There was less dust in the cemetery than on the street, but the wind’s wings shook everything. A wreath, its flowers still fresh, was blown off a niche — I couldn’t tell you which one — and a small bouquet rolled till it came to a stop at my feet. I strolled among tombs with statues on top. One looked like a little house, round with a roof over it, covered in ivy and surrounded by agaves so old they scared me. I walked further, pausing in the center of a more sheltered path so I could think about something. I didn’t hear it coming, but suddenly a powerful gust of wind, like a tremendous flapping of wings, would have knocked me to the ground had I not grabbed hold of a tree trunk. The wind seemed to laugh as it blew through the cemetery, whistling and raising leaves. I stood in the middle of the path, thinking that earth is earth, no matter what color it is, no matter where it is, and that meant the earth in the cemetery I had just entered was the same as in the cemetery where my poor dead man slept. The realization consoled me. I moved away from the tree — a twisted olive tree, canted to one side, tortured by the wings of every wind — and right beside it I noticed a very simple tomb, which I immediately liked because the sun and the night chill had gnawed at the stone, giving the impression that it was abandoned. To make it mine, I stroked it. A cluster of weeds, with yellow flowers so shiny they looked like porcelain, had sprouted in the crack between the horizontal slab and the headstone that bore the name of the person who had died. My poor dead man would have liked those flowers. After that I couldn’t get them out of my mind. I saw them in every patch of sun, on a girl’s yellow scarf, on yellow-striped flags. I explained all this to the face on the wall, which appeared as soon as the light was switched off, emerging from a smudge the color of bile. First the eyes and mouth. The forehead and cheeks — the flesh — took longer. The face was partially rubbed out; it didn’t disturb anyone, didn’t make me want to run away or scream. Sometimes it wept. The entire face would grimace, and a glistening tear would spring from the right eye; the tear would tremble a moment, till it detached itself and rolled down the cheek. Nothing, however, remained on the wall the following day during the sunlit hours.
“We don’t like visitors using this holy place to eat lunch. This is the last time!” I had never laid eyes on the gravedigger before. I’d gotten in the habit of going to the cemetery daily, for more than a week, ever since that windy day. He must have noticed me right away, because twice I had eaten only a tiny piece of bread with chocolate, seated by the tomb, so I wouldn’t waste time going home for lunch. I stared at him as if I hadn’t heard a word he said; he grumbled as he walked away, a small wrinkled man pushing a cart filled with leaves. I wasn’t at all happy about it.
I arranged the little yellow flowers so they would drape across the letters on the headstone, concealing them. I would have erased them had I been able, because they kept me from believing what I wanted to believe: that the dead man I loved, mine, was buried there. From time to time, I brought him a flower, sometimes large, sometimes tiny. The gardener around the corner knew me by now, and without my ever asking him, he would wrap it in silver paper to make it pretty. I would lean down, positioning the flower just right; then I would gaze at it from the olive tree, my arm around the trunk. I prayed. You can’t exactly say I prayed, because I’ve never been able to say an entire prayer. A buzzing fly distracts me. Anything does, even if it isn’t moving. Sometimes I would think of the dead person I didn’t know inside that tomb and try to imagine what he looked like, walking along the street, dressed up and breathing. Or I would talk to Jesus, whom I loved the moment I saw him on those cards at church. But thinking about the Holy Ghost had always made me laugh; what can you expect of a dove? “Dear Jesus, help me to be able to afford the flower, and keep the gravedigger from scolding me.” Sometimes, instead of talking to the sweet, blonde boy who walked the world barefoot while his father made little wardrobes and cupboards, I would long to know what kind of blue the distant sky was. Or at night, as I gazed at the face on the wall gazing at me, I would take a piece of sky and spread it over me.
All Souls’ Day was approaching. I stopped going to the cemetery the week before. It was like a circus, filled with families cleaning tombs and niches, taking bouquets of chrysanthemums and lilies to their poor little loved ones. I missed my visits so much that I was almost ill. It was as if I’d been thrown down a well and the light had been extinguished. I dreamed about the yellow flowers, the iron-colored agaves with their bayonet-pointed leaves, the avenue with its rows of cypress trees on either side. By the time I decided to return, I had wings on my feet. When I reached the beginning of the path, I stopped short, dropping the flower I was carrying. I didn’t recognize my tomb. Someone had painted the letters, just a splash of gold, not black or gray, and the flowers in the crack were gone. A few yellow petals lay drying on top of the tombstone. I picked up three. I didn’t know what to do with them, but instinctively I hurried over to the olive tree, the petals in my hand. I wept and wept until nightfall. The thought of quitting the cemetery upset me. I felt as if something terrible would happen the moment I left, but I was cold and my eyes stung. Before starting off, I glanced around me. Everything seemed sweet and light, but my legs felt heavy as lead, and I was afraid that the gravedigger might have already shut the gate. Suddenly I heard the sound of wings above the cypress trees, as if a huge bird had caught its feet in a tangle of branches and wanted to escape but couldn’t. Then the wind started blowing.
I slept terribly. The sheets, my arms, the face on the wall — everything harried me. When I got up, I was more tired than when I’d gone to bed, but I was determined not to be frightened. I would find another clump with the little yellow flowers and plant it in the crack between the stones; there had to be plenty of them in the cemetery on the paths I’d never taken. When the plant grew tall, I would train it to cover the letters. The rain would remove the paint. A surprise awaited me: on the tomb lay a bouquet of flowers, pink and young as morning. I hugged the olive tree, breathing fast, my lungs demanding air. The sky that had been serene began calmly to fill with clouds. When the rain started, careful that the gravedigger didn’t see me, I grabbed the bouquet as if it were a nest of vipers and hid it in some shrubs.
Nothing could reassure me. I visited the cemetery at every hour of the day, trying to determine who had brought the flowers and pulled up the plant. Just when I was about to believe that the person never existed, that it was all the gravedigger’s fault, I discovered a dozen white chrysanthemums, tied together with a shiny ribbon, on the tomb. I felt ill. I knelt down on the ground and leaned against the olive tree, sobbing and drinking in my tears. I could afford only one flower. I have no idea how many hours passed, but I realized it was late because the sky had turned pitch dark. Something fluttered in the darkness: was it a shadow, a huge, extended wing? The thing blended with the black night so much that I told myself my senses were playing tricks on me, that what I saw wasn’t true. When the tomb was taken from me, I could think of nothing else, I was so desperate, and from then on I never again saw the face on the wall. It had probably never existed. The face wasn’t on the wall but in my thoughts. My poor dead man didn’t remember me, he couldn’t. It was I who remembered him. To reassure myself, I exclaimed out loud, “It’s a dream.” So is the wing, and I too am inside the dream. It was all false. But directly above my head some real wings fluttered, making me duck, and the wind tousled my hair. “I’m locked in the cemetery.” I raced down the barely visible paths, not knowing where I was placing my feet, thinking constantly that I was going to fall and chip a tooth. The gate was shut. I was terrified at the thought of spending the night among the dead, with the sound of wings and shadows, gusts of wind springing up out of nowhere, soughing in the branches. I raised my eyes to the sky, pleading for mercy, and as I was looking, the hinges began to creak. Someone I couldn’t see had opened the gate. “Thank you, dear Jesus.”