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back. Angel did not seem to be joking. Did that mean he was the kind of man for whom life had no value? Luis couldn't believe that he was riding in the company of a murderer, especially after having seen Angel cry. Nevertheless, he decided to be on his guard.
    Next to them, Paolo was riding on the donkey. He kept his back straight, his gaze fixed in front of him. The posture of the farmer had impressed Paolo and he was trying to imitatehim. He rode silently, allowing himself to daydream about the landscape, the wind, the comfort of the evening shelter to come, and the smell of soup filling the air. Nothing that Angel had done earlier had shocked him. He was unaware of the laws and commandments of morality; no one had taught him that robbing and roping people was not done. For the first time in his life, he was expecting something from the future. He looked forward to the fair, the city, the cows and the sheep. In front of him, Chile seemed to have spread a ceremonial red carpet. When he reached Punta Arenas, proud and straight on his mount, he was sure it would be a triumph.

CHAPTER NINE
    IT TOOK THEM three days to reach the city. Three days to go across changing landscapes, mountains, turbulent streams; three days to endure the cold weather; three days to develop painful saddle sores; three silent days during which each one of them lived like a hermit crab, locked in his own shell.
    When they finally reached Punta Arenas, they were so exhausted, they could hardly stay on their mounts. They swayed, sagged, and grimaced with pain at the least jerk of their horse and donkey. Their arrival in Punta Arenas was far from triumphal.
    Being penniless, they went straight to the bank to with draw Luis's money.
    “You should wait for us outside,” Luis suggested to Angel.
    “Why?”
    “To keep an eye on the animals.”
    “I'm no stable boy,” Angel grumbled.
    Luis passed his fingers through Paolo's hair.
    “Listen … I really think it would be better if I went in with the child only. It looks more respectable.”
    Angel frowned, gritting his teeth.
    “It's a bank, damn it!” Luis blew up. “A place under electronic surveillance!”
    Angel glanced suspiciously at the building. It was gray, cubelike and without charm. A camera above the entrance kept an eye on patrons like a sentry. Angel thought about his knife and about all he had done with it. Would it show? Would the camera see through him and guess what he really was?
    “All right,” he said, “but Paolo stays with me.”
    “No, he'll come with me.”
    “He'll stay outside!”
    “He'll come with me!”
    “He'll stay out!”
    Paolo took Luis's hand. “I've never been inside a bank,” he said.
    Angel felt his heart shrink to the size of a raisin. He wondered what game Luis was playing. What did he mean that it looked more respectable to go into the bank with a child? Was he going to say to the teller that Paolo was hisson? Was he going to ask the child to call him Papa? Was he going to rob Angel of the child's love and tenderness, of the strange happiness that gave meaning to his existence?
    Luis knelt in front of the child and tried to fix his hair. He pulled up the collar of his shirt and brushed the sleeves of his coat. The dust made Paolo sneeze. Luis gave him his handkerchief, a square piece of linen as white as snow.
    “Hmmm,” he said, getting up. “It'll be okay.”
    Finally, Angel let them both enter the bank, hand in hand. He remained alone, bareheaded, under the newly falling rain.
    Inside the bank, Paolo took off the gloves he had found among the alpinist's belongings, and soon the warmth of the place made him mellow. People were coming and going, and waiting patiently in lines in front of the tellers' booths. There were city men in dark suits, seamen in yellow slickers, men from the Pampas in leather coats, and women. It had been a very, very long time since Paolo had seen a woman—since the death of his mother—and he was looking at them with