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"Go ahead," the stranger said. "I've got a recording here, and my only comment was: 'The girl tells a good story.'"
"Please, go up to your room, pack your things, and leave here at once," said the hotel landlady.
"I've paid for a week and I'm going to stay a week. Even if you have to call the police."
"Has it occurred to you that you might be the person to be murdered?"
"Of course. And it really doesn't matter to me. But if you did murder me, then you would have committed the crime, but you would never receive the promised reward."
One by one, the regular
s in the bar filed out, the younger ones first and the older people last. Soon only Chantal and the stranger were left.
She picked up her bag, put on her coat, went to the door and then turned to him.
"You're a man who has suffered and wants revenge," she said. "Your heart is dead, your soul is in darkness. The devil by your side is smiling because you are playing the game he invented."
"Thank you for doing as I asked. And for telling me the true and very interesting story of the gallows."
"In the forest, you told me that you wanted answers to certain questions, but from the way you have constructed your plan, only Evil will be rewarded; if no one is murdered, Good will earn nothing but praise. And as you know, praise cannot feed hungry mouths or help to restore dying villages. You're not trying to find the answer to a question, you're simply trying to confirm something you desperately want to believe: that everyone is evil."
A change came over the stranger's face, and Chantal noticed it.
"If the whole world is evil, then the tragedy that befell you is justified," she went on. "That would make it easier for you to accept the deaths of your wife and daughters. But if good people do exist, then, however much you deny it, your life will be unbearable; because fate set a trap for you, and you know you didn't deserve it. It isn't the light you want to recover, it's the certainty that there is only darkness."
"What exactly are you driving at?" he said, a slight tremor in his voice.
"The wager should be fairer. If, after three days, no one is murdered, the village should get the ten gold bars anyway. As a reward for the integrity of its inhabitants."
The stranger laughed.
"And I will receive my gold bar, as a reward for my participation in this sordid game."
"I'm not a fool, you know. If I agreed to that, the first thing you would do is to go outside and tell everyone."
"Possibly. But I won't; I swear by my grandmother and by my eternal salvation."
"That's not enough. No one knows whether God listens to vows, or if eternal salvation exists."
"You'll know I haven't told them, because the gallows is there now in the middle of the village. It will be clear if there's been any kind of trickery. And anyway, even if I went out there now and told everyone what we've just been talking about, no one would believe me; it would be the same as arriving in Viscos and saying: 'Look, all this is yours, regardless of whether or not you do what the stranger is asking.' These men and women are used to working hard, to earning every penny with the sweat of their brow; they would never even admit the possibility of gold just falling from heaven like that."
The stranger lit a cigarette, finished off his drink and got up from the table. Chantal awaited his reply standing by the open door, letting the cold air into the room.
"I'll know if there's been any cheating," he said. "I'm used to dealing with people, just like your Ahab."
"I'm sure you are. So that means 'yes,' then."
Again he nodded his agreement.
"And one more thing: you still believe that man can be good. If that weren't the case, you wouldn't have invented all this nonsense to convince yourself otherwise."
Chantal closed the door and walked down the main street in the village--completely deserted at that hour--sobbing uncontrollably. Without wanting to, she had become caught up in the game; she was betting on the fact that people were basically good, despite all the Evil in the world. She would never tell anyone what she and the stranger had just been talking about because, now, she too wanted to know the answer.
She was aware that, although the street was empty, from behind the curtains in darkened rooms, the eyes of Viscos were watching as she walked back home. It didn't matter; it was far too dark for anyone to see her tears.
The man opened the window of his room, hoping that the cold would silence the voice of his devil for a few moments.
As expected, it did not work, because the devil was even more agitated than usual after what the girl had just said. For the first time in many years, the stranger noticed that the devil seemed weaker, and there were moments when he even appeared rather distant; however, he soon reappeared, no stronger or weaker than usual, but much as he always was. He lived in the left-hand side of the man's brain, in the part that governs logic and reasoning, but he never allowed himself to be seen, so that the man was forced to imagine what he must be like. He tried to picture him in a thousand different ways, from the conventional devil with horns and a tail to a young woman with blond curls. The image he finally settled on was that of a young man in his twenties, with black trousers, a blue shirt, and a green beret perched nonchalantly on his dark hair.
