"If you get scared, don't pull back on the reins; trying to stop the horse can make him slip. Just let El Salvaje have his way, and dont try to influence him, 'cause you're not a professional, and the horse already knows that. Just understand that the only thing he expects from you are the rumbles of fear, and that deep down he despises you for it. For the animal, you are nothing more than a heavy pack. So don't move. Just imagine that you are on an airplane and your fate has already been decided. You can't ask the pilot to land on some peak of the Cordillera de los Andes."

the dancer and the THIEF

"Its just that the path gets narrower and narrower/'

"That's right. So let me go first. In a few minutes, we wont fit side by side."

"Any other advice?"

'That will be all."

As they gained altitude, Victoria took advantage of every possibility the landscape offered to get a glimpse of Angel coming toward them. Silence reigned in the group without anybody imposing it. All that could be heard was the tapping of the horses' hooves on the pebbles and rocks, and the dislodged rocks sliding down the hill.

"From here, my friends, there's a stretch of about a half an hour that is very steep. If you get dizzy, lie down on your horse's neck, close your eyes, and let the only voice the animals hear be mine. The only thing I don't want to hear from either of you is you begging me to take you back. You were brave enough to pull off that job, you must also be courageous in your freedom. Are we in agreement, Don . . . ?"

"Call me Tito also," Vergara Gray spit back bravely, trying to control the chattering of his teeth.

"Me, too," Victoria Ponce said.

The climb was accomplished in the very last rays of light. As they advanced, the air became thinner and more transparent, and the ears of the two neophytes were filled with obscure outbursts of sound: wolves, pumas, the pounding wings of birds of prey. The painstaking procession seemed more like a rite of penitence than a triumphal parade of bandits accompanied by warm bundles of bills.

Even the horses seemed grim and stiff from the cold, without any neighing or changes of pace, as if they had been condemned to their trek. The girl thought of the chestnut horse and of the day Angel's tender companion drank from the pond while they sparred over adolescent philosophy. These beasts of burden, worn down

ANTONIO SKARMETA

by the torture of these passes on the edge of the abyss, made her incommensurately sad, and she wished she had stashed, along with the dollars and millions of pesos, a few carrots they could munch on along the way, like the coca leaves the Indians chewed on. What sustenance could these animals get from the ice! What heat from the snow that bored into their martyred feet?

And where was her love? Was it possible he had forgotten about the horse trailer, and in the excitement at his triumph had ridden all the way from Santiago, galloping at full speed on the chestnut horses back?

A little after night began to fall, the caravan reached a flat area covered with shrubs and bushes. Their guide dismounted from his roan and with half a smile went to offer them help. He announced to them that it would be impossible to cross the border tonight, but they had already been through the worst of the trip, and right here, behind some of those bushes, there was a cave so big that they and the horses could camp inside it for the night.

There they could sleep for a while until the first light; then, after two hours on horseback, they would be very close to a village where they would find a hotel and a receptionist who, for a reasonable sum, would not ask them to prove their identities. Right there they could buy suitcases, even modern ones with locks, and clothing more typical of the people in the area until they could lose themselves in the tumultuous ocean of Buenos Aires. If Angel Santiago did not catch up with them here, the guide would give him all the information he needed to find them later.

Then he asked them to help him clear away some bushes surrounded by rocks and thorns that hid the secret entrance to the cave. All who used it, including the livestock thieves and contraband traffickers, were honor-bound to erase all signs of having been there.

the dancer and the THIEF

More scratches and cuts appeared on hands and faces, a shrub with thorns like barbed wire made the ballerinas left earlobe bleed, and the semi-liquid mud seeped into Vergara Grays boots. When they had cleared away a large enough space, the horses entered first and moved all the way to the back with grateful humility; the guide spread out the hay he had carried in his pack in front of their muzzles.

While the animals were chewing on their rations, Tito placed three gaucho blankets on the ground and began to pump up a small kerosene stove where he would heat some water to make instant coffee. Victoria brought her boots close to the flame and after a few seconds she could feel that her heels, which had felt encased in ice, were beginning to thaw; this allowed her to stretch out her limbs and do a series of stretches she usually performed at the bar.

Their guide, who had undoubtedly led other groups furtively across the Andes, suggested they not waste time imagining their future because, according to what he'd seen, running away was a project all m itself.

"Once you run away, you never stop."

Victoria Ponce took off her heavy boots and pushed on one toe at a time to make sure they were all still there. Vergara Gray approached her with a poncho as thick as a woven rug and diligently wrapped it around her.

"Money is money. But the truth is that these winged feet are our only capital, my dear."

"And your head, Don Nico," she responded with a smile.

She leaned her head on the saddle and, as the fog penetrated the cavern, she fell asleep, graced by those light, indistinct hands.

Sh e wa s t h e first to wake up. A tenuous light was spreading between the shrubs, and the girl intuited that outside the day had already swung open its doors. She ran out of the cave without putting on her boots, anxious to see what the mountains would greet her with today. Once she was outside, neither the cold nor the wind whistling in her ears frightened her away from the spectacle before her.

The small flat area at the mouth of the cave was situated right between the enormous valley that melted into the horizon and the snowy peaks of the mountains. Hanging over those peaks, the sun in all its power betrayed every texture in the landscape, a few goats chewing on leaves, ravines scattered with eucalyptus trees, ebullient walls of water, slopes laden with snow, high peaks like sculptures hewn by an otherworldly goldsmith, flocks of clouds rushing to their own dissolution, and above all that, a sky of such pure blue that Victoria Ponce asked herself if she had ever seen that color before.

Suddenly, like a feathered meteorite that fell from the highest mountain, there landed in a movement of pure harmonic choreog-

the dancer and the THIEF

raphy on a rock a few yards away from her a bird whose red crest crowned a red head that floated on a necklace of white plumage.

Once it had found its balance on the rock, the animal stared at Victoria, mirroring her own curiosity, as if they were engaged in a tacit duel to see who looked away first.

Vergara Gray came over to her, placed a hand on her shoulder, and, in order not to disturb the intense communication between the bird and the girl, he whispered, "Its a condor."

She did not take her eyes off her interlocutor, but after taking in a breath of air as pure as on the first day of creation, she replied with a smile, "Scientific name Vulturgryphus, of the Cathartidae family. I learned that when I was studying for my exam with Angel."

"You think he knows that?"

"What?"

"The condor, if he himself knows he is called Vultur gryphus!'

"I think so, maestro. He looks like a very sophisticated bird. The eyes of a surgeon, and as pedantic as a doctor."

"Doctor of the air."

"Bravo, Don Nico. Very nice metaphor!"

She was about to reward him with a loud kiss on his forehead when, as she turned her head, she saw a tiny figure in the farthest distance, and the gesture of affection remained suspended in midair. Squinting her eyes to sharpen her focus, she thought she could make out the image of a horse and his rider. She felt her heart expand with sudden joy.

"Don Nico, its Angel!"

"Where, my dear?"

"There, down there, down by the river."

"I dont see anything."

"A horse and rider. They're coming toward us."

"I cant make out anything."

ANTONIO SKARMETA

"Look, Don Nico. Its Angel, he's coming toward the mountains/'

"Its too far away. But it does look like a horse and rider."

"I see it more and more clearly. Its Angel riding a blue horse."

"No, sweetheart. It is just some rider on a horse carrying a blue blanket."

"Its not a blue blanket, maestro. Its a blue horse."

Their guide came over to them and, stretching himself out with a huge yawn, he said, "Sorry, folks, but its time to leave."

Victoria Ponce, her face burning, turned to look at their guide; she asked him if down there, on the green carpet that spread into the river, he didn't see his childhood friend Angel Santiago galloping toward them on a blue horse.

The man stood on the tips of his toes, raised his wool hat, and shook his head. No, to tell the truth, he didn't see anything, but they did have to leave, he was needed for another job.

Then the girl knelt down and, hugging their guide's knees, said, "I beg you, Don Tito. Let's not go yet. Let's wait for Angel."

The man, surprised, tried to separate the girl's face from his body.

"There's no point. He knows this area as well as the condor. When he gets here, he'll follow our tracks and find us."

"Give me two hours, even just one!"

The two men exchanged a look; shrugging his shoulders, Ver-gara Gray tacitly supported the girl's request. Then Victoria Ponce climbed onto a rock and placed her hand like a visor above her eyes, gluing them on the plain below.

Tito offered Vergara Gray a cigarette, he accepted, and the two men sat down to smoke under the precarious shade of a barren fig tree.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Antonio Skarmeta was born in Antofagasta, Chile. Having graduated from Columbia University in New York City in 1967, he emigrated to West Germany after the 1973 military coup that brought Augusto Pinochet to power. He attained international acclaim for The Postman, which inspired the Academy Award-winning film // Postino, starring Massimo Troisi. His fiction has since received dozens of international literary awards, including the Goethe Medal in Germany, the Boccaccio International Prize in Italy, and the Prix Medicis in France. From 2000 to 2003 he was the Chilean ambassador to Germany and he has hosted his own television show dedicated to literature and the arts. He lives in Santiago, Chile.

ABOUT THE TRANSLATOR

Katherine Silver's most recent translations include the works of Pedro Lemebel, Jorge Franco, and Horacio Castellanos Moya. In 2007, she received fellowships from PEN and the National Endowment for the Arts. Her collection of modern and contemporary Chilean fiction, Chile: A Traveler's Literary Companion, was published by Whereabouts Press in 2003.

but not free from its shadow. The Dancer and the Thief, winner of Spain's prestigious Planeta Prize, is a remarkable new novel told with humor and passion by one of South Americas most beloved storytellers.

Antonio Skarmeta achieved worldwide renown with The Postman (II Postino). His fiction has since received dozens of awards and has been translated into nearly thirty languages. He lives in Santiago, Chile.

Katherine Silver's most recent translations include Horacio Castellanos Moya's Senselessness, for which she was awarded fellowships from PEN and the National Endowment for the Arts.

Jacket design by Roberto de Vicq de Cumptich

Cover photograph of the ballet dancer by Purestock / Getty Images Author photograph courtesy of the Carmen Balcells Literary Agency Printed in the United States of America