Chronicle of the Cua\'aki Indians was at the top of my list, and again and again I proposed it to the various American publishers I worked for. After countless rejections, l finally found someone who was interested. I can't remember exactly when this was. Late 1975 or early 1976. I think, but I could be off by half a year or so. In any case, the publishing company was new, just getting off the ground, and all the preliminary indications looked good. Excellent editors, contracts for a number of outstanding books, a willingness to take risks. Not long before that, Clastres and I had begun exchanging letters, and when I wrote to tell him the news, he was just as thri lied as I was.

Translating the Chronicle was a thoroughly enjoy­ able experience for me, and after ;ny labours were done, my attachment to the book was just as ardent as ever. I turned in the manuscript to the publisher, the translation was approved, and then, just when everything seemed to have been brought to a successful conclusion, the troubles started.

It seems that the publishing company was not a solvent as the world had been led to believe. Even worse, the publisher himself was a good deal less honest in his handling of money than he should have been. I know this for a fact because the money that was supposed to pay for my translation had been covered by a grant to the company by the C.N.R.S. (the French National Scientific Research Centre), but when I asked for my money, the publisher hemmed and hawed and promised that I would have it in due course. The only explanation was that he had already spent the funds on something else.

I was desperately poor in those days, and waiting to be paid simply wasn't an option for me. It was the difference between eating and not eating, between paying the rent and not paying the rent. I called the publisher every day for the next several weeks, but he kept putting me off, kept coming up with different excuses. At last, unable to hold out any longer, I went to the office in person and demanded that he pay me on the spot. He started in with another excuse, but this time I held my ground and declared that I wouldn't leave until he had written out a cheque to me for the full amount. I don't think I went so far as to threaten him, but I might have. I was boiling with anger, and I can remember thinking that if all else failed l was prepared to punch him in the face. It never came to that, but what I did do was back him into a corner. and at that moment I could see that he was beginning to grow . cared. He finally understood that I meant busine s. And right then and there, he opened the drawer or his desk, pulled out his chequebook, and gave me my money.

In retrospect, I consider this to be one of my lowest moments, a dismal chapter in my career as a human being, and I am not at all rroud of how I acted. But I

was broke, and I had done the work, and I deserved to be raid. To prove how hard up I was during those years, I will mention ju t one appalling fact. I never made a copy of the manuscript. I couldn't afford to xcrox the translation. and since I assumed it was in safe hands, the only cory in the world was the original typescript sitting in the publisher's office. This fact, this stupid oversight, this poverty-stricken way of doing business would come back to haunt me. It was entirely my fault, and it turned a small misfortune into a full-blown disa ter.

For the time being, however, we seemed to be back on track. Once the unpleasantness about my fee was settled, the publisher behaved as if he had every intention of bringing out the book. The manuscript was sent to a typesetter, I corrected the proofs and returned them to the publisher- again neglecting to make a copy. It hardly seemed important. after all, since production was well underway by now. The book had been announced in the catalogue, and publication was et for the winter of 1977-78.

Then, just months before Chronicle of the Cuayaki Indians was supposed to appear, new came that Pierre Clastres had been killed in a car accident. According to the story I was told, he had been driving somewhere in France when he lost control of the wheel and skidded over the edge of a mountain. We had never met. Given that he was only forty-three when he died, I had assumed there would be ample opportunities for that in the future. We had written a number of letters to each other, had become friends through our correspondence, and were looking forward to the time when we would at last be able to sit down together and talk. The strangeness and unpredictability of the world prevented that conversation from taking place. Even now, all these years later, I still feel it as a great loss.

BRICK/ 5