CATCHING A PAUSE IN THE BROTHERS’ GAZING, I told them what had happened to José the night before. They stared ahead and held their peace, and it was the cook who, overcoming her resentment at some ambiguous flirtations for which she’d stopped talking to me over twenty years ago, it was the cook who turned around from the stove and said José was always a good man, if he had time at night he would talk with me in the garden of the rich people’s house, if he found herbs in the fields he would bring them to me in the kitchen and I’d throw cumin, thyme, pennyroyal, mountain parsley, I’d throw everything onto the steaks and stewed lamb, but that girl he got married to, that girl he got married to…And her voice trailed off into unintelligible murmurs. I was astonished by the cook’s voice, she had greatly aged.
The oil press is close by and I went there with the brothers to see if all was in order. What we said going and coming was of no importance and I’ve already forgotten it. When we returned, lunch was ready to serve and we sat down. What we ate was a faithful replica of the town, in miniature and seen from the sky: the central square, the streets, and the white houses, all in the smallest detail. The earth and the paving stones were molded out of pork slices, the dust of the earth was pepper, the houses were mashed potatoes, the rooftops were red peppers, and there was even smoke or steam issuing from the houses’ chimneys. I also got to see the little girl awake and eating lunch. The cook had made her an enormous baby-food bear that looked like it was plush. First she ate its legs, then she ate its arms, then its trunk, then the head, and then she burped.
Before leaving town, I went to see José’s father. In his daughter’s backyard, José’s dead father was sitting in front of the chicken coop, alive. I knew he was alive, because his chest moved slowly in and out, bound to a respiration that was no longer his, since he’d abandoned his a long time ago, a time that must have seemed to him like years, for José’s father is a dead man, frozen in eternity, and in eternity, with no beginning or end, a second is eternal, and the time spent in eternity is a succession of eternities. I sat down next to him and realized, from his gaze obliviously fixed on a point he didn’t see, that he was dead. No one can do you any more harm. Where you are, silence is an agony. And you never fled from suffering, as you never fled from life. Mourning weighs heavy on us, friend, but whoever flees from it will be its worst victim. We both know this. You can no longer rest, the invincible depths of death have sucked you into its infinite interior. You’re falling, sucked down, in that longest of descents. Your body, your drooping arms, your open hands, your uncertain legs, your hunched back, your aimless gaze, and your frightened face are in this backyard, next to me, but you aren’t here, dear friend. You were once strong, and today you’re much stronger, for you’ve crossed through the gates of death and entered its garden of despair, and you’re where blackness doesn’t end in a new day. You’re on the path that can only be traveled alone and at night, for we all have a gate and a garden to cross into, alone, at night, beneath and above and amid fear. You’re dead and, inside death, you know you’re dead. We both know. All that you imagined in the word hope has lost its meaning. There is no hope, for we’re too small, we amount to very little. We’re a pine needle before a fire, we’re a speck of dirt before an earthquake, we’re a drop of dew before a storm, dear friend. The world, indifferent to the world that contained José’s father and that José’s father contained in himself, went on. The chicks emitted a light rain of mournful peeps, the chickens clucked with indignation, the rooster occasionally squawked. Even in the shade the sun seethed and burned. In the enclosed area behind the backyard wall, the sun raised a sweltering mist of the leavings from a small wheat field. And without talking, since words are the worst way of saying something, I looked at José’s father, knowing he couldn’t hear me, and said your son is in a bad way, your son is suffering. And I said no more. Not because I had no more to say but because there was no way to say it, not even without words. There’s no way to explain all that we’re saying when we say suffering.
THE AFTERNOON IS WANING. I can finally let in a little light through the windows, rescuing the house from the shadows. José looks the same. I covered him with a sheet, I propped him up with two pillows, as if he were sitting before getting out of bed, and he looks the same, eyes wide open, wanting to swallow the world with his gaze. The baby is peacefully playing with a wooden spoon on the quilt I spread on the kitchen floor. I wish I could be so peaceful. The afternoon isn’t waning in me. In me the day seethes and evening won’t arrive. All my days are sure to seethe. All my days will seethe until I cease, and afterward; all my days will be August and the hot season; all my days will forever be the summer roasting me like a torturer with red-hot irons. That much I’m sure of. I leave the door open, to keep an eye on the baby, and go into the little garden. I fill the watering can and sprinkle the flowers. How I’d love to be a mallow and be watered. How I’d love to be a mallow and endure the hottest hour knowing I’d have water like this, so cool and real, dripping down my leaves and throat, soaking my roots and hair. The afternoon is waning. Soon I’ll see old Gabriel coming up the slope to the house. The afternoon is waning. The plain is old from having seen so much. It knows the life of the birds, which it releases as messengers into the sky; it knows the life of the cicadas, which it shelters in its skin so that they can sing after the heat has passed; it knows the life of people, which it allows and mercifully buries. The cork trees in the distance bow toward the earth as much as possible, wanting the coolness they feel in their roots all over their trunks, all through their sap, in their highest branches; they bow toward the earth as if condemned, bewailing the sun that singes their cork, just as it does a child’s soft skin. I place my fingers under the water that comes out of the zinc can’s tiny holes. I see old Gabriel, coming up the slope to the house. Good afternoon, he says. I reply by looking at him. He enters the house through the open door without asking permission, since, José being here, he never asks permission. The baby holds still while looking at him, and Gabriel remains still while looking at the baby. An old man more than a hundred years old and a child who knows nothing about the world. An old man who knows everything about the world and a six-month-old child. I set down the watering can. I start walking toward the bedroom window. Still at some distance, I can see that the old man has sat down in the wicker chair. I walk closer to the bedroom window. I lean against the wall and make not even the sound of breathing. The two men are silent. Standing next to the wall, I look at the rich people’s house across the way and listen at the window, which I’d cracked open to let in some air so that it would clear José’s mind of idle musings, and I can hear that they are silent. The pigeons stop fluttering around the eaves of the rich people’s house and stare at me, leaning against the wall. Old Gabriel breaks the silence of a multitude that shouts the end of afternoon, he adds his own words to it, saying don’t go back into town anytime soon, don’t go, I’ve heard that the devil means to do you more harm, I’ve heard he has a grudge against you and means to do you more harm; if you have any respect or consideration for me, don’t go back into town; for your miserable father’s sake, for your mother who so loved you, for your son in the next room, don’t go back into town; wait a month or two, I beg you, but don’t go back into town anytime soon.