Traducción de los primeros capítulos de La hija de la Cabra (Mercedes Araujo) por Dario Bard
Daughter
of the Goat (Mercedes Araujo) Published by Ed. Bajo la Luna, Buenos Aires, Argentina.
Chapter
1: The Tree of Justice and Pleading
Dunes and mountains. The
sun rose and the wind dragged the animals. His clothes, rags; his face, filthy.
Covered in a mask of white dirt. His flesh hangs sculpted in the air. He tries
to speak as he trembles, suspended from a branch, his hands bound with a leather
strap. He shakes himself violently, intending to loosen the bind bruising his
wrists, and his body undulates in a strained, short, convulsive movement. He
knows he is going to die. He nods, trying to shake the dust from his eyes.
He utters a question, but no one
responds. He knows the answer: there will be no funeral and no woman will cry
over him. His hanging fleshis to become a courtesy for the birds of prey. Already
he sees them, stalking him: flying low, its eyes vigilant, a hawk with a
cinnamon-colored back shows him its predator’s beak; it will perch on the side of
the wound, dig into his flesh, determined, stabbing. Night falls over him and
from below, a hairy wolf looks up and waits for carrion.
Life, the other, how did I end up
here. Let’s see: silence, loneliness, betrayal, nothing more; hanging here, my
nose bleeding. Mummy, cadaver, broken.
Stripped, covered in mud. Dying of
thirst. He tries to bend his knees and bring them up to his belly. His back
stretched, his arms rigid, supporting all his weight. Stiffened, the hot wind
rocks him softly.
Night slashed by a heated wind that
sways me and sticks to me. The living image of the female, Juana, the
traitorous mule, knitting. She looks on me with fluttering eyes, and continues
with her needlework, a lost look on her face. I would kill, I would give my life
to the shit who offers me a dirty rag. The night is long and maybe Juana will
come closer. What a thought! Like a ghost, she looks at me, her black hair, her
brow wrinkled with furrows of fury, her body of stone. I am dreaming her.
He is shrouded in the never-ending
buzzing of mosquitoes swirling in the air, whipping the air, bloodsucking
mosquitos.
He stretches his body and tries to
touch the ground with the tips of his toes. The strap bites into his skin and
the veins on both his arms pulsate. Useless, it’s useless, the ground is too
far away. In a sharp and short movement, he lifts his knees and arcs his back.
How did I end up here. Sour saliva
rises in his throat and he spits it out. If they had killed me, but no, the
lizards hang you and leave you to die.
Sleep until my time comes. Sleep,
dream that I drink, drink until I get drunk and fall down. And may death come.
I imagine her, she is missing a hand, her head is like a dark maelstrom of wind
trailing trash and blinding you, a tornado made of insect swarms: flies,
mosquitos and lightning bugs. When will she vanquish me?
His face cracked by the wind, his
arms numb, he balances. A dog hears me with prickedears. He doesn’t lift up his
eyes, he does not look at me. Animals know.
How did I end up here? Birds screech,
I scare them away, I kick, I am still alive, I am not carrion, not yet, you
butchers. I pray for the sake of praying. I want to sleep, I wet myself. The dust
in my eyes, I pray for another sound, not the shrilling of the raptors. My legs
are tense, my mouth is dry; it is time to loss it all, to forget where I come
from.
The dog abandons its stillness and
sits up. The putrid smell of its hair. Of my hair. Lick my feet with your warm
tongue, for mercy’s sake, come on boy. He walks off without coming near,
animals know.
Dawn appears, a milky, whitish veil
rises from the earth, encircles and envelopes him.
They took him down, dead and pecked,
from the branch of the dry carob tree. The tree of justice and pleading.
Someone carried his body away and rolled it down a mountain.
Chapter
2: Discord from the Start
He looks at the house
one last time. The wooden table and the chair. He takes the cot and loads up
the saddle. There is nothing left. A pair of ruined sheepskin saddle blankets
and the stains of black smoke exhaled by the carbon in the brazier, still
smoldering. The foreman at the mine fired him that night, giving him a few
hours to escapeafter having killed the braggart who had stolen his woman away.Earlier
he had been told the traitor was in town. He spotted him from afar, went over
to him in silence and jabbed his knife into his jugular; he pulled it out
covered in blood, dripping red, the handle flashing in his hands. With a
handkerchief he wiped the blade, washed his hands and left. The handkerchief,
tainted scarlet, lay tossed by the supply store’s door.
“The road to Bermejo, from there
take the trail of thorns; it is desolate and rough going. Look for the way to
San José and there take the trail to the north.In three days’ journey you’llarrive
at Las Lagunas. Find the Priest and tell him I sent you.”
His compadre shows him the way and
then encourages him: you’ll see more stars than if you died with your eyes wide
open. He gives him a few pats on the back. When there’s vengeance, there’s
vengeance, and when there’s music, you sing, he says, a black smile, a dirty
moustache, his eyes shimmering like coins re-washed. It’s as if the devil is
guiding him.
Laconic and with his heart sounding
addled and wheezing, he lashes the hide that carries him, and on those four
feet he steps on bare earth. Taciturn he rides and murmurs curses that echo
against the phantasmal tapestry of a landscape he cannot quite discern.
He rides across the dreadful desert.
Murmuring threats. Flesh of my flesh, bones of my bones, the snake. She pushed
me to hell. May she crawl on her belly and eat dust, the traitor. He scarcely
manages to avoid rodent holes and armadillo burrows. No refuge is revealed to
him. His senses are numbed and he presses his knees against the horse’s sides
to lift his legs off its back. The beast is a blue roan, an overo with black
and white spots that flash a bluish glow in the moonlight. He scans the
horizon. He is tall and thin, light-skinnedwith red hair and a wolf-like face
hidden under a beard he trims every now and then, and which is starting to
grey. Man and animal, the moon makes them whiter and bluer.
Dawn. The sun outlines the
immensity. Starving, as hungry as a greyhound. He sets off at a gallop until
the animal no longer responds and threatens to lie down in the middle of the road.
He makes a lasso out of the reigns and tightens it around its neck. The beast
rages as it suffocates. The yellow flowers that blossom from the black branches
of the jarilla come alive in the light.
The midday sun burns his eyes and
blinds him. The birds in the sky accompany them for a distance and then abandon
them. Not even a single armadillo to skin. Iguanas prowl around nests. They
have to be there, hiding in the thorny brush, the creepers.
He sings and curses, stretches his
neck trying to see farther; the brightness impedes it. He spits, croons,
swears. The horse takes off. It bolts and instantlygoes from a trot to a
gallop.Its back boils salt water. They both have their hides messy and tangled,
sticky dirt in their eyes and an uneasy feeling that runs through their veins and
intimately joins them.
In the middle of the night, he spots
water in the distance, the twinlagoons. In the air he smells the aroma of the
dry jarilla and the rotten odor of the remains of dead beasts. He puts the
horse to drinking. He shakes his sombrero, body and boots. He sticks his head
in the water and it comes up covered in filthy mud, it drips from him till
mid-afternoon. His eyes burn. They tingle and sting. He rubs them. The mud
emits a foul mist. He does not know where he is. Behind him, he hears the horse
snort and slurp the dense water, lapping it up with its heavy tongue. He lays
down and sleeps.
He awakens. The glare hurts him. A
priest is standing beside him and scrutinizes his eyes with the caginess of a
fox. The white man sits up. The priest maintains an unfriendly and sustained
silence, which is broken only when Zapata’s name is invoked. The priest gives
him his hand and mumbles something he does not understand. Compassion, because
it is what the law demands, and not because I found you here, and he hands him
a handkerchief that the white man scrunches against his face. He rubs his arms
and head. He cleans himself hurriedly.
“Everything is pretty miserable
here. Don’t expect hospitality, food or company.”
“Is there somewhere else around
here?”
“We’re isolated. Not a soul until
Divisadero.”
The priest
looks at him in silence. The white man scratches his head and shakes the dust
off the muddy clothes that cover his body.
“I’m not one to get drunk at the
first place I come to. Is there water, animals?”
“Tomorrow I’ll show you the way. Brackish
water, worthless reeds and a disinclination toward strangers, that is all there
is. There is also the path of the fugitives, I’ll show it to you tomorrow.”
They walk; the priest with his white
shirt, the sleeves rolled up, and he with his clothes in rags. The horse escorted
between them, its head upright, its eyes turning to one side and then the
other, the leather saddlebags, torn and resewn, swaying. The white man, his
eyes fixed on the ground, and the priest, prim and proper, advance in silence,
like apparitions.
The priest orders two women to serve
them food. The white man downs a glass of wine and asks for another. Rice and
beans, boiled in a grimy broth. He devours it. Out of the corners of their
eyes, the women regard the red crest and grey eyes. The white man points to his
plate and raises his eyebrows. One of them laughs and the other hides,
embarrassed. The priest watches him with clenched jaw. To the white man, the
laguneras’ pupils turn into black hollows. They are strong, well-built females.
The priest diverts his attention.
“The Old Testament, have you read
it, rider? The church says that it is worthless, but I find it useful in this
desert. Listen: ‘When you cross the Jordan into the land of the Canaan, you
shall appoint cities to be cities of refuge, as refuge for murderers who have
killed without intending to. The murderer shall flee there, and shall stand
before the gate and state his case to the city elders. And they shall take him
in and give him a dwelling among them. And if the avenger of the murder pursues
him, he shall be delivered if he killed knowingly.’ Where are you from? You
said Zapata sent you to this wasteland?”
“He himself.”
“A friend, you say, or an enemy?
Where were you before that?”
“At a mine.”
“And before the mine?”
“Thereabouts.”
Thereabouts, hostile cretin, where
does he think he is. His suffering will be multiplied in Las Lagunas. With that
red mop of hair and Nazarene beard, how old might he be.With the Cunampas clan,
you always lose.
“If I vouch for you, you’ll have to prove
yourself, and it will never be for much time.”
Suddenly, the priest pins down his
left hand, the white man flinches. He makes an abrupt move, but does not try to
free his trapped fist.
Wild pumas, wily cats. Mountain lions,
eyra cats, with the laguneros I learned to tame them. But, your eyes are
glassy, with hidden tears. Scared like a dog that has scented the trail of the
wolf.
“The horse,” says the priest, not
letting go of his hand, with knuckles protruding like stones.
“What about the horse?”
The white man looks over at his
horse, waiting meekly by the chapel gate. And looks at the priest. Predatory,
with rounded head, short nose, dilated eyes. That white collar.
“The horse to let you stay and to
speak to Cunampas on your behalf.”
We fight with our eyes. He’s already
wounded, I landed the first blow, I stuffed his belly and ordered to have him
cleaned up.
“I’ll lend him to you, but if
something happens to him, someone steals him, some beast attacks him, he breaks
a leg, or a foot or dies, I’ll have you shaking until you are pale, and it
won’t matter to me if you are a priest or an animal.”
“Control yourself, fugitive, and in
exchange I tell you this: while I’m away, be careful with Cunampas when he goes
up on the mountain, it’s because there is nothing left to eat.” They fight with
eyes become knives. “Usually, they comeback empty handed, unless some ranch
foremen give them goats. They are a superstitious lot, but in times of peace
they are meek and serene. If I vouch for you, they will let you be, but don’t
think about going by there or stirringtrouble when I am away.”
At night the white man takes off his
boots. With his nails he scrapes off flakes of mud encrusted in his neck.
I couldn’t sleep. The sheets washed
by women’s hands soothed my back. Memories scorched my mind. That I worked in
the mines. I didn’t tell him about when I was a stablehand, with the militia,
in the full light of the desert, we smelled battle. The lances were lightning
bolts and the earth burned us all. The beast I mounted turned to wood,
petrified.The feathered men made us jump, with their lances and their war
cries. We fought where the desert meets the Colorado. I didn’t tell him that I
had killed nor that on Christmas Day the officers sent us home from the desert.
On a dry, clear morning, with my knees locked, pressed against the belly of the
wooden horse they saddled me with. My teeth chattered. Stablehand. I slept
during the day, and stood watch at night, riding in a circle around them.
Calming the spooked herd, comforting the horses. A terrified stampede. I still
dream about it. Shushing them.When they run out of breath, they get used to the
shouting,they crowd together and one by one come to a halt, gently, one after
the other. I gather them up like stones in the palm of my hand and round them
up. I hear their wheezing breathing. Their mouths wet, hollow. I had to cut
their ears, cutting a beast’s right ear, you bleed it a little and the blood
gets in its eyes. Stunned and weakened, they slow to a trot and are no longer
haughty and no longer bolt.
Christmas Day on my way home the
desert showed its barrenness. My woman waited for me but when I got there, it
was the house of betrayal. Filth. I drank and slept, exhausted, until the sound
of faraway thunder put my hair on end. A month passed without news from the
bitch, the traitor wasn’t home and I drank and dreamed until one day I picked
myself up like a horse on its hind legs.Standing. Upright. Then I knew someone
had taken her away. I waited for the bastard until he turned up and I killed
him. As for the traitorous female, I never saw her again. At a mine, I said,
always at a mine. Were you a solider? Never, I said.
Together they walk over to a shed
where the horse rests. The white man bridles it and makes it walk. With a sour
grin, he hands it over. The priest saddles it and adjusts the straps. The beast
watches them, haughtily, its ears upright.
Leery, the white man watches the
priest depart. He mounts him upright. The horse takes off at a fast trot, its
hind hoof stepping past where its front hoof had been.
