When they got to Jose's house Ben said he wanted to go to bed, and Teresa, afraid of what he might be feeling, joined him and lay there in the dark. Ben was not asleep. She could see the restless gleam of his eyes. He did not speak.
She was listening to the men talking next door, seeing them in her mind's eye. They were very different. Jose was a lean taut man, with a sharp-boned face, and wary eyes. He was pale-skinned under the sunburn, not an even coppery brown, like herself and Alfredo. She was thinking, Our children will be good-looking. They will take after Alfredo and me. We are nice-looking people. Jose is ugly and it is because he didn't get enough to eat at one time in his life. She knew this was so by a certain unfinished look to him. At least we ate, Alfredo and me, we ate well, before the bad droughts began. And our children will be healthy. She was imagining Alfredo's face, when he saw their first child. While these confident and self-respecting thoughts went on, her heart was beating with anxiety about Ben.
In the morning Ben was silent and did not ask questions. While the car was being packed he stood staring at the mountains, and in between these long sombre stares, turned to look at them, his eyes puzzled, on guard. He began a stamping angry dance, letting out short roars of rage, and this went on until the car-packing was finished and the house was being locked. Then he stopped and stood staring up at those peaks, those cruel, tall, dark peaks. What she saw on his face made her go to him and put her hand on his arm, delicately, for fear of his anger. But he was not responsive to her sympathetic hand: he did not move, only stared, his eyes darkened by pain and by loss.
Teresa was thinking, Then he knows. He must know. Somehow he has understood it all.
In the car Teresa sat in the front, because of fear of feeling sick, knowing that Ben might be sick too: Alfredo was with Ben, and Teresa saw from how he sat that he was ready to reckon with Ben, if his anger broke out again.
The road they were on was at first wide, with townships along it, and the odd hotel, and then became narrower and began to climb. The air was thin and sparkling and Teresa ceased to care about anything but sickness and the altitude headache that crashed in and out of her head in cold waves. The road twisted up the sides of hills and then down again, for these were foothills, and there were still trees, which became fewer, and there were no longer pits of shadow across the road. They were above the tree-line. It was colder, and they stopped the car to put on jackets over their jerseys. Ben stood by the car and stared up, up, and then around, at the hills and peaks and rocky valleys where there was no one, and not a house anywhere. Late in the afternoon they reached the hotel, the last, on that road, which after here became a rough track. The hotel was used by prospectors, climbers, surveyors. They were the only people there. Teresa cared about nothing except that the movement had stopped, and she could sit with her eyes shut. Ben was silent. He stood by windows one after another and looked up. Alfredo went to order the right sort of meal a light one because of the altitude sickness. And again arrived a tray with coca tea, which they all thankfully drank. They were over the 16,000-feet mark, and the only one who was not feeling the strain was Ben.
The road they were on was at first wide, with townships along it, and the odd hotel, and then became narrower and began to climb. The air was thin and sparkling and Teresa ceased to care about anything but sickness and the altitude headache that crashed in and out of her head in cold waves. The road twisted up the sides of hills and then down again, for these were foothills, and there were still trees, which became fewer, and there were no longer pits of shadow across the road. They were above the tree-line. It was colder, and they stopped the car to put on jackets over their jerseys. Ben stood by the car and stared up, up, and then around, at the hills and peaks and rocky valleys where there was no one, and not a house anywhere. Late in the afternoon they reached the hotel, the last, on that road, which after here became a rough track. The hotel was used by prospectors, climbers, surveyors. They were the only people there. Teresa cared about nothing except that the movement had stopped, and she could sit with her eyes shut. Ben was silent. He stood by windows one after another and looked up. Alfredo went to order the right sort of meal a light one because of the altitude sickness. And again arrived a tray with coca tea, which they all thankfully drank. They were over the 16,000-feet mark, and the only one who was not feeling the strain was Ben.
'It's that chest of yours,' said Jose. 'In this region everyone has a chest like yours, because the air is thin and you need big lungs.'
'Who, everyone? Where are they?' asked Ben. 'There isn't anyone.'
It was a cold night, with cloud drifting past the windows: nothing to be seen. They went to bed early, Jose with Alfredo, Teresa with Ben. Teresa was awake, because of her headache, and Ben was awake. It was dark and stuffy in the room but the whiteness of the mist outside, lit by the lamp that hung over the entrance, sent a thin pallor into their room. Teresa was thinking that if she told Ben now, that his own kind, his people, did not exist, it would be no more than what was in his mind.
They were up early, in a thin exhilarating thrilling air, the sun striking hard off the rock faces and the peaks. There was not a sign of mist, or of cloud. As they ate their breakfast, two men arrived; they planned to take off into the peaks, but return before it was dark. 'Not a place to get lost in, when it's dark,' they said.
And now, reorganisation of gear, of belongings. They retained one room and put into it all they would not need, because from now on they would use their feet. And the car was locked and left where the proprietors of the hotel could keep an eye on it. Each had a backpack, filled with warm things, water, food; and Jose had a little stove, and a pan.
They were not going higher but keeping roughly on the same level. At least, Jose added cautiously, with an eye on Ben, not for today. The news that today would not see the end of their journey was received by Ben in silence: not easy to read his face, as he stared at the immensities around. What she believed she saw there made tears fill Teresa's eyes and she turned away. Before setting off, the four watched the two new arrivals walk off, up, into a steep crag that was keeping the hotel in shade.
That night they expected to find a hut, used by climbers, and tomorrow morning they would look for the rock face Alfredo remembered. Now they all had on their thickest jerseys and padded jackets, and all wore dark glasses. At first they were on a track, wide enough for a donkey, or a mule, but then there were paths, sometimes in shade, sometimes in sun. Alfredo kept stopping as paths diverged to make sure of the route: he and Jose argued about it. Jose said that they should choose the better-used paths, 'because that is where the rock men go'. Meaning the archaeologists, the palaeontologists, who discovered things in the mountains that filled the museum down in Jujuy. He asked Alfredo why his particular rock face (he called it 'your picture gallery') had not been discovered.
'You'll see for yourself,' said Alfredo.
They said this in front of Ben in English, but he did not ask questions, only followed Jose, who followed Alfredo. Teresa came behind, where she could watch Ben. She was pretty sure Ben knew the truth, but then on to that bearded face appeared a look of such longing, such wonder, that she felt it was a child she was looking at, who was expecting tomorrow's promised marvels, and then that look disappeared and she saw only sadness.
It was a hard day for them, though they were not climbing much higher. Sometimes they moved along paths in deep shadow between tall crags, sometimes they walked along the edges of precipices. Their chests hurt though, it seemed, not Ben's and they had headaches, in spite of Jose's potions of coca tea, which he dispensed from vacuum flasks. They stopped in mid-afternoon, because there was a hut, not more than a rough shelter made of logs, which must have been brought up here on beasts, because there were no trees. Alfredo said he remembered the hut, which had been in a better condition then: there were gaps in the logs where they had settled and some slates on the roof had slipped. No one had used it for a long time, only some small animal, who had left droppings. They made the place clean, and stacked their things around the wall. Jose collected bits of twig and lichen for a fire, but there was so little of this material it was decided to save it till dark. The night fell early, because of the tall peaks all about, but there was time for Alfredo to establish the route for tomorrow: he clambered about among the rocks, stopping at an implacable rock face or on the edge of a precipice. As the cold struck, and the sun dropped out of sight, they were inside, with their blankets arranged around the little fire. Their heads were ringing with the height, and no one wanted to eat much. The other three were waiting, their nerves on the alert, for Ben's, 'Where are my people? Where will we find them?'
Alfredo had a tiny radio, but it was not working well. A faint tinny music jigged from somewhere thousands of feet below; voices, male and female, faded in with fragments of news, a phrase from a song, words of a speech they switched it off.
The fire was tiny, a mere flicker on the log walls. Through the chinks in the logs could be seen a cold light. Out they went, and all stood transfixed. No pollution in these mountains and the stars were a cold coruscating brilliance, flashing fires of blue, red, yellow, pressing down towards them, and the Milky Way was flung across the sky like a road to somewhere. Seeing those stars thus, clean and clear and unconcealed, was like revisiting a memory. They were silent, struck into awe, and then from Ben they heard a rough tuneless singing, and saw that he had begun to move he was dancing and singing to the stars.
'They're talking!' he shouted. 'They're singing to us.'
Trying to open their minds to what Ben could hear, the three seemed to hear a high crystalline whispering, a tiny clashing, but Ben was exulting, 'The stars are singing, they are singing!'