For a while I was quiet and I looked out the window. I had the feeling that Lima was lost, but at least no one was behind us.

"Keep going," said Belano, "we'll get one."

"What is a catachresis?" I said.

"That one I used to know, but I've forgotten," said Lima.

"It's a metaphor that's become part of common everyday speech and is no longer perceived as a metaphor. For example: needle's eye, bottleneck. And an Archilochian?"

"That one I do know," said Belano. "It has to be the meter that Archilochus used."

"Great poet," said Lima.

"But what is it?" I said.

"I don't know. I can recite a poem by Archilochus, but I don't know what an Archilochian is," said Belano.

So I told them that an Archilochian was a two-line stanza (dystich), and that it could take various forms. The first consisted of a dactylic hexameter followed by a dactylic trimeter catalectic in syllabam. The second… but then I began to fall asleep and I listened to myself talk or to my voice echoing inside the Impala saying things like iambic dimeter or dactylic tetrameter or trochaic dimeter catalectic. And then I heard Belano reciting:

Heart, my heart, so battered with misfortune far beyond your strength,

up, and face the men who hate us. Bare your chest to the assault of the enemy, and fight them off. Stand fast among the beam-like spears.

Give no ground; and if you beat them, do not brag in open show, nor, if they beat you, run home and lie down on your bed and cry.

And then I opened my eyes with a great effort and Lima asked whether the poem was by Archilochus. Belano said simón, and Lima said what a great poet or what a fucking amazing poet. Then Belano turned around and explained to Lupe (as if she cared) who Archilochus of Paros had been, a poet and mercenary who lived in Greece around 650 B.C., and Lupe didn't say anything, which I thought was an appropriate response. Then I sat there half asleep, my head against the window, and listened to Belano and Lima talking about a poet who fled the battlefield, caring nothing about the shame and dishonor that the act would bring upon him, in fact boasting of it. And then I started to dream about someone crossing a field of bones, and the person in question had no face, or at least I couldn't see his face because I was watching him from a distance. I was at the foot of a hill and there was hardly any air in the valley. The person was naked and had long hair and at first I thought it was Archilochus but it really could have been anyone. When I opened my eyes it was still night and we had left Mexico City.

"Where are we?" I said.

"On the road to Querétaro," said Lima.

Lupe was awake too, and she was watching the dark countryside with eyes like insects.

"What are you watching?" I said.

"Alberto's car," she said.

"No one's following us," said Belano.

"Alberto's like a dog. He has my smell and he'll find me," said Lupe.

Belano and Lima laughed.

"How will he be able to find you when I've been doing ninety-five miles an hour ever since we left Mexico City?" said Lima.

"Before the sun comes up," said Lupe.

"All right," I said, "what's an aubade?"

Neither Belano nor Lima made a sound. I imagined they were thinking about Alberto, so I started to think about him too. Lupe laughed. Her insect eyes sought me:

"All right, Mr. Know-It-All, can you tell me what a prix is?"

"A toke of weed," said Belano without turning around.

"And what is muy carranza?"

"Something very old," said Belano.

"And lurias?"

"Let me answer," I said, because all the questions were really for me.

"All right," said Belano.

"I don't know," I said after thinking for a while.

"Do you know?" said Lima.

"I guess not," said Belano.

"Crazy," said Lima.

"That's right, crazy. And jincho?"

None of the three of us knew it.

"It's so easy. Jincho is Indian," said Lupe, laughing. "And what is la grandiosa?"

"Jail," said Lima.

"And what is Javier?"

A convoy of five freight trucks passed in the left lane heading toward Mexico City. Each truck looked like a burned arm. For an instant there was only the noise of the trucks and the smell of charred flesh. Then the road was plunged into darkness again.

"What's Javier?" said Belano.

"The police," said Lupe. "And macha chacha?"

"Marijuana," said Belano.

"This one is for Garcia Madero," said Lupe. "What's a guacho de orégano?"

Belano and Lima looked at each other and smiled. Lupe's insect eyes weren't watching me but the shadows unfurling threateningly out the back window. In the distance I saw the lights of one car, then another.

"I don't know," I said, as I imagined Alberto's face: a giant nose coming after us.

"A gold watch," said Lupe.

"What about a carcamán?" I said.

"A car," said Lupe.

I closed my eyes: I didn't want to see Lupe's eyes and I rested my head against the window. In my dreams I saw the black carcamán, unstoppable, Alberto's nose riding in it with a couple of off-duty policemen ready to beat the shit out of us.

"What's a rufo?" said Lupe.

We didn't answer.

"A car," said Lupe, and she laughed.

"All right, Lupe, how about this one, what's la manicure?" said Belano.

"Easy. The mental hospital," said Lupe.

For a moment it seemed impossible to me that I'd ever made love with a girl like Lupe.

"And what does dar cuello mean?" said Lupe.

"I don't know, I give up," said Belano without looking at her.

"The same thing as dar caña," said Lupe, "but different. When you dar cuello you wipe somebody out, and when you dar caña you might be wiping somebody out, but you might also be fucking." Her voice sounded as ominous as if she had said antibacchian or palimbacchian.

"And what does it mean if you dar labiada, Lupe?" said Lima.

I thought about something sexual, about Lupe's pussy, which I'd only touched and not seen, about María's pussy and Rosario's pussy. I think we were going more than one hundred and ten.

"To give someone a chance, of course," said Lupe, and she looked at me as if she could guess what I was thinking. "What did you think it was, García Madero?" she said.

"What does de empalme mean?" said Belano.

"Something that's funny but hurts because it's true," said Lupe, undaunted.

"And a chavo giratorio?"

"A pothead," said Lupe.

"And a coprero?"

"A cokehead," said Lupe.

"And echar pira?" said Belano.

Lupe looked at him and then at me. I could feel the insects hopping from her eyes and landing on my knees, one on each knee. A white Impala just like ours shot past heading for Mexico City. As it disappeared through the back window it honked several times, wishing us luck.

"Echar pira?" said Lima. "I don't know."

"When more than one man rapes a woman," said Lupe.

"Gang rape, that's right, you know them all, Lupe," said Belano.

"And do you know what it means if you say somebody's entrado en la rifa?" said Lupe.

"Of course I know," said Belano. "It means you've already gotten involved in the problem, you're mixed up in it whether you want to be or not. It can also be taken as a veiled threat."

"Or not so veiled," said Lupe.

"So what would you say?" said Belano. "Have we entrado en la rifa or not?"

"All the way," said Lupe.

The lights of the cars that were following us suddenly disappeared. I had the feeling that we were the only people on the road in Mexico at that hour. But a few minutes later, I saw the lights again in the distance. There were two cars, and the distance separating them from us seemed to have decreased. I looked forward. There were insects smashed on the windshield. Lima was driving with both hands on the wheel and the car was vibrating as if we'd turned onto a dirt road.