Chapter One
Reader, we must dampen our tone. A man has died—a hero; a protagonist. Like a wasting disease, which gnaws away at one’s unreconstructable flesh, leaving one a crumpled wreck, studded with a savaged landscape of unsightly, frankly revolting scars, utterly off-putting to any would-be romantic cohabitant—like that, we might say, has Pluck’s death made its mark on every character who has had the pleasure to share this tale with him, and, perhaps, one may with the sincerest humility hope, on the reader.
His like will not come again—not so soon.
And yet, it was a modest turnout which stood, on the blinding lake of snow level with the hotel roof, like lone, immobile totems, shadows at an unnatural slant, at his makeshift funeral: the heads of Enid, the coronel and Betsy were bowed over the hole in the snow into which the inspector’s mangled remains had been stuffed. Betsy’s eyes had been shielded by Enid’s soft palm, to save her from witnessing any signs of the erotic disgrace to which Pluck’s dismembered body had been put, or of that to which such deeds bore tragic testament, namely, the decrepit ignobility of humankind.
Betsy mouthed a few words, then whispered, “He was a funny man. I liked him.”
Enid put her arm around the girl’s shoulders. “I liked him too.”
The coronel’s eyes were mucous; this had tended to happen, for the past fifteen or so years. Indignities of the body which would have appalled him as a young, virile soldier were now a matter of course with him, and, as he gazed upon the tufts of snow which covered the mortal remnants of his friend, he felt a sudden transcendent envy—he wished, oh how he wished, he could change places with Pluck! To melt away, into that soft, pure snow, and never be bothered by any man or woman or bureaucrat or pang of conscience again. . . Now, only now, did the tears finally come to the eyes of Coronel Eyague Feosalma.
For even now—even in death—had Pluck humbled him.