I recently reread the short story by Jorge Luis Borges called “The interloper”, from the anthology Brodie’s Report, and one of the final lines caught my attention:
“Let’s go to work, brother. The buzzards’ll come in to clean up after us. I killed’er today. We’ll leave’er here, her and her fancy clothes. She won’t cause any more hurt.”
Jorge Luis Borges
The story narrates the conflict that arises between two brothers, Cristián and Eduardo, for having fallen in love with the same woman; thus, they try many solutions to prevent her from coming between them, but, in the end, one of them, Cristián, decides to kill her.
One of the most noticeable aspects is that Juliana never does anything for herself. Although they take her to a brothel and then pick her up as though nothing had happened, the narrator never mentions or suggests a complaint or a slight discontent. She is a passive and submissive woman who simply allows the brothers to control her. This is best reflected when the narrator says, “The woman saw to the needs of both brothers with beastlike submissiveness, although she couldn’t hide some preference for the younger (…).” However, that “preference” is only mentioned by the narrator, since it is not shown at any moment in the story. This may be because, as the narrator declares in the first line of the story, it was originally narrated by Eduardo, the younger one.
The only lines of dialogue in the story are from Cristián, which reveals his authority as the elder; that is why he is the one who decides to kill Juliana. Furthermore, the narrator points out that, in the brothers’ arguments, “Cristián’s tendency was to raise his voice; Eduardo’s, to fall silent.” Nonetheless, both treated her with contempt despite being in love with her, since they were ashamed of that affection, as it went against the principles of their suburb. This reflects the customs and character traits that were expected and required of the old arrabaleros: men who were hostile to sentimentality and lived amidst afternoon scuffles and nighttime drinks; men who lived among men, and only used other women for a brief and particular purpose. This is why the narrator decides to write this story: “I believe it affords us (though I may of course be mistaken) a brief and tragic window on the sort of men that once fought their knife fights and lived their harsh lives in the tough neighborhoods on the outskirts of Buenos Aires.”
In contrast to the themes that Borges usually addresses in his stories, in “The interloper,” he addresses those customs that men used to practice in order to be considered manly at that time, earning the respect of most folks. Maybe this can still somewhat resonate with us today.