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> Sepulveda - Full Circle
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raised his head and took a sip before speaking. "I can put up with a punctual South American, but a man who has lived in Germany for several years and doesn't bring flowers when meeting someone for the first time is simply intolerable". "If you like, I'll come back in a quarter of an hour with some flowers," I replied. With a gesture he invited me to take a seat. I sat down, lit a cigarette, and we looked at each other without saying a word. He knew that I knew about the gringos, and I knew that he knew about them too. "Are you from Patagonia?" he asked, breaking the silence. "No, from further north." "Just as well. You can't believe a quarter of what the Patagonians tell you. They're the world's greatest liars," he remarked, reaching for his beer. I felt obliged to hit back. "That's because they learnt to lie from the English. Do you know the lies Fitzroy dreamed up for poor Jimmy Button?" "One all!" said Bruce, and he reached out to shake my hand. The preliminaries having reached a satisfactory conclusion, we got to talking about those old gringos, who were watching us from some place not marked on the maps, pleased to be witnesses to our encounter. Several years have passed since that midday in Barcelona. Several years and several hours, because now, as I wait for the stevedores to finish loading El Colono and let me climb aboard, it is three in the afternoon of a February day, like that day years ago. Officially, it is summer in the southern hemisphere, but the icy wind off the Pacific is quite unperturbed by a minor detail like that; it is blowing in gusts that numb to the bone and force you to take refuge in the warmth of memories. The two gringos we talked about in Barcelona were in the banking business for a good part of their |
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