The Campaign by Carlos Fuentes Page B

from a bull’s sex…”
    â€œI’m going to slap you, Sabina.”
    â€œYou’d be better off kicking your wife’s grave. The poor woman shriveled and shriveled until she disappeared. Do you think I’m like her and that I’m going to imagine that being small is my only greatness? Nothing can console me, Papa, nothing, nothing. Except a pesky idea I always have in the back of my mind, which is that my mother must have been capable of passion, just once, a single infidelity, having another child … That consoles me when I see a savage gaucho with my mother’s face and his forearm covered with knife scars.”
    â€œCalm down, daughter. You’re raving.”
    â€œDoesn’t anything break your serenity? Do you ever say what you clearly mean—that you don’t agree, that I’m wrong, that I’m crazy, that in my mind I’m a slut?”
    â€œMy behavior is my tradition, daughter. Calm down. You seem bewitched.”
    â€œThat’s it, Father. The world has bewitched me.”
    [7]
    â€œThe republic promulgates another good law,” said Baltasar to Sabina as he packed his bags, taking the shirts his sister passed him. “Most of these gauchos will end up in the army for being rebels. Then they’ll demand that careers in the military be open to all. The revolution’s officer corps should come from all classes and regions. It can no longer be limited to the upper classes.”
    â€œYou’ll see that these thugs will all end up dead or in jail for desertion,” said his sister, handing him a pair of old boots. “Take them, papa says they’re a gift. They’ve brought him good luck. They’re from here. Made from mules’ rumps.”
    â€œHe’s starting to give me his worldly possessions.” Baltasar smiled with some bitterness.
    Then father and son parted with an embrace, and Baltasar said it was amusing to think that, while he went to war, the gauchos, by law, had to stay on the ranch for good.
    â€œThat way I’ll never be alone,” said José Antonio Bustos.
    â€œWait for me, Father.” Baltasar hugged him tight and kissed his hand.
    â€œLet’s just see.” The old man laughed dryly. “In peacetime, sons bury their fathers, but in wartime, fathers bury their sons.”
    â€œThen let them bury you next to me, Father.”
    â€œSo, in that case, it might be you welcoming me with a candle in your hand?”
    â€œNo, because they’re not going to bury me in holy ground.”
    â€œAll right. Goodbye, Citizen Bustos. Good luck.”
    Then an order from the Buenos Aires junta came for Baltasar Bustos to join the army in Upper Peru, so what had been his own decision turned into an obligation imposed on him by others.

3
    El Dorado
    [1]
    In the immense confusion of the armies, only nature—so naked, so harsh—could bring serenity to their souls.
    The rebels and the Spaniards had defeated each other an equal number of times. The two armies had nullified each other and could count only on their military and political rear guards—the viceroyalty of Peru for the royalists, the revolutionary republic of Buenos Aires for the patriots.
    â€œWhat advantage is there for us in this situation?” I asked in a letter that Baltasar Bustos received when, under orders from the Buenos Aires junta and with the rank of lieutenant, he joined the army gathering in Jujuy to prepare for the attack on Upper Peru. Baltasar wouldn’t have known what to answer. He arrived between two victories and two defeats; he hadn’t even reached the high plateau and already he was facing decisions he’d never made before. Dorrego and I had joined Alvear’s junta—Alvear, we assured him, was a strong, decisive, and attractive man—and, thinking we were doing our friend a favor, we’d put him at the head of a revolutionary regiment. Military expertise?