Cold Skin

by Albert Sanchez Pinol

  Gruner chided me about the wasted bullet. I reminded him of the traps he had set. Was it really necessary to fire on immobilised and thus harmless creatures?

  “We must be thrifty,” says he. “Ammunition is life.”

  “I am the one who brought the ammunition,” I reply, “and I shall use it as I see fit.”

  We quarrelled through the wee hours like two children.

  FEBRUARY 2

  The monsters spent this entire night howling out in the darkness without attacking; very curious indeed. I made an unsuccessful attempt to draw Gruner into a conversation about our past lives in Europe.

  It is impossible to establish the slightest camaraderie with this man. It is not so much that he refuses to speak, or conceals anything from me. He is completely indifferent to banal, everyday conversation. If I talk about myself, he nods his head. When I ask about his life, Gruner responds in monosyllables, ever vigilant to the encroaching darkness outside. This pattern continues until I grow weary of the pantomime. Imagine two men slumbering side by side, talking in their sleep. That is the exact nature of our dialogues.

  FEBRUARY 5–20

  Nothing. This nothingness is accompanied by the mascot’s silence. It is a good sign when she ceases her song. I scarcely have any contact with her. The mascot is either fornicating with Gruner, occupied with simple tasks, or avoiding me. She begrudges our first encounter with the long memory of a beaten dog. Our paths inevitably cross when she goes to and from the lighthouse. The little beast quickens her step and keeps at a safe distance, like a little sparrow.

  At times the mere sight of the mascot gives me shudders. One may deduce from a cursory observation that she is a quadruped; thermostatic, colour-blind, bilious and spineless. Nevertheless, the mascot’s form and mannerisms are so human that it requires a great effort not to exchange pleasantries with her. At least until one is confronted with the brainpower of a chicken. She is incapable of looking, listening, seeing or even hearing us. The mascot inhabits another sphere, and this separation is what she and Gruner have in common.

  FEBRUARY 22

  Gruner has got drunk. This is quite an uncommon occurrence. I saw he was inebriated, a bottle of gin in one hand and a rifle in the other, thrashing about like a witch doctor on the lighthouse’s craggy foundations. Then he melted into the forest, only to return with the last light. Meanwhile, I captured the mascot and carried her into a corner after a heated struggle. She was deathly afraid, unaware that I merely intended to examine her skull. The mascot’s head is perfect. I am referring to the cranium’s uniform smoothness; a spherical form free of any abrasion. Hers is a splendidly rounded arch, whereas humans’ tend to be riddled with bumps and bulges. Is it shaped this way in order to withstand the water pressure of the deep? The cranium exhibits neither the indentations of a born criminal nor the protuberances of a prodigy. Phrenologists would be surprised to learn that there is absolutely no pronounced development of the parietal or occipital lobes. The overall volume of the head is slightly smaller than that of a Slavic female and is dilated six per cent more than a Breton goat’s. I took hold of the mascot’s cheeks, and forced her mouth open. In place of tonsils was a second palate, which surely serves to impede the entry of water. The monster appears to lack a sense of smell, clinically known as anosmia. On the other hand, her tiny ears have a canine ability to distinguish sounds that are inaudible to humans. The mascot has frequent bouts of dreaminess during which her attention is taken up by untold voices, melodies or incantations. What does she hear in those moments? It is impossible to tell. The webbing on her hands is not as wide or as long as the male monsters’. She can separate her first two fingers at an angle unthinkable in human anatomy. My hypothesis is that this flexion helps propel the monsters underwater. I practically had to tear the clothing off her, she struggled so. The monster’s physique is of an admirable architecture. European girls would pale at the sight of her form. A pair of silk gloves is all that is needed to make her a model fit for the salons of Paris.

  As weather official, I can attest that this island is situated in a peculiar maritime region, surrounded by warm-water currents. That would explain everything, from the abundance of vegetation to the absence of snow, which should have fallen by now. Perhaps even the presence of these beasts in the environs may be attributed to these unique conditions. There would have been some record of the monsters’ existence, apart from legend, if they had proliferated in other waters. I once read that the blood of polar fish contains a substance which prevents freezing. I fancy the beasts share this trait, given their blue blood. Otherwise, how might such complex organisms inhabit frigid waters and yet lack layers of accumulated fat? Her marblelike musculature is sheathed in a taut skin tinged in exquisite varnishes of salamander green. Imagine a wood nymph with a serpent’s skin. Her nipples are little black buttons. The creature’s breasts seemed to be held up by invisible strings. Here one must refer to the French gold standard: a perfect breast must nestle comfortably in a champagne glass. Her overall muscle tone displays health and vitality; no need for a girdle. Ballerina hips and a flat, flat stomach. Thighs as solid as the rock beneath us. The texture of her face is consistent with the rest of her skin, whereas human flesh often manifests distinct contradictions between cheek and thigh. The mascot is enveloped in a minutely pored membrane. There are no hair follicles on her head, armpits or pubis. No sculptor would be able to replicate how perfectly such miraculously lithe buttocks join her thighs. Her profile is distinctly Egyptian. A tapered nose contrasts sharply with her spherical skull and doelike eyes. The forehead rises gently like a sweet, sweet cliff, finer than any found on a Roman bust.

  The dumb beast trembled with fear as I took her off into a corner, just as a cow is incapable of understanding the rationale behind a veterinarian’s poking and prodding. I lit a candle and waved it to and fro before her eyes. The pupils contracted, becoming tiny feline slits in the glaring light. I could not help shuddering as I observed her. The eyes were vibrant blue mirrors; more round than oval. They glinted like amber. The ocular fluid had the density of mercury. I saw myself within those orbs, gazing at her. That is to say, gazing at myself. I almost broke off the investigation. I was overcome by a bout of absurd vertigo on seeing my reflection in the eyes of a monster. May only those who have suffered the same be my judge.

  It is impossible to keep my distance while studying the mascot. One touch and I am ensnared. I press my palm to her cheek and pull my hand away in horror, as if electrocuted. The association between human contact and warmth is one of our most primal instincts. There are no cold bodies, at least not living ones. I am at once attracted and repelled by her temperature. It is reminiscent of a cadaver, freshly dead.

  FEBRUARY 25

  They have finally appeared, and in great numbers. Our daily ration of ammunition is six bullets and we were forced to fire eight.

  FEBRUARY 26

  Between the two of us, Gruner and I have spent nineteen bullets.

  FEBRUARY 27

  Thirty-three.

  FEBRUARY 28

  Thirty-seven.

  MARCH 1-16

  My struggle for survival has kept me from writing. At any rate, nothing that I might record bears remembrance.

  MARCH 18

  The assaults are not quite as fierce as before. I spent a long while observing the lighthouse and the balcony from the forest’s interior. Gruner was intrigued by my vigil and joined me without uttering a word. Our shoulders grazed as we stood side by side. I was curious to examine the lighthouse from the monsters’ point of view. My intention was to descend into the gloom of their bloodthirsty minds and imagine how our fortification must look to them.

  Gruner, after a certain space of time, intoned: “Well, I for one fail to see any weakness in our defences.” And he strode off.

  MARCH 20-21

  The monsters have taken to watching us without attacking. This was disquieting at first, then merely curious. We usually catch fleeting glimpses of their
forms. They may occasionally be seen among the trees or in the shallows about the reefs. They vanish when caught in the beam’s glare.

  Darkness encroaches on our days. Now we have just three hours of solar light left to us. Even as the sun rises, it is beginning to set. Life on the island would be a formidable and taxing experience under any circumstances. However, being besieged by monsters surpasses the bounds of human understanding. Although it may seem strange, the lulls between fighting are often worse than the battles themselves. We listen to the muddled chorus of wind, rain and sea as we wait for a new day in the dim glow of the oil lamps, ignorant as to what shall greet us first, light or death. Never should I have thought to find hell in such a simple thing as a clock without hands.

  THE IDES OF MARCH

  I have discovered that Gruner knows how to play chess. This rather insignificant fact is an oasis of civilisation in the midst of all this madness. Three games. Two stalemates and one checkmate. Need one mention who claimed himself victorious?

  APRIL 4

  The assaults swept over us in six successive waves tonight. My rifle lock was burning from overuse. I had no choice. Gruner voiced no complaints concerning wasted ammunition.

  APRIL 8

  I practice complex opening manoeuvres in an attempt to topple Gruner’s defences. Gruner is particularly shrewd in that way. He rooks me, and wears down my offensives, piece by piece. The similarities between his personality and chess game are too obvious to mention. Either way, the Grunertian or Gruneristic mentality made its presence felt.

  The monsters could be heard crying out in the darkness, beyond the reach of the lighthouse beam. They sounded a bit like vultures squabbling over carrion. Then they surged forward abruptly, but skittered away before we could take aim. It is all such an enigma. The worst of it is that the monsters’ actions are completely devoid of logic. This makes them utterly unpredictable.

  APRIL 10-22

  I have been meditating on my reasons for coming to this island. I had been seeking peace in nothingness. And in place of silence I have found a monster-plagued inferno. What revelations have been hidden from my sight? Although I rack my brain for answers, all else pales before this evidence: monsters, monsters and more monsters. There is nothing else to judge or consider.

  APRIL 23 AND 24

  Horrific combat, man against beast. Shooting at such close quarters has adorned the balustrade with viscera, grey matter and blue blood. The monsters climbed so high up the stakes these past two nights that we resorted to kicks, stabs and swings of the hatchet in order to ward them off. Gruner is at his most savage in these moments. Gruner threw his rifle aside with a battle cry just as the monsters had got perilously close and the last line of stakes had begun to give way under the mass of arms and legs. I kept up a steady stream of bullets several steps behind. He grasped the harpoon in one hand and the hatchet in the other. The man wounded, mutilated and killed with chaotic frenzy, his limbs transformed into a deadly windmill. Gruner was an authentic demon, a desperate Viking, the marauding pirate Red Beard; all this and more. The sight made me shudder and I should not fancy him for an enemy. I witnessed these images myself not hours ago, and yet I experienced them as though under the effects of some hallucinogen. I have grave doubts as to my mental health in the light of day. Our life in the lighthouse is so far-fetched.

  MAY 2

  I discern some slight twinges of appreciation in Gruner. This is never expressed explicitly. Not one kind word falls from his lips. Nevertheless, he is aware of how my presence contributes to his survival. Gruner confessed that the attacks of late are beyond anything he has experienced before. A lone man would never be able to defend himself against this swarm of insects escaped from a hellish insane asylum. Not even him.

  But we cannot go on in this way. One of these days we shall be outnumbered.

  MAY 5

  No change. Gruner is a cipher. There is a great contrast between the dangers that threaten us and his ever-altering moods. He appears to pass his days with increasing contentment as our nights become ever more taxing. The euphoria of battle has taken hold of him; a longing for the abyss. He cannot accept that we are not playing chess and that it would take just one loss to seal our doom.

  MAY 6

  One of Gruner’s bullets grazed me this evening. It slashed my sleeve, leaving a superficial wound. But he had saved me from an overwhelming monster. I was left with no choice but to justify the wound and praise him.

  MAY 11

  The assaults are ever more savage. Some of the monsters managed to scale the opposite wall of the lighthouse and attack us from above, where the barricade of stakes is weakest. They were literally falling out of the sky. Our rifle barrels flew up and down in an attempt to control the teeming beasts below. We fire an average of fifty bullets every night. The sheer quantity of monsters exceeds our worst nightmares.

  Today’s vigil ended in a bitter discussion. Gruner accused me of not having kept the fortification of nails and glass shards in good repair. He blamed me for letting his “toads” slither up the walls. Beside myself, I denied it vehemently. I work on that grim mosaic twice as much as he does, if only out of boredom. Insults were exchanged. I told him that he was nothing more than a base fornicator and a surly one at that. Gruner cut me short by reminding me that I was merely a blasted intruder. He had never uttered that word before. We are deeper in the pit than ever.

  MAY 12

  A monster sank his teeth into Gruner’s right foot. I fired immediately, but its jaws tore away Gruner’s boot and a chunk of his big toe along with it. He treated the wound without a whimper.

  But we will not be able to hold out for much longer.

  8

  The escalation of the monsters’ fury was wearing us down slowly but surely. We were like two mountain climbers trying to scale great heights with not enough oxygen. Our actions were mechanical. If we spoke, it was with the weariness of mediocre actors reciting a lacklustre script. This fatigue was quite distinct from that which I experienced in the very first days. It was a less palpable form of lingering exhaustion; less desperate, but ever so much rawer. We no longer spoke. Like two condemned men awaiting execution, we had nothing left to say to one another. The only words that escaped Gruner’s lips for days on end were “friend”, if he needed something urgently, or the warning “Zum Leuchtturm”, reserved for the wee hours of night.

  Here is an example of a typical scene from this period: I am already awake and have completed some task deemed indispensable for our safety. I climb up to the light tower for lack of any other occupation. This is the highest point on the island, and one can see clear to the edges of the horizon. I am there in the hope of spying a lost ship. None appears. A simple iron weathervane crowns the lighthouse’s pointed roof. Although out of sight, I can hear it creaking languidly. It makes no difference in what direction it is pointing.

  The island is bathed in a dense pink light just after midday, which accentuates the minuteness of this island, in the middle of such a melancholy ocean. The treetops shimmer with matte glimmerings. The land lacks not just physical heat but the warmth of human activity. There is not a single bird to be seen. A clump of greenery dips into the water on the southern coast. A curtain of branches and leaves meets the ocean as though it were on the banks of a tropical river. It is an incongruous sight. If I look a bit farther, I can see my first residence. It is scarcely a thousand metres away. But one could say that an entire epoch lies between me and that cottage. Now I can only view it from a military standpoint. It is abandoned territory.

  I am on the balcony. Gruner is below me; walking. Or, I should say, scuttling. It is difficult to credit the endless quantity of things he finds to occupy himself with here at the lighthouse. He always busies himself with some activity, despite his weak flesh and frigid soul. When Gruner isn’t sleeping, fornicating or fighting, he is taken up in the most obscure minutiae. For example, he is capable of sharpening a key with a jeweller’s fastidiousness for hours on
end. Or he splays himself out in the sun, eyes closed and chest bared. If Gruner opened his mouth, he would look just like a crocodile. Nothing else matters to him. “We are going to die,” I said one day. “It is only death, after all,” he answered with a Bedouin’s fatalism. He occasionally sits down on a rock and does nothing but stare off into the middle distance. It is revealing precisely because there is nothing revealing about it. His gaze is that of a sleepwalker’s as he attempts to elude time’s grasp. He is oblivious to everything as he stares ahead, even the little stakes protruding menacingly out of the rock crevices. His body seems to become a pagan totem as it merges with the stone. Gruner lives in a state of perpetual death. A monotonous alarm sounds when evening falls:

  “Zum Leuchtturm! The lighthouse!”

  Our apathy came to an end one day when, by chance, Gruner went up to the lens room. While he was checking to make sure that the lights were in working order, I gazed off in the direction of the small Portuguese boat. Gruner’s hands were fumbling with the machinery. For want of anything else to say, I asked him what the ship had been carrying.