He would make one last effort for the doctor, the definitive warning, his charitable deed for Black Day. Am I really worried? It’s his funeral. And he set off for the doctor’s house when it was already getting dark. He did not find him, just as he would not find anyone this carnival day. There was a “flower party” at the doctor’s house, according to the old cook who came to the door. Behind her he could make out the mob of dressed-up children — not just flowers, but creepers, oaks and myrtles — their faces painted. There were still mamás in Pasto who preferred their children not to go outside to play on Black Day, but to celebrate indoors, prisoners of security, he thought. He was about to leave, wondering where he would find the doctor — possibly at Chivo’s house or the house of the seduced widow. He would try to warn him, his good deed for January 5. Then he would migrate to his own home, to drink and listen to the Ronda Lírica record with his grandfather.
“And I’ll have a rest,” he thought.
“The youngster doesn’t look as though he’s had lunch,” Sinfín then launched in. “Why do you drink? So you won’t feel afraid? Wouldn’t you rather have some sweet pumpkin empanadillas? There’s pork and plantain soup and corn parcels. If you don’t mind me saying so, you look like a ghost. What is it with the youth of today that they don’t eat? They’ll never drink like men at this rate.”
Just then another guest arrived at the doctor’s house — he must be the last child to come to the party, the late one, Puelles thought. He had a headdress on, a sort of crown of banana leaves. A campesino brought him: it was old Seráfico, steward at the finca in Sandoná, with Toño, his youngest. He brought him himself, amazed that his son should have been invited to a party at the doctor’s house.
Floridita came out to greet the guest. Beneath her disguise as a carnivorous plant, with teeth and fangs sprouting from the petals, her hard, silent smile glittered:
“We’ll bring him back to the finca tomorrow,” she said to the steward, without more ado.
It seemed to Puelles that the recently arrived child was sweating in terror. What a shy boy, he thought. Behind them, the clamour of the other children rose to fever pitch. Floridita seized Toño’s hand and led him away into the uproar, for ever.
Genoveva Sinfín repeated the invitation to the poet and the steward. Neither accepted: Puelles promised he would come back later, and Seráfico got on his high horse — as the doctor had sold the finca in Sandoná, he had no right to eat in his house, he said.
“Don’t be silly,” Sinfín told him. “Eat. There’s more than enough food here, and it’s a long way to Sandoná.”
The steward went out into the teeming carnival without answering and disappeared.
Professor Arcaín Chivo was not at home either. Puelles found it amusing that he did not understand the Latin that presided over the professor’s door, a wooden sign that read: ALTERIUS NON SIT QUI SUUS ESSE POTEST.
“It’s spelled out right there,” he thought, “another lost soul.”
No-one came to the door at Chila Chávez’s house either. Leaning against the willow tree that guarded the entry, Puelles felt faint; the old cook was right: the wanderings on January 4, added to the whirling about on Black Day, January 5, made his legs shake, now that it was getting dark. But he carried on sipping from the sea of aguardiente they offered him, and going from one toast to another, arrived home, transformed; he looked like he was made of wax. He listened to the family news: his grandfather was asleep.
What a terrible disappointment that his grandfather was sleeping.
His mother served him a cold guinea pig, cold wrinkled potatoes and icy plantain slices: “Eat it all up, like it or not,” she told him. As soon as he finished, his father insisted he go to sleep; he wanted to carry him to bed: “You’re very drunk, you oaf, you can’t go round carnival like this, drunk yes, but not so drunk, do you understand?” Puelles was sorry his grandfather was sleeping; maybe his grandfather was the one who could save him from his death (he would finally tell his grandfather everything), but he did not feel up to waking him, and remembered his famous pronouncement: “If there’s one thing that kills me it’s people waking me up when I’m asleep. What if I’m dreaming of the one I love? I’d hate the person who woke me.” “And what if I rescue you from a bad dream, Granddad, from someone just about to murder you?” Puelles imagined he might say, but he also thought his grandfather would reply: “Don’t risk it.”
No. He would not wake his grandfather.
Rodolfo Puelles said he would go to sleep, went to his room by himself and closed the door; he greeted the books surrounding his bed with a salute — too many books, he thought, an impregnable castle: at times, in the midst of so many books, he experienced the same feeling of desolation that had come over him the day he visited a hospital for the incurable.
Butting it with his forehead, he greeted the small wooden puppet hanging from the ceiling: a tormented Quixote. And he heard the lament of the familiar mouse that dwelled in the wardrobe and lived on those very books, and he stretched out full length, face down, fully dressed and with shoes on, hands linked behind his head: for a minute he made a concerted effort to sleep, yawned and closed his eyes — I’m sleeping now, he thought, I’m already asleep, already dreaming, but deep inside him, Mandarina’s townhouse carried on nagging away: he did not care what happened to the doctor, the night outside his window was an invitation, there were stars in the sky. His parents dropped their guard: he got away.
Of what happened that night — and in the early morning of January 6 that he confused with dusk — Rodolfo Puelles the secret poet would remember absolutely nothing: he would not know whether he arrived at Mandarina’s sleepwalking and sleeptalking, whether he got his girl — although you ought to remember such a cataclysm for ever, he thought — he would not know how he woke up on that isolated corner, with an empty bottle in his hand, he would not be sure whether or not he saw the Carriage of the Afterlife, he did not even remember who he was or what he was called — he panicked — what’s my name? Tomorrow they’ll call me the same as yesterday, but what’s my name today?
“Cain,” he cried.
And down the lonely road he went.
He was arriving in Unfamiliar Square — unfamiliar because he did not recognize it, he only made out a bell tower against the sky — when something landed at his feet: a stone; a dirty scrap of paper, tied with string, around a stone. He looked closely, saw lettering — a message, in the old style — he picked it up. There was no-one in the square, no window opened or closed, nothing to give away anyone who might have just thrown a message in the old-fashioned way. He untied the paper with a shaky hand and read: im the gurl in the shop yu askt yestaday if ther woz lov and i sed no. Well see yu outsyd the chirch taday at ten.
He stroked the paper, smoothing it out, and looked around him: no-one; doors and windows tight shut; the only movement on the street was Furibundo Pita’s jeep, or was it the Carriage of the Afterlife? The fearsome milk dealer was making the most of the early morning to deliver his churns before the party began: the Carriage of the Afterlife cut across the empty square honking and disappeared. He realized he was beside one of those corner shops, with two stone steps outside and a big, green wooden door, all closed up: The Spinning Top. Its old window seemed sealed shut, did someone toss the stone from there? Was it in that shop he’d asked if there was love? Did he ask a girl yesterday? And was that very white church the one for the meeting? He put stone and all into his pocket, feeling hopeful. He made out the church clock: seven in the morning. His date was at ten, White Day would be in full swing, it wouldn’t be long, oh, what to do, where to get another bottle — he fretted, and how cold he felt, how cold.