A few days later, however, the Argentine economy went into meltdown. Accounts in American dollars were frozen, and those who hadn’t moved their capital (or their savings) offshore suddenly discovered that they had nothing left, or only a few bonds and bank bills the mere sight of which was enough to give them goosebumps, vague promises inspired in equal parts by some forgotten tango and the words of the national anthem. I told you so, the lawyer said to anyone willing to listen. Then, accompanied by his cook and his maid, he stood in long lines, like many other inhabitants of Buenos Aires, and entered into long conversations with strangers (who struck him as utterly charming) in streets thronged with people swindled by the government or the banks, or whomever.

When the President resigned, Pereda was there among the protesters as they banged their pots and pans. Sometimes it seemed as if the elderly had taken control of the streets, old people of all social classes, and he liked that, although he didn’t know why; it seemed like a sign that something was changing, that something was moving in the darkness, although he was also happy to join in the wildcat strikes and blockades that quickly degenerated into brawling. In the space of a few days, Argentina had three different Presidents. It didn’t occur to anyone to start a revolution or mount a military coup. That was when Pereda decided to go back to the country.

Before leaving, he explained his plan to the maid and the cook. Buenos Aires is falling apart; I’m going to the ranch, he said. They talked for hours, sitting at the kitchen table. The cook had been to the ranch as often as Pereda, who had always said that the country was no place for a man like him, a cultivated family man, who wanted to make sure that his children got a good education. His mental images of the ranch had blurred and faded, leaving only a house with a hole in the middle, an enormous, threatening tree, and a barn flickering with shadows that might have been rats. Nevertheless, that night, as he drank tea in the kitchen, he told his employees that he had hardly any money left to pay them (it was all frozen in the bank—in other words, as good as lost) and the only solution he had come up with was to take them to the country, where at least they wouldn’t be short of food, or so he hoped.

The maid and the cook listened to him compassionately. At one point, the lawyer burst into tears. Trying to console him, they told him not to worry about the money; they were prepared to go on working even if he couldn’t pay them. The lawyer definitively rejected any such arrangement. I’m too old to become a pimp, he said with an apologetic smile. The next morning, he packed a suitcase and took a taxi to the station. The women waved goodbye from the sidewalk.

The long, monotonous train trip gave him ample time for reflection. At first, the carriage was full. He observed that there were basically two topics of conversation: the country’s state of bankruptcy and how the Argentine team was shaping up for the World Cup in Korea and Japan. The press of passengers reminded him of the trains departing from Moscow in the film “Doctor Zhivago,” which he had seen some time ago, except that in the Russian carriages as filmed by that English director the talk had not been about ice hockey or skiing. What hope have we got, he thought, although he had to agree that on paper the Argentine selection looked unbeatable. When night fell, the conversations stopped, and the lawyer thought of his children, Cuca and Bebe, both of whom were abroad. He also thought of a number of women he had known intimately but had not expected to remember; silently, they emerged from oblivion, their skin covered with sweat, infusing his restless spirit with something like serenity, although it wasn’t altogether serene, perhaps not exactly a sense of adventure, but something like that.

Then the train began to advance over the pampas, and the lawyer leaned his head against the cold glass of the window and fell asleep.

When he woke, the carriage was half empty and there was a man who looked part Indian sitting beside him, reading a Batman comic book. Where are we? Pereda asked. In Coronel Gutiérrez, the man said. Ah, that’s all right, the lawyer thought, I’m going to Capitán Jourdan. Then he got up, stretched his legs, and sat down again. Out on the dry plain he saw a rabbit that seemed to be racing the train. There were five other rabbits running behind it. The first rabbit, running just outside the window, had wide-open eyes, as if the race against the train required a superhuman effort (or, rather, super-leporine, the lawyer thought). The rabbits in pursuit seemed to be running in tandem, like cyclists in the Tour de France. With a couple of big leaps, the rabbit bringing up the rear relieved the front-runner, which dropped back to last position, while the third rabbit moved up to second place, and the fourth moved up to third; and all the while the group was closing in on the solitary rabbit running beside the lawyer’s window. Rabbits, he thought, how wonderful! On the plains, there was nothing else to be seen: a vast, boundless expanse of scant grass under massive, low clouds, and no indication that a town might be near. Are you going to Capitán Jourdan? Pereda asked the Batman reader, who seemed to be examining every panel with extreme care, scrutinizing every detail, as if he were visiting a portable museum. No, he replied, I’m getting off at El Apeadero. Pereda tried to remember a station of that name but couldn’t. And what’s that, a station or a factory? The Indian-looking guy stared back at him fixedly: A station, he replied. He seems annoyed, Pereda thought. It wasn’t the sort of question he would normally have asked, given his habitual discretion. The pampas had made him inquire in that frank, manly, and down-to-earth way, he decided.

When he rested his forehead against the window again, he saw that the rabbits in pursuit had caught up with the lone racing rabbit, and were attacking it ferociously, tearing at its body with their claws and teeth—those long rodents’ teeth, Pereda thought with a horrified frisson. He looked back and saw an amorphous mass of tawny fur rolling beside the rails.

The only passengers who got off at Capitán Jourdan were Pereda and a woman with two children. The platform was half wood, half concrete, and in spite of his best efforts Pereda couldn’t find a railway employee anywhere. The woman and the children set off walking on a cart track, and although they were clearly moving away and their figures were visibly shrinking, it took more than three-quarters of an hour, by the lawyer’s reckoning, for them to disappear from the horizon. Is the earth round? Pereda wondered. Of course it is, he told himself, sitting down on an old wooden bench against the wall of the station, preparing to kill some time. Inevitably, he remembered Borges’s story “The South,” and when he thought of the store mentioned in the final paragraphs his eyes brimmed with tears. Then he remembered the plot of Bebe’s last novel, and imagined his son writing on a computer, in an austere room at a Midwestern university. When Bebe comes back and finds out I’ve gone to the ranch . . . , he thought in enthusiastic anticipation. The glare and the warm breeze gusting off the plain made him drowsy; he fell asleep. A hand shook him awake. A man as old as he was, wearing an old railway uniform, asked him what he was doing there. Pereda said he was the owner of the Álamo Negro ranch. The man stood there looking at him for a while, then said, The judge. That’s right, Pereda replied, there was a time when I was a judge. Don’t you remember me, Mr. Judge? Pereda scrutinized the man: he needed a new uniform and a haircut, urgently. Pereda shook his head. I’m Severo Infante, the man said. We used to play together when we were kids. But, che, that’s ages ago—how could I remember, Pereda retorted, and his voice, not to mention the words he had used, sounded odd, as if the air of Capitán Jourdan had invigorated his vocal cords or his throat.