"What is an epicede?" I said.

No one answered.

For a while we were all silent as the Impala sped forward in the dark.

"Tell us what an epicede is," said Belano without turning around.

"It's an elegy, recited in the presence of the dead," I said. "Not to be confused with the threnody. The epicede took the form of a choral dialogue. The meter used was the dactylo-epitrite, and later elegiac verse."

No reply.

"Fuck, this goddamn road is pretty," said Belano after a while.

"Ask us more questions," said Lima. "How would you define a threnody, García Madero?"

"Just like an epicede, except that it wasn't recited in the presence of the dead."

"More questions," said Belano.

"What's an alcaic?" I said.

My voice sounded strange, as if it wasn't I who'd spoken.

"A stanza of four alcaic verses," said Lima, "two hendecasyllables, one endecasyllable, and one decasyllable. The Greek poet Alcaeus used it, which is where the name comes from."

"It isn't two hendecasyllables," I said. "It's two decasyllables, one endecasyllable, and a trochaic decasyllable."

"Maybe," said Lima. "Who cares."

I watched Belano light a cigarette with the car lighter.

"Who introduced the alcaic stanza into Latin poetry?" I said.

"Man, everyone knows that," said Lima. "Do you know, Arturo?"

Belano had the lighter in his hand and he was staring at it, although his cigarette was already lit.

"Of course," he said.

"Who?" I said.

"Horace," said Belano, and he slid the lighter into its socket and then rolled down the window. The air ruffled my hair and Lupe's.

JANUARY 3

We had breakfast at a gas station outside of Culiacán, huevos rancheros, fried eggs with ham, eggs with bacon, and poached eggs. We each drank two cups of coffee and Lupe had a big glass of orange juice. We ordered four ham and cheese sandwiches for the road. Then Lupe went into the women's room, and Belano, Lima, and I went into the men's room, where we proceeded to wash our faces, hands, and necks, and use the facilities. When we came out the sky was a deep blue, as blue as I'd ever seen it, and there were lots of cars driving north. Lupe was nowhere to be seen, so after waiting a prudent amount of time, we went looking for her in the ladies' room. We found her brushing her teeth. She looked at us and we left without a word. Next to Lupe, bent over the other sink, was a woman in her fifties, brushing long black hair that fell to her waist.

Belano said we had to go into Culiacán to buy toothbrushes. Lima shrugged and said he didn't care. I said that I thought we had no time to lose, although actually time was the only thing we had more than enough of. In the end, Belano got his way. In a supermarket on the outskirts of Culiacán we bought toothbrushes and other personal hygiene things that we would need and then we turned around and left without going into the city.

JANUARY 4

We passed through Navojoa, Ciudad Obregón, and Hermosillo like ghosts. We were in Sonora, although I'd felt as if we were in Sonora ever since Sinaloa. Sometimes we saw pitahayas, nopals, or saguaros rising alongside the road in the noonday glare. In the Hermosillo municipal library, Belano, Lima, and I searched for traces of Cesárea Tinajero. We couldn't find anything. When we got back to the car Lupe was asleep on the backseat and two men were standing on the sidewalk, motionless, watching her. Belano thought it might be Alberto and one of his friends and we separated to approach them. Lupe's dress had ridden up around her hips and the men were masturbating, their hands in their pockets. Get lost, said Arturo, and they went, turning to watch us as they retreated. Then we were in Caborca. If that's what Cesárea's magazine was called, it must have been for some reason, said Belano. Caborca is a little town northwest of Hermosillo. To get there we took the federal highway to Santa Ana and from Santa Ana we turned west along a paved road. We passed through Pueblo Nuevo and Altar. Before we got to Caborca we saw a turnoff and a sign with the name of another town: Pitiquito. But we drove on and got to Caborca, where we wandered around the town hall and the church, talking to everyone, searching in vain for someone who could tell us something about Cesárea Tinajero until night fell and we got in the car again, because Caborca didn't even have a boardinghouse or a little hotel where we could stay (and if it did we couldn't find it). So that night we slept in the car and when we woke up we headed back to Caborca, got gas, and drove to Pitiquito. I have a hunch, said Belano. In Pitiquito we had a good meal and we went to see the church of San Diego del Pitiquito, from the outside, because Lupe said she didn't want to go in and we didn't really feel like it either.

JANUARY 5

We're heading northeast, along a good road, as far as Cananea, then south along a dirt road to Bacanuchi, and then on to 16 de Septiembre and Arizpe. I've stopped going along with Belano and Lima to ask questions. I stay in the car with Lupe or we get a beer. In Arizpe the road is better again and we head down to Banámichi and Huépac. From Huépac we head back up to Banámichi, this time without stopping, and return to Arizpe, turning east along a hellish dirt track to Los Hoyos, and from Los Hoyos, along a much better road, to Nacozari de García.

On the way out of Nacozari a patrolman stops us and asks for the car's papers. Are you from Nacozari, officer? Lupe asks him. The patrolman looks at her and says no, why would she think that, he's from Hermosillo. Belano and Lima laugh. They get out to stretch their legs. Then Lupe gets out and she and Arturo whisper to each other a little. The other officer gets out of his car too and comes over to talk to his partner, who is busy deciphering Quim's papers and Lima's driver's license. The two officers watch Lupe, who has walked a few yards away from the road, into a stony yellow landscape with darker patches, minuscule plants colored a nauseating brownish-purple-green. The brown, green, and purple of permanent exposure to an eclipse.

So where are you from? says the second officer. From Mexico City, I hear Belano answer. Mexiquillos? says the patrolman. More or less, says Belano, with a smile that frightens me. Who is this jerk? I think, but I'm thinking about Belano, not the policeman, and about Lima too, who's leaning on the hood of the car and staring at a point on the horizon, between the clouds and the quebrachos.

Then the policeman returns our papers and Lima and Belano ask him the shortest way to Santa Teresa. The second patrolman goes back to his car and gets out a map. When we leave the patrolmen wave goodbye. The paved road soon becomes a dirt road again. There are no cars, just a pickup truck every once in a while loaded with sacks or men. We pass towns called Aribabi, Huachinera, Bacerac, and Bavispe before we realize that we're lost. Just before dark a town suddenly appears in the distance that might or might not be Villaviciosa, but it's too much effort to find the way there. For the first time, Belano and Lima look nervous. Lupe is immune to the pull of the town. As far as I'm concerned, I don't know what to think: I might feel strange things, I might just want to sleep, I might be dreaming for all I know. Then we turn down another terrible road that seems to go on forever. Belano and Lima want me to ask them tough questions. I assume they mean questions about meter, rhetoric, and style. I ask them one and then I fall asleep. Lupe's sleeping too. In the time it takes me to fall asleep, I hear Belano and Lima talking. They talk about Mexico City, about Laura Damián and Laura Jáuregui, about a poet I've never heard of before, and they laugh, apparently the poet is a nice guy, a good person, they talk about people who are publishing magazines and who I gather are naïve or unsophisticated or just desperate. I like to hear them talk. Belano talks more than Lima, but both of them laugh a lot. They also talk about Quim's Impala. Sometimes, when there are lots of potholes in the road, the car jumps in a way that Belano doesn't think is normal. Lima thinks it's the noise the engine makes that isn't normal. Before I fall into a deep sleep I realize that neither of them knows anything about cars. When I wake up we're in Santa Teresa. Belano and Lima are smoking and the Impala is circling around the city center.