Cold Skin

by Albert Sanchez Pinol

  He was fooling himself. The question was not so much what she could learn from us as what we might learn from her. The most devastating thing about it all was how, in fact, nothing had changed. We were like landscape painters trying to depict a storm with their backs to the horizon. We simply needed to turn around, nothing more.

  Insignificant details were deciding factors: she smiled, was clearly left-handed, could not tolerate being pursued and squatted to urinate. Before, I presumed to be living with an animal and chalked up her civilised behavior to domestication. Each new day at her side, each hour spent in observation, brought us closer together. What had once been cohabitation revealed itself to be companionship. I was compelled to think we shared a sort of domestic tranquillity. My senses became fine-tuned instruments. In truth, the scenario was transformed as if by magic once one ceased to view her as an animal. Yet she was one of them.

  Eyes are designed to look, but few observe and even fewer truly see. Yet another night spent on the balcony, barely protected from the falling snow. Before, I would have been blind to mountains of marble; but by then I was able to distinguish grains of sand on the horizon. The beasts were testing the mettle of our straggling defences in a minor skirmish. Gruner injured a rather small monster. Four others came to his aid. Oh my Lord. What we had seen as cannibalistic furor was actually a struggle to save brothers-in-arms from enemy fire. I had found their cannibalism, that fever to devour flesh without even waiting for death, particularly horrifying. How many of our bullets had struck souls who were simply trying to save their companions?

  12

  Who was she? Countless times at the lighthouse I asked myself this same question, both before possessing the mascot and after my lust was spent. When our battles had yet to begin, and when the guns fell silent. At sunrise and sunset. I pondered the enigma with the weary lapping of each wave. The view from the balcony was a vast expanse of ocean, which we had always believed to be empty. I stretched the bounds of my imagination, asking her: Who are you? What are you doing here?

  I would never know the slightest thing about her. I was doomed to primordial ignorance. She belonged to a race of beings that dwelled in the depths of the ocean. My fancy could not begin to fathom the particulars of her daily life, the principles she lived by. How could I ever know what had driven the beast away from her kind? I would never discover what had led the beast to find refuge in the lighthouse. It was just as unlikely that she could conceive of the motives behind my self-imposed exile.

  I treated her with more tenderness than ever before. My first possession of the beast had been a desperate and fortuitous act. Her odour repelled me before I touched that skin. The feel and colour of such hairless skin, forever moist. It was hard to believe I had once felt such disgust. I was incapable of controlling my ardour. I must admit, the added attentions were quite deliberate at first. I thought that by being affectionate and making love to her as I would any other woman, we might grow closer. If the beast had any sensibility at all, she would certainly grasp the vast difference between Gruner and me. I hoped this would draw out her humanity, like a butterfly out of its cocoon. That was not how it happened. Against my will, I felt an ever-growing passion for her. But the beast remained unmoved. I noted a new love welling up from within, a love being invented by the lighthouse. But the closer I got, the more she resisted this unprecedented attachment. The beast never looked me in the eye before making love. Afterwards, she rejected every smile and caress. The beast regulated her pleasure as punctually as a clock striking the hours. And as coldly.

  Although the beast tolerated my body outside of the lighthouse, inside those walls I became a spectre. She shrank from me. All attempts to attract her attention were fruitless. Gruner himself was an extenuating factor. I liked to think of her as private property, a being subjugated to my very intimate tyranny. But in the confines of the lighthouse she became the same witless creature as ever. Her master and his guns transformed the creature into something between a meek dog and an evasive cat. Any shreds of humanity I had glimpsed outside vanished like a mirage.

  On those days, I no longer knew what to think. Perhaps I only sought to justify my desire. Perhaps I wished to make her my equal so as not to perish like a savage. On the other hand, I had renounced the world, and humankind along with it. I began to realise, while scarcely crediting it, that she was the refuge I had sought all along. The cruelties of the lighthouse disappeared just by looking at her or by touching that skin. I was appalled that it no longer mattered to me whether she was more or less human, more or less a woman. The good Lord did not rest on the seventh day. On the seventh day he created the little beast, and nestled her beneath the waves.

  As it was, my actions were no longer linked to my reflections. I went to almost debauched lengths to possess her far from Gruner. Once, I brought her to the forest and we fell asleep on the moss afterward. That day, the disadvantages of such a grotesquely clandestine love were made patently clear. And that was not all.

  My body felt like an unstrung puppet. Muscles were strained that I did not even know existed. I rolled on a bed of moss, my mind wandering through languid climes. As a little yawn escaped my lips, her hand clamped over my mouth like a fleshly sucker. My eyes opened. What was she doing?

  I heard snatches of a coarse German ditty. Gruner’s boots were trampling the undergrowth nearby. He was collecting wood for our handiwork at the lighthouse. The axe struck pitilessly when he spotted an adequate victim. He groped each find self-importantly while laughing to himself. All I could discern from where we lay were his feet, four trees away. He drew a bit closer, close enough for us to be showered with shavings from the axe’s blow. The mascot kept admirably calm. Unblinking, she held her breath and compelled me to do likewise. I obeyed.

  Hours later, Gruner was met by a changed man. He entered the living quarters and sat down in front of me somewhat distractedly. I said nothing. He spoke of the same obsessions, the ammunition and damaged doors.

  “Gruner,” I broke in without moving, “they are not monsters.”

  “Pardon?”

  There was a long pause before I repeated myself. “We are not battling fiends; I am sure of it.”

  “Friend, this lighthouse would make anyone go mad. Especially you. You are weak, friend, a very weak man. Not everyone is capable of withstanding the lighthouse.”

  But that was as far as I could go. Our differences had come to a crossroads. I shook my head, ever so tired. My reply came slowly; each word carried its own weight.

  “No, Gruner, no. You are mistaken. It is not over yet. We must send them some gesture of goodwill.”

  “I cannot believe my ears.”

  “We must give them some sign. Perhaps then they will realise we seek a truce.” Discouraged, I said, “Like as not, it is too late. But we have no other choice.”

  Naturally, I could not tell him everything. It was impossible to say that a fiend knows nothing of illicit love nor does it conceal adultery. I could not explain that his every argument was silenced by the hand which had covered my mouth in the forest. I continued my discourse until his fist smashed down on the table, scattering plates and cups. Gruner’s pupils, blacker than ever, had narrowed to pinheads.

  He got up from the table, not wanting to hear what I had to say. But there could be nothing more absurd than massacre. The enemy was not a beast, and that simple fact rendered me incapable of shooting them. What was the point of killing them? Why should we perish on a miserable Antarctic island? There was no reasonable answer. I held up my hands imploringly.

  “Gruner, try to understand. They have a thousand grudges against us. Think of it this way: we are invaders. This is their land, the only land they have. And we have taken it over with a fortified garrison. Is that not enough reason to attack us?” I could not help losing control. “One cannot blame them for defending their island from invaders! I most certainly cannot!”

  “Where were you this afternoon?”

  The abrupt change
in topic forced me to adopt a more submissive tone.

  “I was taking a nap in the forest. Where did you expect me to be?”

  “Yes, of course,” he said absently. “A nap. Naps are always refreshing. Now prepare yourself, it is growing dark.”

  He offered me my Remington. I refused it, still cross from our argument. But he said nothing and neither did I. Unarmed, I blew on my fingers to warm them. Gruner took a handful of snow and threw it at my chest.

  “Take that; perhaps snowballs shall ward them off.”

  “Hush.”

  She was singing. Steely cries rose up from the forest’s black depths. The howls were long-drawn-out and tender. That tenderness racked us with horror. Gruner cocked his Remington with a telltale click.

  “Hold your fire!”

  “She is singing.”

  “No.”

  Gruner looked at me as though I were insane. I whispered, “She isn’t singing. They are speaking. Listen.”

  We turned around. She was sitting on top of the table. Her voice soared out beyond the balcony doors. The cries outside seemed to answer her song. The lighthouse’s beams revealed nothing more than snowflakes spiralling down from the sky. I entered the room. She hushed as I drew close to the table. The forest also fell silent.

  That dialogue still echoed in my ears. My only certainty was that some phrases had been repeated more often than others. A word that more or less sounded like “Sitauca”, and above all, “Aneris”, or something of that sort. But any attempt to transcribe those tones was doomed to failure. It was an abandoned score. My vocal cords had as much in common with theirs as the bristles of a brush with a violin. Nevertheless, after summoning a large dose of imagination, I attempted a pathetic imitation:

  “Aneris.”

  Our eyes met. That look was enough for me to venture, “Gruner, they call themselves Sitauca,” in a very free interpretation of those sounds. “And her name is Aneris. They have a name, she has a name. The woman you make love to every night is called Aneris.” My voice lowered as I concluded, “Her name is Aneris. A very pretty name, I might add.”

  Gruner had reduced them to an anonymous horde. I thought naming the creatures might alter his views about them. It made no difference if it was “Sitauca” or “Aneris.” The practically invented words I formed were just a muddled reflection of the sounds they produced.

  Gruner exploded. “You wish to speak the toads’ language? Is that it? Well, here is their dictionary!” and he

  roughly tossed a Remington at me. The rifle spanned the distance between us. “Do you have any idea how little ammunition we have left? Do you? They are outside and we are here within. Leave the confines of the lighthouse and hand them the rifle. I should like to see how you do it. Yes. I’d like to see you converse with the toads!”

  I said nothing, it would only have instigated him more.

  He shook his fist. “Out, friend, you blasted milksop! Take up your post!”

  I had never seen him in such a state before. Gruner was every bit as frenzied as if we were in the midst of one of the bloodiest battles on the balcony. He looked at me for an instant as if I were one of his hateful toads. I stared him down for a few moments. Then I decided to cut the conversation short. He was not listening. I left the room.

  The rest of the evening was uneventful. Squinting through the peephole in the door, I spotted a few beasts dodging the beams. Gruner shot at them from up above, cursing in his German dialect. He was visibly agitated. Unnecessary purple flares blazed through the air. But what good would such a show of pyrotechnics do?

  Gruner gradually grew ever more taciturn. He shunned my presence. When we were thrown together by the evening vigils, he spoke without really saying anything. Gruner prattled as never before. His words clogged our nights with chat, strangling all conversation so as to avoid the one topic worth discussing. I tried to show as much tolerance as possible. I needed to believe that, sooner or later, he would give way.

  As I could by no means count on his help, I determined to take my own initiative. I would have liked him to have taken part in the endeavour. But he could not be coaxed over to my side. The irony is that it was Gruner himself who gave me the idea. During an argument, he mentioned the insane possibility of handing our rifles over to the Sitaucas. That is precisely what I did. We had long since run out of ammunition for Gruner’s old shotgun; it had been rendered useless. A practical fellow like him would never regret its loss.

  I headed toward the beach that had witnessed my arrival. From experience, I knew they often used the spot to come and go. I drove the shotgun deeply into the sand and surrounded it with a circle of hefty stones. It was a crude ploy, but it made my intentions known. Hopefully, my message would be understood. At any rate, we had nothing to lose.

  Three more days dragged by and Gruner never tried to come between Aneris and me. Our coexistence, and the simple fact that I was better read, had made him consider me some sort of wayward librarian. Gruner shared the commonly held belief that books are a sort of antidote against the temptations of the flesh. He was convinced that we had no common ground.

  It must have been most disconcerting to him that I never questioned his ownership of Aneris. I posed a far greater threat by suggesting that our enemies were not fiends. A brighter man would have considered this a most dangerous idea as it inevitably brought me closer to Aneris. Not him. Even Gruner’s rudimentary logic should have succumbed under the weight of the evidence. Instead, the man broke down rather than accept the truth. Since he denied the entire theory, he was unable to face up to the particulars. His solution was to look the other way and feign ignorance.

  In fact, Gruner was being besieged twice over. Now he was being attacked outside the lighthouse and in. It was not that Gruner was incapable of grasping reality. The question was whether, once inside the lighthouse, one felt obliged to find some meaning in the madness. He chose to mull away the nights and shun the days. He turned the adversaries into savages, transforming a conflict into barbarity, the antagonist into fiend. The paradox was that this reasoning could only be upheld thanks to his inconsistencies. All was utterly consumed by his struggle for survival. The enormity of our peril was such that all discussions were postponed, as if he considered them absurd. And once he was protected behind the barricade of his logic, any further aggression simply confirmed his views. His fear of the Sitauca was the man’s one true ally. The closer the Sitauca got to the lighthouse, the more vindicated Gruner felt. And the harsher the attack, the less Gruner would reflect on his own depravity.

  But I was under no obligation to follow suit. The lighthouse had spared me this last human liberty. And if it was proved that they were not in fact monsters, Gruner’s world would implode with the force of all the arsenals in Europe. I was to come to that realisation later. At the time, I merely saw Gruner as obtuse.

  13

  It was a day like any other at the lighthouse. A grey-black tinge outlined the underbelly of the loosely billowing clouds. Thousands of them filled the sky like pebbles in a mosaic, swelling the firmament. An opaque sun radiated pale pink light behind this display. The double-barrelled shotgun had vanished, removed by unseen hands.

  The Sitauca seemed less active the following nights. We did not see them. Yes, our intuition told us they were out there, whispering among themselves. But they scampered away when we lit the beams. Gruner did not fire a single bullet.

  Was there some kind of connection between their relative quiet and the vanished shotgun? I could have mulled it over for a thousand years without coming to any conclusions. I could not be sure of anything.

  I walked to the fountain, smoking all the while. Gruner was there, absorbed in another ridiculously useless task. As usual, his toil was a ploy to avoid thinking. It appeared as though he had slept in his clothes. I offered him a cigarette, out of goodwill. But I was in a foul mood. As he began to speak, I felt an urge to shout recriminations at him.

  “An idea occurred to me,” he said
, speaking in the low voice of a conspirator devising an impossible scheme. “There is still dynamite left in the ship. Kill a thousand more and we would liquidate the problem.”

  It was as though we were two men drowning and he had told me to drink every drop of water in the ocean. The possibility of understanding the adversary was infinitely more attractive than engaging in an uncertain and criminal fight. Why should I take part in his private war? No, I was no longer willing to slaughter the Sitauca.

  “Open your eyes, Gruner! They are defending their land, the only land they have. Who can blame them for it?”

  “You deceive yourself, friend!” he replied with a raised fist. “You are only alive because I let you into the lighthouse. They will kill us if we do not kill them. Come back to the shipwreck with me.”

  After his speech, Gruner began to act as if I did not exist. He pretended to be alone there at the fountain, unable to hear what I said.

  I carried on with my walk. It was raining and the drops sullied the snow. The ice on the trees was melting. One could hear tinkling cracks as the stalactites broke off. The path was clogged with mud. I had to leap over the worst bits. At first, the rain did not affect me at all. When my woollen cap got soaked, I simply took it off. But soon it was raining hard enough to put out my cigarette. The weather official’s cottage was closer than the lighthouse and I decided to take shelter there. My old dwelling took me in like a beggar’s palace. It was a gloomy day. I found half of a candle left behind and lit it. The flame trembled and threw dancing shadows across the ceiling.

  I was smoking and thinking of nothing in particular when Aneris appeared. It was evident that he had beaten her. I sat the creature down on the floor next to me. “Why did he hit you?” I asked without expecting an answer. I would gladly have killed him in those moments. It was becoming increasingly clear that my passion for her equalled my disdain for such a man. Aneris was drenched. This accentuated her beauty, despite the bruises. She removed her clothing.