“Thank you very much, really. I am very touched by all you have done for me.”
“Good-bye and good luck!”
This apparent conclusion to the episode was the sign of an almost unbelievable elucidation, in which the coming mishap implied roads going in all directions: how could Demetrio be certain that trucks and men on horseback passed by here. His four-hour wait was weighty (as bad as that sounds), and nothing, and then hunger and anguish, thirst as well, for the sun had baked him dry. He was sweating, he was trembling. Then he remembered the money in his suitcase—would it sweat? A drenching. A softening. What was going on in there? So he opened it, just to see: yes: humidity, the dangerous eventuality that the money would be worthless if it began to fall apart. Gripped by such fears, the wayfarer grew more and more concerned at the unlikelihood of a truck picking him up to carry him to village x. Unless all that stuff about a village was those folks’ idea of a joke, uh-oh, he was talking himself into an ill-fated end: going the way of dry toast … Getting toasted, indeed: iron willed and gullible. Something extraordinary would have to happen before evening: salvation like a hanging bough, but for hours not even the distant hum of an engine, nor of horse’s hooves, nor of any phenomenon that might bubble up into a mirage. The process of penitence, for having done what he had done, while his body’s stuffing was already wadding up from hunger and thirst, so much so that taking even mincing steps was as painstaking as trying to climb a eucalyptus tree would be for an obese man.
Evening came and nothing.
Night came and nothing.
Falling asleep in spite of himself, impotently … Making do with the gravel of the road … Better to be resigned to vanquished immobility than attempt …
Hope that torments then slowly swells the soul …
Again the suitcase (with no give) for a pillow—phew! though now corrosive and pervasive hunger and thirst prickled him everywhere, even his thoughts, which already made diminished sense and were jagged and sharp and malevolent.
And his lucky star: was it melting? Just one of its points drooping, perhaps turning black, because the following morning, very early, a rickety vehicle drove by carrying two sombreroed men, who, upon espying that vast human form facedown and expired: ah! a death in the middle of the desert, sunstroke be the cause. The men descended from their truck to see for themselves the horror they imagined. They found the giant half alive though nearing the end, for it took several long minutes for him to respond and engage in conversation. Neither of the above-mentioned opened the suitcase—just so you know. Phew, at least one of the points of Demetrio’s star hadn’t melted entirely.
“I want to get to a town … I need a hotel … I’m hungry and thirsty … Help me!”
Almost exactly twenty-four hours without water or food, which wouldn’t have been so catastrophic were it not for the horrific sunstroke the giant had suffered: the loss of strength in tandem with psychic deterioration and new diseases that for all we know had no cure. On the good side: life: a counterflow, in itself the only friendly light and still on this side of things … His saviors made but spare effort, alternating between helping him walk and letting him wobble, just to see if he could go it alone, before settling him into the vehicle’s staked bed. A rush decision, after all. A rush to cover the large body with a blanket to protect it from the blasting sun.
“We’ll take you where we’re going: San Juan del Río; there’re three hotels there.”
“Take me to the cheapest one.”
Okay, so why didn’t they put him in the cabin? That’s easy: because a monstrosity of his size wouldn’t fit, and he lacked the strength to hold up his own head and neck. There were no questions or preemptory answers. The guessing game as to the locals’ motives trailed far behind, or we’ll leave for me—or you—to play. The fact was, it was to Demetrio’s advantage that there neither was nor would be any conversation.
How preferable, this lack of curiosity! The lucky star of the supposedly dying man was slowly putting itself to rights, scintillating, becoming—unscathed? Now the journey really would be made under shade’s treachery: until … or that was the intention, for the agony continued, because the sun’s rays penetrated the