The answer bewildered Leonardo, who thought of himself as a man who knew men and could manipulate them at will. But the engineer belonged to a new species, a species Leonardo hadn’t yet succeeded in classifying.

For the present, Ulloa was serving the government, a government looked upon with mistrust by the landowners, the men who were on the side of order. He was a civil servant, and thus corruptible by nature, since the civil service is the last refuge of indigence. In Ulloa’s case, this certainty was encouraging, because his mission—to enforce the new agrarian legislation that was to provide the native communities with lands and modify the boundaries of the haciendas—would cause upheavals of a magnitude no one could foresee. Why then would this man, whose price had been set in consultation with the other landowners, not come to a prudent arrangement with them? Why did he let opportunities to bring up the subject pass and, instead, ask questions that were irrelevant?

“Do the peons here in San José Chiuptik have a contract for their work? Are they paid the minimum wage? How many hours a day do they work? Who sees to their education and their health?”

Leonardo began by answering unconcernedly, with factual information and disdainful comments. But he saw such a mixture of surprise and reproach in the other man’s eyes that he felt like a fool. He wanted to argue, justify himself. But the long exercise of arbitrary power, the smooth orbit without resistance or objection in which his conduct had always moved had never made it necessary for him (or for any of the other ranchers of Ciudad Real) to provide himself with any justification.

Ulloa’s interrogation caught him off guard, helpless, naked, and exposed him to the cruel light of a mind which judged by criteria that were very different and even opposite to those he had, until then, considered to be the only valid ones.

Leonardo Cifuentes had no illusions about it: Ulloa condemned him and for that reason alone had suddenly acquired an intolerable superiority, as intolerable as the silence that rose up between the two men.

“What are you thinking about, ingeniero?”

“I would not have wanted to have to rely on your hospitality.”

“Do you have any complaint to make?”

“What worries me is that I’m unable to demonstrate my gratitude.”

Leonardo pretended not to understand what the other man meant.

“On the ranches, we always have a room available for visitors. We know what it is to need one. And, gracias a Dios, we can meet the need. But if you have to turn to an Indian, he’ll close his hut to you and refuse to sell you something to eat at any price.”

Fernando accepted this sadly.

“They live in dire misery.”

“They’re like animals. What are we going to do about that, ingeniero?”