She had never seen such a man before or after him, and now, seeing him again, he seemed so extraordinarily beautiful that her eyes went hazy. The sight of him was like a surprising sunset, when nature puts its danger and its beauty on vivid display.

“So now you like the mud, chamigo!” she shouted. She hoped her voice would come out firm and it did, ironic and warm at the same time. Juan recognized it immediately.

“Tali, what’s with all this? We’re stuck!”

Juan and his son—Gaspar, so grown up now, and so thin—were laughing like crazy. Tali couldn’t believe it. She would have expected to find him just as furious and sad as when she’d seen him a few months back. And yet here he was in the door of her house, bent over laughing with his feet sunk in the mud, telling his son: “It’s the Corrientes quicksand!”

“Just give it a try, che; if you fall, you can take a bath later,” she called.

She leaned against the doorway and relaxed, enjoying this unprecedented show: the Golden God having fun with his own clumsiness, pretending to sink, crying out in mock fear. Gaspar, lighter, got through the mud first, and Tali ushered him in. He looked her in the eyes, curious and alert. Hi, Tali, he said. And he turned around to cheer at a slip that almost laid his father out in the road.

“You know, Juancito, the road that comes up on the side is paved.”

“No way.”

“More or less. They put down gravel.”

“Why does that road have gravel? Does it lead to a big estate?”

“No, but this is Corrientes. You can’t ask for logic.”

“I’ll move the car later, then. I hope it isn’t stuck.”

“We can push it.”

Juan leaped to reach a stretch of dry grass, and from there, two long-legged strides carried him easily to the door. Tali could finally look at him close up, and she realized the illusion of the late-afternoon light had been overly reassuring: Juan’s under-eyes were dark and swollen and he had lost weight; those strange eyes of his, with their multicolored irises—flashes of blue, green, and a little yellow—were tired and dazed. But it was Juan’s extreme paleness that let her know the game in the mud was nothing but that, a game.

“If I didn’t know you were alive, I’d say you were a ghost, che. Goddamn you’re pale.”

He pretended not to hear her and hugged her tight, lifting her off the floor. He got her dress dirty, but Tali didn’t care. She was feeling Juan’s body again after so long, firm and fragile; it was reassuring to bury her face in that broad chest, to breathe in the smell of his shirt, heat and gasoline and insect repellent. She felt him take a deep breath of relief. Tali kept her eyes closed as she listened to his breathing and the nighttime insects that were waking up and buzzing. He took her by the hand and she could sense his sadness through his fingertips, as if it emanated from him. She noticed, as well, that he had a dirty bandage over a wound on his palm. You need to change that rag, she told him, and Juan didn’t answer. Gaspar was sitting on the floor, trying to clean his white sneakers.