He’ll be crying now that he’s up in his room, says Agustina, telling Aguilar what she’d been thinking at that moment, speaking to the bearded man who’s sitting across from her, listening to her, Agustina likes his beard because it’s thick and silky, she likes his graying mustache, That’s what I thought, Aguilar, but Bichi had shut himself in my room, not his, although I only learned that later, I thought he would have shut himself in his room to cry after the Punishment, as he always did, and that I was the only one he would let in, to bring him Consolation, but this time she didn’t go to him for fear of the Father who said, What are you looking at, all of you keep doing what you were doing, a command that it was impossible for me to obey, because I’d been watching television and now I couldn’t; Father kept issuing orders as if nothing had happened, You, Aminta, can go now, I congratulate you on your daughter’s birth and I agree to be her godfather, Eugenia, you keep knitting, and you, Sofi, pour me another cup of hot chocolate, please.
Was that what they were having, asks Aguilar, hot chocolate? I don’t want to talk about it, says Agustina, don’t say that word, chocolate, I don’t like it, You don’t like the word, or chocolate itself? I don’t like it, I mean it, Aguilar, I don’t want you to ask me about it anymore, what matters is that the Father’s orders demonstrate that everything is still the same in the house, but his hands suggest otherwise, because they’re trembling, I can see them tremble, Aguilar; although the Father tries to hide it he’s shaken by the ferocity of his actions, just now he’s still unaware of the Repercussions of his actions, or maybe he senses something but he doesn’t have a clear idea of what’s about to befall him, then we see you, Bichi Bichito, my little brother whom I’d so much like to see again someday, we witness your Return, now you’re coming down the stairs and you look huge and your face is shining with righteousness and beauty and there are no tears in your eyes, just a determined look that makes the Father quake and that prevents his hand from setting down the knight that he has ready for his next move, the Father never played that piece, Aguilar, the knight remained in the Father’s hand forever, you were the Knight, little brother, because in your hand you held the real playing piece, the great destructive token that would bring down the house and everything around it, too, remember Bichi Bichito, you who forgot, remember what we used to repeat in our ceremonies, that we wouldn’t use the Power, satisfied in the knowledge that it was infinite and that even though it rested in our hands we wouldn’t use it because that’s where our strength lay, in keeping it hidden and not making use of it.
Bichi came down the stairs radiating light, Agustina says to Aguilar, the younger brother turning toward us resplendent, purified by suffering, brandishing in his right hand the keys of destruction, Do you mean the photographs of your aunt? Yes, Aguilar, that’s exactly what I mean, Bichi came in holding them high and I shouted to him with my inner voice, the one that can’t be heard but that reverberates, I shouted to him from inside with all the strength of the powers that had fled me, Don’t do it, brother, remember the Oath, remember the Warning, if you show them what you’ve got, if anyone else sees, the pictures will lose their value, if you show them my powers will slip through my fingers like water, because they’re hidden powers and light makes them melt away, and I repeated the Warning: the keys of destruction only shine bright and instill terror so long as they’re hidden, you’ll vanquish me if you reveal them and once I’m vanquished no one will be able to protect you from the hand of the Father, forgive me, Bichi, a thousand times forgive me.
Why did you ask him to forgive you, Agustina? says Aguilar, Because that was the Terrible Time my powers slept but from now on Agustina won’t let it happen again, she swears to Bichi that she’ll be more careful, more vigilant, I swear to you, Bichi Bichito, trust in me again and don’t do what you’re about to do because I’ll be left helpless, and also because you swore in our ceremonies that you would never do it, that you would never let them know we had them. But Bichi did it: on the little table in the middle of the room, with everyone watching, the Father, the mother, the aunt, the older brother, and me, Agustina, the sister pleading silently for what was about to happen not to happen, the thing that split our story in two, Bichi, the younger brother, ten feet tall, He couldn’t have been that tall, Well, maybe not quite, then almost seven feet tall, That sounds more likely, Almost seven feet tall and with a halo of black curls that brushed the ceiling, he dropped the Photographs and all of us saw them, and the air kindled, the void opened beneath our feet, do you understand, Aguilar? says Agustina in a different voice, her everyday voice, What I’m trying to tell you is that from that moment on our lives were never the same again, now I see it that way but sometimes I forget.
My eyes were fixed on the floor, says Agustina to the man with the beard who’s there to listen to her, I wasn’t present in my body when my little brother turned his triumphant gaze on my mother, waiting for her to set the crown prince’s circlet on his curls because he had just overthrown the Father; there they were, before my mother’s eyes, the proofs of the Father’s failure to love, the Father’s betrayal, Tell me what that proof was, Aguilar insists, Proofs, proofs, Agustina repeats, I already told you, the Photographs, Tell me what photographs, Ask Aunt Sofi, I want you to tell me, Some photographs of Aunt Sofi’s breasts that my father had taken, slutty Aunt Sofi the slut, and my father was a slut, too, that was why now the mother would embrace her hurt child, the Lamb, why she’d fold him in her loving arms, he a victim, she a victim, and at last justice would be done and the unfaithful Father would be expelled from the kingdom, and the youngest son, the Lamb, fixed his huge eyes on his mother waiting for her warm welcome but I knew it couldn’t be, I knew it, Aguilar, I knew that no support could be expected from the mother because my powers, although they were gone, whispered with their lesser voices in my ear, telling me that it couldn’t be, that the bond between the mother and her youngest child couldn’t be cemented that way, that the bond between the mother and her daughter would never be cemented.
Do you mean you? asks Aguilar, I mean the daughter, Agustina, and that’s why I shouted, No, Bichi, don’t do it, that’s why I begged him with my inner voice, the one that makes no sound but that reverberates, Don’t do it, Bichi, you don’t know what the mother is capable of, you shouldn’t trust her, you should fear the mother’s extreme weakness, the mother’s weakness is more dangerous that the Father’s wrath, but the younger son didn’t believe it and that’s why the photographs fell there for everyone to see, the photographs that the Father had taken of the Naked and Willing Aunt, the usurper of her sister’s husband, the Terrible Aunt who would be expelled with the Father so that the mother would no longer be so sad and distant, the younger brother wanted vengeance for himself and also for the mother, so that she wouldn’t be the snow queen with the shard of ice in her heart anymore, he wanted to defeat the Father’s authority and melt his mother’s icy heart, and Bichi the Lamb, He of the Hurt Back, gazed at us all from the lofty summit of his towering height, the reign of the Lamb lasting for a single minute, the kneeling family bowing their heads at the evidence of betrayal, the sister alone remaining apart, with her eyes closed, because she was the only one who already knew, knew that the Great Revelation of the photographs had just taken place, that the mystery had been laid bare, that Pandora’s box had been opened and the Furies unleashed, and Father was transformed, for the first time Father was smaller than a dwarf, tinier than a mouse, and Aunt Sofi, she of the big breasts, covered her face with her hands, while the older brother was the only one who dared to touch the photographs and look at them one by one, and Father didn’t even try to stop him because Father was a dwarf, a mouse who could only watch for the reaction of the mother, Father was waiting for the mother to let her sword fall on him, the younger brother was waiting for the mother to let her sword fall on Father’s neck, and only I knew that it couldn’t be, that we wouldn’t seal our Pact with the mother and that on the contrary our powers would be annihilated forever and the Great Revelation would become meaningless drivel, a pathetic children’s game.