He could also do anything with plants: he shaped them, he made them burst with flowers, he could take one that at first glance looked dry and dead and make it bloom again in no time at all. The same with people. He stripped away my willpower; all I wanted was to please him and for him to keep doing everything he did to me in bed, even though he never took off his sneakers, and sometimes, for that very reason, he left me with bruises or scraped legs.
After a while he started to change a little. And he would disappear in the middle of the night. I walked over to his room and opened the door carefully to see if he was asleep. Since he was never there, I would look out the window that faces the garden and sometimes I’d see him, up in the walnut tree, staring at Señora Andrea’s room, or at the moon. Other times he wasn’t in his room or in the garden, and I didn’t see him anywhere. I started to suspect that he had left the house. Sometimes I heard him whispering on his cell phone. He seemed a little more distant, and certain things I did began to annoy him.
On one of those nights when I looked out to see where he was, I thought I saw a shadow climbing up to the balcony outside Señora Andrea’s room. But how could I be sure when we’d had some liquor, a yellow liquor, like gold, that Ennio had brought, according to him, to celebrate. To celebrate what? I asked, thinking he was going to propose something. To celebrate life, he said. And after a glass, he pulled down my panties and fucked me against the wall just like that, half-dressed. When I woke up he wasn’t there. I looked out the window, and that was when I thought I saw the shadow. I waited for Señora Andrea to scream, turn on the light, or make some sign or call for help, but I heard nothing and saw nothing, so I went back to bed.
One day we had an ugly fight. That afternoon a guy with a face I didn’t like at all showed up at the door. I told the guy that Ennio wasn’t there, that he’d gone out; to Ennio I didn’t say a word. We had been drinking a little again, and I asked him why the fuck he never took off his sneakers. Yeah, that’s exactly how I said it, why the fuck, very rudely, because the fact is I felt slightly jealous. And that’s when he told me the secret, he told me it was something he kept hidden and that nobody needed to know, because when people found out about it they stopped loving him, or else they wanted to take control of him, of his life, and he couldn’t belong to anyone. He had a problem with his feet, he said; he’d been born that way, and it wasn’t really a problem for him, but for everyone else it was. And that he’d gotten used to nobody seeing his feet. Whenever his secret came out in the open, sooner or later he had to leave wherever he was. That’s how his life had been, he told me. He went over to the little dresser, stuck his hand in his jacket pocket, took something out, and then he came closer and showed me a picture of a lovely fountain in Italy, in Florence. I didn’t catch the name of the place, something that sounded like plaza and like señora or señoría. He said that he had come from there, traveling from town to town, from one country to another, looking for a place to stay, to settle down. That he was like the one in the fountain, and he pointed to a statue that looked a lot like him, a whole lot; then he went on talking in another language that I guessed was Italian because I couldn’t understand a word anymore. I was going to ask him so very many things… but he grew pale and he looked so awful that I decided to keep quiet.
Then he started to cry. And right then and there I felt rotten for doing that to him; I apologized, I kissed him, I undressed him carefully, leaving his sneakers on; I put him to bed and stayed there watching him till he fell asleep.
Another night I woke up suddenly, startled. Ennio was sleeping like a log, maybe still a little bit drunk. Then I couldn’t stand it anymore; I wanted to know the secret, and I couldn’t control myself any longer, so I tiptoed over to him slowly and began to untie one of his shoelaces. But it was a disaster, because he took notice, sat up quickly in bed, looked at me with a fury that came from who-knows-where, and shook his legs; I had to jump backwards so he wouldn’t kick me; then he leaped out of bed, came right up to me, I was petrified, he started shoving me around and said he didn’t expect that of me, me of all people. I felt awful, guilty, like a piece of garbage: he was right. He must’ve understood how I felt because his anger faded, he tried to calm me down, and in the end he took my hands gently, led me to the bed, asked me to sit down. He sat down too, kissed me, and said: All right, do you want to know my secret? I’ll tell you, but then I’ll have to go. Unfortunately, things always turn out this way.
No, I replied, forget about everything, don’t tell me. I’d been a fool. It didn’t matter anymore that he had a secret, or deformed feet, or whatever it was; I didn’t want him to go. But he insisted that I was the one who had made it end up like this and there was no other way out. And then he confessed it to me, he confessed he was a faun. A faun? I asked, practically shouting. He covered my mouth with one hand, saying shhh. Then he explained that he had a man’s body, but with hooves. Hooves? I repeated, now in a quiet voice and not really understanding him, while I couldn’t help directing my eyes toward his sneakers. Like a goat’s, he explained. A goat? It seemed nothing else would come out of my mouth except a repetition of what he said to me, but in the form of a question. Yes, I’m a faun; that’s why I need to be in contact with nature, keep my feet—well, hooves—on the earth; that’s why at night I escape to the garden, and when no one is watching I take off my sneakers and climb the tree or stand among the plants. That nourishes my life, gives me all the strength I have and need after so many years. What do you mean, so many years? I blurted, astonished. You’re even younger than I am. What we see is one thing, he explained, what is, is another. To be honest, it all seemed incredible to me, but, I don’t know why, I also believed him and was sure it was true. Now I could explain so many things… Then I remembered the little goats my sisters and I used to raise in the mountains of my province. Suddenly I felt very sad; I asked him for forgiveness and begged him not to go away; I swore not to tell anyone. He didn’t reply, we went to bed, we embraced, and he talked to me about fauns till we both fell asleep.
It must have been around daybreak when I thought I heard some noises I couldn’t quite identify, footsteps, running, maybe, something like a door squeaking, but my sleep and my body felt so heavy that I couldn’t wake up.
When I finally awoke it was late and Ennio was gone. I changed quickly, and while I was making breakfast, Señora Andrea came by to ask for him. I said I hadn’t seen him. She stiffened. What do you mean, you didn’t see him? You’ve got to know where he is! she screamed furiously, You’ve got to know! I didn’t understand a thing, señor, not one thing, till you arrived and then I started to understand a little.
The only thing I can tell you is that Ennio is innocent. When the thieves showed up, they must’ve seen him sitting up in the tree, with his hooves resting on the bark of the tree, looking at the moon like he did so many times, with the dogs asleep at his feet. And then he had no choice but to run away and escape without thinking of anything or anyone, to look for a new place to live. Why didn’t the dogs bark? How should I know! They aren’t guard dogs. Besides, look, how can you not believe me when his sneakers are here? They were at the foot of the walnut tree. C’mon, man, use your head. Why do you think Señora Andrea wants to find him? Go on, tell me why she hired you instead of calling the police. Not because of the things the thieves took. No, that’s not why, believe me. Do you want to know why? It’s because Ennio went away, and if you don’t find him, he’ll never crawl into her bed again and pleasure her as if, at that very moment, the world was about to end.