Dead man walking

Jorge Luis Borges was perhaps the most influential Argentine writer of all times. I do not know if he planned certain contradictions and coincidences that appear sprinkled around in his work. That alone would be the topic of a different article but I will concentrate in one of his stories and I will let you read the tea leaves. The story is called El Muerto which means “the dead man” and it appears in the same book where Borges presents The Immortal. Those two stories are like bookends that reveal Borges’ preoccupations and his particular way of thinking, a sophistic kind of thought more informed by aesthetics than by philosophical rigor. Dealing with mortality and immortality in the same collection of short stories provokes the reader to compare both.

“El Muerto begins by telling how Benjamín Otálora, a 19-year-old young man who lives in Buenos Aires, fatally stabs an opponent and then embarks for Montevideo, Uruguay, with a letter addressed to a certain Azevedo Bandeira. Upon arriving at his destination, he did not find the man he was looking for, but at night he encountered an altercation and one of the individuals participating in it turned out to be Azevedo. Otálora tore up the letter and left with those he was drinking. The next morning, Bandeira sent for him through one of his peons, and told him that they would leave for Tacuarembó to look for cattle; Otálora accepts, and at dawn they head there. From that moment on he becomes part of the troop, becomes ‘Bandeira’s man’, and a new life begins for him.

Over time, Otálora discovers that among Azevedo’s multiple businesses, the main one is smuggling, and he manages to become a smuggler by killing one of his companions.

A year later, Otálora returns to Montevideo and visits Bandeira, who was very ill; He is angry that someone in Bandeira’s condition imposes orders on him. He begins to devise a plan to replace him, gaining the friendship of Suárez, Azevedo’s bodyguard, and his wife [which Otálora beds as well.] When he believes that he has everything and that he managed to complete his goal, Bandeira orders him to be killed and Suárez takes charge of doing it.” — Translated from Resumen de El Muerto (J. L. Borges)

The final paragraphs of El Muerto contain all the details we want to know now.

“The last scene of the story corresponds to the agitation of the last night of 1894. That night, the men of El Suspiro [Ranch] eat freshly slaughtered lamb and drink quarrelsome alcohol; someone infinitely strums a belabored melody. At the head of the table, Otálora, drunk, piles up exultation upon exultation, joy upon joy. That tower of vertigo is a symbol of his irresistible destiny. Bandeira, taciturn among those who shout, lets the night flow. When the twelve bells ring, he gets up as if he had remembered an obligation. He gets up and knocks softly on the woman’s door. She opens it immediately, as if she was waiting for the call. He comes out half dressed and barefoot. With a voice that grows effeminate and slurred, the boss orders her:

–Since you and the man from Buenos Aires love each other so much, right now you are going to give him a kiss in front of everyone.

He adds a brutal circumstance. The woman wants to resist, but two men have taken her arm and thrown her onto Otálora. She is overcome with tears, she kisses his face and chest. Ulpiano Suárez has taken up the revolver. Otálora understands, before dying, that from the beginning they have betrayed him, that he has been sentenced to death, that they have allowed him love, command and triumph, because they already considered him dead, because for Bandeira he was already dead.

Suárez, almost with disdain, shoots.”

The most important line in the story reveals that Otálora walked into a trap. He thought he was in command of the situation, he thought he was the new leader, etc. but he was merely entertaining boss Bandeira who used Otálora to teach his men a lesson on loyalty and power.

The story reminds me of Judas Iscariot who believed he could pull the wool over God’s eyes. That game ended very badly for the traitor. It is a wicked kind of naiveté that is driving foolish men to try to do the same. Twenty centuries after the disgraceful demise of the Iscariot, God is watching dead men walk into a pit.

Balaam ended his life buried under the rubble of Jericho. Saul was left with no option but to fall on his sword. Judas burst his guts because he was too stupid to even hang himself properly. Benedict Arnold walked the streets of London devoid of honor, ignored by everyone, a man despised by friend and foe until his death because —in all truth— he was already dead. Today, see how the same drama unfolds before our eyes. The dead man walks, talks … not knowing he has already been devoured by the darkness outside.