Cold Skin

by Albert Sanchez Pinol

  All we could do was to go back to the weather official’s house. But halfway there, while still in the forest, the captain grabbed my sleeve, stopping me short.

  “The nearest landmass is Bouvet Island, claimed by the Norwegians, six hundred leagues southwest of here.” And after a long and considered pause, “Are you certain you want to stay? I don’t like it. This is just a chunk of rock, lost in the middle of the least trafficked ocean on the planet, at the same latitude as the deserts of Patagonia. I could convince any administrative commission that this site doesn’t fulfill the most basic requirements. No one would hold it against you. You have my word.”

  Should I turn back? I think it was the absurdity of the question that made up my mind. I hadn’t travelled halfway around the world only to turn around when I got there.

  “The weather official’s cottage is in good condition, I have a year’s worth of provisions and nothing to stop me from fulfilling my duties. For the rest, my predecessor was most likely the victim of some stupid and fatal accident. Maybe suicide, who knows. But I don’t think that this man Gruner is responsible. In my opinion, he is a danger only to himself. The solitude has got to him, and he must fear that we shall blame him for his colleague’s disappearance. That would explain his behaviour.”

  As I said this, I was surprised by how plausible it all sounded. I had only left out my feeling of foreboding. The captain gazed at me with the eyes of a cobra. His body swayed slightly, weight shifting from one foot to the other, his hands beneath the jacket.

  “Don’t worry about me,” I insisted.

  “Some disillusionment has brought you here, I’m sure of it,” he stated with conviction.

  After deliberating, I said, “Who knows.”

  “No,” he answered, “it’s obvious. You’ve come here out of spite.” He spread his arms wide like a magician proving his innocence, or a gambler folding his hand. His gesture said: There’s nothing more I can do for you.

  We had come down to the beach. The twenty sailors longed for the order to return to the ship. For no apparent reason, they were restless with impatience. The Senegalese, Sow, gave me a reassuring slap on the back. The black man was completely bald and had a bright white beard.

  He winked and said, “Pay no attention to the boys. They’re young sailors, new recruits from the Scottish Highlands. A cactus in the Yucatán understands the mysteries and lore of the sea better than them. They’re not even white; they’re red. And everybody knows that Scots are superstitious, prey to tavern gossip. Eat well, work hard, and keep looking in the mirror to remember what you look like. Talk to yourself so you don’t lose the habit of speech, and keep your mind busy with simple tasks. What is one year of our lives worth compared to the patience of the Good Lord?”

  Then they got into the dinghies and grabbed the oars. The sailors looked at me with a mixture of compassion and confusion. They gazed like children seeing an ostrich for the first time, or like peaceful citizens facing a cartload of wounded returning from war. The ship sailed away, with the sluggishness of a wheelbarrow. I kept my eyes on it until it was just a dot on the horizon. I felt a sense of irreparable loss in the instant that that dot was blotted out, a kind of steel ring pressing in on my skull. I couldn’t tell whether it arose from a longing for civilisation, a prisoner’s panic, or simply fear.

  I lingered awhile longer on the beach. As for the inlet, it was a precise half-moon shape. Volcanic rocks jutted out on the left and right; jagged stones, covered in sharp edges, perforated like cheese. The sand was the texture of incense ash, grey and compressed. Small round holes gave away the hiding places of crustaceans. The rocks made the waves break half dead on the shore; a thin film of white foam traced the boundary between earth and sky. The undertow had driven dozens of cleanly polished tree trunks onto the coastline. Some were the roots of old trees that had been chopped down. The tides had formed them with an artist’s precision, leaving sculptures of a rare and contorted beauty. The sky was tinged a gloomy shade of tarnished silver, with the even darker tones of a rusty suit of armour. The sun was no more than an orange suspended halfway up, small and continuously covered by clouds that grudgingly filtered the light. A sun that, because of its latitude, would never reach its zenith. My description isn’t trustworthy. It is what I saw. But the landscape we see beyond our eyes tends to be a reflection of what we hide, within us.

  2

  There are times when we must bargain for our future with the past. You sit on a lonely rock and try to negotiate between the devastating failures that came before and utter darkness that is on its way. In that sense, I trusted that the passage of time, contemplation and distance would work miracles. Nothing less would have brought me to that island.

  I spent the rest of that unreal morning unpacking, classifying and putting my belongings in order with the mind-set of a laical monk. What was my life on the island to be but that of a fact-collecting hermit? Most of the books fitted on the shelves that I inherited from my colleague, but those planks told me nothing new about him. Next were the flour sacks, tins, salted meat, the capsules of ether for unexpected pain and thousands of vitamin C tablets, indispensable against scurvy. The instruments of measurement – thermometers, two mercury barometers, three diachronic modulators and the very complete first aid kit – were all, fortunately, intact. I will have to draw from the resources of science in order to describe the curiosities that I found in trunk 22-E, where the letters and petitions were kept.

  Taking advantage of my stay in such an inhospitable place, Russian researchers from Kiev University had asked me to conduct a biological experiment. For reasons that I never fully understood, the island’s geographic placement was ideal for the proliferation of small rodents. They proposed that I breed a species of long-haired dwarf rabbits from Siberia, especially suited to the climate. If the project was a success, passing ships would find a supply of fresh meat. They had left me two heavily illustrated books on the subject that gave instructions on how to care for the woolly rabbits. But I didn’t have a single cage or rabbit, long-haired or otherwise. I remembered, however, the little laugh of the ship’s cook each time the captain and I congratulated him on those stews that were listed on the menu as “Russian rabbit in Kiev sauce”.

  The Geographical Society of Berlin had sent fifteen jars filled with formaldehyde. According to the instructions they entrusted me with, if I would be so kind, fill them with “interesting autochthonous insects, providing that they are classified as Hydrometridae Halobates or Chironomidae Pontomyia, which are not averse to water”. With typical German efficiency, the notebook had been protected in waterproof silk. In case my skills as a polyglot weren’t sufficient, the instructions were translated into eight languages including Finnish and Turkish. It informed me in severe Gothic lettering that the jars of formaldehyde were the property of the Republic of Germany and that “partial damage or total breakage of one or more jars” would lead to a corresponding administrative sanction. To my great relief, a last-minute addendum informed me that my status as scientific researcher absolved me from those sanctions. What lenience! Unfortunately, it didn’t mention what the Hydrometridae Halobates or the Chironomidae Pontomyia looked like, whether they were butterflies or beetles, or who might care about them and why.

  A company from Lyon, associated with a merchant shipping outfit, requested my services in the field of mineralogy. Their petition came with a small instrument for research analysis and its instruction manual. In the event that I discovered deposits of gold at least 60 per cent pure, and only under those circumstances, they would be obliged if I would inform them “with the maximum speed and urgency”. Of course, if I found a gold mine, it goes without saying that my first reaction would be to go running over to some offices in Lyon so they could lay claim to it. Finally, expressing himself in an ornate hand, a Catholic missionary asked that I fill in “with the care and patience of a saint” some questionnaires with which to quiz the local indigenous people. “Don’t be discouraged
if the Bantu chiefs of the island are very shy,” he advised. “Preach by example and kneel as you recite the rosary. That will inspire them to follow the path of faith.” The missionary was no doubt deeply misinformed as to my destination, where it would be difficult to find a Bantu kingdom, let alone a republic. Just when only two crates were left unopened, that unexpected envelope appeared: the letter.

  I’d like to say that I ripped it up without reading it. I couldn’t. Days later, I would go over what happened next. And why? Because that blasted letter angered me so much that I forgot all about the two sealed crates. I didn’t examine their contents, and soon after, that almost got me killed.

  The letter was from one of my old cohorts. It was militancy that had brought me to the island in the first place. Or should I say the falling-out with a cause. The world had never seen such a noble and selfless struggle. That is, until we were victorious. From that moment on, my comrades set to turning the tide of persecution. That was all. The only difference between the new government and our enemies was the colours in the flag. It just went to show that humanity was caught up in a series of invisible gears, destined to turn forever on themselves. One could argue that it was not I who had abandoned the cause, but the cause that had abandoned me. That was why I had chosen to flee from the world of men.

  What infuriated me most was that the letter said absolutely nothing. Without being impertinent, its authors had made quite sure that no shred of truth should appear in those lines. They gave me nothing to reproach them for, not realising that this was the most hateful stance of all. Far worse was the insistent and subtle way that they asked for my silence. All they were concerned about was that I might continue on with the same work as I had in the past, but for the enemy. They kept up the same sham about how much they regretted my desertion, even offering to take me back should I decide to return home. They truly believed that my bitterness was born out of personal ambition. More than a letter, it was a catalogue of pettiness. Yes, I insulted them by placing over a thousand leagues between us. But I was no fool. In the midst of my fury, I did not curse those people, just the sentiments that still chained me to the past. I was a recluse not on the island, but in my memory.

  3

  With only two crates remaining, I sank down on a wooden stool like someone who has gone a great distance. What could I do? I thought it would be a good idea to go back to the lighthouse. If I couldn’t make peace with its keeper, I would at least clear my head. It could be that Gruner’s insanity was merely transitory. I was willing to forgive him for it. After all, the captain hadn’t hesitated to burst into his home with all the subtlety of a crowing rooster. And we had woken him up. A responsible lighthouse keeper sleeps during the day and works at night, keeping the beam steady. The captain and I were immune to the constant and almost obscene human contact of life on a boat. Not him. Imagine the shock of seeing two strangers there, at the end of the world.

  The island’s vitality was concentrated in the forest. But the deeper I went into the thick of it, the more I associated it with life in its latency; accidental, fearful and wild. Thick and seemingly solid branches stuck out of the undergrowth. Bend them, and they broke like carrots. Soon, winter would come and snow would beat down the trees with hammer blows. That forest reminded me of an army that surrenders before the battle. But halfway there, I stopped in front of a large marble plaque with a bare bronze pipe sticking out of it. The plaque was set into the face of solid rock, framed by black moss. It was a good place for it, because for lack of any other elevation, that plaque formed the centre of a small watery shell. A continuous stream of water flowed out of the pipe. The rivulet poured into a big iron bucket, spilling over its borders. Another empty one was waiting by its side. I realised that this was the spring that belonged to the lighthouse.

  It’s strange the way we edit our perceptions. I hadn’t noticed the fountain when the captain and I first walked by. We hadn’t seen it because we were concentrating on more important things. But now that I was alone, completely alone, a bronze pipe vomiting up water was of vital interest. I went closer and saw an inscription scrawled over the pipe. It said:

  Gruner lives here

  Gruner made this fountain

  Gruner wrote this

  Gruner knows how to defend himself

  Gruner rules the waves

  Gruner has what he wants and wants only what he has

  Gruner is Gruner and Gruner is Gruner

  Dix it et fecit

  It was a blow. I could forget about any possibility of companionship. That slab exposed a mind as fractured as it was lost. But I had nothing better to do than continue on to the lighthouse. The door was closed when I got to the building. I called out, in imitation of the captain.

  No one answered; the only sound was of the waves washing against the rocks nearby. “Gruner! Gruner!” Cupping my hands around my mouth, “Gruner, Gruner! Hello there, Gruner! Please, open up. I’m the weather official!”

  No answer. The balcony was some twenty feet above the door. I gazed up at it, hoping his shape would appear. I noticed that shards of wood had been attached to the balcony’s base. The first time I saw it, I had assumed it was some sort of crude scaffolding. I was wrong. It was different in shape from the original iron supports that held the balcony to the wall. They were sharp, pointed stakes. Actually, the entire balcony was enveloped in the structure, giving it the look of a makeshift hedgehog. I could hear the sound of tinkling as the wind blew. Close to the ground, the lighthouse’s walls were plastered with broad nails, hung with string. Empty cans, some in pairs, dangled off the strings. The wind tousled them against each other and the walls, just like cowbells. There were even more bewildering particulars: the cracks between the stones swarmed with nails, their points sticking out. Nails and broken glass; all sorts of glass. The sun made them sparkle in varied tones of red and green. The coating of nails and glass ended a little higher up. The stones in the wall had been fused with an improvised grout, creating the seamless surface of an Incan temple. You couldn’t wedge a baby’s fingernail between them. I circled the lighthouse: the whole thing was protected by these ridiculous fortifications. When I got back to the door, I saw Gruner on the balcony. He was aiming a double-barrelled shotgun at me.

  “Hello, Gruner. Remember me?” I said. “I’d like to talk. After all, we’re neighbours. Rather curious neighbourhood, don’t you think?”

  “Come any closer and I’ll shoot.”

  My experience was that you don’t give prior warning when you’re about to kill a man. If you do, then you aren’t very serious about killing him in the first place.

  “Be reasonable, Gruner,” I insisted.

  He didn’t answer, just kept the gun trained on me from his balcony perch.

  “When does your contract expire?” I asked, just to say something. “Is your replacement coming soon?”

  “I’ll kill you.”

  I shrugged my shoulders and walked slowly away. I turned after reaching the forest; he was still on the balcony, legs spread apart, with the stance of an alpine sharpshooter. Even his right eye was twisted shut.

  The rest of the day was uneventful. I finished organising the house. An uncanny feeling came over me. I unconsciously bit my bottom lip until it bled. I very consciously uncorked a barrel of cognac. Half drunk, half sober and somewhat giddy, I laid the fireplace. Countless poets have written about homesickness. I’ve never been able to appreciate poetry. I think that pain is a sensation more primitive than language; any attempt to articulate it is futile. And I no longer had a homeland.

  My gloomy thoughts fed off the encroaching darkness. In those parts of the world, night didn’t fall, it took over by force. A fright: suddenly, a flash of white light illuminated the murkiness of the house, disappearing as quickly as it came. It was the lighthouse. Gruner had lit it up; the beam began its swooping course, shining on and off through my windows. I couldn’t understand it. The light hit me directly. That meant that it was angled too lo
w to guide distant ships. What a cold fish, I thought. One could assume, for example, that he had come to the island to be alone. But we had two very different conceptions of solitude. I viewed authentic solitude as an inner state that didn’t exclude a casual acquaintance between neighbours. He, on the other hand, chose to treat all humans like lepers. At any rate, Gruner’s eccentricities didn’t interest me very much just then.

  I remember lighting the oil lamp. I sat down at the table and planned out my daily schedule. That’s how it was. The fireplace was at one end; I was sitting at the desk on the other side of the building. The bed, which resembled my bunk aboard ship, and the door were to the right. On the other wall, boxes and trunks; it was all very spare. Just then, I heard a pleasing sound far off. It was more or less like a small herd of goats trotting in the distance. At first, I confused it with the pattering of rain; the sound of heavy and distinct drops. I got up and looked out of the closest window. It wasn’t raining. The full moon stained the ocean’s surface in a violet hue. The light bathed the driftwood lying on the beach. It was easy to imagine them as body parts; dismembered and immobile. The whole thing brought to mind a petrified forest. But it wasn’t raining. I sat down again and then I saw it. It. I remember thinking that my eyes had been robbed of their reason.

  The lower part of the door had a kind of a hatch. A round hole covered by a movable flap. The arm was sticking out of it. A whole arm naked and elongated. It was feeling around for something inside with spastic jerks. Maybe the lock? It was not a human arm. Although the oil lamp and the fire gave only a dim light, I could see that the three bones at the elbow were smaller and pointier than ours. Not a speck of fat; pure muscle coated with shark skin. But the hand was worst of all. The fingers were joined by a membrane that went all the way up to the nails.