The Insufferable Gaucho (6 page)

But I remained alert. For several
days the killer seemed to have disappeared. Every time I went to the
perimeter and made contact with a new colony, I asked about the first
victim, the baby who had died of hunger. Finally an old explorer told me
about a mother who had lost her baby. They thought it had fallen into the
canal or been taken by a predator. But since there were many children in
that group and only a few adults, they didn’t spend a long time looking for
the baby. Shortly afterward, they moved to the northern sewers, near a big
well, and the explorer lost touch with them. When I had some time to spare,
I went looking for that group. I knew they would have multiplied since the
baby’s disappearance; the children would have grown up, and perhaps they
would have forgotten. But if I was lucky enough to find the baby’s mother,
she would still be able to tell me something. The killer, meanwhile, was on
the loose. One night I found a body in the morgue with the killer’s
signature wound: the throat was torn open, almost neatly. I spoke with the
police officer who had found the body. I asked him if he thought it had been
a predator. What else could it be? he said. You think it was an accident, do
you, Pepe? An accident, I thought. A permanent accident. I asked him where
he had found the body. In a dead sewer down south, he replied. I suggested
that he keep an eye on the dead sewers in that sector. Why? he wanted to
know. Because you never know what you’ll find there. He looked at me as if I
were crazy. You’re tired, he said, let’s get some sleep. We went to the
station’s sleeping room. The air was warm. Another police rat was snoring in
there. Good night, said my colleague. Good night, I said, but I couldn’t
sleep. I started thinking about the killer’s movements, the way he sometimes
struck in the north and sometimes in the south. After tossing and turning
for a while I got up.

I headed north, stumbling along.
On the way I came across some rats who were setting off to work in the dim
tunnels; they were confident and resolute. I heard some youngsters
saying, Pepe the Cop, Pepe the Cop, then laughing, as if my nickname were
the funniest joke in the world. Or maybe they were laughing for some other
reason. In any case I didn’t stop.

Gradually the tunnels were all
deserted. Only now and then did I encounter a pair of rats or hear them
going about their business down other tunnels, or glimpse their shadows
huddled around something that could have been food, or poison. After a
while, the noises stopped and I could hear only the sound of my heart and
the dripping that never ceases in our world. When I came to the big well,
the reek of death made me tread even more warily. Half consumed by maggots,
the carcasses of two average-size dogs lay there, rigid, paws sticking
up.

The colony of rats I’d been
looking for was also exploiting the canine remains, a little further on.
They were living near the sewer mouth, with all the dangers that entails,
but also the advantage of extra food, which is never scarce on the frontier.
I found them gathered in a small open space. They were big and fat and their
coats were glossy. They had the serious expression of those who live in
constant danger. When I told them I was a police officer, a suspicious look
came into their eyes. When I told them I was looking for a rat who had lost
her baby, no one answered, but from their expressions I could tell
straightaway that my search, or that part of it at least, was over. Then I
described the baby, his age, the dead sewer where I had found him, the way
he had died. One of the rats said that the baby was her son. What do you
want? asked the others.

Justice, I said. I’m looking for
the killer.

The oldest rat, with a
scar-covered hide, asked me, puffing like a bellows, if I thought the killer
was one of them. It could be, I said. A rat? she asked. It could be. The
mother said her baby used to go out alone. But he couldn’t have got into a
dead sewer alone, I replied. Maybe he was taken by a predator, said a young
rat. A predator would have eaten the body. This baby was killed for
pleasure, not food.

As I’d expected, they all shook
their heads. It’s unthinkable, they said. There’s no way one of us, however
crazy, could be capable of something like that. Still smarting from the
police commissioner’s words, I judged it wiser not to contradict them. I
nudged the mother to an out-of-the-way place and tried to console her,
although the truth is that after three months—that was how long it had
been—the pain of the loss had considerably diminished. She told me that she
had other children, some grown up and hard for her to recognize, and some
younger than the one who had died, who were already working and foraging
successfully on their own. Nevertheless, I tried to get her to remember the
day when the baby had disappeared. At first she was confused. She got the
days mixed up; she even mixed up her babies. Alarmed by this, I asked her if
she had lost more than one, but she reassured me, saying, No, babies do get
lost, though usually only for a few hours, and they either come back to the
burrow on their own, or are found when a member of the group hears them
crying. Your son cried too, I said, slightly annoyed by her self-satisfied
expression, but the killer kept him gagged most of the time.

She didn’t seem moved, so I went
back to the day of the baby’s disappearance. We weren’t living here, she
said, we were in a drain in the interior. A group of explorers was living
nearby; they had been the first to settle in the area, and then another
group came, a bigger one, and we decided to move; we had no alternative
really, apart from wandering around the tunnels. I pointed out that in spite
of all this, the children were well nourished. There wasn’t a shortage of
food, but we had to go and search for it outside. The explorers had dug
tunnels that led directly to the upper regions, and no poison or traps could
stop us. All the groups went up to the surface twice a day, at least; there
were rats who spent whole days up there, wandering through the old
half-ruined buildings, using the cavities in the walls to get around, and
there were some who never came back.

I asked her if they were outside
the day her baby disappeared. We were working in the tunnels, some were
sleeping, and there were probably some outside as well, she replied. I asked
her if she’d noticed anything strange about anyone in the group. Strange?
Abnormal behavior or attitudes; long, unexplained absences. No, she said, as
you should know, the way we behave depends on the situation; we try to adapt
to it as quickly and as fully as possible. Shortly after the baby’s
disappearance, in any case, the group set off to find a safer area. I could
tell I wouldn’t get anything more out of that simple, hard-working rat. I
said goodbye to the group and left the drain they were using as their
burrow.

But I didn’t return to the station
that day. Halfway there, when I was sure no one had followed me, I doubled
back and went looking for a dead sewer near the drain. After a while I found
one. It was small and the stench wasn’t overpowering. I examined it
thoroughly. The rat I was looking for didn’t seem to have used that place.
Nor did I find signs of predators. Although there wasn’t a dry place
anywhere, I decided to stay. In order to make myself a little more
comfortable, I gathered what pieces of damp cardboard and plastic I could
find and settled myself on them. I imagined the warmth of my fur against the
damp materials producing little clouds of steam. The steam began to make me
feel drowsy; then it seemed to be forming a dome within which I was
invulnerable. I’d almost fallen asleep when I heard voices.

Before long they appeared in the
distance: two young male rats, talking animatedly. I recognized one of them
straightaway—he was from the group that I had just visited. The other one
was completely unfamiliar; maybe he’d been working at the time of my visit,
maybe he belonged to another group. The discussion they were having was
heated, but without overstepping the bounds of civility. Their arguments
were incomprehensible, partly because they were still a way off (though,
splashing through the shallow water on their little paws, they were heading
straight for my refuge), and partly because they were using words that
belonged to another language, a language that rang false, that was alien to
me, and instantly revolting: words like pictograms or ciphers, words that
crawl on the underside of the word
freedom
, as fire is said to crawl into the tunnels,
turning them into ovens.

I would have liked to scurry away
discreetly. But my police instincts were telling me that unless I
intervened, another murder was about to be committed. I jumped off the pile
of cardboard. The two rats froze. Good evening, I said. I asked them if they
belonged to the same group. They shook their heads.

You, I said, pointing to the rat I
didn’t know with my paw, out of here. The young rat seemed to have a
reputation to defend; he hesitated. Out of here, I’m a police officer, I
said. I’m Pepe the Cop, I shouted. Then he glanced at his friend, turned and
left. Watch out for predators, I said to him before he disappeared behind a
mound of trash, there’s no one to help you if you get attacked by a predator
in the dead sewers.

The other rat didn’t even bother
to say goodbye to his friend. He stayed there with me, quietly, waiting
until we were alone, with his thoughtful little eyes fixed on me, as I guess
mine were studying him. I’ve got you, finally, I said when we were alone. He
didn’t answer. What’s your name? I asked. Hector, he said. Now that he was
speaking to me, his voice was no different from thousands I had heard. Why
did you kill the baby? I asked softly. He didn’t answer. For a moment I was
scared. Hector was strong, and probably bigger than me, and younger too, but
I was a police officer.

Now I’m going to tie your paws and
your snout and take you to the police station, I said. I think he smiled,
but I’m not sure. You’re more scared than I am, he said, and I’m pretty
scared. I don’t think so, I replied, you’re not scared—you’re sick, you’re a
disgusting predatory bastard. Hector laughed.
You’re
scared, though, aren’t you, he said, much
more than your aunt Josephine was. You’ve heard of Josephine? I asked. I’ve
heard of her, he said, Who hasn’t? My aunt wasn’t scared, I said, she might
have been a poor crazy dreamer, but she wasn’t scared.

You’re wrong there; she was scared
to death, he said, glancing sideways distractedly, as if we were surrounded
by ghostly presences and he were discreetly seeking their approval. The
members of her audience were scared to death as well, although they didn’t
know it. But she didn’t die once and for all: she died every day at the
center of fear, and in fear she came back to life. Words, I spat. Now lie
face down while I tie your snout, I said, taking out the cord I had brought
for that purpose. Hector snorted.

You’ve got no idea, he said. Do
you think the crimes will stop if you arrest me? Do you think your bosses
will give me a fair trial? They’ll probably tear me to pieces in secret and
dump my remains where predators will take them. You’re a damn predator, I
said. I’m a free rat, he replied impudently. I’m at home in fear and I know
perfectly well where our people are headed. His words were so presumptuous I
chose not to dignify them with an answer. Instead I said, You’re young.
Maybe there’s a way to cure you. We don’t kill our own kind. And who’s going
to cure you, Pepe? he asked. And your bosses? Where are the doctors to cure
them? Lie face down, I said. Hector stared at me; I dropped the cord. Our
bodies locked in a fight to the death.

After ten eternal-seeming minutes,
he lay beside me, lifeless, his neck crushed by a bite. As for me, my back
was covered with wounds, my snout was torn open and I couldn’t see anything
out of my left eye. I took his body back to the station. The few rats I
encountered no doubt supposed that Hector had been the victim of a predator.
I left his body in the morgue and went to find the coroner. It’s all solved
now, were the first words I could articulate. Then I slumped to the ground
and waited. The coroner examined my wounds and sewed up my snout and my
eyelid. As he was attending to me, he asked how it had happened. I found the
killer, I said. I stopped him; we fought. The coroner said he had to call
the commissioner. He clicked his tongue and a thin, sleepy-looking
adolescent emerged from the darkness. I assumed he was a medical student.
The coroner told him to go the commissioner’s place and tell him that the
coroner and Pepe the Cop were waiting for him at the station. The adolescent
nodded and disappeared. Then the coroner and I went to the
morgue.

Hector’s body was lying there and
his coat was beginning to lose its gloss. It was just another body now, one
among many. While the coroner was examining it, I took a nap in a corner. I
was woken by the commissioner’s voice and a couple of shoves. Get up, Pepe,
said the coroner. I followed them. The commissioner and the coroner scurried
down tunnels that were unfamiliar to me. I followed them, half asleep,
watching their tails, with an intense burning pain in my back. Soon we came
to an empty burrow. There, on a kind of throne, or maybe it was a cradle, I
saw a seething shadow. The commissioner and the coroner told me to go
forward.

Tell me the story, said a voice
that was many voices, emerging from the darkness. At first I was terrified
and shrank away, but then I realized that it was a very old queen
rat—several rats, that is, whose tails had become knotted in early
childhood, which rendered them unfit for work, but endowed them, instead,
with the requisite wisdom to advise our people in critical situations. So I
told the story from beginning to end, and tried to make my words
dispassionate and objective, as if I were writing a report. When I finished,
the voice that was many voices emerging from the darkness asked me if I was
the nephew of Josephine the Singer. That’s correct, I said. We were born
when Josephine was still alive, said the queen rat, shifting herselves
laboriously. I could just make out a huge dark ball dotted with little eyes
dimmed by age. The queen rat, I conjectured, was fat, and a build-up of
filth had immobilized her hind paws. An anomaly, she said. It took me a
while to realize that she was referring to Hector. A poison that shall not
spell the end of life for us, she said: a kind of lunatic, an individualist.
There’s something I don’t understand, I said. The commissioner touched me on
the shoulder with his paw, as if to stop me from speaking, but the queen rat
asked me to explain what it was that I didn’t understand. Why did he let the
baby die of hunger, instead of ripping his throat open, as he did with the
other victims? For a few seconds all I could hear from the seething shadow
was a sound of sighing.