Juan Lopez and John Ward”
It was their luck to be born into a strange time.
The planet had been parceled out among various countries, each
one provided with loyalties, cherished memories, with a past
undoubtedly heroic, with rights, with wrongs, with a particular
mythology, with bronze forefathers, with anniversaries, with
demagogues and symbols.
This arbitrary division was favorable for wars.
Lopez was born in the city beside the tawny river; Ward, on the
outskirts of the city where Father Brown walked. He had
studied Spanish in order to read Quijote.
The other one professed a love for Conrad, who had been revealed
to him in a classroom on Viamonte Street.
They might have been friends, but they saw each other face to
face only once, on some overly famous islands, and each one of
them was Cain, and each was Abel.
They were buried together. Snow and corruption know them.
The incident I mention occurred in a time that we cannot understand.
