“I have seen a fight like this,” I said aloud.
Heredia couldn’t hide his disbelief. Immediately he wanted to know in what circumstances and where I had seen it. I didn’t contradict myself. I gave him an unsatisfactory explanation but felt that after listening to me Heredia held me in higher esteem than before.
My conscience was torturing me. If not to lie or to satisfy my vanity, why had I told Heredia that? If I confessed to him that when I saw the reproduction of the painting I had the certainty of having once watched a tiger fight a jaguar, and that when I examined my memory and having tried to talk about it I had understood that that memory did not exist, that in the course of my life I had never seen such a spectacle, not even at the zoo, not even in my childhood or while playing with my toys, what would he think of me?
That’s what I was thinking when I saw Eladio Esquivel in the hallway, turning the crank of a well to raise a bucket full of bottles from the bottom where they were kept very cold. When I saw the smiling face of the boy, my memory filled with confused images again. Why did everything remind me of something else? Claudia or María (the girl I had seen in the train), Armando Heredia himself, the repulsive porcelain basket with a cupid and a garland, Armando Heredia’s bed, Eladio Esquivel, the reproduction of the painting . . . I remembered some verses I had read in an English anthology:
I have been here before,
But when or how I cannot tell.
I also had the impression that I had seen all of this before, but without the ecstasy of love, which would be the only thing that could justify it.
I thought about the transmigration of the soul. I remembered some phrases I had read of ancient Indian philosophy: “The soul dwells in the body like a bird in a cage.” “The body takes a long journey and when it gets sick, the soul, which bears it, also finds remedies for it, but when the body perishes the soul abandons it, as if the body were a wrecked boat, and finds another to govern as before.”
I studied Eladio’s face again: I saw on his head a tight dark turban that looked like the velvety flower that my mother, in a garden in Olivos, had called rooster’s crest.
I asked Esquivel, “Don’t you remember having seen me before I came to this ranch?”
Looking at me with his enormous eyes, he responded, “I have a lousy memory.”
“I also have a lousy memory for faces, but this isn’t about that. Don’t you think you’ve met me before? Isn’t there something about me that you recognize?”
With a curious look he gazed at my face, my hair, my forehead, as if recalling something. He shook his head and said without conviction, “I don’t think so.”
I answered, “I saw you in India, more than a century ago. You took off your humble turban to bathe in the waters of the river that night. Later you stole pieces of silk from a store and when you died you were reincarnated as a bird.” Then I recited these words in a loud voice, “ ‘The soul cannot die: it leaves one dwelling place for another. I remember you; I was at the siege of Troy, my name was Euphorbus, son of Pantus, and the youngest of the Atreids pierced my chest with his lance. Long ago, I recognized my shield on the wall of the temple of Juno in Argos. Everything changes; nothing dies.’ Like Pythagoras, I believe in the transmigration of the soul.” Eladio Esquivel stared at me patiently. “At the age of twelve I knew by heart, in Greek, the apology of Er, son of Armenius, who saw the soul of Orpheus transformed into a swan; that of Thamyris, turned into a nightingale; that of Ajax, turned into a lion; that of Agamemnon, turned into an eagle.”
The rosy clouds assumed the annoying shapes of angels and altars. Above the grass, the remains of the mist dispersed. In the faint light of the woods, slow, blind Apollo appeared, the horse with a star on its forehead. It was the first time I had seen a blind animal. I prepared this phrase to tell Heredia: “A person who is capable of talking, of understanding, of reasoning, even if he was born blind, can come to know the world of forms and colors through words, through thought; but a blind animal, what secret labyrinths can it know, a prisoner of its movements, like an automaton? What hands, what kind voice will reveal the world to it?” I said, “Animals are the dreams of nature.”
Apollo approached slowly, stopping in front of us. A bluish faint light, opal-like, illuminated his dead eyes. He looked like an imperfect statue of stone or of stained plaster. The whole visual world, which frightens horses, had disappeared from his life, along with all pleasure. I felt that my transparent face gave away the horror: I remembered the words heard on the train: “He blinded a horse because it did not obey him. He tied it to a post, hobbled it, then burned its eyes with Turkish cigarettes.”
Between us the following dialogue unfolded:
“Poor animal, why don’t they kill him?”
“He’s still useful for plowing.”
“They make him work? He must suffer a lot.”
“How can you tell?”
“He barely moves. I have seen him wander slowly, with such indifference!”
“Indifference isn’t suffering.”
“It’s worse.”
“Perhaps. But Apollo is not entirely indifferent. You will see.”
Heredia lit a match and put it near the horse’s nostrils. The horse started, raised his neck, stood on his back legs, then dashed into the trees with the splendor of a mythological figure.
“What is happening to him?”
“He went blind in a fire. He was hobbled and couldn’t get away. The heat of fire drives him mad. With Eladio we have fun: we light a bonfire in the corral, lead Apollo inside, then mount him in turn to see which one he can throw off first.”
Heredia promised that the next day we would have fun with Apollo. I accepted with a feeling of disgust. I thought, smiling hypocritically: Every friend, sooner or later, reveals to us some unexpected defect. Heredia was revealing my cowardice, or rather the fear I felt of appearing cowardly.
In the distance, among the trees, Apollo had recovered his melancholy indifference.
We were talking with Heredia in the shadow of a phoenix palm.
“On February 28th my father’s friend will arrive,” he told me; later, leaning on the trunk, he looked at the foliage and continued. “I associate palm trees with the sea. In the sky where the foliage of a palm tree is I always imagine the blue line of the water. I associate palm trees with the sea, as I associate the arrival of my father’s friend with a crime: the crime I will commit.”
“What is the victim’s name?”
Heredia pronounced a name I had never heard before.
It was about six in the afternoon. We were riding horses. At the edge of the woods there were birds flying, making deafening sounds. We were going to town to pick up the mail. We took the shortest path, through the pastures at the edge of the ranch. Heredia stopped when we saw a carriage, which had crossed three or four gates, before it reached the last one. He muttered, “Let’s take our time. I don’t want to run into those people.”
A few yards later, in a dense forest, there was a shack with two enormous fig trees.
“Why don’t we hop off for a while? I think there are figs,” I said joyfully.
“In the shack with the rocking chair there are never ripe figs.”
We neared the place without dismounting from our horses and entered the woods through the shack with crumbling walls. We came up to one of the fig trees and picked one or two figs, still green, then threw them away.
“This is where Juan Otondo lived. He chewed on bones. One night he disappeared. They stole everything that was in his hut except for that rocker”—he showed me the remains of a rocking chair, with holes in the wicker and broken slats. Then he added, “People here are afraid of it because it moves by itself.”
Amazed, I gazed for a while at that wreck of a chair that rocked slowly even in the slightest breeze.
“Are you afraid?”
“Somewhere I have seen this rocker before.”
At that moment, when I heard my own words, I felt t
he terror of the supernatural.
“You keep coming back to your theories of reincarnation! Poor Eladio, he can barely remember what he did yesterday and you want him to remember his past lives,” Heredia exclaimed, tearing off a fig and throwing it at the rocker. It moved again.
“What I think seems like madness, but when I see that rocker, when I remember it, I understand many things—”
“Are you finished with your rambling?” Heredia shouted at me. Then, inviting me to follow him, he lashed my horse.
My thoughts wandered and I couldn’t sleep. I was thinking clearly but that clarity was murkier than what I had been thinking before. I could explain everything, but after this latest revelation I felt a fresh discomfort. Now I realized that that mysterious collection of objects and people which reminded me of others, and which had given me the disturbing impression that my whole existence was made up of memories older than my life or of confusion and forgetfulness . . . that whole collection of objects and persons had peopled my dreams. I had always dreamed about unknown persons and objects, which is why my dreams always disappeared from my memory. For this reason, and due to the amazement the discovery of that world had caused me, I could now remember those dreams with extraordinary precision.
Tortured by the infinite size of my past dreams, I delved into the labyrinth of my memory. Now I could explain everything. The porcelain basket that I thought I had seen at my friend’s house; Eladio Esquivel, who reminded me of a portrait of my father; the fight between a jaguar and a tiger that actually already existed in my memory—all were mere subterfuges I had used to explain to myself my obsession with similarities, to pardon my forgetfulness, and, perhaps unconsciously, to avoid a supernatural explanation. What I could never have suspected was that the unknown images in my dreams would one day appear in reality and that the repulsive form of that rocker would begin opening up the inexplicable explanation of a mystery. I who had always boasted of the perfect equilibrium of my nervous system now felt disturbed. Trembling with hatred, I remembered Heredia’s disdainful attitude, the words he pronounced—“Are you finished with your rambling?”—when I tried to explain these things to him. The pain that hatred can cause, although sometimes fleeting, seems endless when accompanied by the most sincere of feelings.
I couldn’t sleep. It must have been about five in the morning. I could hear the breathing of the dog lying by my bedroom door. I got dressed. I opened the blinds. The first light of dawn was visible on the horizon. The timid cry of a bird could be heard. A pale light filtered through the foliage and fell onto the damp grass. I walked into the woods where the night was dying very slowly. I took the path that would give me the best view of the horizon. I reached the gate. I waited there for the sun to come up, as if I needed that occurrence to return to the ranch house. With minute slowness the first light spread across a still-starry sky. How repulsive dawn seemed to me! Some dirty clouds, the dark and light blue parts of the night lowered onto the yellow fringe of the future day, forming a greenish middle fringe. The songs of the birds stopped and started. The light was emerging from the earth in thick waves. Then, suddenly, bits of sun began to appear, taking a long while to rise completely. I inhaled the rough fragrance of the grass. Carbón was chasing some reptile; he stopped, moved the foliage with his nose, panted. We went back to the house. I could hear some paces on the flagstones of the hallway. Heredia appeared by the final column.
We went to the ruins of the shed to find some tools to repair the broken seat of the carriage. On a huge sack there was a black cat sleeping. Heredia looked haggard. He feverishly searched for a hammer, some nails, and pliers. I admired his quickness, his skill.
“It’s important to finish right away,” he said, while hammering in the last nails.
“Why?”
“I have to go to the market. They’ve asked me to buy some colts.”
“Can’t I go with you?”
“We won’t both fit in the carriage. A neighbor is going with me.”
It was two in the afternoon. The sun was burning above the corrugated iron roof of the shed; Heredia climbed into the carriage and struck the horse with his whip, then disappeared in a cloud of dust.
I went back into the house, choosing a few of the less tedious books in my room to study. I wandered around outside, looking for a pleasant shady place in the trees, then lay down on the ground to read. Some little feathers, some seeds, soft leaves, insects were falling from the foliage. I managed to read three chapters of the history book, but the horseflies and the mosquitoes started to attack me. The more I killed the more numerous they became. I sat up, got on my knees, then finally stood up, ready to conclude the battle. That was when a huge bee appeared, resting on the trunk of a eucalyptus tree. I took off one of my sandals to squash it. It was an immortal bee—nothing could hurt it. After being hit three times it flew around me, came into the folds of the handkerchief I had tied around my neck, and buzzed violently inside. Terrified, I untied the handkerchief then threw it as far as I could. The bee remained motionless and triumphant on a blue stripe. When I cut a branch of the tree so as to try to scare the bee away I saw a name carved onto the trunk: María Gismondi. Then I went back to inspect the ground but the bee wasn’t on the handkerchief but on my foot. I prudently waited for it to fly off. But my nightmare wasn’t over: my right foot was sinking into an anthill that was hidden by the leaves. The ants climbed up my leg.
A warm night, along with the moon and fireflies, welcomed my solitude. I had just eaten and was taking the dogs out for a walk. I passed by the eucalyptus tree and asked myself uneasily who could have carved María Gismondi on it. I thought about Heredia’s penknife. I thought of Claudia, the girl I had seen the day of my arrival and several days later at the store in Cacharí. The day I saw her on the train, wasn’t she wearing a pin with the name María spelled out in stones? Maybe her name was María Gismondi? Could Heredia be in love with her? If so, why didn’t he tell me? I slowly walked through the Australian pines; in my mind I identified the girl on the train as María Gismondi.
In purple letters, like amethysts, I saw her name on the tree: María Gismondi. Could she be the girl I had seen in my dream? Now I could remember her. Was she the one? I had loved her because one must always love someone. I had loved her without remembering her. I realized that the regret I felt when I was with other women was because of her. In other eyes, I had looked for hers; in other lips, her lips; in other arms, her arms.
I remembered a dream: In winter, in a sparsely furnished room with shadows like those in a church, I waited for something, not knowing what, sitting on a bench (the hard bench of a train station). A dark light filtered in through the long skylight windows, filling the room with mist. My heart was bursting with hope. I was waiting for someone. I stood up anxiously, looked through the panes of the lowest windows. In my dream I could feel that the face and body of the young woman who was approaching me depended on me. I didn’t wait long, but I could have waited an entire lifetime. I heard her steps on the stones. Then she suddenly appeared, motionless, in the doorway, beautifully severe. Conscious of her imperfections, I nevertheless adored her, while a gleam in her eyes suggested that she reciprocated my feelings.
“Are you waiting for someone?” I asked quietly.
“No.”
“Are you alone?”
“Yes.”
“I suspected that someone was waiting for you outside. I would like to talk to you.”
“Not here; I can’t.”
“Where then?”
“I don’t know.”
“Listen to me. We should talk seriously.”
“How else could we talk?”
“With you, there’s no other way. With my arm around your waist I want to feel your heart beating in each of your words.”
“Which side is the heart on?”
“On the left.”
“Is it on the left for everyone?”
“Yes, but don’t make me suffer. Why do you ask me such thin
gs?”
“Sometimes I want to put my hand over my heart and I don’t know which side to put it on.”
“When do you want to put your hand over your heart?”
“When something makes a big impression on me or when I feel sick and my father doesn’t believe me.”
“Why doesn’t he believe you? Do you lie to him?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“When I tell him the truth he gets angry.”
“What truth?”
“I don’t know; I’ve never been truthful with him.”
“How do you know that your father gets angry when you tell him the truth if you’ve never been truthful with him?”
“Because sometimes he suspects the truth and then I want to die.”
“What does he suspect?”
“That I don’t tell the truth.”
“What truth? I want to know.”
“I don’t know.”
I drew near the young woman’s face. It felt as if something bound us together. I couldn’t stand the idea that life kept secrets from me. Aware that I would lose her by doing so, I kissed her desperately on the lips. When I opened my eyes I could see the flowers on a skirt. I wasn’t kissing her lips; I was kissing a coarse fabric. The young woman had disappeared.
“But her lips aren’t like those flowers. Her lips are like real flowers,” I said, sobbing.
The leaves of the vine, which usually hopped around like birds in the wind, didn’t move outside. It was hot, and no air entered my room through the door or the open windows. I picked up the poncho from my bed, as well as a pack of cigarettes and a box of matches from the table. Near the house, among the branches of an old laurel tree, where there was the fresh dark vault of a second sky, I found a place to sleep. The stars shone through the spaces among the leaves. Heredia passed by and stopped to see what I was doing. I told him that I was going to sleep outside and he said he wanted to copy me. He went into the house and came back with a pillow, a water bottle, a glass, a pack of cigarettes, and a flashlight. I spread the poncho out on the grass. Heredia put the pillow near the trunk of the laurel and we lay down to sleep. But sleep is not obedient. We began talking and smoking. From time to time we were quiet. Through the foliage we looked at the depths of the sky and listened to the beating wings of a bird.
Thus Were Their Faces Page 5