The man and his machete had just finished cleaning the fifth row of the banana plantation. Two rows still remained; but since these were only filled with chirca trees and mallows, the task ahead would not take them long. The man, therefore, cast a satisfied glance at the trimmed shrubs and crossed the fence to lie down in the grass.
However, as he lowered the barbed wire to cross, his left foot slipped on a piece of bark which had become detached from the fence, causing the machete to slip out of his hand at the same time. As he fell, the man had the distant impression that his machete was not on the ground.
He was already lying in the grass, on his right side, just as he wanted. His mouth, which was previously wide open, had closed again. He was how he wished to be, knees bent, and his left hand resting on his chest. Except that behind his forearm, and directly below his belt, the handle and half the blade of his machete protruded from his shirt; the rest could not be seen.
The man tried to move his head in vain. He glanced sideways at the hilt of the machete, still damp from the sweat of his hand. He mentally pictured the extension and the trajectory of the machete inside his stomach. Coldly, mathematically and inexorably, he came to the conclusion that he had reached the end of his life.
Death. In the course of one’s life it is often thought that one day, after years, months, weeks and preparatory days, he will reach his turn at the threshold of death. It is the fatal law, accepted and foreseen; so much so that we usually allow ourselves to be carried by our imagination to that supreme moment, in which we breath our last breath.
But between the present moment and that last breath, what dreams, what disruptions, what hopes and dramas we imagine in our lives! This vigorous existence holds so much for us before our removal from the human realm! This is the consolation, the pleasure and the reason for our mortuary ramblings. Death is so distant, and so unpredictable is the life we are yet to live.
Still…not two seconds passed: the sun is at exactly the same altitude; the shadows have not advanced one millimeter. Suddenly, the long-term musings have been solved for the man: he is dying.
Dead. He could be considered dead in this comfortable posture.
But the man opens his eyes and looks around. How much time has passed? What cataclysm has survived in the world? What disturbance of nature exudes this horrible event?
He’s going to die. Cold, mortal and inescapably, he is going to die.
The man resists – this horror is so unforeseen! And he thinks: this is a nightmare; this is! What has changed? Nothing. And look: is not that plantation your plantation? Do you not come every morning to clean it? Who knows it like him? He sees the plantation perfectly, very relaxed, and the broad bare leaves in the sun. There they are, very close, frayed by the wind. But now they do not move… it is the calm of midday; it must be twelve o’clock soon.
Among the bananas, up there, the man sees from the hard floor the red roof of his house. To the left, he glimpses the mountain and the canopy. He cannot see more, but he knows very well that behind his back is the way to the new port; and that in the direction of his head, below, lies the end of the Paraná asleep like a lake. Everything, everything the same as it always was; the sun of fire , the vibrant and solitary air, the motionless bananas, the wire fencing of the thick and tall poles which would soon need to be changed.
Dead! But is it possible? Is this not one of those days when he has come out of his house at dawn with his machete in his hand? Is that not his horse, Malacara, four meters from him, parsimoniously smelling the barbed wire?
Yes! Someone whistles… he cannot see, because he has his back to the road; but he feels the sound of the horse’s footsteps resonating on the little bridge… it is the boy who passes every morning to the new port at eleven-thirty. Always whistling. From the peeling post that almost touches his boots, to the hedge that passes the plantation, there are fifteen long meters. He knows it perfectly well, because he himself, when constructing the wire fence, measured the distance.
What happens then? Is this not a natural noon of the many that live in Misiones, in its mountain, in its pasture, in its sparse plantation? Without a doubt! Short grass, ant nests, silence, scorching sun…
Nothing, nothing has changed. Only he is different. For two minutes his person, his living personality, has nothing to do with the pasture that he created himself during five consecutive months, nor with the the banana plantation, the work of his own hands. Or with his family. It has been abruptly ripped away, naturally, by the work of a glossy shell and a machete. Two minutes ago, he died.
The man, tired and lying in the grass on his right side, always resists accepting a phenomenon of this transcendence, faced with the normal and monotonous aspect of what he looks at. He knows the time well: eleven-thirty… the boy just crossed over the bridge as he does everyday.
But it’s not possible that he could have slipped! The handle of his machete (which, due to its wear, would soon have to be changed for another) was perfectly pressed between his left hand and the barbed wire. After ten years in the forest, he knew very well how to manage a machete. He is only very tired from this morning’s work, and is resting a little like always.
The proof…? But he himself planted the grass that was now poking the corner of his mouth, in squares of land one meter apart! And that is his banana plantation; and that is his horse, Malacara, panting cautiously by the barbed wire! The horse sees him perfectly; he knows it does not dare to turn the corner of the fence, because he is lying almost at the foot of the post. He distinguishes it very well; and he sees the dark strands of sweat on its haunch and withers. The sun goes down, and there is a great calmness, for not even a fringe of the banana trees move. Every day, like that, he had seen the same things.
…Very tired, but he’s only resting. Several minutes must have already passed… and at quarter to twelve, from up there, from the red-roofed house, his wife and two children will come out to the plantation to fetch him for lunch. He always hears, before the others, the voice of the younger boy who wants to let go of his mother’s hand: “Pah-pah! Pah-pah!.”
Is that not…? Of course, he hears it! It’s time. He hears his son’s voice… what a nightmare! But it’s one of the many days, trivial as any other. Excessive light, yellowish shadows, silent furnace heat on the flesh which causes the motionless horse to sweat next to the forbidden plantation.
…Very tired, very, but nothing more. How many times, at noon like now, on his way back to the house, has he crossed this pasture that was overgrown when he first came, and before that had been a virgin forest. He returned then in slow steps, very tired too, with his machete hanging in his left hand.
He can still move away in his mind, if he wants. If he wants he can abandon his body in an instant and observe from the self-constructed dam, the trivial everyday landscape: the rigid grass between the volcanic gravel, the plantation and its red sand, the wire fence appearing smaller as it slopes towards the road. And, further still, see the pasture, the work of his hands alone. And at the foot of the stripped forest, thrown on his right side with his legs swept up, just like all the other days, he can see himself, like a small sunny bundle on the grass, resting, because he is very tired…
But the horse, streaked with sweat, and cautiously motionless next to the corner of the wire fence, also sees the man on the ground and does not dare to enter the plantation, as he would wish. Ahead the voices are approaching – “Pah-pah!” -, for a while the horse turns its motionless ears to the bundle, and calm at last, decides to pass between the post and the lying man – who has already rested.
Spanish Texts Translated 