Free The Conversations (New Directions Paperbook) by César Aira Page B

things up and take a leap forward, violating my standard of rigorous step-by-step memory.
    The goatherd was unable to fall asleep and went outside. He took a walk under the great Moon of Ukraine, then began to follow a strange stream of water flowing off the rocks. His goats must have also been suffering from insomnia because they had gotten out of their pen and were now floating in the night air, as light as kites, white and phosphorescent. Th ey were easy to make out, and for a moment he tried to follow them as they drifted about, but they dispersed, so he continued to follow the stream of water uphill, which brought him to the separatists’ secret laboratory. He managed to infiltrate it, taking advantage of the lapse in vigilance occasioned by the departure of the squadron of Cossacks on motorized sleds. He snuck through the enormous and ultramodern installation dug into the mountainside, where hundreds of technicians worked in overalls or radiation suits with hoods and visors. He overpowered one and put on his suit, which allowed him to reach the command room, where the reactor was controlled; there, he merely pressed a button, any button. Alarms went off, loudspeakers crackled with orders to evacuate, people ran helter-skelter, and he did the same. Since he didn’t know where he was going, he went the wrong way and was sucked into a particle accelerator of dehydrating water, which carried him into the unknown depths of the earth, from which he emerged, mounted on an atom of phenomenal size, accompanied by Bradley and the professor and encircled by swirling electrons. The three fell into the hands of the enemy. From the diamond plasma screen, Larionov greeted them ironically and with the classic, “We meet again, gentlemen.” In the midst of the general catastrophe, the security guards led the three prisoners to Larionov’s office: dark boiserie, an enormous library with bronze ladders that ran on tracks, leather armchairs, all in an English Edwardian style that was in sharp contrast to the aerodynamic high technology of the rest of the complex. Hanging on the walls in the niches of his library: masterpieces. Bradley walked up to one and contemplated it with a knowing look: “The stolen Gauguin.” Th ey sat down. The host poured out two shots for the older men, then turned to the young goatherd and said derisively, “What would you like? A glass of goat milk?” Th e visitors’ attention, and with it, the camera, was drawn to a bibelot on a desk. It was the head of a clown, which was constantly making faces. “Do you like my toy?” Larionov asked. He poked the clown’s nose, producing a cascade of comic expressions. He explained that it was made of liquid pig-iron. It wouldn’t be long before the world found out what he was capable of. But his bravado had no depth of conviction, nor could it. Th e laboratory was collapsing around him, the sirens were blaring, the Cossacks of his personal guard, who were standing at the door of his office, were exchanging worried looks. Bradley, who was watching them out of the corner of his eye while remaining engaged in a natural dialogue with the villain, took advantage of a blast (the explosion of some cauldron) to attack them, taking a machine gun from one and shooting the others; at the same time, the goatherd threw his glass of goat milk at Larionov, preventing him from pulling his gun out of his desk drawer. The fight intensified as the walls fell down around them — the thousands of books turning into projectiles — and the roof was violently blown off. Larionov, who had ended up in hand-to-hand combat with the professor, slipped out of his grasp and climbed one of the bronze ladders; above the roof, a helicopter was waiting for him; he climbed into the pilot’s seat and started the engine. With a sinister laugh, he began to rise, but the goatherd had run after him and managed to grab onto one of the helicopter’s landing skids. Th e laboratory was sinking