How warm the water feels.
GENARO HASCOMB
Genaro Hascomb had the face of a rabbit. His blond eyes, the same color as his hair, seemed always uneasy. He always looked sideways and never straight ahead. His small mouth, with its thin lips, was always chewing a blade of grass, tobacco leaves, or a toothpick broken into three pieces. He was a farmer, skilled at growing tomatoes and lettuces. His last name led to misunderstandings.
“Genaro Hascomb. …”
Before the other person had finished the sentence my mother would interrupt:
“Where is he?”
“I don’t know.”
“Didn’t you say he has come?” my mother would protest.
“I didn’t say he has come,” the other person would reply.
“Oh, Hascomb, the farmer,” my mother would say. “I always forget his last name. I can’t get used to these strange names.”
In the end, the other person forgot the reason for mentioning Genaro Hascomb in the first place.
Genaro Hascomb worked on a farm where my mother bought vegetables. Genaro got sick and was on the verge of selling the farm, but he discovered a healer in Magdalena who cured him of his ills.
SARA CONTE
Sara Conte was of medium height. She seemed nice, and, though not pretty, she was attractive. She had a way of wrinkling her nose when she laughed that awakened a certain trust or tenderness in men. However, her nastiness soon peeked through: one day in an argument, another day because of some mishap, another because of jealousy or envy that someone aroused in her. Her victims would receive gifts. The first gifts were insignificant, but they soon became opulent, intolerably valuable. One day she gave Cacho a gold brooch. I warned Cacho:
“Be careful. Beware of Sara’s gifts. She wants to conquer you.”
I was right: she conquered him. She took possession of him.
In those days Sara had a Cadillac and would come by for Cacho at eight o’clock at night so they could drive around Palermo. There she would stop the car beneath a tree and kiss Cacho until she drove him mad: that’s how she conquered him.
The water is cold; an Araucaria tree occupies my thoughts. Why, instead of people, do I only remember trees and some animal or other or a black dog that used to follow me? Now his eyes follow me, those loyal, feverish eyes. His name is Efigenio. He’s being trained, he wears a training collar. I command him to bark, and he barks; to bite, and he bites; to lie down, he lies down; to leap, he leaps; to die, he dies. He does not like the ocean. Salt erases scents, stings the tongue.
Another tree memory: a chinaberry tree with purple flowers like perfumed daisies. The largest trees cover the horizon. Am I dying? If everything I’m seeing disappears, will I disappear too—and the animals and the water and the fear and the eyes and the murmuring of the waves and the wind, and this unwritten manuscript?
I’m going to die soon! If I die before I finish what I’m writing no one will remember me, not even the person I loved most in the world. Does this person exist? I believe he exists. He will never abandon me, and he will follow me like a divine shadow that I’ll look for by my side, because everything that one looks for appears suddenly in the most unexpected way. I believe that love is a shared thing that never abandons us and that gratitude will exist as long as humankind exists. Life teaches us to be grateful, in one way or another. Within the greatest ingratitude, gratitude lies hidden.
I do not believe in the horrible guises of human beings, in bad people, in unjust people. There are moments when a perfect light illuminates them and they prefer to die at the feet of innocence or of intelligence. Either one of the two will be our salvation, even if no one believes this is so. In the seawater, I have drunk the beauty of the universe. All the animals gathered around me. They did not abandon me, except to join the plants in a perfect union, weaving love’s last exhalations into unfathomable concerts. The crickets were the first to arrive. They sang with such insistence that I thought my eardrums would burst. But there are no crickets or fireflies at the bottom of the sea. Why did these miracles occur? Something in the world encouraged me to bring about miracles. I do not understand it. I only understand and feel fulfilled by the peace that it brings me. I scarcely feel the beating of my heart. Do I really have a heart? Or did I lose it in the seawater? Is my heart something invisible that will never be touched by anyone, that will not bear witness to my death? Who will answer my question? Who is there with a voice and wisdom to respond? It’s better to cry when one is sad. But the seawater is salty like our tears; it would be better not to cry. It’s enough for the ocean to mix its tears in with the waves and to carry us from place to place in the world.
These long days remind me of the city. Could the water, or coexistence with the water, be so similar to the rest of life? Today I walked to this garden that they call the zoological garden. The first thing I saw was a gazelle outside its cage. I approached it, I took it in my arms, caressed it. No person is as lovely as an animal. I have always thought this since the day I was born, and I think it today, more than any other day, because I feel lonely, and loneliness makes me feel tender. I hugged the gazelle and kissed her lovingly. But why did she allow me to hug her now, when she fled from me before? I raised my eyes and saw that she was looking at me, and that we were surrounded by a world of animals. Every animal in creation surrounded us in a circle: tigers, lions, horses, tortoises, elephants, snakes, spiders, cats, dogs; they spoke to one another, they complained, yawned, slept, ran around. Why was there not a single man, a single child, a single woman, either ugly or beautiful? I walked, dragged myself off in search of another world, far from the animals; I did not find it. The monkeys looked at me in surprise. They were so awful that I looked away, but they kept coming back, with their dark colors and their hairy pelts. I tried to talk to them. They did not understand me. I tried to play with them; they understood. I laughed. I think I laughed. They tried to imitate me, and they tried to speak. I did not understand what they were saying, but something in our eyes united us, and I tried to reveal the secret of my life to them. The water was cruel to me that day. I felt the cold again when I went under. One day, will I be able to live in the water?
A strange night, now without animals; I began to see the shapes of trees. I saw an enormous plant, it was an aguaribay, the peppertree. I knelt at its feet and repeated its native name, mullí; I tasted its pepper-flavored leaves.
I saw a pacará, “Black man’s ear,” as my mother called it. There is a legend about this tree. Mother told it to me: An Indian waits for his lover. The ears of the tree continue to wait for her. She will never return, but the man keeps waiting for her in the ears of the tree, since neither the Indian nor the beloved return.
The Promise Page 10