“We never knew if it had been a ministry or a temple. Side knows a lot about mechanics, a lot. But not all of the places I travel through are peaceful and delightful like Eiquen or Akimaréz. There are some in which you have to be well prepared for anything and have quick reflexes or you don’t come back again. Up to now, my reflexes are in good shape. We hadn’t seen animals or birds or any living thing, so as soon as I saw movement, I threw myself against Side and the two of us tumbled to the ground. Thank goodness, because the shots started immediately.”
“Shots?” Jorge took the pipe out of his mouth and set it on the table.
“Shots. From a shotgun. We crawled over behind a huge rock that had fallen at the edge of the plaza. We heard another couple of shots and then nothing. I took off my jacket, rolled it up in a ball and raised it over the edge of the rock. Whoever was shooting was shooting to kill: it was shot full of holes.”
“Shit.”
“I said something similar, though at greater length.”
“And what did you do?”
“When a city is in ruins, it’s uncomfortable to live in but it has other advantages for less peaceful activities. Crawling along, we got into the house closest to us, and as they were all gutted, we passed from one to another through holes in the walls or wherever we found an opening, circling the plaza and getting close to the building the shots had come from. During all of this the shooter was quiet, either thinking we’d been hit or waiting to see what we did.”
“And how did you know there was only one shooter?”
“That question occurred to us on the way and we sat down on some stone benches—I said they were from a waiting room and Side said a school—to consider the possibilities. If there had been two, the shooting would have been heavier. And if there had been more than two, they wouldn’t even have let us get that far, since being on a war footing, they’d have posted sentinels. So there was only one. Or two but with only one weapon. And as we were developing a strong desire to land a good slug or two, we went on.”
Trafalgar pushed the cup away and leaned over the table: “We surprised him from behind,” he said, “after we climbed a staircase in quite good condition, barefoot so our shoes wouldn’t make noise against the stones. The guy had his back to us, looking out, close against the edge of the window, with the shotgun stock down on the ground. The blondie with the harmonica and I looked at each other, we made a sign and we jumped at the same moment: I went for the shotgun and he for the shooter. And when I stood up with the weapon in my hand, this will kill you, I hear him give out a yell.”
“The guy?”
“Side. Are you going to have more coffee?”
“No, that’s enough for me. And why did he yell?”
“Because it wasn’t a guy, it was a girl.”
“The brunette.”
“That’s it, the brunette. Of course, poor Side had grabbed her from behind to immobilize her arms and when he squeezed and got such a surprise, he yelled and let go, the big idiot.”
“Myself, not just to talk, but if that happened to me, I wouldn’t let anything go, I’d hold tight like a bear’s claw.”
“It’s that Side’s a romantic.”
“As am I.”
“You, too, would have let her go.”
Jorge laughed. “I don’t know, eh? I don’t know.”
“Ha,” said Trafalgar. “The brunette slipped through our fingers and tried to escape. She knew the territory but we were two and in the end we had the pleasure of catching her. Well, miss, I said, very formal but with the voice of a monitor who’s caught a student smoking in the bathroom, what’s all this going around shooting at people? All right, she said, you win, take me but I warn you, I won’t arrive alive.”
By this point in the story there weren’t many people left in the Burgundy and, according to Trafalgar, on Donteä-Doreä, night was falling.
“We told her we didn’t intend to take her anywhere and that we had landed there by chance and we made her promise she wouldn’t try to kill us or to escape and we let go of her. And she didn’t try to escape or to kill us. She straightened her clothes, she was dressed all in black and she had a silver necklace, she straightened her clothes, she fixed the bun that had started to come undone, and she started to bustle around the room, which was very large and in good condition. She covered the windows with shutters, lit the lamps, straightened up the mess we had made a bit, and invited us to sit down.”
“Where did you sit, on the ground?”
“What ground, she had installed a real little palace there. The lamps and the heaters had solar batteries that were practically eternal, the stove too. The floor was covered with rugs and there was furniture and clothing and dishes and knickknacks and books and recorded tapes. The table was carved out of a single piece of wood from Neyiomdav by a cabinetmaker who knew what he was doing, and the chairs matched and had feather cushions. On the floor, all along the walls decorated with tapestries and pictures, there were more feather cushions and what must have been a queen-sized bed, at least, with a fur blanket in black and white.”
“Sensational,” Jorge said. “Let’s see if you’ll act like a friend and give me that girl’s address.”
“Sadly,” said Trafalgar, “Side got there ahead of you. Besides, your wife would strangle you, so give it up.”
“Don’t tell me the blond picked her up.”
“He may have believed in destiny, but he was no idiot. We sat down and we asked each other who we were and we told about ourselves. Side told her, and when I saw how he exaggerated everything, the breakdown, his skill, my importance, I thought, we’re toast, romance at the door. And I kept quiet and watched her and there was something about her that caught my attention.”
“How was she, just between us?”
“A babe. Tall, with hair that was blue, it was so black and shiny; no makeup, skin like a gypsy’s, almond-shaped eyes, high cheekbones, roman nose, very white teeth, a strong chin and everything else to stop traffic.”
“How was she not going to catch your attention?”
“No, what caught my attention was her attitude,” said Trafalgar, and he devoted himself to his coffee.
“Cut it out, what attitude? Come on.”
“Kind but condescending, haughty, as if giving us permission, do you see? How can I put it—Pharaonic, that’s it, Pharaonic.”
“You were dreaming about Nefertiti.”
“Exactly. Nefertiti. So long as Nefertiti looked like a model for Vogue.”
“No wonder the blond was showing off.”
“Yes, he kept talking for half an hour or so. And she was very quiet, looking at him, which you can imagine only made things worse. When the poor thing finished, he looked like a Spanish water dog.”
“And you?”
“I asked her, and who are you, miss? My name is Constancia, she said. It’s a beautiful name, said that idiot Side. As this threatened to turn into a television soap opera, I asked why she had received us with shotgun fire and instead of answering me she said yes, it was a very pretty name but it reminded her of her world where every woman of her class bore the name of a virtue. I insisted and she asked if we wanted to eat something and Side answered yes for both of us. That suited me, because it was already late at night and I was starting to miss the provisions in the clunker. And I remembered the clunker and I said we had to go back but she said there was no danger because on Donteä-Doreä there was absolutely no one but her. And she proposed that we spend the night there and Side practically dies from excitement and goes and says yes, of course, why not, certainly, with pleasure, ugh.”
“Well, you could have gone alone.”
“Forget it. She said there was no one besides her on Donteä-Doreä but although I thought she was telling the truth, she could well have been lying. And so long as I stayed, I would be able to keep an eye on her, leaving aside the fact that I wanted to find out who she was, what had happened to her, why she was so afraid that she met people with
shotgun fire. Bah, so we stayed. Don’t make that face, she slept all alone in the big bed and we made ourselves another bed with the cushions that were enough for a battalion. But first we ate, and very well. With those airs of a duchess, I thought she was going to give us a couple of fried eggs with the yolk hard and the white raw and stuck to the pan, but she managed a kind of soufflé aux fines herbes that left us licking our fingers. And for dessert, fruit with cream. And a very good wine, and coffee, nearly perfect coffee.”
“Nearly.”
“Nearly. She had put sugar in it. But I drank it anyway. Three cups. After that I couldn’t stand any more and I asked her for a fourth cup without sugar.”
“But listen, where did she get the things to cook if there were no plants or animals or anything?”
“She had a pantry on the ground floor in a kind of auditorium. Full, so full that not even living there for more than a century would she manage to eat it all, and with a freezer system that made even Side whistle when he saw it, and not exactly a song, either.”
“Yes, yes, but where had she gotten ahold of all that?”
“You’ll see. After dinner, Side took out his harmonica and started playing syrupy ballads that would melt glaciers and she remained quiet and watched him and now and then smiled at him and nodded approval. It you asked the poor guy at that moment to change the washer in the faucet, he’d make a complete hash of it. Until I stood up, took away the harmonica, and said to her, well Constancia, now tell us something about yourself. She looked at me as though I were made of glass and behind me were something that bored her to tears. So I said to her, you are from Sondarbedo IV, isn’t that right?”
“And how did you know?”
“I didn’t know, how would I know? Anyway, Sondarbedo IV doesn’t exist. She said no. Nothing more than no. She didn’t say no, I am from such and such a place. And Side, who was floating half a meter off the ground, resolved the situation by force of artlessness. He told her we wanted to help her. I didn’t have the least little intention of helping her, because, although I liked the girl, I also distrusted her. But I kept quiet to see what happened. And he told her we were going to do whatever was necessary so that she wouldn’t continue to live like that, alone and cornered. Side was inspired. And then she cried.”
“When a woman pulls the tears ploy on you, old man, she has won the battle.”
“No, I’m not sure it was a ploy. She didn’t need tears—what for, if she already had Side in her pocket? The tears welled up on their own, and Side knighted himself and would have straight away started fighting the suicidal archers of Ssouraa.”
“Who?”
“In reality, the suicidal archers of Ssouraa live on Aloska VI, because on account of wars, there’s nothing left on Ssouraa. They’re suicidal battalions that use atomic weapons that resemble bows and that.”
“No, enough, you can tell me that another day. Now what I want to know is what happened with Constancia.”
“She softened and started to tell everything. I’ll summarize for you, because the explanation was too long and too mushy for my taste. Constancia had been lady-in-waiting to the queen on Adrojanmarain, very far from Donteä-Doreä, a world with very advanced technology and very backward morality. These contradictions occur sometimes, but once you study them in depth, you see they’re not really contradictions. Look at Na-man III, for example, where they haven’t reached the steam engine yet but where . . .”
“Do me a favor, don’t tell me now what happens in each one of the places you go to, because I will tell you all the stories of my village and we’ll see who wins.”
Trafalgar smiled: “You want to know about Constancia.”
“Well of course, she puzzles me; what do you think, you’re the only curious person to set foot in the Burgundy?”
“Constancia had been lady-in-waiting to the queen, and each lady-in-waiting had the name of a virtue. Lady-in-waiting is a euphemism. They raised them strictly for that from the time they were little and afterwards the queen treated them like slaves, she kept them always shut up in miserable cells, one by one, which they left only to work like donkeys at the hardest, dirtiest, most humiliating tasks, and they starved them and punished them sometimes to the point of killing them. Constancia had gained the complicity of an idiot like Side who had fallen in love with her and, for years, with infinite patience, she stole things and gave them to her sweetheart and studied how to escape. And she escaped. And the guy, who worked in the port, had a ship ready for her loaded with everything, and she took off and headed in any old direction and landed on Donteä-Doreä. A slave who escapes isn’t so important that they’re going to chase her from world to world, but she had been through everything bearable and unbearable to make herself useful and agreeable and trustworthy and thus have a certain freedom of movement. And that was how she had learned secrets, secrets of the bedroom and of the throne room and of the bathroom and of behind the throne, and that made her dangerous. She knew they were going to find her, they were going to take her back and they were going to kill her slowly.”
“Poor girl, it’s not right.”
“I didn’t believe a word,” said Trafalgar.
“But che, you don’t like anyone.”
“That woman had never been a slave in her life, I would have bet anything. She wasn’t a beaten dog. She was Nefertiti, don’t forget.”
“And then?”
“Then the two of us acted moved and touched, and Side offered to take her to Sebdoepp, where she would be able to start a new life—the whole song—and she thanked him and I think she was sincere, something that also caught my attention. Why the hell didn’t she tell the truth if she was truly afraid and was truly escaping from something?”
“Did you find out finally if she was escaping and what she was escaping from?”
“I think so. Of course, she could have lied again, but if she did lie again, I don’t like the other solution I have to offer you one bit. Look, we spent the night there and she slept like an angel and Side and I took turns standing guard at my suggestion, just in case. I was annoyed but he had all he could want. The night was calm and in the morning we had breakfast with coffee and toast with butter and honey, and fruit juices and cake. When we finished, I asked Side to go downstairs to see if everything was still deserted and if we could leave, taking her along, and as the poor guy hadn’t come down from the clouds, he went. I maneuvered to get myself behind her back, quite close, and suddenly I called her with an authoritative voice and when she turned around, I made as if to strike her. A slave would have shrunk to receive the blow. She drew herself up like a wild beast and if looks could kill, I wouldn’t be telling this story, not even my ashes would have remained.”
“So you were right.”
“I don’t know. I think so, I hope so. I told her, you were never a slave of anyone, Constancia, tell me if I’m mistaken but I think you were the one who had slaves at your service. When Side came back he found her crying and then he almost killed me. But as she cried like a queen and not like just anyone, she calmed down right away and told us the truth. Her Adrojanmarain existed as much as my Sondarbedo IV. She had been queen on Marrennen, there at the outer limits, a lost world, the last of a system of eleven around a burning sun where there were three races. The gods, who are invisible; the valid ones, who are people like you and me and like her and Side and everybody else; and the sleepers, who are these bestial idiots, like animals, who go around naked, bellowing all over the place without harming anyone, and who are fed and protected by order of the gods. All of this governed by a queen who is also a priestess. The office of queen isn’t hereditary: those who hear the gods speak become queen. Only one in every generation. And each queen carries the name of a virtue. Constancia ascended the throne on the death of Clemencia, and from the time she was small, she knew she would be queen because she heard the voices of the invisible ones. And from up there on the throne she governed quite well, cared for and obeyed by her subjects, the valid on
es who are the ones who do everything because the sleepers aren’t good for anything and nobody sees the gods. But, here comes the but, you know there’s always a but, once a year the priestess queen who hears voices has to personally meet with the invisible ones: she drinks a potion that puts her in a trance, they carry her to a temple carved into a mountain where no one enters but she, that single time each year, and there the gods appear to her.”
“And then she sees them?”
“She sees them. Obviously the brunette had that square chin and that air of I’m in charge here for a reason. The first year she pretended to drink the syrup but she didn’t drink any and she threw it away; she pretended to be asleep but she didn’t sleep at all, they carried her to the temple and she didn’t see anything nor did anyone appear to her. The second year, same story. The third year, she drank a few swallows and threw away the rest, she dozed a little and she woke up in the temple when she heard noises and whispers of people moving around her. And there, barely opening her eyes, she saw them.”
“The gods?”
“Yes, the gods, the drooling brutes, the sleepers.”
Jorge sat there with his mouth open and let his pipe go out and didn’t even protest when Trafalgar calmly started on another cup of coffee.
“First she felt panic, she told us,” Trafalgar said. “And then, like the good queen she was, and not only because she heard voices, she was absolutely enraged, she opened her eyes, stood up, and started yelling. And the beastly gods decided to beat it and she was left alone in the temple and she started to discover things. She found some doors, more or less hidden, through which the sleepers arrived from the other side of the mountain. And she deduced the rest. The brutes are in fact a kind of minor god, for household use only: beasts who only want to lie with the sun on their bellies and be fed and not be made to work and then have a big party with the reigning queen once a year. There’s only one god-like thing about them and it’s quite imperfect: a mild capacity for telepathic transmission—transmission, not reception. And in addition to the annual orgy, they use the priestess queen—who is elected, don’t forget, because she has something of telepathic reception—to give orders: that they be fed, that they be protected, that temples be built, that this and that and the other be done.”
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