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The Interloper / 57 5 The Interloper “The Interloper” is one of the most brutal stories that Borges ever wrote. Unlike many of his other stories that deal with philosophical problems and conceptual puzzles, this is a classic treatment of the human situation, and most of all of human love and passion, although it is also about identity and the condition of women in society. Also in contrast to his other work, in which women and sex play little or no role, this story raises questions that are intrinsic to both. This has initiated and fed a controversy as to how well it fits in the Borgesian corpus. This is a story about two brothers who love each other and of a female interloper who comes between them, the conflict between brotherly love and the love men have for women. It is also a story of the land, the countryside, where men are rough and unsophisticated, where violence is the ultimate means of solving human conflict, and where women are objects to be bought and sold, used and discarded, loved and hated. It is a tale of human struggle and pain. The plot is simple and so is the narrative. No word is wasted, no flourishes adorn it; and this gives it an unusual power. But is the story fundamentally about a woman and her place in a male-dominated world, or is it about love between men and women or between men? And if it is about love between men, is the love filial or homosexual? Borges never admitted to any homosexual dimension to the story, but the reference to II Kings at the beginning is actually to a text of II Samuel that speaks of homosexual love. Two brothers live together in harmony and peace in the outskirts of Buenos Aires in the 1890s. They are tall, redheaded, and rough, reflecting their mixed ancestry and culture. They stand out from the rest of the population and stick to each other in a very close relationship 58 / Painting Borges that perhaps goes beyond brotherly love. One day, the oldest, Cristián, brings home a not-badlooking woman, Juliana Burgos. She becomes their servant and he displays her at local parties, “lavishing ghastly trinkets upon her.” Eduardo, the youngest, lives with them, but then he takes a trip and when he returns he brings back with him a girl that he throws out shortly after. It is obvious that he is in love with Cristián’s woman, although he does not want to acknowledge it. But Cristián realizes it and offers her to him: “I’m going off to that bust over at Farías place. There is Juliana—if you want her, use her.” This opens up a new modus vivendi in which the brothers share Juliana, but the arrangement does not last. They never mention her, but often find excuses to argue with each other because both want her. Eventually they talk about the situation among themselves—Juliana is not given a say, she is a mere object whose fate is to be decided by them. And so they choose to take her to a bordello where they sell her to the madam. Still, even out of the house, she comes between them; they are unable to get her out of their minds and reestablish their original way of life. They begin to visit the whorehouse separately to see her until one day, by chance, Cristián meets Eduardo there and they bring Juliana back to their place. However, this does not resolve the conflict, for Juliana has come between them, souring their original relationship. So Cristián kills Juliana, leaving her body on a field. When he gets back to the house he asks his brother to accompany him, to take some skins “over to the Nigger’s place.” On the way there, he throws out his cigar, saying to Eduardo “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.” Deeply moved, they embrace, closer than ever, having now another source of unity: the sacrificed woman and the obligation to forget her. Estela Pereda’s “Si la querés, usála,” picks up on the words that Cristián says to his brother when he offers Juliana to him: “If you...

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