in. He looked her in the eyes, curious and alert. Hi, Tali, he said. And he turned around to cheer at a slip that almost laid his father out in the road.
“You know, Juancito, the road that comes up on the side is paved.”
“No way.”
“More or less. They put down gravel.”
“Why does that road have gravel? Does it lead to a big estate?”
“No, but this is Corrientes. You can’t ask for logic.”
“I’ll move the car later, then. I hope it isn’t stuck.”
“We can push it.”
Juan leaped to reach a stretch of dry grass, and from there, two long-legged strides carried him easily to the door. Tali could finally look at him close up, and she realized the illusion of the late-afternoon light had been overly reassuring: Juan’s under-eyes were dark and swollen and he had lost weight; those strange eyes of his, with their multicolored irises—flashes of blue, green, and a little yellow—were tired and dazed. But it was Juan’s extreme paleness that let her know the game in the mud was nothing but that, a game.
“If I didn’t know you were alive, I’d say you were a ghost, che. Goddamn you’re pale.”
He pretended not to hear her and hugged her tight, lifting her off the floor. He got her dress dirty, but Tali didn’t care. She was feeling Juan’s body again after so long, firm and fragile; it was reassuring to bury her face in that broad chest, to breathe in the smell of his shirt, heat and gasoline and insect repellent. She felt him take a deep breath of relief. Tali kept her eyes closed as she listened to his breathing and the nighttime insects that were waking up and buzzing. He took her by the hand and she could sense his sadness through his fingertips, as if it emanated from him. She noticed, as well, that he had a dirty bandage over a wound on his palm. You need to change that rag, she told him, and Juan didn’t answer. Gaspar was sitting on the floor, trying to clean his white sneakers.
“Don’t worry, mitaí, I’ll wash them for you,” said Tali, and then she set about resolving various issues. She took Gaspar’s hand, beckoned one of the boys working in the small field behind the house over and told him to move the car on to the gravel, and then served a nice cold tereré on the deck table. “I only have lemon verbena. I’ll bring something for you, mitaí, do you like Coke?”
When she came back with the soda, Juan had stretched out as best he could in the hammock chair and had splashed a little fresh water on his face.
“You could have let me know you were coming, I would’ve had some food ready, gotten the house in order.”
“I didn’t know if I was going to be able to make it there alone, so I hurried a little. And when I realized I was too early, I decided I’d rather visit you first than go straight to Puerto Reyes.”
“Are you okay?
He didn’t look at her. Instead, he gazed out at the red of the sunset through the trees.
“And the little one, how’s he taking it?”
“Don’t talk about me like I’m not here,” Gaspar protested. He set the glass of Coke on the table with a frown and crossed his arms.
“He’s right there, ask him yourself.”
“Well, aren’t you something, kiddo. Are you doing okay?”
“Sometimes yes, sometimes no. I miss my mom, and I get scared when he gets sick.” And with an angry, almost accusatory expression, he pointed at his father.
Tali hugged the boy and sat him on her lap, though Gaspar was already too big to be held. She didn’t know how to respond, since she’d never heard a six-year-old child speak so clearly and sincerely, so she just said let’s go change your sneakers, and asked Juan if he’d brought another pair. Sure, he replied, and I also brought him sandals, though around here he can just go barefoot. No, not barefoot, said Tali. Too many bugs.
In the bathroom she washed Gaspar’s legs, changed his shoes and shirt, and listened to him talk about the animals he’d seen on the drive there, including a buck with horns. She thought it was very strange for a stag to be so far from the wetlands, but nothing could really be considered strange when Juan was around.
Tali had first met Juan in Buenos Aires. Her father had brought her there with the intention of making her study, but Tali would run away from school, throw tantrums on the floor, cry. Rosario had tried to convince her that school wasn’t so bad and the two of them could have fun together. But Tali had replied it wasn’t school she hated: it was the city. So, Adolfo Reyes desisted from trying to educate his younger daughter at the best school in Buenos Aires, as he was doing with Rosario, and he let her return north, to her temple and her herbs and her rural school.
She and Rosario were close friends as well as half-sisters. Tali had cried when, at eighteen years old, Rosario left for England to study, telling Tali she was going to the best university in the world and she was happy. Juan had turned fifteen by then, and he’d spent the whole summer that year in Puerto Reyes. He, too, was very sad at Rosario’s departure. When she visited her father’s house, Tali had been astonished to see Juan again in the cool air of the terrace overlooking the river. She had grown up seeing children of immigrants who were tall and blond like this boy: Swedes from Oberá, Germans from Eldorado, Ukrainians from Aristóbulo del Valle. On outings with her father, she sometimes lunched on sausages and admired the orchids on display in the community festivals, and she had been stupidly infatuated with many of those youths with transparent eyes and skin bronzed by the sun. But when Juan stood up from his wicker chair and kissed both her cheeks, all those men and women seemed like the practice sketches of a clumsy painter, tentative versions made by a hand that was learning, until finally it drew Juan and gave him life and said this is it, this is what I was looking for, the perfect finish. Juan was fifteen, she was seventeen, and yet her ears burned when he sat looking at her in silence. You want to go for a walk? Tali asked him. It’s not so hot out. Sure, the boy replied. They walked through the house’s wild garden. She told him about the Scandinavians of Oberá and asked if his family was also from there. Juan said yes, but that they’d moved to Buenos Aires when he was born because he was very sick. Maybe you still have family here. I don’t know, said Juan.