The Night Visitor

by B. TRAVEN

  15

  The sun was right above my head, and its heat became more and more unbearable. It occurred to me that leaving the body exposed too long to the scorching sun might have a bad effect on it.

  I ran to the house and returned with a wooden case, into which I meant to set the body and carry it to a shady place, either on the porch or right in the house.

  Why I was so eager to get the body away from its pit instead of leaving it where I had found it and where it belonged, this I did not know. Here the man had rested for so many hundred years, and here he ought to remain.

  However, I was not guided by any definite thought or idea at all—at least not by one that was my own, born in my mind. I acted in a purely mechanical way without giving the why a single thought. I acted as though there was no other way of doing what I did. Yet, at the same time, I knew perfectly well that I was under no suggestion from the outside.

  With utmost care, I went about the job of putting the body into the wooden case I had brought. There was not room enough inside the pit to set the case right beside the body, so I left the case outside near the base of the structure.

  I crept down into the cave with the intention of lifting the body up and getting it out of the cave. I grasped the body firmly, but I could not get a hold on it because my hands clapped together without anything between them save air.

  Between my grasping hands the body had collapsed entirely and nothing was left but a thin layer of dust and ashes which, if carefully gathered, would not have amounted to more than what a man might hold in his two hands.

  Hardly ten minutes had passed since I had positively convinced myself that the body was as hard as dry wood. All was gone now. The thick black hair, the dyed fingernails, the costly rags he had worn, had all changed to dust—a grayish powder, so fine that the slightest breeze would carry it away.

  Still wondering how all this could have happened, and in so short a time, I noticed that the body dust had already mixed with the earth upon which it had fallen—so much so that I could no longer tell exactly which was the dust and which was the soil.

  There was no use in standing there any longer in the excavation, with the broiling sun above my head and the steaming bush all around me, while I waited for something to happen.

  Of course I was dreaming. Yes, that was it. And the tropical sun made things worse. I tried hard to wake up and shake off the drowsiness accumulating in my head.

  I was near a grave sickness. The bush was like a huge monster whose fangs I could not escape. Where should I go for help? Wherever I might run there was only jungle and bush and that merciless sun above me making me feel as though my brain was slowly drying up to a spoonful of dust.

  16

  What was I to do with myself? I was sick, terribly sick. I had lost the faculty of distinguishing between what was real and what was imagination.

  And then, right at my feet, glittering lustily in the bright sun, I saw the golden ornaments of my Indian. Those wonderful trinkets, which I had admired only last night, had not turned to dust. There they were in full sight. Since they were lying right at the bottom of the pit, in the dust, and since I could feel them distinctly with my fingers, take them into my hands, lift them out of the dust, they must be real—and no doubt about that.

  If the jewels were still here, then the Indian or his dead body must have been here, too. So I had sufficient, satisfying proof that I was as sane as I had always been. I wasn’t sick. There couldn’t be any such things resting in my hands if all that which I had experienced had been only a dream.

  I took them into the bungalow, sat down and examined them minutely with all the knowledge I had acquired from the books. What great artists were those men who had been able to create such beautiful ornaments—and with tools which we would consider very primitive.

  I wrapped them in paper, made a little package of them and put that package into an empty can which I placed on top of a bookshelf.

  Before sunset I returned to the mound and filled up the pit with stones and earth. I wanted to prevent stray horses or cows from breaking their legs. Even a wandering peasant might come this way by night, fall into the cave and do himself harm.

  After I had filled up the pit, I realized that it would not have been necessary. Neither man nor animal would be likely to take his way across the mound instead of simply going around it. Yet, somehow, a certain call in my mind had urged me to close the cave the way I had done. And I felt that it was only to have an excuse for that extra and practically useless job that I had thought to protect people or animals from being harmed.

  I spent the whole evening and half the night recalling to mind all the details of what I had experienced during the last few days. But when I tried to bring all these different happenings into a logical connection, I discovered so many contradictions, so many non-fittings, that I had to give up without having reached a single conclusion.

  I turned in at midnight.

  17

  My sleep was anything but quiet. One wild dream was chased by another wilder still. But each dream had its climax and none broke before it reached that climax. As soon as a dream reached that point, I awoke—and then fell asleep again instantly when I realized that it had been only a dream.

  I dreamed that I was strolling about the market places of ancient cities. It seemed impossible for me to find what I so badly needed. Whenever I thought I had found what I wanted, I discovered at the same moment that I had forgotten what it was.

  So as not to appear ridiculous or draw suspicion upon myself, I bought just anything at a certain stand.

  No sooner did I have it in my hands than I knew it was something different from the thing I had bought. I tried to put the bought object into my pocket, but found to my dismay that there was no pocket in any of my clothes. The clothes themselves were ragged, yet of very fine fabric.

  Now the merchant asked me to pay, but I could not find the cocoa beans, which served as money.

  Instead of the cocoa beans, I found my hand full of pepper corns, ants, painted fingernails, dust, and bits of black, wiry Indian hair.

  Naked Indian policemen chased me for being a market cheat. I dashed off into the jungle, where I was entangled by thorny brushes, by weeds and vines, and by fantastic cactus plants which cried and shouted and tried to hold me and deliver me into the hands of the naked policemen.

  My skin was torn almost to shreds by thorns and stings of all kinds. Wherever I set my foot down, there were gigantic scorpions, ugly tarantulas, hairy little monkeys. The monkeys had greenish eyes, and they tried to lure me into their caves. But the caves were too small and I could not squeeze myself through.

  From the branches and around the trunks of trees, hundreds of snakes were curling—tiny ones, green and black and purple ones. Some were lashing out like whips. And there were snakes which were half lizards, and others which looked like a human leg with a chunk gnawed off at the calf.

  While I was fighting off the snakes, tarantulas, and scorpions, I heard the policemen yelling after me. They were now setting police tigers on my trail to hunt me down more quickly.

  There was no way of escape other than over a steep rock. I began to climb.

  When I reached the top, I found a pack of mountain lions waiting for me on a cement platform. Huge birds were circling above my head, waiting to catch me and feed my carcass to their young. Just as one of those gigantic birds dashed straight down upon me and was so close I could distinctly feel the rush of air from its wings, I began to fall down into a deep ravine.

  The fall lasted many hours.

  While I was falling, I noticed many things, all of which were happening at the same time.

  The Indian policemen were now clad in parrot feathers. They whistled at the police possums, which they used instead of police tigers, the tigers having mutinied because they had not been paid their wages in advance.

  The whole police force marched home, led by a brass band. They went right back to the market place, arrested t
he merchant to whom I still owed three cocoa beans and a half, and sold him to his neighbor, into slavery. He did not mind because he shouted all over the place that it was just the very thing he liked best to be. He would no longer have to worry about the house rent and the taxes and the light bills going up and the ever growing demands of his greedy family. He said he knew very well that the Aztecs always treated their slaves as well as if they were members of the same family and all nephews.

  Meanwhile, I had reached the bottom of a canyon. I bumped my head hard against a stone, so hard that I woke up, and found the canyon flooded with light. It was the moon which lighted my room.

  Realizing that I was safe on my cot, and that there were no naked policemen after me, I immediately calmed down and at once fell asleep again.

  18

  This time I found myself fighting on the side of the conquistadores.

  The Aztecs took me prisoner. I was carried to their main temple to be sacrificed to their war god. The priests threw me upon a great, well-polished stone. The high priest approached me, asking what I wanted to have for dinner. He said that he was going to tear my heart out while I was still alive and throw it at the feet of the war god. The war god himself was looking at me in a horrible way.

  The war god grinned at me and winked with his glittering eyes. Although I knew perfectly well that he was only a stone god, I nevertheless saw him grin constantly and blink one eye, and I heard him say that he was highly pleased to have my throbbing heart thrown at his lips so that he could suck it with gusto, because he was tired of Indian hearts and would like a change in his diet once in awhile.

  The high priest came closer to me. He tucked up the wide sleeves of his white robe, grasped me brutally by my chin, bent my head down in a cruel manner as if he had to slaughter an ox, and then thrust his obsidian knife into my chest.

  Suddenly I awoke from the imaginary pain in my chest, and fell asleep again right away.

  I saw myself fighting on the side of the Tabasco Indians. They called Malinche a traitor and they fought to throw off the hard yoke of cannons and horses.

  The Spaniards caught me and, nearly mad with joy, danced around me, yelling that they were glad to get another American for breakfast.

  I was court-martialed and sentenced to the loss of both my hands. The hands were chopped off with a pocketknife which, as a special favor to me, they had made extremely dull.

  After my hands were off, my arms felt very numb and I woke up because my arms were hanging sideways out over the edge of my cot, thus making the circulation of blood difficult. Immediately I fell asleep again. And now …

  19

  Now, being a licensed owner of a sweatshop in the ancient city of Tenochtitlan, I had received an order to make the coronation mantle for the new king who was to be crowned, and would then put the syllable zin at the end of his name.

  The mantle was to be made from the beautiful feathers of tropical birds. Yet all the feathers came alive and flew off. I had to chase each single feather and get it back while only a quarter of an hour remained before the coronation was to begin.

  The princess, chieftains, nobles and ambassadors were already assembled. A huge crowd hummed in front of the king’s palace and on the streets leading to the great pyramid.

  Hundreds of royal servants and high officials came running to get the mantle so urgently needed for the important affair.

  But no sooner had I sewn on a feather than the one previously fixed on flew away again.

  Then there were thousands of marshals, generals, and courtiers surrounding my art shop and yelling at the top of their voices. “The coronation necklace! The feather necklace! Where are the armlets of gold? Quick, oh, ever so quick! We all have to die! We are all condemned to death! We are flown to death!”

  In my great hurry to finish the mantle in spite of all obstacles, I became slightly careless while reaching for a needle, and there the mantle seized upon that opportunity, jumped to the open door, walked down the path of my bungalow, turned to where the mound was, and flew away.

  It was still flying high up in the air when suddenly all the thousands and thousands of feathers, which, in so many sleepless nights, for thirteen weeks, I had sewn on with so much labor, fell off the mantle and winged away, chirping like birds and disappearing in all directions.

  I woke up and heard the millions of crickets and grasshoppers fiddling, twittering, and whistling in the bush.

  20

  Once again I fell asleep, certain of the fact that I was well in my room and on my cot and that the coronation mantle of the emperor of Anáhuac might well take care of itself, leaving to a skilled Indian artist the task of making a gorgeous feather mantle, while King Netzahualcoyotl could write the poems for the great event.

  And then the door of the room in which I slept suddenly swung open.

  This surprised me, because I remembered very well that I had not only locked the door but had also bolted it firmly with a heavy bar. In spite of that care, the door opened, and in came my visitor, the same Indian I had seen falling to dust only twelve hours ago.

  The room was lighted by a strange pale light, not unlike a thin, glimmering fog. I could not make out the source of the light. It was not the moon. The moon had gone down awhile ago. It was just a diffused silvery mist which filled the room and seemed, somehow, to move. The idea struck me that this might be the tail of a comet passing the Earth.

  The Indian came close to my cot. He stood there very calmly, looking me full in the face.

  I had my eyes wide open. I felt that I could not move should I want to. No longer did I seem to have any will of my own.

  I was under the impression that if I wanted to move, I would first have to find my will again. It was as if my will had slipped away from me like the feathers of a coronation mantle carelessly sewn on.

  I felt no fear, no fear of ghosts or of any danger threatening me. Quite the contrary. There was about me a rich and wonderful feeling of true friendship and of immaterial love such as I could not remember ever having felt before, not even in the presence of my mother. I thought that if a similar state of feeling should accompany me when I was about to die, I would believe that there was nothing more wonderful than death.

  My visitor lifted the mosquito bar and laid the flap on top of the netting. This he did with a solemn gesture, as if it had been part of a ceremony.

  In spite of the fact that we were no longer separated by this thin tissue, the floating diffused light filling the room did not change. I had thought that perhaps the strange light had been caused by my seeing the room through the white veil-like mosquito netting.

  He greeted me in the same manner as he had on the two previous nights. Again he looked at me with profound earnestness and for a long while.

  At last he spoke, spoke slowly so as to give each word its full meaning and weight.

  “I ask you, my friend, do you believe it right to rob somebody who is defenseless and take away from him those little tokens which are his only companions on his long journey to the land of shadows? Who was it that gave me these little gifts? They were given to me by those who loved me, by those whom I loved dearly, by those who shed so many, many bitter tears when I had to leave them. I want so very much to make you understand that these tokens brighten my road through the long night.

  “For love, and for nothing but love, is man born into this world. It is only for love that man lives. What else is the purpose of man on Earth? Man may win honors, man may win fame, man may win the high estimation of his fellow men, man may win riches, unheard-of riches. Yet all this, however great it may appear at first sight, as compared to love counts for nothing. Before the Great Gate, through which all of us have to go some day, even our most sincere prayers sent to heaven are valued no better than cheap bribes offered with the mean intention of winning special favors from the One who cannot be but just and Who is by far too great to consider prayers.

  “Face to face with eternity, only love counts. Only the love
we gave and only the love we received in return for our love will be taken into account. (In the face of the Everlasting, we will be measured only according to the amount of our love. Therefore, my friend, pray return to me these little tokens which you took away from me, misunderstanding their meaning. Return them to me tonight, because, after my long journey to the Great Gate, I shall need them. When I shall be questioned then, ‘Where are your credentials, newcomer?’ I must have them with me so that I may answer, ‘Behold here, oh, my Creator, here in my hands I carry my credentials. Few and small are these gifts, true, but that I was allowed to have them with me and wear them all along my way here—this is my evidence that I, too, was loved while on Earth, and so, my Lord and Maker, since I was loved, I cannot be entirely without worth.’ ”

  The voice faded off into a deep silence.

  It was not his eloquence; it was the profound silence, taking full possession of the whole room like a visible power commanding words, things, deeds, which influenced all my acts from then on.

  I rose from the cot, dressed quickly, put on my boots and went to the bookshelf.

  I opened the little package, hung the necklace about his neck, put the thick ring on his forefinger, shoved the golden armlets up his arms, and put the anklets around his legs.

  Then he was gone.

  The door was closed and bolted heavily as before.

  I returned to my cot, lay down and fell asleep at once.

  My sleep was as deep, as dreamless, as wholesome as is the first refreshing, sound sleep after a long illness. For weeks I had not slept so well as I did that night.

  21

  It was late when I woke up the next morning. I felt so fully reanimated, so rich with energy, that it seemed the whole world could be mine just for the taking.

  In remembering the dream which I had had during the night, I thought that never before had I had a dream in which every detail had been so clear, so logical as this last one. It could not have been more clear and impressive if it had not been a dream at all but an episode of the day, a slightly strange episode, but nonetheless real and natural.