Seeing what has been revealed is an obligation, but the other thing, which appears in the misery of catastrophe, should be avoided. We must be prudent with our senses. There are things we cannot observe or hear or smell or touch or eat. A great vigilance is asked of us with respect to our organs of perception and also with respect to our desire, our need, our feelings, and our ideas. We cannot think without limitations. “Concern yourself with what it is permitted to know and forget mysterious things.” Ah, the good Talmud!
A cry led Alejandro through the wreckage, and he found a man with a roof beam buried in his chest. His skin, getting whiter by the second, contrasted with the river of blood flowing out of him. The dying man held on tight to the handle of a leather suitcase. With the wise gaze of those who are entering the kingdom of death, he offered it to Alejandro, whispering words my grandfather couldn’t understand but could only feel. The man was giving him the most precious thing in his life, the tools of his work. Why? In the worker’s eyes there was a profound need and, at the same time, the intense happiness of making an offering of his conscience to death, like a wild flower, a sacrifice pure and simple, eternal disappearance, a debt repaid, serpent on the rock, bird in the sky, ship at sea, without leaving a trace, nothing to hang on to, only a small legacy, to everyone, to someone, his instruments, more valuable than existence, his true being. Knowing that hands as dutiful as his own would continue to work with those little angels of wood and metal—wise, useful, holy—would allow him to sink into the abyss with peace.
Alejandro opened the suitcase, took out the tools, kissed them and pressed them with respect to his heart, while the dying shoemaker, with only a tiny thread of voice left, gave him their names and uses in a Spanish so full of love that Alejandro understood it as if it were Russian. Hammer to flatten the leather, pincers to place the model over the last, small pliers for working the backstitch, curved awl to form the instep, spatula to spread the wax in the heels, chisel to cut the sole, stitching awl to perforate the leather, round pliers, gouge, a box of shoe polish, a small packet of pitch, and a bobbin of linen. Seeing my grandfather put the tools back into the suitcase and take possession of them, the man gave a long sigh and gave up his spirit with a smile.
The Rabbi said, “Do you see, Alejandro? God has given you a profession. You are a shoemaker.” My grandfather clasped the suitcase to his chest and burst into convulsive weeping.
Teresa and the children called him back at the top of their lungs. They were both curious and afraid. Alejandro, scrambling over beams as sharp as knives, reached the peak and climbed up to the iron bench. His family, sitting there as if in a theater, pointed to a figure that was approaching them, jumping along and shaking its backside to wag a hairy tail that hung from its clown costume. It spoke like a human being, but its face, with its narrow, prominent forehead, its sunken little eyes, its flat nose, its big mouth, and its pricked ears, was like a monkey’s. “Hurry up, come with me! There could be another tremor!” it was shouting in Spanish. Teresa shook her head and signaled that she did not understand. The simian repeated everything in Italian, French, German, English, Dutch, Portuguese, Polish, and finally in Russian. “Hurry up, come with me! There could be another tremor!”
They all ran toward this strange polyglot. He had them board a covered wagon decorated with trees made of sheet metal, resembling a tropical forest where a monkey-like clown seemed to fly over the green treetops. He translated the large red letters that covered the rear door: “Monkey Face. Individual Circus.” Then he gave a sigh of relief.
“Whew! How lucky we were! On this street they all died. But my wagon and the horses were left untouched. But we’ve got to get out of here right away. After the first quake, there always comes another. Without a first, there can’t be a second, as the flea said. You two sit next to me and put the four kids on the sacks of straw—excellent food for horses. Now, hooves: do your duty! Giddy up, Whitey! Giddy up, Blacky.”
The horse named Whitey was black, and Blacky was white. The beasts, thanks to the minimal energy they got from the “excellent food,” moved their bones as quickly as they could, a weary trot, and huffing and puffing they left Valparaíso. As they reached a valley of dark, almost red, earth, where the trees had hard leaves that glittered like kitchen knives, the second tremor erupted. There was a terrifying roar from the belly of the earth, dense clouds of dust, cracks that opened in long mordant grins, and they heard the howl of the victims being crushed in the port.
“That’s how the damned must howl in hell,” said the simian. And since both his hands were busy keeping the wagon from turning over, he crossed himself with his right foot. He was so flexible that his big toe could reach his forehead. Finally the tremors ceased. The crickets and birds sang. Whitey and Blacky, busy with their difficult digestion, went trotting along.
“I’m not very happy. What with this earthquake, the business is failing. Between Valparaíso and Santiago there are many villages where I put on my show. But now the peasants are probably making for the port to loot the houses and bodies before the army moves in. But in the end, when the going gets tough...”
He laughed and suddenly changed the subject: “So then, the fact is that none of you speaks a word of Spanish, right? But do you have friends in Chile, relatives, some society, someone to take you in?”
“No, sir.”
“Got any money left?”
“Not even a half kopek.”
“Clothes to sell?”
“Just what we’re wearing.”
“Any jewels, some valuable object?”
“These shoemaker’s tools.”
“Indeed not, my dear sir. With those tools, you can earn your living in Santiago. And what about you, madam?”
Seraphim—that’s what Monkey Face said his name was—looked toward the deep crevice between Teresa’s breasts, where a nickel-plated steel chain hung. My grandmother, to my grandfather’s surprise—he’d never seen her do it before—blushed. Since everything in her was exaggerated, the flow of blood, erasing her whiteness, made her face look like a mask of red clay. The children burst into giggles. Seraphim stopped Whitey and Blacky with a whistle, and with his hands together as if praying he leaned over Teresa, muttering, “The Holy Virgin of dawn,” and a deep wail, like the howl of a wounded animal, seemed to escape her insides.
My grandmother broke that strange moment with a tremendous belch: “I’ve gone crazy, too! This damned earthquake has made me forget my children. They haven’t eaten for ages.”
Monkey Face opened a cardboard box, took out four bananas, and gave them to the children. To Teresa and Alejandro he passed two apples. When they’d all finished eating, my grandmother extracted the old watch from the abyss of her bosom. Inside were the seven trained fleas: Baroco, Barono, Naprepeshev, Sedila, Casque, Barila, and Semudalalá. Semudalalá was the funny one. Before she bit, she executed a series of twenty-six somersaults.
Under the curious eyes of the family but especially of Monkey Face, she placed her right wrist close to the open watch case and called: “Baroco!” A flea jumped out to bite her in the spot where pulses are taken. She then put down her left wrist and called out “Barono!” Another flea jumped out to begin its dinner. She modestly raised her skirt and placed the watch case in the concave space behind her right knee.
Seeing the gleam of skin like white marble, Seraphim bowed again, praying: “The Virgin of the Snows!”
“Your dinner, Naprepeshev!” And the third flea jumped. The other leg was offered to Sedila, who also obeyed the call. Then my grandmother opened her blouse and allowed her two mother-of-pearl watermelons out. Monkey Face swooned and fell on his back among the sacks of straw. Alejandro instantly took off his jacket and covered his wife. “Casque, Barila!” And the fifth and sixth fleas each took possession of a nipple. Teresa pushed aside her husband, pulled up her skirt, pulled her drawers down a bit, revealed her deep navel, and with a childlike grin whispered, “Semudalalá.” The last flea executed its series of
somersaults and burrowed into the delicious hole.
The children applauded. Alejandro perspired. Seraphim began to tremble like a man possessed by a fever of 104. Once their meal was finished, the seven fleas, having received no further orders, hopped toward their refuge. Teresa closed the watch case, sank it once again between her bosoms, and straightened up her clothes. The simian was panting. Alejandro, soaked from head to foot, lost his head. His eyes became bloodshot. His fly inflated. It seemed as if the monkey man had infected him with his fever. Teresa put on the rest of her clothing. Her husband took her by the hand, saturated with an authority that would have tamed a typhoon, made her jump down from the wagon, and dragged her toward a small hill covered with cactus. They disappeared from sight behind the spiny plants.
The monkey man let go the reins and again fell backward onto the sacks of straw, as if in ecstasy. The children got off the wagon to follow their parents’ footprints, at a respectable distance. It would have been impossible for them to pass through the cactus tunnel without being pierced by thorns; conversely, the intensity of Alejandro’s passion enabled him to open a path with impunity, leaving in his wake a trail dripping thick, green slime. The children followed it, carefully marking each step so they wouldn’t slip and have their eyes pierced by cactus spines.
The wind changed direction and, along with the viscous creaking of the torn cactus plants, it carried the voice of their father, a furious, painful, sexually aroused, lulling, insulting, begging voice: “You’re mine, only for me, do you understand? Something weird happened to you with that monkey. You showed him your teats and your navel. How is it possible? No one should see you, not even a monster. You are for my eyes, for my touch, for my mouth. I want no mysterious things. Wrap your will around your waist; don’t let madness take control of your sex—no disorder, no strange temptations. Give everything to me!”
In his jealous tone, there were black clouds, lightning bolts, wild gusts of wind. As he spoke, he shouted, sang, undressed his wife, tossing aside her clothes as if they were the sweaty skin of a sugary fruit. The children, picking up each item of clothing, reached the top of the hill and then saw their parents rolling, intensely coupled, over the sea of spines. When the steely points touched their skin, they burned, and the thick, hostile plants burst open to become slimy, fragrant cushions. Alejandro was moving his hips so hard he made the mountain shake.
“Take me in! Everything! Farther in! Farther still! Down to the infinity of your depth! Try to swallow my skeleton!”
It was his desperate desire for Teresa’s skin to split open and cover him like a wing, dissolving him in her blood. Then he could make his way through her totally, then nothing of her would be denied to him. He wasn’t seeking pleasure. What he sought was the explosion of his wife into thousands of burning crevices, that the pleasure he was going to give her would splatter her soul.
He moved furiously, more like a madman than an animal. With each lurch of his hips he seemed to want to give life. Enormous prickly husks fell onto his tensed back, sounding like the cracking of a whip, but it didn’t matter to him. Teresa corresponded by slapping his ribs with her inflamed bosoms, ravaging his waist between her mare-like thighs, moving her hips in a voracious grinding. But Alejandro’s despair would not abate; the more he gave, the more was asked of him. He knew his wife kept a secret, unconquerable citadel. Now his hip thrusts sounded like shots. It seemed my grandmother’s pelvic bones were cracking one by one. Attracted by the sugary juice of the smashed cactuses, hundreds, thousands of lizards began to gather, a green and shiny blot around the couple like a living halo. All those tiny tongues savoring the sap made the glassy sound of a stream. My grandfather could go no further. He threw his head back, arching his spine as if he wanted his hoarse whine to pierce the center of heaven, and sank himself totally into his wife’s stomach. She gave such a lurch that it tossed him on his back six feet way, with his sex exploding in a white bush.
“Don’t make me pregnant again! One more life is one more death! I don’t want to manufacture corpses for the Murderer!”
The semen fell onto the vegetal magma in thick, heavy drops that sank in and created small, ephemeral green crowns. From each of them was born a white butterfly. The tangle of white wings tried to seek out the light, but the lizards skillfully leaped up and carried all of them off, dying in their moist jaws.
Alejandro regained consciousness. He sank his head between Teresa’s bosoms and began to laugh shamefully. She calmed him, as if he were a child: “It’s nothing, silly boy. It’s the earthquake, it’s this new land, another sky, another sun. Soon we’ll get used to things and be just as we were. Come on, get dressed.”
The children cautiously approached their parents to hand them their clothing. Teresa checked to see if the seven fleas were in their place and, satisfied, she covered herself. Her husband as well. They took the children by the hands and went back to the wagon, strolling slowly as if they were parading through the florid gardens on the banks of the Dnieper in a year without pogroms.
Monkey Face, having recovered from his fainting spell, waited for them to climb aboard and then set the horses into motion again. “Get up there, Whitey! Get up there, Blacky!” Then, his tiny eyes filled with humility and sadness, he begged the couple: “Please, Doña Teresa and Don Alejandro, don’t misunderstand me. Don’t ascribe to me any bestial instincts. I’ve never known a woman. Besides what woman would want to be with me with this face of mine? I’m chaste, and despite being thirty I have no more experience than a child. Madam, allow me to explain my reactions. There is nothing lustful in them. According to what I’ve been told, my mother tossed me into a garbage can because I was ugly. Was she poor? Rich? Sick? A victim of rape or incest? I’ll never know. A beggar found me and dropped me off at the Red Cross. I caused a stir. I was two days old but I was covered with hair. They did all sorts of tests on me to figure out if I was a superior kind of monkey or a degenerate human. They accepted the second hypothesis. I regret it to this day.
“If they had chosen to declare me a highly evolved animal, I would have had a better life: luxury cages, first-class education, fame, worldwide respect. I was declared human, but the National Orphanage received me grudgingly and did very little to keep me alive. I grew up in a room smaller than a cage in the zoo. The guards only spoke to me to mock me, and the orphans only to teased me. And how could it be otherwise, when even the dogs barked and the cats hissed with their hair standing on end when they saw me? The only friends I had were a spider, a mouse, and a pigeon with a broken wing. When there were official parades, national holidays, Labor Day, the anniversary of the naval battle of Iquique, they left me locked up in the orphanage and absolutely forbade me to appear.
There, in the alienation and isolation of the vast building, where the dark corners hid foul perils and the shadows were as accusing as judges, I had no other refuge but the Chapel of the Three Marys. It was a long gymnasium converted into a temple. On the altar reigned three virgins. Since the guards were men, and in the orphanage the boys lived in one building and the girls in another, those statues were the only women I’d ever seen in my short life. One was white, made of marble, the Virgin of the Snows. The next was red porcelain, the Virgin of the Dawn. And the third was black, carved out of ebony, the Virgin of the Night. All beautiful, with the sweetest smiles. Taking advantage of the solitude, I climbed up on the altar to embrace them with my small arms and to cover their mouths with kisses, imagining my mother’s lips. The marble, porcelain, and ebony did not have the warmth of flesh, but to me that coldness seemed much warmer than the contempt of the guards and the orphans.
“Once I managed to steal a bottle of sleeping pills from the infirmary. Late that night, I slipped through the corridors, entered the chapel, and, kneeling before the three Marys, I decided to end my insignificant life. Just as I was about to throw a handful of pills into my mouth, a gush of milk bathed my face. At first, I saw nothing, blinded by the surge of warm liquid in my eyes. Then I r
ealized that the milk was pouring from one of the breasts of the Black Virgin.
“When that miracle ceased, another began: the White Virgin began to weep. Two streams of water ran from her eye sockets. I leapt to kiss those tears, trembling with fever. When I licked the last drops, I saw that myriad rubies were sprouting from the forehead of the Red Virgin. I thrust my chest forward so it would be stained with that precious blood.
“In their own way, my three mothers had spoken to me: ‘Place your physical pain and your spiritual suffering in us, and we will nourish you with our love. You are not alone in the world. You exist for us. For that reason, then, live for us.’ And I did just that. I cast aside the poison and decided to live. That miracle for me, for me alone, would be the secret attraction that would allow me to face society. God the Father had abandoned me, but the Holy Maternal Trinity, in its infinite pity, adopted me. I thought: I’ll have a better chance if, instead of trying to go higher, I dash downhill. Instead off fighting to attain my legitimate human place, I should exaggerate my animal behavior, make myself more monkey than human, pass over their jokes, abase myself much more than they could abase me. If I exaggerate my sarcasm, losing my dignity in the process, aligning myself with the grotesque, they will find me sympathetic. Even if my isolation is complete, I will be surrounded by laughter.
Where the Bird Sings Best Page 11
