The War Of The End Of The World - Mario Vargas Llosa [184]
Rufino shakes his head. “She’s staying,” he says softly. “You go.”
But the Dwarf doesn’t leave. Confused, afraid, not knowing what to do, he wanders about the empty house, amid the blood and the stench, cursing his lot, calling out to the Bearded Lady, crossing himself, vaguely praying to God. Meanwhile, Rufino searches the bedrooms, finds two straw mattresses, and drags them to the room in the front of the shack, from which he can see the one street and the dwellings of Caracatá. He has brought out the mattresses mechanically, not knowing what he intends to do with them, but now that they are there, he knows: sleep. His body is like a soft sponge sopping up water. He grabs some ropes dangling from a hook, goes to Jurema, and orders: “Come.” She follows him, without curiosity or fear. He sits her down next to the mattresses and ties her hand and foot. The Dwarf is there, his eyes bulging in terror. “Don’t kill her, don’t kill her!” he screams.
Rufino lies down on his back and without looking at him orders: “Go stand over there, and if you see anybody coming, wake me up.”
The Dwarf blinks, disconcerted, but a second later he nods and hops to the door. Rufino closes his eyes. Before dropping off to sleep, he asks himself whether he hasn’t killed Jurema yet because he wants to see her suffer or because now that he’s finally caught up with her his hatred has subsided. He hears her lie down on the other mattress, a few feet away from him. He peers stealthily at her from beneath his lowered eyelashes: she is much thinner, her sunken eyes are dull and resigned, her clothes torn, her hair disheveled. There is a deep scratch on her arm.
When Rufino wakes up, he leaps from the mattress as though he were fleeing from a nightmare. But he does not remember having had a dream. Without so much as a glance at Jurema, he goes over to the Dwarf, who is still guarding the door and looking at him with mingled fear and hope in his eyes. Can he go with him? Rufino nods. They do not say a word to each other as the guide searches about outside for something to assuage his hunger and thirst. “Are you going to kill her?” the Dwarf asks him as they are returning to the shack. He does not answer. He takes grass, roots, leaves, stems out of his knapsack and lays them down on the mattress. He does not look at Jurema as he unties her, or looks at her as though she weren’t there. The Dwarf raises a handful of grass to his mouth and doggedly chews. Jurema also begins to chew and swallow, mechanically; every so often she rubs her wrists and ankles. They eat in silence, as outside the dusk turns to darkness and the buzz of insects grows louder. Rufino thinks to himself that the stench is like the one he smelled the night he once spent in a trap, alongside the dead body of a jaguar.
Suddenly he hears Jurema say: “Why don’t you kill me and get it over with?”
Rufino continues to stare into space, as though he has not heard her. But he is listening intently to that voice that is growing more and more exasperated, more and more broken: “Do you think I’m afraid of dying? I’m not. On the contrary, I’ve been waiting for you to end my life. Don’t you think I’m sick and tired of all this? I would have killed myself before this if God didn’t forbid it, if it wasn’t a sin. When are you going to kill me? Why don’t you do it now?”
“No, no,” the Dwarf stammers, his voice choking.
The tracker sits there, without moving, without answering. The room is now nearly pitch-dark. A moment later, Rufino hears her crawling over to touch him. His entire body tenses, a prey to a feeling that is at once one of disgust, desire, contempt, rage, nostalgia. But he allows his face to betray none of this.
“Forget, I beg you, forget what’s happened, in the name of the Virgin, of the Blessed Jesus,” he hears her implore, feeling her body tremble. “He took me by force, it wasn’t my fault, I tried to fight him off. Don’t suffer any more, Rufino.”
She clings to him and immediately