By Night in Chile

Selene’s rays, majestic and solitary. And then, as I was admiring the falcon, Fr. Antonio tugged at my sleeve and when I turned to look at him, I saw that his eyes were wide open and he was dripping with sweat and his cheeks and chin were trembling. And when he looked at me I realized that big tears were welling from his eyes, tears like cloudy pearls reflecting Selene’s rays, and then Fr.
    Antonio’s gnarled finger pointed to the portico and the arches on the other side of the courtyard, then to the moon or the moonlight, then the starless night sky, then the tree standing in the middle of that vast courtyard, and then he pointed to his falcon Rodrigo, and although he was trembling all the while, there was a certain method to this pointing. And I stroked his back, upon which a small hump had grown, but otherwise it was still a handsome back, like the back of an adolescent farm laborer or a novice athlete, and I tried to calm him, but no sound would come out of my mouth, and then Fr. Antonio began to cry inconsolably, so inconsolably that I felt a draught of cold air chilling my body and an inexplicable fear creeping into my soul, what was left of Fr. Antonio wept not only with his eyes but also with his forehead and his hands and his feet, hanging his head, a sodden rag under which the skin seemed to be perfectly smooth, and then, lifting his head, looking into my eyes, summoning all his strength, he asked me: Don’t you realize? Realize what? I wondered, as Fr.
    Antonio melted away. It’s the Judas Tree, he said between hiccups. His
    affirmation left no room for doubt or equivocation. The Judas Tree! I thought I was going to die right there and then. Everything stopped. Rodrigo was still perched on the branch. The paved courtyard was still illuminated by Selene’s rays. Everything stopped. Then I began to walk towards the Judas Tree. At first I tried to pray, but I had forgotten all the prayers I ever knew. I walked.
    Under that immense night sky my steps made hardly a sound. When I had gone far enough I turned around and tried to say something to Fr. Antonio but he was nowhere to be seen. Fr. Antonio is dead, I said to myself, by now he’ll be in heaven or in hell. Or the Burgos cem etery, more likely. I walked. The falcon moved his head. One of his eyes was watching me. I walked. I’m dreaming, I thought. I’m asleep in my bed, in my house in Santiago. This courtyard or square looks Italian, but I’m not in Italy, I’m in Chile, I thought. The falcon moved his head. Now his other eye was watching me. I walked. Finally I reached the tree. Rodrigo seemed to recognize me. I raised my hand. The leafless branches of the tree seemed to be made of stone or papier-mâché. I raised my hand and touched a branch. Just then the falcon took flight, leaving me there alone. I’m lost, I cried out. I’m dead. When I got up the next morning a little tune was stuck in my head. From time to time I caught myself singing: The Judas Tree, the Judas Tree, during my classes, or as I walked in the garden, or when I took a break from my daily reading to make a cup of tea. The Judas Tree, the Judas Tree. One afternoon, as I was singing away to myself, I had a glimpse of what it meant: Chile itself, the whole country, had become the Judas Tree, a leafless, dead-looking tree, but still deeply rooted in the black earth, our rich black earth with its famous 40-centimeter earthworms. Then I went back to María Canales’s house, and I think we must have had some kind of misunderstanding, I don’t know, instead of enquiring about the novel she was writing, clearly a momentous enterprise, I asked after her sons and her husband, I said that life was much more important than literature, and she looked me in the eyes with that bovine face of hers and said she knew, she had always known that. My authority collapsed like a house of cards, while hers, or rather her supremacy, towered irresistibly. Feeling dizzy, I retired to my usual armchair to collect myself and weather the storm as best I could. That was the last time I attended one of her soirées. Months later a friend told me that during a party at María
    Canales’s house one of the guests had gotten lost. He or she, my friend didn’t know which, but I’ll assume it was a he, was very drunk and went looking for the bathroom or the water closet, as some of my unfortunate countrymen still say.
    Perhaps he wanted to throw up, or just use the toilet, or splash some water on his