Son. I wish there were a breeze that would explain to me your smile and another breeze that would explain to you, without hurting you, my silence. I wish I could learn the grin on your lips, the look of your eyes, and remind you of them when you’re my age. I was your innocence once. And what it left me with was the huge innocence of believing. I believed I could give you a sky for you to play in and that life would be what we wanted. Just like that. Just by wanting, by trying hard, by working, we’d have what we longed for. I don’t mean grandiose things, fancy clothes or horse-drawn carriages, but food, tasty and wholesome food, and a new cardboard horse, should you happen to forget yours in the backyard on a rainy night. I believed that the joy of your eyes and smile could return to your mother’s and to my eyes, and remain intact in your own. I believed in so many things. I’m nearing the town, and I know what to expect: to die a little more. I’d rather you didn’t know, but unfortunately not even this can I hide from you, because one day, when they tell you the story of your life, they’ll tell you that on a starry night your father went into town and was beaten up; they’ll tell you that a few days earlier he’d already been beaten up in the fields and that he kept on his path, with a bandage around his chest, knowing what to expect. They won’t tell you that he thought about you while keeping on his path, and he told you secrets. They won’t tell you, because they can’t grasp this, that your father kept going for you, for you to have at least a sliver of what he dreamed of for you, for you to have some slight protection from what’s stronger than you, always much stronger. They’ll tell you that your father was beaten up, and beaten up again, and you’ll be ashamed of me. The years will gradually erase everything I thought was sure but never was, until all that’s left is what actually happened, and finally even that will be forgotten. The years will erase me, you’ll see. And this doesn’t make me sad, because I’ve always known that’s how it would be. But I have to tell you this: I never wanted to desert you. If I did so, it was against my will. Beautiful, tiny son, happy and free. I’ve just entered the town. The people look at me, uttering drawled good evenings. I know you’re too young to understand everything I want to tell you, but from all of this I’d like you to remember at least the word father, at least the word father. I’d like you to look me in the eye, even when I’m long gone and share with the earth its solitude; I’d like you to learn and discover what I thought for you on this night. I’m in the square. I’m in the general store. On one side of the counter: the devil’s smile. On the other side: the hunched giant, his head touching the ceiling.
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YESTERDAY I HEARD A WAGON go by in the middle of the night, and I looked out my bedroom window. It was Paulo’s son, and he was hauling José. I put on boots and went outside, in my undershirt and long johns, to see in what state he’d been left this time. His eyes were wide open, as when I brought him from the fields in a wheelbarrow, and his body was beaten to a pulp. There was no blood on his face. I told Paulo’s son to keep going and sent my greetings to his father. I looked out my bedroom window, I saw the wagon reach José’s house and his wife open the door before anyone knocked. She didn’t seem shocked or upset. She didn’t speak. She grabbed under the arms, Paulo’s son grabbed the legs, and they carried José’s body into the house. The wagon headed back into town, its squeaky iron wheels occasionally making sparks against the stones and the mules walking faster than their age. José’s wife came to shut the door, and although my lights were out, she looked at me, as if she could see through the dark or had the eyes of a cat. She shut the door.
Today, when I arrived at the house of Moisés, Elias, and the cook, they were all still in bed. I knocked on the door, I called, I knocked, and I sat down on the stone bench outside the house of the man shut up in a room writing. A young man passed by who seemed to be about forty years old and whom I didn’t know, for I’ve lost track of those who are born and die or move away, of the children and grandchildren of this or that person, and of the great-grandchildren and great-great-grandchildren of this or that person whom I did know, yes, with them I spun many tops and gleaned many olives. A young man passed by whom I didn’t have the patience to ask whose son are you? whom I didn’t have the patience to ask whose grandson are you? whom I didn’t have the patience to ask whose great-grandson are you? A young man passed by who greeted me very politely and told me, in almost a whisper, to tell José not to come back into town anytime soon, because the devil meant to do him more harm, because the devil had a grudge against him and meant to do him more harm. I didn’t ask the young man how he knew this, I merely said yes, I’d give him the message. The young man was passing by the fountain’s weak trickle when I heard the lock turn in the door to the brothers’ house. It was the bleary-eyed cook. I handed her a sack of late-season peas and went in. The brothers were drinking coffee and eating some odd-looking biscuits, shaped like pacifiers. The thin white hair of both Elias and Moisés was uncombed, and it was the latter who told me the kid won’t let us sleep. Elias whispered into his brother’s ear and Moisés turned to me and repeated she doesn’t sleep at night, but if you look at her now, she’s sleeping like a princess. And indeed she was. The cook’s house wasn’t very big. The largest room was the kitchen; it had a fireplace with a fire that was always lit and surrounded by pots, a washbasin, a table, and a sink, and the walls were covered with all sorts of enamel, aluminum, and even copper pots and pans. A door in the kitchen led to the backyard, where Moisés kept a cabbage patch that was always luxuriant, thanks to all the manure it received, for it was in the backyard that they did their necessities. The bedroom was small for the size of the bed where they all slept, and even smaller with the little crib wedged between the bed and the wardrobe. One of the bedroom walls abutted the house of the man who writes in a room without windows, and Moisés told me that at night, when the baby forgot to cry or she paused to regain her strength, they could hear the fountain pen tracing letters on paper, they could hear their neighbor crumpling page after page, and they could sometimes even hear him dip his pen ever so softly in the inkwell. I cracked open the bedroom door and it was just like Moisés had said. The girl, uncovered, contentedly slept like a grown-up. Her large and very round cheeks whistled a cadenced sigh, her full-fleshed tummy bulged out of her diaper, and her legs, full of folds, were spread apart in leisurely abandon. I gently closed the door and turned back to the brothers’ haggard faces. The cook was cooking. Moisés explained that he was very fond of his baby girl and that when he looked at her it was as if he were looking at a sun, but he hadn’t had a good night’s rest since she was born three months ago. Elias, nodding his head slowly, concurred. The eyes of both brothers had become smaller, being surrounded by black rims and sunken into their sockets, as if dropped to the bottom of a well. When the cook was pregnant, everyone thought she was carrying twins that would perhaps also be stuck together. Everyone thought this because the cook’s belly was bigger than two pregnant bellies, and on the day when her nine months burst, there was room in there for a three-year-old or, if the suspicions were confirmed, for two children aged one and a half. In spite of her unprecedented belly, she never stopped cooking and making treats to satisfy her cravings: floating cream puffs with sardines, pigeons stuffed with sponge cake, gelatin with pork testicles. Halfway through winter, when the cook was seven months pregnant, they were all sleeping when a muffled cry reverberated throughout the bedroom and woke them up. They realized it had come from the cook’s belly, her belly that was a mountain covered by blankets. And the cook said it already has a voice, and, taking her belly in her arms, she began singing a lullaby interspersed with yawns until the unborn creature quieted and fell asleep. On the day when the cook’s water broke and she began panting like a fox under a hot sun, the brothers went to notify the midwife, who in turn notified her brother, who had a carpenter’s bench and made coffins. She’s no doubt carrying twins, and as old as she is she’s sure not to make it, said the midwife in a low voice, convinced of the failure she considered self-evident. The delivery lasted more than twelve hours, and as the morning wore on people began gathering at the front door of the house where the cook and the brothers lived. After lunch the crowd reached the door of the house of the man shut up in a room writing. After supper the crowd reached as far as the fountain at the end of the street. The midwife marveled at the hardiness of the cook, who did almost everything by herself. Nearly all of the townspeople were in the street commenting and making bets, when Moisés came to the door struggling with the weight of the baby girl in his arms. Rosy-cheeked, she weighed twenty-four pounds, and never had the town seen such a chubby baby. She was born with her eyes open, astonished at the world. Everyone on the street clapped their hands, cheered and hoorayed, and they carried the baby, the midwife, Moisés, and Elias in the air. They threw a dance, which didn’t last into the early morning only because the next day was a workday. The cook, very sore, slept in the bedroom.