Eugenia had the habit of traveling for a week each year with her three children to Disney World, in Florida, and she invited me to come along but I refused on some pretext, unable to confess that I had my own Mickey Mouse at home, of course. That week was the most important week of the year for me; you can’t imagine, Aguilar, what a good time Carlos Vicente and I had, without ever having to pretend or hide because Eugenia herself took the opportunity to give the servants their vacation, Will you cook for Carlos Vicente, Sofi? she asked me as she was packing, and I said, Of course I will, don’t worry, I’ll see to it, and see to it I certainly did! We danced at the cheap dance halls or we went to see Mexican movies, always downtown or in the south of the city, in those working-class neighborhoods where there was no way anyone we knew would go, you know it’s farther from the north to the south of Bogotá than it is from here to Miami, if you could’ve seen Carlos Vicente, always such the society gentleman that he looked as if he’d swallowed an umbrella, well, in the anonymity of the south he loosened up, he was nicer to people, he danced like a dream in the dive bars, we loved to go to the Swan, the Loose Screw, the Salomé, the Pagan Delight; we found out where Alci Acosta and Olimpo Cardenas were performing and we went to hear them sing, tipsy and swooning until dawn, life only gave us a week each year, but I swear, Aguilar, we knew how to make the best of it.
Well, it was while Eugenia and the children were away one time that we discovered how much fun we could have taking photos. I knew how much Carlos Vicente liked the Playboy bunnies, and I made fun of him, What strange kind of animal are men, I’d say to him, that they prefer paper women to women of flesh and blood, and since he was an excellent photographer, he came up with the idea of photographing me naked and I was happy to oblige; Now next to the fireplace, he directed, all right, now on your way down the stairs, now on the rug, now do your hair like this, now put that on, now take everything off, I swear to you, Aguilar, I never saw Carlos Vicente so excited, he took five or six rolls that he sent away to be developed, where I don’t know, far from the neighborhood anyway, and then we would pore over the best ones, and make fun of the bad ones, in some I looked too fat and I covered his eyes so he couldn’t see them. Incredible, I interrupt her, I bet that collection wasn’t included in the family album alongside the first Communion pictures, Be quiet, Aguilar, let me finish telling you this before I regret it, a day or two before the travelers’ return we’d say goodbye to all that and burn the photographs in the fireplace, but sometimes there was one he liked a lot, and he’d say to me, Nothing can make me burn this picture, because it’s a work of art and you look gorgeous, Don’t be stubborn, Carlos Vicente, it’ll cause problems later on, Don’t worry, Sofi, he’d soothe me, I’ll keep it in the safe at my office and no one knows the combination.
I stop the music and pour another round of Ron Viejo de Caldas and just then Agustina appears in the living-room doorway in the same dirty sweatshirt that she has refused to take off since the dark episode, with the bewitched expression of someone waiting for something that won’t take place in the world she shares with the rest of us, and she shows us the pair of saucepans she’s holding. Oh God! sighs Aunt Sofi, lowering her feet resignedly from the cushions, she’s starting up that water business again.
GRANDMOTHER BLANCA and Grandfather Portulinus leave the old myrtle and walk toward the river. Portulinus advances with difficulty through the dense weave of too-intense greens; he’d like to cover the pores and orifices of his body so that the clinging vegetal smell won’t work its way into him, and he’s dazed by the heat and the damp, stopping to scratch his ankles, swollen with mosquito bites. Just a little bit farther, Nicholas, says Blanca, we’re almost there, and when your feet are in the water, you’ll feel better. It’s true, I can already hear the river, he says with relief, because the redemptive tumble of the waterfall has begun to reach his ears, the crash of clean water against the rocks of the precipice is nearby now. It’s the Rhine! Portulinus exclaims with barely contained emotion, and his wife corrects him, It’s the Sweet River, dear, we’re in Sasaima. In Sasaima, of course, he repeats with a fragile laugh to hide his confusion. Of course, my darling Blanca, you’re right as always, this is the Sweet.
Before leaping into space, the water pauses docilely in a pool surrounded by smooth black stones; husband and wife sit on one of the stones and Blanca helps Nicholas roll up his trouser legs and take off his boots and socks, and he, more relaxed now, lets the pleasant coolness of the water rise up his feet, flood his body, and soothe his mind, How lovely it is, Blanquita, how lovely it is to watch the water flow, and she tells him that she’s worried about the chronic flu that Nicasio, the steward, has. It must be consumption, says Portulinus. Not consumption, Nicholas, don’t say such things, God forbid, it’s just the flu, but the problem is that it’s chronic. Chronic flus are called tuberculosis, says Nicholas. In German, maybe, she replies, laughing, and he says, I like when you laugh, you look so pretty. Then she tells him, The Uribe Becharas loved the bambuco you composed for them for their daughter Eloísa’s wedding. They liked it? he asks, I thought it would bother them because of the part about love bleeding out slowly drop by drop. And why would that bother them, when it’s so pretty. Yes, but you’re forgetting that the father of the groom died of hemophilia. Oh Nicholas! you’re obsessed with illnesses today. Come here, Blanca my dove, let me hold you and together let’s watch the innocent way the water idles in the pool before it falls. There you have the lyrics for another bambuco, she jokes, and they continue on in the same vein, speaking about the things that make up their daily lives, about how many eggs the hens are laying, the lateness of the long rains, their daughter Eugenia’s love of birds and their daughter Sofía’s passion for dance, and Portulinus’s speech flows smoothly and coherently until Blanca sees that the river, which lulls and calms him, has put him to sleep.
The Rhine, says Portulinus from his doze, and he smiles, half closing his eyes. Not the Rhine, my darling, the Sweet. Leave me be, woman, let my memory drift, what’s the harm in that? the Recknitz, the Regen, the Rhine, he repeats, speaking slowly to savor the sonority of each syllable, and he doesn’t mention the Putumayo, the Amazon, or the Apaporis, which are also melodious though real and in this hemisphere, but the Danube, the Düssel, and the Eder, which are very far away if they’re anywhere at all, making Blanca realize that it’s time to go home. She dries his feet with her skirt, rubs saliva on the mosquito bites so they don’t sting, slips his boots back on him, tying the laces well so that he won’t step on them, takes his hand and leads him away, because she knows that she must prevent Portulinus’s dreams from chasing after the sounds of the water. On one of the pages in her diary, Grandmother Blanca will write, “When he’s tired and nervous from too much work, it soothes Nicholas to watch the river, but if he stays too long, he begins to get excited and then we must leave as soon as possible.” What Grandmother Blanca doesn’t say in her diary is that when Grandfather Nicholas repeats the names of the rivers of his country, the Aisch, the Aller, and the Altmülh, the Warnow, the Warta, and the Weser, he does it in strict alphabetical order. A madman’s habit, manias destined to send him to his grave, or to put it another way, tics and repetitions that help him disconnect from reality, or at least from what’s real for someone like Blanca. The Saale, the Spree, the Sude, and the Tauber, intones Nicholas like a prayer, and inside of him a noise begins to echo and carries him away.