8

In the villages of the !Kung people, being welcomed back into the human fold after committing a crime or series of crimes is a mystical event. Amongst the Maori tribes, returning warriors had to undergo the whakahoa ritual, designed to make them human once again: the hearts of their enemies were roasted and given in offering to the warrior gods, and what was left of the bodies was devoured by the priests, who howled out their spells in order to remove the “blood curse” and allow the warriors to recommence their lives. Among the Taulipang, triumphant warriors were seated on anthills, where they whipped one another, and threaded cords thick with poisonous ants in through their noses and out through their mouths.

I remember very little of what happened. I think I began to follow him, although in my memory it was the sun who was following me.

I walked for hours across the island. In the scrublands where the river alders grow dense, the ground is slippery, and the pampas grass tears at one’s skin. The willows are enveloped in the insidious aroma of honeysuckle. The air is always still, windless. As I never reached the far coastline, it felt like I’d been walking in circles the whole time. I was thirsty, and wet my hands in a marshy puddle, but didn’t drink. I kept an eye on the horizon, hoping to see the silhouette of a marsh deer, but only ever saw a coati and a few brightly colored birds. At times one’s mind refuses to let go of its own inventions. It is the job of the intellect to guide the mind safely past each trap to the Great Hall, the accursed gulf where mankind dwells. Once another person has thought, acted, existed under our physical and mental control, that other person disappears. It is a beautiful moment, albeit sad; if they fail to cry out when we insert our arm, this means that their heart is dead, and the tiger within as well.

I still carry with me the incredible sensation of seeing him bent over in reverence, listening to me in spite of himself, vanquished, without even realizing it.

I let him go.

Then I walked for another few hours. The fog engulfed the motionless outlines of the trees and their yellowish leaves. And at some point I was no longer nowhere, could see a white sky broken in pieces.

Deep in the foliage I saw the sunlit profile of an enormous iron structure.

It was a man of colossal size, standing erect.

His head reached the treetops. His face was hidden in the dense upper reaches of the elms and eucalyptus; his body leaned slightly forward, a determined figure, at the ready, his hands down near his waist, a dagger tight to the hip. His facial features were hard to make out; the mouth seemed tense, the hair was on the longish side, the eyes stared out into the distance, fearless.

At his feet was a flagstone with an inscription: “He is a child, but he is also a giant.” This enormous monument had been erected, hidden away on this island, to welcome Perón back, positioned such that he would be able see it from his airplane when he returned from exile. It could be seen from a thousand feet in the air if one was coming into Buenos Aires from the northeast and knew the exact coordinates in advance, but to an enemy patrol plane, it would have looked like nothing more than a black promontory, a shadow amongst the trees. They never saw it.

The Colossus had been the final dream of the Resistance while Perón was away, but they left the work half-done. Some parts, including the detailing on the shoes, the shirt and the arms, were barely even roughed out, the coarse stone still unshaped and formless. Weeds had grown tall all around, and lichen nestled in the clothing. Tension wires hung loose from broken limbs. The figure of the Colossus, though damaged and worn, was stunningly beautiful, and sad. Its silhouette was outlined by broken leaves of gray and brown, and beyond it, the sky, completely white. No birds could be seen; there was nothing but empty space above the treetops that swayed ever so slightly. The abandoned statue’s color had changed with time but the incomplete face was still turned toward the same stretch of horizon, the tall thick jungle of the Tigre Delta. My fingers were wet, as if I had dipped them in darkness. I wiped my hands on my clothes, and it startled me to realize that I was no longer holding the gun. Turning, I saw it lying in the dead leaves.

On my way back, things no longer seemed to be things—it all looked so unreal.