56 THENEWYORKER,DECEMBER2, 2019
SIXTY
We are from the border
like the sun that is born there
behind the eucalyptus
shines all day
above the river
and goes to sleep there
beyond the Rodrígueses’ house.From the border like the moon
that makes the night nearly day
resting its moonlight
on the banks of the Cuareim.Like the wind
that makes the flags dance
like the rain
carries away their shacks
together with ours.All of us are from the border
like those birds
flying from there to here
singing in a language
everyone understands.We came from the border
we go to the border
like our grandparents and our children
eating bread that the Devil kneaded
suffering in this end of the world.We are the border
more than any river and more
way more
than any bridge.—Fabián Severo(Translated, from the Portuñol, by Laura Cesarco Eglin and Jesse Lee Kercheval.)eejit. She was skinny, he’d say. Very—
unusually—skinny. Her face was—the
word was there, waiting for him—
empty. Her face was empty, he’d say.
Vacant. Expressionless. She walked right
past me, he’d say, like I wasn’t there.
He got his keys out. He’d have the
right one ready when he got to the
front door.
He remembered the weight of his
youngest daughter, Cliona, in one of
those slings. They hadn’t had one—
they might not have been invented
yet—for the other kids, the boy and
the two older girls. They’d had a back-
pack thing, like a rucksack, for carry-
ing them.
He’d hated the backpack, six or seven
years of having the thing on his back,
not being able to see the baby as he
walked. He’d hated it until the child
was old enough to grab his hair or his
collar and he’d know it was fine back
there. There was a day in Kerry, on a
beach, years ago. The eldest, Ciara, was
the baby in the backpack. He’d been
up early that morning; it was his turn.
He’d put her in the backpack, kissed
her forehead, hoisted her onto his back,
and gone walking. He hadn’t even
checked the weather or looked out the
window. If you’re able to see Brandon
in the evening you’ll be grand, some-
one, some oul’ lad with a peaked cap,
had told him. And he’d seen the moun-
tain the night before—he was sure he
had. So he’d fed Ciara, shoved a slice
of bread into his mouth, and walked
out the back door of the house they
were renting for the week.
There was a dead whale on the
beach, they’d been told when they
were eating in the local pub—he
couldn’t remember the name of the
pub or the name of the beach. He’d
walked down a lane, crossed the main
road, and ten more minutes along a
narrow line of tarmac to the beach.
Ciara was eight months, and he hadn’t
started doing what he did later with
the others, talking to them over his
shoulder, talking to himself, asking
questions they wouldn’t be answering.
It was early—about seven, he thought;
he’d done that thing, taken his watch
off when the holidays started—but it
was already hot. He reached the sand.
The beach was empty, no one else on
it at all. The whale, he knew, was to
the left. About twenty minutes along
the strand, they’d said. You won’t fuckin’
miss it, sure. He’d started walking along
the hard sand at the edge of the sea,
and somewhere, ten minutes in, he’d
decided that Ciara was dead. And he
kept walking until he could see the
whale, and smell it. He was afraid to
stop, submit to the feeling, the cer-
tainty he knew was false.
He found it hard to identify that
man as himself now, the eejit stepping
over the sand. The mad logic of par-
enthood. He’d stopped when he knewhe was smelling the whale. His desti-
nation. He couldn’t remember the smell;
he couldn’t remember the words he’d
used to describe it when he got back
to the house. Atrocious, probably; fuckin’
atrocious. Unbelievable—ah, Jesus. He
didn’t know. He knew it had been ter-
rible enough to halt him. He could feel
it on his skin, adding oil to his sweat.
He was about fifty yards from the car-
cass. He stopped looking at it; he wasn’t
interested. It was different shades of
gray; that was all he remembered. He
took off the backpack. He parked it on