an Episode in the Life of a Landscape Painter (4 page)

For a day and a half they advanced through that terrifying void. Not a bird to be seen in the sky, no guinea pigs or rheas or hares or ants on the ground. The planet's peeling crust seemed to be made of dried amber. When they finally came to a river where they could take on water, the guide's suspicions were confirmed. He solved the enigma, which was especially perplexing there on the river banks: not only were they devoid of the least living cell of vegetation, the numerous trees, mainly willows, had been stripped of all their leaves, as if a sudden winter had plucked them bare for a joke. It was an impressive spectacle: livid skeletons, as far as the eye could see, not even trembling. And it was not that their leaves had fallen, for the ground was pure silica.

Locusts. The biblical plague had passed that way. That was the solution, revealed to them at last by the guide. If he had delayed doing so, it was only because he wanted to be sure. He had recognized the signs by hearsay, never having seen them with his own eyes. He had also been told about the sight of the swarm in action, but preferred not to talk about that, because it sounded fanciful, though, considering the results, fancy could hardly have outstripped the facts. Alluding to his friends disappointment at having missed the Indians, Krause asked if he did not regret having arrived too late on this occasion too. Rugendas imagined it. A green field, suddenly smothered by a buzzing cloud, and, a moment later, nothing. Could a painting capture that? No. An action painting, perhaps.

They proceeded on their way, wasting no time. It was idle to wonder which direction the swarm had taken, because the area affected was too large. They had to concentrate on getting to San Luis, and try to enjoy themselves in the meantime, if they could. It was all experience, even if they had missed out by minutes. The residual vibration in the atmosphere had an apocalyptic resonance.

As it turned out, a number of practical problems made it hard for the painters to enjoy themselves. That afternoon, after two days of involuntary fasting, the horses reached the limits of their endurance. They became uncontrollable, and there was no choice but to stop. To make things worse, the temperature had continued to rise, and must have been near one hundred and twenty two degrees. Not an atom of air was moving. The barometric pressure had plummeted. A heavy ceiling of grey clouds hung over their heads, but without affording any relief from the glare, which went on blinding them. What could they do? The young cook was frightened, and kept clear of the horses as if they would bite him. The old man would not raise his eyes, ashamed of his failure as a guide.There were attenuating circumstances: this was the first time he had crossed an area stricken by a plague of locusts. The Germans conferred in whispers. They were in a lunar ocean, rimmed around with hills. Krause was in favor of grinding up some biscuits, mixing them with water and milk, patiently feeding the horses with this paste, waiting a few hours for them to calm down and setting off again in the cool of the evening. For Rugendas, this plan was so absurd it did not even merit discussion. He proposed something a little more sensible: heading off at a gallop to see what was on the other side of the hills. Accustomed to reckoning distance in paintings, they misjudged the remoteness of those little mountains; in fact they were almost among them already. So the vegetation on their slopes had probably not been spared by the mobile feast. They consulted the guide, but could not get a word out of him. All the same, it was reasonable to suppose that the hills had served as a screen to deflect the swarm, so if they went around to the other side they would find a field with its full complement of clover leaves. Rugendas already had a plan: he would ride south to the hills, while his friend would ride north. Krause disagreed. Given the state of the horses, he thought it reckless to make a dash. Not to mention the storm that was brewing. He categorically refused. Tired of arguing, Rugendas set off on his own, announcing that he would be back in two hours. He spurred his horse to a gallop and it responded with an explosion of nervous energy; horse and rider were drenched with sweat, as if they had just emerged from the sea. The drops evaporated before they hit the ground, leaving a wake of salty vapor. The grey cones of the hills, on which Rugendas fixed his gaze, kept shifting as he rode on in a straight line; without becoming noticeably bigger, they multiplied and began to spread apart; one slipped around behind him surreptitiously. He was already inside the formation (why was it called El Monigote: The Puppet?).The ground was still bare and there was no indication that there would be grass ahead, or in any direction. The heat and the stillness of the air had intensified, if that was possible. He pulled up and looked around. He was in a vast amphitheater of interlayered clay and limestone. He could feel the horse's extreme nervousness; there was a tightness in his chest, and his perception was becoming abnormally acute. The air had turned a lead-grey color. He had never seen such light. It was a see-through darkness. The clouds had descended further still, and now he could hear the intimate rumbling of the thunder. "At least it will cool off," he said to himself, and those trivial words marked the end of a phase in his life; with them he formulated the last coherent thought of his youth.

What happened next bypassed his senses and went straight into his nervous system. In other words, it was over very quickly; it was pure action, a wild concatenation of events. The storm broke suddenly with a spectacular lightning bolt that traced a zig-zag arc clear across the sky. It came so close that Rugendas's upturned face, frozen in an expression of idiotic stupor, was completely bathed in white light. He thought he could feel its sinister heat on his skin, and his pupils contracted to pin-points. The thunder crashing down impossibly enveloped him in millions of vibrations. The horse began to turn beneath him. It was still turning when a lightning bolt struck him on the head. Like a nickel statue, man and beast were lit up with electricity. For one horrific moment, regrettably to be repeated, Rugendas witnessed the spectacle of his body shining. The horse's mane was standing on end, like the dorsal fin of a swordfish. From that moment on, like all victims of personalized catastrophes, he saw himself as if from outside, wondering, Why did it have to happen to me? The sensation of having electrified blood was horrible but very brief. Evidently the charge flowed out as fast as it had flowed into his body. Even so, it cannot have been good for his health.

The horse had fallen to its knees. The rider was kicking it like a madman, raising his legs till they were almost vertical, then closing them with a scissor-like clicking action. The charge was flowing out of the animal too, igniting a kind of phosphorescent golden tray all around it, with undulating edges. As soon as the discharge was complete, in a matter of seconds, the horse got to its feet and tried to walk. The full battery of thunder exploded overhead. In a midnight darkness, broad and fine blazes interlocked. Balls of white fire the size of rooms rolled down the hillsides, the lightning bolts serving as cues in a game of meteoric billiards. The horse was turning. Completely numb, Rugendas tugged at the reins haphazardly, until they slipped from his hands. The plain had become immense, with everywhere and nowhere to run, and so busy with electrical activity it was hard to get one's bearings. With each lightning strike the ground vibrated like a bell. The horse began to walk with supernatural prudence, lifting its hooves high, prancing slowly.

The second bolt of lightning struck him less than fifteen seconds after the first. It was much more powerful and had a more devastating effect. Horse and rider were thrown about twenty meters, glowing and crackling like a cold bonfire. The fall was not fatal, no doubt because of exceptional alterations to atomic and molecular structure, which had the effect of cushioning their impact. They bounced. Not only that, the horse's magnetized coat held Rugendas in place as they flew through the air. But once on the ground the attraction diminished and the man found himself lying on the dry earth, looking up at the sky. The tangle of lightning in the clouds made and unmade nightmarish figures. Among them, for a fraction of a second, he thought he saw a horrible face. The Puppet! The sounds all around him were deafening: crash on crash, thunderclap on thunderclap. The circumstances were abnormal in the extreme. The horse was spinning around on its side like a crab, cells of fire exploding around it in thousands, forming a sort of full-body halo, which moved with the animal and did not seem to be affecting it. Did they cry out, the man and his horse? The shock had probably struck them dumb; in any case their cries would have been inaudible. The fallen horseman reached for the ground with his hands, trying to prop himself up. But there was too much static for him to touch anything. He was relieved to see the horse getting up. Instinctively he knew this was a good thing: better the solitude of a temporary separation than the risk of a third lightning strike.

The horse did indeed rise to its feet, bristling and monumental, obscuring half the mesh of lightning, his giraffelike legs contorted by wayward steps; he turned his head, hearing the call of madness ... and took off ...

But Rugendas went with him! He could not understand, nor did he want to—it was too monstrous. He could feel himself being pulled, stretching (the electricity had made him elastic), almost levitating, like a satellite in thrall to a dangerous star. The pace quickened, and off he went in tow, bouncing, bewildered ...

What he did not realize was that his foot was caught in the stirrup, a classic riding accident, which still occurs now and then, even after so many repetitions. The generation of electricity ceased as suddenly as it had begun, which was a pity, because a well-aimed lightning bolt, stopping the creature in its flight, might have spared the painter no end of trouble. But the current withdrew into the clouds, the wind began to blow, rain fell ...

It was never known how far the horse galloped, nor did it really matter. Whatever the distance, short or long, the disaster had occurred. It was not until the morning of the following day that Krause and the old guide discovered them. The horse had found his clover, and was grazing sleepily, with a bloody bundle trailing from one stirrup. After a whole night spent looking for his friend, poor Krause, at his wits' end, had more or less given him up for dead. Finding him was not entirely a relief: there he was, at last, but prone and motionless. They hurried on and, as they approached, saw him move yet remain face down, as if kissing the earth; the flicker of hope this aroused was quenched when they realized that he was not moving himself, but being dragged by the horses blithe little browsing steps. They dismounted, took his foot from the stirrup and turned him over ... The horror struck them dumb. Rugendas's face was a swollen, bloody mass; the bone of his forehead was exposed and strips of skin hung over his eyes. The distinctive aquiline form of his Augsburg nose was unrecognizable, and his lips, split and spread apart, revealed his teeth, all miraculously intact.

The first thing was to see if he was breathing. He was. This gave an edge of urgency to what followed. They put him on the horse's back and set off. The guide, who had recovered his guiding skills, remembered some ranches nearby and pointed the way. They arrived halfway through the morning, bearing a gift that could not have been more disconcerting for the poor, isolated farmers who lived there. It was, at least, an opportunity to give Rugendas some simple treatment and take stock of the situation. They washed his face and tried to put it back together, manipulating the pieces with their fingertips; they applied witch hazel dressings to speed the healing and checked that there were no broken bones. His clothing was torn, but except for minor cuts and a few abrasions to his chest, elbow and knees, his body was intact; the major damage was limited to his head, as if it were the bearing he had rolled on. Was it the revenge of the Puppet? Who knows. The body is a strange thing, and when it is caught up in an accident involving non-human forces, there is no predicting the result.

He regained consciousness that afternoon, too soon for it to be in any way advantageous. He woke to pain such as he had never felt before, and against which he was defenseless. The first twenty-four hours were one long howl of pain. All the remedies they tried were useless, although there was not much they could try, apart from compresses and good will. Krause wrung his hands; like his friend, he neither slept nor ate. They had sent for the doctor from San Luis, who arrived the following night in the pouring rain on a horse flogged half to death. They spent the next day transporting the patient to the provincial capital, in a carriage sent by His Excellency the governor. The doctor's diagnosis was cautious. In his opinion the acute pain was caused by the exposure of a nerve ending, which would be encapsulated sooner or later. Then the patient would recover his powers of speech and be able to communicate, which would make the situation less distressing. The wounds would be stitched up at the hospital and the extent of the scarring would depend on the responsiveness of the tissue. The rest was in God's hands. He had brought morphine and administered a generous dose, so Rugendas fell asleep in the carriage and was spared the uncertainties of a night journey through quagmires. He woke in the hospital, just as they were stitching him up, and had to be given a double dose to keep him quiet.

A week went by. They took the stitches out and the healing proceeded rapidly. They were able to remove the bandages and the patient began to eat solids. Krause never left his side. The San Luis hospital was a ranch on the outskirts of the city, inhabited by half a dozen monsters, half- man half-animal, the results of cumulative genetic accidents. There was no way to cure them. The hospital was their home. It was an unforgettable fortnight for Rugendas. The sensations impinging on the raw, pink flesh of his head were recorded indelibly. As soon as he could stand and go out for a walk on Krause's arm, he refused to go back in. The governor, who had surrounded the great artist with attentions, offered his hospitality. Two days later Rugendas began to ride again and write letters (the first was to his sister in Augsburg, presenting his misfortunes in an almost idyllic light; by contrast, the picture he painted for his friends in Chile was resolutely grim).They decided to leave without delay. But not to follow their original route: the unknown immensity separating them from Buenos Aires was a challenge they would have to postpone. They would return to Santiago, the nearest place where Rugendas could receive proper medical treatment.