What made these versions credible in the author’s eyes: one detail or another was indubitably true, a date here, a place description there, even an occasional rhythm — which he dubbed “oscillating truth”—: many individual elements were true and effective — had the effect of making the whole thing, the whole story, ring true. But what was ultimately false and falsified, the essence of falsification, was the way in which the apocryphal narrators strung together the accurate details — the swindle resided in the linkages; denying the Hondareda folk any right to exist in the present by transporting their lives into the realm of legend, and thereby reducing them — who was being despotic here? — to manifestations of infantile, self-pitying homesickness. “Does no one notice?” the author shouted (and in his writing shed alternately pounded the table and struck himself on the head).
And at the same time it was precisely the circumstance that he had already heard the story told numerous times, one way or the other — was familiar with it from hearsay and still more hearsay, and discovered that it was constantly being offered to him again — that tempted him to commit it finally to paper in his own way.
Precisely the fact that many versions of a story already existed had always motivated him to become its author far more than anything else, whether tragedy, comedy, unique occurrence, or whatever, and to him it was no contradiction that “author” means “originator”; when so much and so many different things were told about a topic, there must be something to it, something to mine from its “original” form.
And now every day there was a sort of Hondareda story in installments again — to the author the clearest indication that what was taking place, or had taken place, there represented a problem, in the sense that it gave him a push or rather got him moving, a subject, one that lit a fire under him. What troubled him this time was only that the story had been commissioned. But was the initial assignment still in force? When the once powerful woman from the northwestern riverport city arrived in his house on the edge of the steppe in La Mancha, after crossing the Sierra de Gredos, was she merely pretending to be his client, and then? not even pretending anymore?
Yes, it was true — thus her reply, which for a long time consisted only of a silent play of expressions, to the reporter from abroad up there on the granite outcropping — each of the new settlers of Hondareda lived primarily in isolation, at most sharing his time in the morning and evening with his young housemate, usually a grandson, often still a child.
And, yes, except for particular occasions, people there seemed to go out of their way to avoid each other. How skinny, how exaggeratedly skinny, they made themselves when they passed each other in the rocky alleys. What glassy eyes, almost rigid with fear, they had when they looked at each other, only at each other? no, also when they were walking by themselves, and the fear in that case was decidedly more noticeable, though at the same time related less to something in the present than to the lingering effect of an earlier experience, actually mitigated a bit by the encounter with a neighbor.
Yes, the way they had of giving each other the widest berth possible — even out on the open mountain tundra, even while swimming in the lake, with its patches of bog-warm water — a way of backing off and wheeling to go in the opposite direction, and if a person turned to look at another after all, he would then walk backward, backward as if rigid with fear.
And there was some truth to the observation, made in Hondareda by her opposite number up there on the rock outcropping, that the neighbors spied on one another. True: the extraordinary technical skills the new settlers all possessed were used primarily for finding out what the neighbors were up to. Yes, they had things like peri-periscopes, more sophisticated than those in submarines, in every one of their dwellings, which from the outside seemed to be shielded, or, you could say, armored, and with these devices one person could see around a thousand and one corners into another’s cooking pots and books, under lamps and cap visors, even under eyelids, could see the top of another’s head, his hands, his mouth.
But, no, it is not that they want to spy on their neighbors so as to catch them doing something or corner them. Rather, they hope this spying will allow them to be in the company of others — to feel at one with them — to be with them. Ah, now my neighbor over there is running a bath for his grandchild. And now the other neighbor is sweeping out his workshop. And now my third neighbor is finally coming home, turning on the light in his glassed-in veranda — in the Hondareda enclave they have generally reintroduced rotary switches, likewise rotary dials on the telephones — and is pacing up and down, up and down — is he not feeling well? — is turning the light off again, sitting down, bowing his head, holding his head in his hands, rocking it, moving his lips, singing, yes, the grandfather over there is singing, and even though I cannot hear the song, I recognize it, I know it, and I am singing along over here.
And it is also correct that the Hondarederos, whenever they have time — and they almost always have time — post themselves on their property lines, each on the edge of his fairly narrow lot, and lie in wait for one another. But what we are lying in wait for, with ears cocked, hands poised, and knees and feet ready to break into a dash, perhaps for instance toward a shirt blown by the wind over the wall marking the property line, a dress, a handkerchief: so that we can promptly hand it back to our neighbor, ladder to ladder against the wall, or it is a balclass="underline" if only it would fly by accident again onto my land, and I, in an elegant, utterly natural gesture, could kick it back, without a word, with sleight of foot, as if the child next door had sent it my way on purpose.
Or we intentionally lob our own ball over the property line and wait to see what will happen next. Or we lie in wait, with our whole body pressed against the wall, the impenetrable fence, the barrier of broom berries and intertwined roots, for a call for help from across the way, for sobs, for whimpers, not out of ordinary curiosity or malice, but in the sense in which we also lie in wait for a singing or humming — not random singing or humming — and also for simply a kind and gentle voice from next door.
We watch our neighbors from all sides in this fashion because we wish them only well, and because, for our part, we feel protected and reassured by whatever we see and hear them doing, just as we, for our part, allow something to blow, or throw something, over to their side, in the hope that it will be brought or thrown back.
Or we engage in small, tolerated violations of each other’s boundaries, and also of each other’s property, and thereby show that our neighbor’s land, what grows on it, and thus also our neighbor himself, attracts us and is dear to our hearts. There is no greater proof of our respect for him than for us to let him catch us — to make a point of letting him see us — as we enter his greenhouse (neither dwellings nor other buildings are locked here) and, as calmly as you please, go over to his apple, pear, or orange tree and let one, never more than one, fruit, just for our own consumption, drop into our hand, and promptly bite into it. (In Hondareda the word “let” is one of the most frequently used verbs.) And I am flattered and appeased in turn when my neighbor clambers into my yard.
And thus a saying has come into use among us: even though we give each other a wide berth when we happen to meet, etc. — which does not mean the same thing it means elsewhere — sometimes the other person calls out to me, “I saw you!” which implies, however, neither a warning nor a threat, but the opposite, and along with “Not to worry!” and “Who’s counting!” is one of the greeting formulas regularly heard in the Hondareda region.