“What about the explorers who climb Everest and Aconcagua, eh, what about them? And for them the snow and the ice make it all even more difficult.”
“It’s more dangerous to go down than to go up. Now don’t distract me, I need to paint a portrait.”
“So you don’t care that much about your Iris and Bamboo. Why don’t you draw a rope?”
“Because the picture would just turn into a snake.”
“Well, I’ll draw it, then.”
“Leave me alone.”
* * *
—
He needed a moment of peace in order to prepare himself to start painting again, to start painting what he wanted to paint: his mother knitting. A blank sheet of paper had fallen to the floor, and in his agitation he started to draw right there. Why could he not remember his mother clearly, if he had loved her for so long, if he had watched her until he fell asleep from watching her too much? He drew a thousand mouths as he tried to remember his mother’s mouth, a thousand heads of hair as he tried to remember hers, a thousand noses, a thousand ears, a thousand necks, a thousand eyes, a thousand hands. If he managed to draw her accurately, he was sure she would immediately appear. It was this hope that inspired him to continue without pausing to eat, sleep or wash. He painted a few happy things in order to help him relax: a racing bicycle, a color television set, a computer. Suddenly he remembered his friend: had he disappeared?
* * *
—
Leandro realized how hungry he was. He painted an excellent apple and a bunch of grapes, which he ate greedily. These fruits did not satisfy him so he painted a few little pies, but because he had not painted the filling they were only pastry. Then he painted a sky pudding, a budín del cielo. How did the sky pudding know that it came from the sky? You’d have to ask the sky. He shut his eyes and started to paint again.
Now that I’ve painted an apple and eaten it, now that I’ve painted pies and eaten them, now that I’ve painted a budín del cielo and eaten it, I’m going to paint another window, a real window with blinds and a frame, and I’m going to look out of it so I can see clearly what floor I’m on. I haven’t dared find out so far. I’ve spent so much time wondering if I’m on the top floor or down at ground level.
I was thinking about this and I started to paint the window again. First of all I painted the edges, then the frame. While I did this I thought about how strange the window would be. It was an easy job. I finished it with a speed that was only comparable to the impatience I had to finish it. As soon as I finished the window I leaned out of it and saw that I was, inexorably, on the highest floor of the tower, how many floors did it have anyway? I couldn’t count them because it gave me vertigo to look down. What could you see from this window? The whole world. It was difficult to discern one race from another, one country from another: they were all so small and so far away. I preferred to look at the sky, which was more familiar to me. The sky that Iris and Bamboo had fallen into.
* * *
—
There was no one to tell him what he wanted to know: whether it was practice which led to pictures being like their subjects, and if the look in his mother’s eyes would get into the drawing as an untimely gift which he himself would not be able to explain. What he did understand, as surely as if someone had told him straight out, was that he would eventually manage to draw the exact expression in her eyes, and as he drew the delicate line of her eyelids he felt what the great artists feel, the inexplicable happiness that comes from drawing the line that you have hunted for so long and which is only just recognizable as you draw it. With the brush in his hand he began the long journey of setting things down on paper. Nothing got in the way of the lines he had thought about putting down; the fear of everything he could not see did not trouble him, neither did the fear he felt toward the things he could see: it was a quiet moment of happiness, unlike any other he had experienced since he had first come to the tower.
* * *
—
He set himself seriously to work. After so many attempts, the eyes he had drawn resembled his mother’s eyes. He walked away from the drawing, looking at it through half-closed eyes, and was so moved that for a second he stopped work, before setting himself to color his drawing. When he painted her hair, he thought he was making a mistake: his mother didn’t have blonde curls, and she didn’t hold back her hair with a metal band with sky-blue flowers; that hairstyle was the hairstyle of a little child, but he couldn’t correct it. When he reached the hands, he noticed that they didn’t look like an adult’s hands, but rather those of a little girl. They were very pretty hands; his mother’s hands were also pretty, but big people’s hands couldn’t be mistaken for the hands of a nine-year-old girl. But he continued working with the conviction that he would achieve the likeness that he was looking for so passionately. The dress wasn’t an adult’s dress either; neither were the shoes. All the clothing was wrongly chosen; as if the lines he were drawing were against his will. He reached a point when the paroxysm of concentration upset him and he threw himself onto the floor crying, but then he remembered that boys don’t cry. When he got up and he looked at the painting, he was astonished: a little girl was coming gracefully out from inside the painting, and as she stepped into the tower she greeted him. It wasn’t his mother, but he didn’t feel much disappointment about this. He had fallen in love with the little girl he had painted by accident.
“What’s your name?”
“Leandro. And yours?”
“Ifigenia.”
“That’s a very portentous name. A name from history.”
“If you want, you can call me Iffi.”
“Where do you live?”
“On the beach.”
“How did you get in here?”
“I got in through a drawing that you did. I heard that you were a great painter, that you were so talented you could paint a pudding that people could really eat.”
“Who told you that?”
“A little bird.”
“What did he look like? What did he look like?”
“I don’t know.”
“What’s your favorite pudding?”
“Strawberry pudding.”
“If you describe it to me, maybe I’ll be able to paint it.”
“It’s a pink cream, like the ones ladies use for their faces.”
“There are some things that are very difficult to draw. You must choose something more common.”
“Chocolate flan.”
“That’s easy, but ugly.”
“Why?”
“Because it shakes. It’s a pusillanimous pudding.”
“That’s because you don’t paint the chocolate on top. That would hold it in place.”
“Would you prefer a flower?”
“Yes I would, if you’re really good at drawing. Draw me a forget-me-not.”
“What flower is that?”
“It’s called a forget-me-not.”
Next to the flower, Leandro drew a bracelet that he offered to the girl.
“I don’t wear jewelry.”
“Why?”
“Jewels are nothing but worldly vanity.”
“What vanity? It’s just a medical bracelet, a painkilling bracelet.”
“Pain? What pain?”
“The pains of the world. Haven’t you heard about getting rheumatism when you get kicked playing rugby or fall over while ice-skating?”
“Never. The pains I know are spiritual.”
“And what is a spiritual pain, then?”
“You feel it in your heart.”
“Have you got a boyfriend?”
“Why do you ask?”
“Because you’ve got a ring that looks like an engagement ring.”
“Yes, this sort of ring’s called an alliance, isn’t it? But no, I’m never going
to get married, not even for a joke.”
“Are you never going to fall in love?”
“No. I’m going to become a nun.”
“But nuns also fall in love. They fall in love with God. Anyway, I don’t believe you.”
“God knows what will happen. Do you live here? Is there a lift?”
“It would have to be an infinite lift.”
Leandro, after offering her several desserts from his own paintings, showed her the abyss that was visible from the window. Ifigenia leaned with a dreamy air against the window frame. She said that in her house all the windows were very boring, that you couldn’t see anything, but that from this tower, you could see a whole wonderful world.
“What good eyesight you have; in order to see anything I’d have to get myself a telescope.”
“You painters don’t need to see very well. All they need is their imagination. I never painted. If you’re a bad boy, you’ll fall into this void.”
“Why would I fall?”
“Because I’ll push you, to punish you.”
“Why do you want to punish me, if I didn’t do anything wrong? You didn’t accept my bracelet, you’re the one with no manners.”
“I’m going to tear up all your drawings so you can’t eat any more puddings.”
“What a badly behaved girl you are.”
“I’m worse than you think, but it’s all your fault: you drew me like this.”
“I didn’t draw you being bad. I drew you with a pretty face.”
“A pretty face isn’t enough, don’t you think?”
“It must be useful for something. You could work in the cinema, or in television.”
“Perhaps, but nobody will love me just because I have a pretty face.”
“Is it very difficult for you to be a good girl?”
“It’s very difficult. I can’t get annoyed, I can’t say bad words, I can’t be disobedient, I can’t tell lies, I can’t laugh at people, I can’t let my hair get mussed up; I have to study, I have to give away all the things I like, I have to have baths, I can’t eat all the sweets I want.”
“But that’s the same for everybody.”
“Yes, but I am not everybody. I’m just a drawing.”
“Please don’t be bad.”
“I can dance in the air. Do you know any other girl who can do that?”
“Are you saying that because you’re a drawing, you’re better than other girls?”
“I’m one of your drawings, so naturally I’m worse. Isn’t it a stupid idea to dance over the abyss? It’s the first time that someone has drawn me. If some other person had drawn me, I don’t know what I’d be like. You’ll have to draw me again if you want to see me again. And what are those gloves? What are they for?”
“They’re boxing gloves. You never saw boxing? Never saw it on TV?”
“It must be horrible. Are there women boxers?”
“Why must it be horrible?”
“What happens if they burst one of your eyes, or break your leg or a little finger on your hand?”
“If you know how to box nothing like that ever happens. Besides, there’s always the referee.”
“Can I see how those gloves look on you? Did you bring two pairs?”
“I did, I brought them with me without planning to. One of my friends from school was going to come home and box with me. We were studying together; we had a lot of fun. And now I use the gloves as pencil cases. That’s where I put my rubbers and my pencils.”
“I don’t understand why it’s fun. There are already enough people beating each other up without boxing. Let me see how the gloves look on you. You can wear one pair and I’ll wear the other. It’s difficult to put these gloves on.”
“Is there anything that isn’t difficult?”
“Yeah, everything’s easy apart from this. I never have any fun, but don’t tell anyone. I don’t have any toys, and I don’t have any fun. I’m not like you, and I’m not like any one of your friends, you have to understand that.”
“That’s silly. That’s why you’re so shy, and can’t play-fight. Boxing is play-fighting. It’s the noble science.”
“What I like is swimming, show jumping, and bouncing a ball against a wall.”
“I saw a fight with my father, in Lunar Park. I came out punching the air. What had air done to me? I found out the names of all the different punches, my father taught them to me, that unforgettable afternoon. Look, I’ve got the gloves on. Do you like how they look on me? You should put the other ones on, so we can have a match, you and me.”
“All right, let’s go. How do I stand?”
“Like this. This is how you stand on guard.”
“How lovely. I never dreamed a game like this could exist.”
“Don’t you read the newspapers? Where do you live?”
“I live wherever it is a drawing lives. I can’t tell you more. This is the first bit of world I’ve seen, the first air I’ve breathed, the first sensations I’ve felt, the first objects I’ve touched. I’ve never known any other world or any other person.”
“And how will you live from now on? Do I need to show you the world? There isn’t any time.”
“You could at least try to understand me a little better.”
“I’ll try, but I don’t know how I can show you everything. Look, do you see the half-moon, the crescent in the sky? That’s part of the moon. In the bakery, there are things called crescents, ‘croissants,’ and you can eat them. They look a bit like bread, but they are not bread, and sometimes they have sugar on top. They are really nice. But there aren’t any croissants on the moon. Do you understand?”
“No.”
“In a boxing match, it looks like boxers are killing each other; but they’re fighting for friendship, for applause, to be in the newspapers, to win medals and money. Punch me. I’m not going to die.”
“OK. Like this?”
“Like that. Well done.”
“I will be the first female boxing champion. I’m pretty sure I’ll be the first. I don’t know any others.”
“I saw pictures of some girls boxing in the newspapers. I didn’t like them.”
“My mother wouldn’t like me to be a boxer. She’d say, ‘It’s not a game for girls.’ ”
“How do you know what your mother would say if I’m the only person you know?”
“I know myself. My mother is exactly like me. I’m sure you understand, although not everyone would. It’s like boxing and ‘croissants’ and the moon and the sun looking down on us.”
* * *
—
“Everything you draw becomes real? I’m curious.”
“Everything I’ve drawn until now, at least.”
“In that case, why don’t you draw a dog or a horse and then give it to me?”
“I could do it, but I don’t always draw very well.”
Leandro started drawing a dog, a very pretty dog with a red leather collar. When the dog came out of the painting, Ifigenia jumped for joy and hugged it.
“What will we call him?”
“We’ll call him Love. Love because he’s lovely.”
Leandro patted the dog happily.
His father had never allowed him to have a dog. To be the owner now of a dog seemed to him the greatest possible gift. Love preferred Leandro and followed him around the room. Ifigenia gave him a sweet she had in her pocket, she stroked his ear, told him secrets, but everything was useless. Disinterestedly, Love preferred Leandro, even though Leandro still hadn’t given him food or drink, and still hadn’t really played with him except by nudging Love with his feet. Ifigenia protested:
“It would have been better if you had drawn me a horse.”
“A horse is too big to live in a tower.”
“But there are tiny horse
s, very tiny ones.”
“I never know if things are going to come out tiny or enormous. It doesn’t depend on me.”
“There would be space if you kept all the doors open.”
“It can’t be done.”
“Why not?”
“It would be dangerous.”
“You’re not very brave.”
“I am brave, but I’m not a fool. There’s a spider and a snake locked in there. You laugh, but if you saw them or heard them you would be very serious.”
“What’s that jangling noise?”
“What? It must be the other drawings! I didn’t think they could live in there.”
“Well, they can. Here they come, all of them, jangling their bells. Do you think we should hide?”
“There’s no point. They’re demons and they’ll know wherever we hide.”
“Don’t scare me. Some of them are very pretty.”
“They would be prettier if they didn’t make so much noise.”
“There’s one that looks like a harlequin, and another dressed as a doctor. There’s a woman so pretty that you could spend your whole life looking at her. Don’t fall in love, please.”
“I’ll never fall in love with anyone, if it’s not you.”
“That’s not true, liar.”
“It is true.”
“Here they come now. One of them is getting close to me.”
And the demon spoke: “Who lives in this tower?”
“Well, I’m here. But I don’t really know who else lives here, because all the doors are locked.”
“I’ve got a special key that opens all doors. It’s called a master key.”
“I won’t believe it until I see it.”
“Does it look like all the keys put together? Does it open all the doors? Show it to me. Give it to me.”
“He’s right, you should open something soon so I believe you, because they told me that all of you are liars. If you sell brushes, they don’t brush; if you sell combs, they don’t comb; if you sell matches they don’t light up; if you sell sweets, they’re bitter; if you sell a Christmas cake, it’s not a real Christmas cake; if you sell a beautiful necklace, it breaks as soon as you put it on, and the stones keep rolling all over the floor until the Last Judgement.”
The Big Book of Modern Fantasy Page 41