POTION FOR COLTS

By Andrés Núñez Leites

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Ernestovdp, Horses Stock photos by Vecteezy.

As Don Claudio was fond of pencas - those three-horse races so common in the River Plate countryside - he could not allow the rise of Ligeiro, his favorite colt, to leave him out of the weekend event in Minas de Corrales. The attendance of winning horses from Santana and Tranqueras was expected, which increased the value of the bets and the interest of the countrymen.

Since a raised horse does not run, he asked Moreira, the town's veterinarian, for help to see if he had any remedy for the animal's heat, which, driven by its nature, had become uncontrollable.

Moreira asserted with the security of knowledge and experience:

―You put a little of this in the animal's muzzle at dawn for a day or two and the problem is solved.

While he instructed him with those words he handed him a bottle with a barely yellowish, almost transparent oil, with a penetrating smell, labeled "Camphor Oil."

Don Claudio thanked him and left the premises slightly uneasy. What happened to him? He had the feeling of reunion with an indefinite time; Although no image or association emerged into his consciousness, he felt intensely that the smell of the potion meant something - or perhaps a lot - to him.

He got up at dawn the next day, prepared the mate, took the bottle that the veterinarian gave him and walked to the shed where the horse was resting. When he went to put a little of the oil in the muzzle, the restlessness of the previous day became a diffuse evocation, as if he saw something behind frosted glass: that smell opened a gap towards the depth of his memory. He did not make an effort to capture the memory, because, as is known, when one demands memory it slips away. He trusted and hoped it would show as the days went by.

On the weekend, Ligeiro was very calm. The treatment had worked and he was ready for the race. There were no traces of his zeal left. Don Claudio walked in silence with Eusebio, the rider, while Juan, a farmhand who radiated tranquility with his steps, was leading the colt by the reins, a short distance away. It was the day of sorrow they had been waiting for so long. They were already approaching the starting point when something flashed in Don Claudio's octogenarian mind: in a fragment of a second, the Brazilian stay, the happy time of childhood, his parents, siblings, cousins. He tenderly remembered Vovó, his maternal grandmother, who had the custom of giving each male grandchild, when he turned 14 years old, a scapular with the Little Virgin. The gift was retrieved by the old woman weekly for a few hours to be blessed and then returned containing crushed bay leaves, moistened with an oil whose nature she never revealed. The little boys didn't ask questions; They treasured the mystery like a magic potion that, they were told, was capable of protecting them from evil. In the first hours the smell was intense, but then it became softer and more pleasant.

"It was camphor," he thought with moist eyes. He smiled melancholy, took a deep breath and continued toward the start.

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