the map along the frontier. We could try this path and if it gets too hard on the horses we can always turn back, suggested Pedro Orce.
It took them two days to reach their destination. At night they could hear the wolves howling in the hills, and they were apprehensive. People from the lowlands, they suddenly became aware of the danger they were facing. Should wild beasts invade the encampment, they would first savage the horses, then attack any human beings. If only they had a gun with which to defend themselves. Pedro Orce confessed, It's my fault that we're running these risks, let's turn back, but Maria Guavaira replied, Let's go on, the dog is here to protect us. A dog can't do much when confronted by a pack of wolves, Joaquim Sassa reminded her, This one can, and however strange this may seem to anyone who knows more about these things than the narrator, Maria Guavaira was right. One night the wolves came fairly close, the terrified horses began neighing, such anguish, and pulling at their tethers, the men and women looked around to see where they might take shelter from an attack, only Maria Guavaira insisted, though she was trembling, They won't come, and she repeated, They won't come. They kept the bonfire blazing all through that sleepless night, and the wolves drew no closer. Meanwhile, the dog appeared to grow bigger in the circle of light. The flickering shadows created the impression that heads, tongues, and teeth were multiplying, nothing but an op tical illusion, human forms expanded, swelled out of all proportion, and the wolves went on howling, but only because of their fear of other wolves.
The road had been severed, truly severed in the literal sense of the word. To both left and right, the mountains and valleys were suddenly cut off in a clean line, as if sliced with a blade or cut out of the sky. The travelers, now some way from the wagon, which the dog was guarding, advanced cautiously and in dread. About a hundred meters from the scission there was a customs post. They went inside. Two typewriters still stood there, one with a sheet of paper stuck in the roller, a customs form with some words typed on it. The cold wind penetrated an open window and rustled the papers lying on the floor. There were scattered feathers. The world is coming to an end, Joana Carda exclaimed. Then let's go and see how it's ending, suggested Pedro Orce. They left. They trod cautiously, worried that cracks might suddenly appear in the ground, a clear sign that the land is unstable. Jose Anaico was the one who remembered this, but the road looked smooth and even, with only an occasional bump caused by wear and tear. Ten meters from the gap, Joaquim Sassa said, Better not get too close on foot in case we get dizzy, I'm going to crawl. They got down on all fours and advanced, at first on their hands and knees, then dragging themselves along the ground, they could hear their hearts pounding in uneasiness and fear, sweating profusely despite the intense cold, asking themselves whether they would be brave enough to reach the edge of the abyss, but none of them wished to look like a coward, and almost in a trance they found themselves looking out to sea at an altitude of about one thousand eight hundred meters, the escarpment a sheer vertical cut and the sea shimmering below, the tiniest of waves in the distance and white spume where the ocean waves thrashed against the mountain as if trying to dislodge it. Pedro Orce cried out in exaltation, jubilant in his grief, The world is coming to an end, he was repeating Joana Carda's words, and they all repeated them. My God, happiness exists, said the unknown voice, and perhaps that's all it is, sea, light, and vertigo.
The world is full of coincidences, and if one thing does not coincide with another that happens to be close to it, that is no reason for denying coincidences, all it means is that what is coinciding is not visible. At the exact moment that the travelers were leaning over the sea, the peninsula came to a halt. No one there noticed what had happened, there was no jolt as it braked, no sudden loss of balance, no impression of rigidity. It was only two days later, at the first inhabited spot they came to after descending from the magnificent heights, that they heard the astounding news. But Pedro Orce said, If they maintain that the peninsula has come to a halt, it must be true, but speaking for myself and Constant, I swear to you that the earth is still shaking. As he spoke, Pedro Orce's hand was resting on the dog's back.
...
Newspapers throughout the world, some putting it on the front page beneath a banner headline, published the historic photograph that showed the peninsula, which perhaps we should now definitively call an island, sitting quietly out in the middle of the ocean, maintaining its position with millimetric precision in relation to the cardinal points by which the earth is ruled and guided, with Oporto as far north of Lisbon as ever, Granada as far south of Madrid as it has been since Madrid came into being, and all the rest with the same familiar contours. The journalists concentrated their imaginative powers almost exclusively on divising bold, dramatic headlines, inasmuch as the geological displacement, or rather the tectonic enigma, continued to unfold, as indecipherable now as on the first day. Fortunately, the pressure of public opinion, for want of a better expression, had diminished, people had stopped asking questions, they were satisfied with the suggestive power of certain striking comparisons, The Birth of a New Atlantis, A Piece Has Moved on the Universal Chessboard, A Link Between America and Europe, An Apple of Discord Between Europe and America, A Battlefield for the Future, but the headline that made the deepest impression was the one in a Portuguese newspaper that read The Need for a New Treaty of Tordesilla, this is truly the simplicity of genius, the author of the idea looked at the map and verified that, give or take a kilometer or two, the peninsula would be situated on the line that in those glorious days had divided the world into two parts, one for me, one for you, one for me.
In an unsigned editorial it was proposed that the two peninsular countries adopt a joint and complementary strategy that would make them the pointer on the scales of world politics, Portugal facing west, toward the United States, Spain turned to the east, toward Europe. A Spanish newspaper, anxious to come up with something equally original, advocated an administrative plan whereby Madrid would become the political center of this entire strategy, on the pretext that the Spanish capital is situated, as it were, at the geometric center of the peninsula, which is not even true if one looks at the map, but there are people who have no qualms about the means used to achieve their objective. The chorus of protests did not come only from Portugal, the autonomous Spanish regions also rebelled against the proposal, which they saw as further proof of Castilian centralism. On the Portuguese side, as one might have expected, there was a sudden revival of interest in the occult and in esoteric sciences, this did not go very far, simply because the situation changed radically, nevertheless it lasted long enough to sell out every copy of Padre Antonio Vieira's
From the standpoint of realpolitik, discussion of the problem in European and American foreign ministries centered on spheres of influence, that is to say on whether, ignoring the question of distance, the peninsula or island should preserve its natural ties with Europe, or whether, without entirely severing them, it should orient itself rather toward the ideals and destiny of the great American nation. With no hope of exerting any clear influence in the matter, the Russians pointed out time and time again that nothing should be decided without their participation in the discussions, and meantime reinforced the fleet that from the outset had been accompanying the errant peninsula under the watchful eye, needless to say, of the fleets of the other powers, the Americans, the British, and the French.
It was within the framework of these negotiations that the United States informed Portugal, in an audience, urgently requested by Ambassador Charles Dickens, with the President of the Republic, that the continuance of a government of national salvation made no sense whatsoever once the circumstances no longer prevailed that had been adduced, In the most dubious fashion, Mr. President, if you will allow me to express an opinion, to justify its constitution. This tactless remark became public indirectly, not because the relevant ministries of the Presidency had made any public announcement, or through any statements made by the Ambassador as he left the Palace of Belem, in fact he simply remarked that his discussions with the President had been very frank and constructive. But that was enough for the members of the governments representing the parties who would inevitably have to go, were the government to be reshuffled or a general election called, to launch an attack on the Ambassador's intolerable meddling. The internal problems of Portugal, they declared, must be solved by the Portuguese, adding with spiteful irony, Just because the Ambassador wrote
Pedro Orce had been right when he said, there at the foot of the Pyrenees, It may have stopped, fine, but it's still trembling, and so as not to be the only one to say so, he had put his hand on Constant's back, the dog was also
