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with a tuft of hair on the top of his head.
    “My late father was born in the desert. He was buried here. These people are very devoted to him,” explained Madalena. “They’ll take you in and hide you for as long as necessary.”
    The mercenary sat down on the floor, straightened his shoulders, like a king parading naked, his silhouette the prickly shadow of a mutiati tree. A group of children surrounded him, touched him, pulled his hair. The young men laughed loudly. They were fascinated by the rough silence of this man, his distant gaze, the spectre of a past they sensed was violent and troubled. Madalena said goodbye with a slight nod:
    “Wait here. They’ll come for you. When everything calms down you’ll be able to cross the border to South-West Africa. I imagine you have good friends among the white men.”
    Years passed. Decades. Jeremias never crossed the border.

May 27
    Che Guevara was very agitated this morning
.
    He was jumping from branch to branch. Crying out
.
    Later, looking out the living-room window, I saw a man, running. A tall fellow, really thin, incredibly agile. Three soldiers were running after him, close behind. Throngs of people were streaming from the corners, in bursts, joining the soldiers. Within moments there was a whole crowd in pursuit of the fugitive. I saw him crash into a boy who was crossing in front of him, on a bicycle, and tumble flailing in the dust. The mob was about to reach him, it was just an arm’s length from him, when the man jumped onto the bicycle and resumed his flight. By now a second group had formed, a hundred meters farther along the road, and there were stones raining down. The poor wretch ducked into a narrow alleyway. If he could have seen a bird’s-eye view, like I could, he never would have done it: a dead end. When he realized his mistake, he ditched the bike and tried to jump the wall
.
    A tossed stone hit the back of his neck and he fell
.
    The throng reached him. They launched themselves, kicking, onto his thin body. One of the soldiers drew a pistol and fired it into the air, clearing
a way through. He helped the man to his feet, holding the pistol pointed toward the crowd. The other two were shouting orders, attempting to calm tempers. Finally they managed to make the crowd move back, they dragged the prisoner off to a van, threw him inside, and left
.
    I haven’t had electricity for more than a week. So I haven’t listened to the radio. I have no way of knowing what’s going on
.
    I was woken by gunshots. Later, looking through the living-room window, I saw the really thin man, running. Phantom roamed about all day, going round and round his own fear, gnawing on his toes. I heard shouts in the next-door apartment. Several men arguing. Then, silence
.
    I couldn’t sleep. At four in the morning I went up onto the terrace. The night, like a well, was swallowing stars
.
    Then I saw a flatbed truck go by, laden with dead bodies
.

On the Slippages of Reason
    Monte didn’t like interrogations. For years he avoided discussing the subject. He’d even avoided recalling the seventies, when in order to preserve the socialist revolution, certain excesses – to use a euphemism for which we’re indebted to the agents of the political police – were permitted. He confessed to his friends that he learned a lot about human nature while he was interrogating fractionists, and young men linked to the far left, in the terrible years that followed Independence. People with a happy childhood, he said, tend to be hard to break.
    Perhaps he was thinking of Little Chief.
    Little Chief – who had been baptized Arnaldo Cruz – didn’t like talking about the periods he’d spent in detention. Orphaned at an early age, raised by his paternal grandmother, old Dulcineia, a professional sweet-seller, he wanted for nothing. He completed high school, and then, when everyone expected him to go to university and become a doctor, he became involved in political gatherings and