The young Bride was silent for a while, listening to the most beautiful sound in the world, then she turned to the Daughter.
You’re always talking about the Uncle, you know? she said.
I know.
You like him.
Of course. He’s the man I’m going to marry.
The young Bride burst out laughing.
Be quiet, or they’ll leave, said the Daughter, annoyed.
The young Bride tucked her head between her shoulders and lowered her voice.
You’re crazy — he’s your uncle, you can’t marry an uncle, it’s idiotic, and above all it’s forbidden. They wouldn’t let you.
Who else would take me, I’m a cripple.
You’re kidding, you’re magnificent, you…
And then he’s not my uncle.
What?
He’s not my uncle.
Of course he is.
Who told you?
Everyone knows, you call him “Uncle,” he’s your uncle.
He’s not.
You’re telling me that that man…
Be quiet, if you don’t look at them they’ll stop doing it.
So they returned to the yellow-feathered birds that came from far away to play the water. It was surprising how many details had agreed to meet in a single instant to produce the weld of that perfection: it wouldn’t have been so smooth on a lake that rippled slightly, and other, more astute insects would have been able to complicate the flight of the birds, just as without the silence of the dull countryside every sound would have been lost, however glorious. Yet no detail had failed to appear, or been delayed along the way, or ceased to believe in its own minuscule necessity: so every slither of the yellow feathers over the water offered the spectacle of a successful passage of Creation. Or, if you like, the magical opposite of a Creation that hadn’t happened, that is, a detail that had escaped the otherwise random genesis of things, an exception to disorder and senselessness. In any case, a miracle.
They let it go. The Daughter enchanted, the young Bride attentive, yet still lingering a bit on that business of the Uncle. The beauty of the sunset escaped them both — a rare occurrence, for, as you must have noted, there is almost nothing that can distract you from a sunset once it has caught your eye. To me it happened only once, that I can remember, owing to the presence of a certain person beside me, but it was the only time — it was in fact a unique person. Normally it doesn’t happen — but it happened to the Daughter and the young Bride, who had before them a particularly elegant sunset and didn’t see it, because they were listening to the most beautiful sound in the world, repeating itself over and over, the same, then a last time, not different. The yellow-feathered birds disappeared into a distance of which only they possessed the secret, the countryside returned to being obvious, as it was, and the lake mute as they had found it. Only then the Daughter, still lying down, still staring at the surface of the lake, began to speak and said that one day many years earlier she and the Son had gotten lost. He was seven, I was five, she said, we were children. We were walking through the countryside, we did it often — it was our secret world. But we went too far, or, I don’t know, following something, I don’t remember — maybe an illusion, or a presentiment. Darkness fell, and with the darkness the fog. We realized it too late, there was no way to recognize anything and the road back had been swallowed up by a wall we didn’t know. The Son was afraid, and so was I. We walked for a long time, trying to keep going in the same direction. We were both crying, but silently. Then we seemed to hear a sound that pierced the fog; the Son stopped crying, his voice became firm again, he said, Let’s go there. We couldn’t even see where we put our feet, sometimes it was hard, icy earth, sometimes a ditch, or mud, but we went on, we followed the sound, we heard it getting closer. It turned out to be a mill wheel, its blades turning in a kind of canal, the mill dilapidated, the wheel straining, rattling all over the place, and that was the sound. Stopped in front of it was an automobile. We hadn’t seen many in our lives, but our father had one, we knew what it was. Sitting at the wheel was a man, and he was sleeping. I said something, the Son didn’t know what to do, we approached, I started to say we’d better go, and the Son said be quiet, then he said We’ll never find the way home, the man was sleeping. We spoke softly, so as not to wake him, but still raising our voices a little, every so often, because we were arguing, and were afraid. The man opened his eyes, looked at us, and then said: Get in, I’ll take you home.
When they opened the door at home, the Mother started shrieking something silly but very joyful. The Father approached the man and asked him to explain. At the end he shook his hand, or hugged him, I don’t remember, and asked if we could do something for him. Yes, he said, I’m very tired, would you mind if I sit down here for a moment to sleep? Then I’ll go. He lay down on the sofa, without even waiting for the answer. And he fell asleep. He hasn’t left since, because he’s still sleeping, and because it would be tremendously sad to see him leave. It was the Son who first called him “Uncle,” a few days later. He remained “Uncle,” forever.
The young Bride thought for a while.
You don’t even know who he is, she said.
No. But when I marry him he’ll tell me everything.
Wouldn’t it be right to have him tell first and then, eventually, marry him?
I tried.
And he?
He went on sleeping.
And it is what I more or less continued to do when the Doctor, in an intolerable outburst of the obvious, told me that the heart of the problem lay in my inability to understand who I am. When I remained silent, the Doctor repeated the obvious, maybe expecting that in some way I would react, for example by explaining who I was, or by admitting, instead, that I didn’t have the slightest idea about it. But in reality what I did was continue to nap for a while. Then I got up and wearily headed toward the door, saying that our collaboration ended there. I recall using exactly those words, even if they now seem to me excessively formal. He burst out laughing, but it was a forced laugh, probably called for by the books, something studied, something that seemed to me so intolerable that it goaded me to an unexpected action — as much for the Doctor as for me. That is to say, I grabbed the first thing that came to hand — a table clock of moderate dimensions but with sharp edges, and solid — and hurled it at the Doctor, hitting him right in the shoulder, not in the head as the newspapers erroneously reported, with the result that he fainted, it’s not clear if out of pain or out of surprise. Nor is it true that later I kicked him savagely, as one newspaper, which has hated me for years, claimed — or at least I don’t remember having done that. Some extremely unpleasant days followed, in which I refused to release any statement at all, tolerating every sort of intolerable gossip, and being charged, without particular interest, with assault. Understandably, since then I’ve shut myself in the house, limiting my outings to the strictly necessary and sinking slowly into a solitude by which I’m frightened and, at the same time, protected.
I have to admit that, judging from the photos that came to me from my lawyer, it would seem that I really did strike the Doctor in the head. What aim.
The road was already dark when they returned, the Daughter with her Cubist gait, the young Bride with her mind on certain vague thoughts of her own.
They pretended not to notice, but the truth is that the deliveries began to become less frequent, leaving empty, nameless days, according to rhythms that seemed irrational and so somewhat inconsistent with the mind of the Son as they had known it. An Irish harp arrived, and the next day two embroidered tablecloths. But then nothing, for two days. Sacks of seeds one Wednesday, and nothing until Sunday. A yellow tent, three tennis racquets, but in between four days of nothing. When an entire week passed without a single ring from the post office by which to measure the time of the wait, Modesto decided to ask, respectfully, for a meeting with the Father. He had prepared his opening sentence with care. It was in line with the Family’s deep-rooted inclinations, which were historically alien to any sort of pessimism.