Many hours later the doors of the room could be heard opening and the voice of Modesto, who uttered, Good morning, oppressive heat and irritating humidity. He had, in such circumstances, a blind man’s gaze in which was inscribed his superior capacity to see everything and remember nothing.
Well, look, said the Mother, we’ve got away with this night, too, I counted on it, the gift of another day, let’s not let it escape—and in fact she was already out of bed and without even a glance in the mirror was heading for the breakfasts, announcing aloud, I don’t know to whom, that the harvest must have begun, since for several days she had woken with an irrational and vexing thirst (many of her syllogisms were in fact inscrutable). But I stayed in bed, I who didn’t fear the night, and very slowly I slipped out from under the sheets, because for the first time I seemed to be moving in a body endowed with hips, legs, fingers, smells, lips, and skin. I reviewed mentally the index that my grandmother had listed for me and I noted that, if you wanted to split hairs, I still lacked cunning and the ability of the stomach, whatever that meant. A system would be found to learn those as well. I looked at myself in the mirror. In what I saw there, I understood, for the first time with utter certainty, that the Son would return. Now I know that I wasn’t wrong, but also that life can have very elaborate ways of proving you right.
Going down to the breakfasts room was strange, because on no other morning had I gone down with a body, and now it seemed to me so incautious, or ridiculous, to carry it to the table directly from the night, just as it was, barely kept under control by a light nightgown, and only now did I measure how it rose up on my thighs, or how it opened in front when I leaned over—things I had never had reason to note. The smell of my fingers, the taste in my mouth. But it was like that, we behaved like that, we were all mad, with a happy madness.
The Daughter arrived, she smiled, nearly ran, dragging her leg, but she didn’t care, she came straight toward me, the Daughter, I had forgotten her, my empty bed, her alone in the room, I hadn’t given her even a distant thought. She embraced me. I was about to say something, she shook her head, still smiling. I don’t want to know anything, she said. Then she kissed me, lightly, on the mouth.
Come with me to the lake tonight, she said, I have to show you something.
We did go to the lake, in the low light of late afternoon, cutting through the orchards to arrive more quickly and at the right time, a time that the Daughter knew precisely—it was her lake. It was hard to understand how that dull countryside had spilled into a hollow, but certainly when it had it had done it well, and once and for all: so the water was inexplicably clear, still, cold, and magically indifferent to the seasons. It didn’t freeze in winter, or dry up in summer. It was an illogical lake, and maybe for that reason no one had ever managed to give it a name. To strangers, the old people said it didn’t exist.
They cut through the orchards, and so they arrived just in time. They lay down on the edge, and the Daughter said Don’t move, then she said They’re coming. And in fact, out of nowhere, small yellow-bellied birds, like swallows, but at an unfamiliar speed, and with other horizons reflected in their feathers, began arriving, one by one. Now be quiet and listen, said the Daughter. The birds traced the lake, flying calmly, a few feet above it. Then, suddenly, they lost altitude and descended swiftly to the surface of the water: there, in an instant, they rapidly devoured insects that had gone to seek a home, or comfort, on the wet surface of the lake. They did it with heavenly ease, and for a moment, as they did, their yellow bellies slithered over the water: in the absolute silence of the heat-dazed countryside, a silvery rustling could be heard, the feathers playing the surface of the water. It’s the most beautiful sound in the world, the Daughter said. She let time pass, and one bird after another. Then she repeated: It’s the most beautiful sound in the world. Once, she added, the Uncle told me that many things about men are comprehensible only if one recalls that they are incapable of a sound like that—the lightness, the speed, the grace. And so, she said to me, you shouldn’t expect them to be elegant predators, but only accept what they are, imperfect predators.
The young Bride was silent for a while, listening to the most beautiful sound in the world, then she turned to the Daughter.
You’re always talking about the Uncle, you know? she said.
I know.
You like him.
Of course. He’s the man I’m going to marry.
The young Bride burst out laughing.
Be quiet, or they’ll leave, said the Daughter, annoyed.
The young Bride tucked her head between her shoulders and lowered her voice.
You’re crazy—he’s your uncle, you can’t marry an uncle, it’s idiotic, and above all it’s forbidden. They wouldn’t let you.
Who else would take me, I’m a cripple.
You’re kidding, you’re magnificent, you . . .
And then he’s not my uncle.
What?
He’s not my uncle.
Of course he is.
Who told you?
Everyone knows, you call him “Uncle,” he’s your uncle.
He’s not.
You’re telling me that that man . . .
Be quiet, if you don’t look at them they’ll stop doing it.
So they returned to the yellow-feathered birds that came from far away to play the water. It was surprising how many details had agreed to meet in a single instant to produce the weld of that perfection: it wouldn’t have been so smooth on a lake that rippled slightly, and other, more astute insects would have been able to complicate the flight of the birds, just as without the silence of the dull countryside every sound would have been lost, however glorious. Yet no detail had failed to appear, or been delayed along the way, or ceased to believe in its own minuscule necessity: so every slither of the yellow feathers over the water offered the spectacle of a successful passage of Creation. Or, if you like, the magical opposite of a Creation that hadn’t happened, that is, a detail that had escaped the otherwise random genesis of things, an exception to disorder and senselessness. In any case, a miracle.
They let it go. The Daughter enchanted, the young Bride attentive, yet still lingering a bit on that business of the Uncle. The beauty of the sunset escaped them both—a rare occurrence, for, as you must have noted, there is almost nothing that can distract you from a sunset once it has caught your eye. To me it happened only once, that I can remember, owing to the presence of a certain person beside me, but it was the only time—it was in fact a unique person. Normally it doesn’t happen—but it happened to the Daughter and the young Bride, who had before them a particularly elegant sunset and didn’t see it, because they were listening to the most beautiful sound in the world, repeating itself over and over, the same, then a last time, not different. The yellow-feathered birds disappeared into a distance of which only they possessed the secret, the countryside returned to being obvious, as it was, and the lake mute as they had found it. Only then the Daughter, still lying down, still staring at the surface of the lake, began to speak and said that one day many years earlier she and the Son had gotten lost. He was seven, I was five, she said, we were children. We were walking through the countryside, we did it often—it was our secret world. But we went too far, or, I don’t know, following something, I don’t remember—maybe an illusion, or a presentiment. Darkness fell, and with the darkness the fog. We realized it too late, there was no way to recognize anything and the road back had been swallowed up by a wall we didn’t know. The Son was afraid, and so was I. We walked for a long time, trying to keep going in the same direction. We were both crying, but silently. Then we seemed to hear a sound that pierced the fog; the Son stopped crying, his voice became firm again, he said, Let’s go there. We couldn’t even see where we put our feet, sometimes it was hard, icy earth, sometimes a ditch, or mud, but we went on, we followed the sound, we heard it getting closer. It turned ou
t to be a mill wheel, its blades turning in a kind of canal, the mill dilapidated, the wheel straining, rattling all over the place, and that was the sound. Stopped in front of it was an automobile. We hadn’t seen many in our lives, but our father had one, we knew what it was. Sitting at the wheel was a man, and he was sleeping. I said something, the Son didn’t know what to do, we approached, I started to say we’d better go, and the Son said be quiet, then he said We’ll never find the way home, the man was sleeping. We spoke softly, so as not to wake him, but still raising our voices a little, every so often, because we were arguing, and were afraid. The man opened his eyes, looked at us, and then said: Get in, I’ll take you home.
When they opened the door at home, the Mother started shrieking something silly but very joyful. The Father approached the man and asked him to explain. At the end he shook his hand, or hugged him, I don’t remember, and asked if we could do something for him. Yes, he said, I’m very tired, would you mind if I sit down here for a moment to sleep? Then I’ll go. He lay down on the sofa, without even waiting for the answer. And he fell asleep. He hasn’t left since, because he’s still sleeping, and because it would be tremendously sad to see him leave. It was the Son who first called him “Uncle,” a few days later. He remained “Uncle,” forever.
The young Bride thought for a while.
You don’t even know who he is, she said.
No. But when I marry him he’ll tell me everything.
Wouldn’t it be right to have him tell first and then, eventually, marry him?
I tried.
And he?
He went on sleeping.
And it is what I more or less continued to do when the Doctor, in an intolerable outburst of the obvious, told me that the heart of the problem lay in my inability to understand who I am. When I remained silent, the Doctor repeated the obvious, maybe expecting that in some way I would react, for example by explaining who I was, or by admitting, instead, that I didn’t have the slightest idea about it. But in reality what I did was continue to nap for a while. Then I got up and wearily headed toward the door, saying that our collaboration ended there. I recall using exactly those words, even if they now seem to me excessively formal. He burst out laughing, but it was a forced laugh, probably called for by the books, something studied, something that seemed to me so intolerable that it goaded me to an unexpected action—as much for the Doctor as for me. That is to say, I grabbed the first thing that came to hand—a table clock of moderate dimensions but with sharp edges, and solid—and hurled it at the Doctor, hitting him right in the shoulder, not in the head as the newspapers erroneously reported, with the result that he fainted, it’s not clear if out of pain or out of surprise. Nor is it true that later I kicked him savagely, as one newspaper, which has hated me for years, claimed—or at least I don’t remember having done that. Some extremely unpleasant days followed, in which I refused to release any statement at all, tolerating every sort of intolerable gossip, and being charged, without particular interest, with assault. Understandably, since then I’ve shut myself in the house, limiting my outings to the strictly necessary and sinking slowly into a solitude by which I’m frightened and, at the same time, protected.
I have to admit that, judging from the photos that came to me from my lawyer, it would seem that I really did strike the Doctor in the head. What aim.
The road was already dark when they returned, the Daughter with her Cubist gait, the young Bride with her mind on certain vague thoughts of her own.
They pretended not to notice, but the truth is that the deliveries began to become less frequent, leaving empty, nameless days, according to rhythms that seemed irrational and so somewhat inconsistent with the mind of the Son as they had known it. An Irish harp arrived, and the next day two embroidered tablecloths. But then nothing, for two days. Sacks of seeds one Wednesday, and nothing until Sunday. A yellow tent, three tennis racquets, but in between four days of nothing. When an entire week passed without a single ring from the post office by which to measure the time of the wait, Modesto decided to ask, respectfully, for a meeting with the Father. He had prepared his opening sentence with care. It was in line with the Family’s deep-rooted inclinations, which were historically alien to any sort of pessimism.
You must surely have noted, sir, a certain slowing down of the deliveries recently. I wondered if it might not be the case to deduce from that the imminent arrival of the Son.
The Father looked at him silently. He was coming from distant thoughts, but he registered on some peripheral edge of his mind the beauty of loyalty to a style, often more visible in servants than in masters. He ratified it with an imperceptible smile. But since he remained silent, Modesto went ahead.
I happened to notice, on the other hand, that the last morning telegram is from twenty-two days ago, he said.
The Father, too, had noticed it. He wouldn’t have been able to fix an exact day, but he knew that at a certain point the Son had stopped reassuring the Family about the outcome of his nights.
He nodded yes, with his head. Yet he remained silent.
In the strict interpretation that he gave to his work, Modesto considered being silent in the presence of a master to be an excessively intimate practice, and so he avoided it systematically by resorting to a couple of elementary operations: asking permission to leave, or continuing to speak. Usually he preferred the first. That day he risked the second.
So, if you will allow me, I would begin to plan the preparations for his arrival, to which I would like to devote all my attention, given the affection I have for the Son and considering the joy that seeing him again will bring to the whole household.
The Father was almost moved. He had known that man forever, so at that moment he was perfectly able to understand what he was really saying, in the reverse of his words, with an irreproachable generosity and elegance. He was saying that something was going wrong with the Son, and he was there to do everything necessary to see that the rule that in those rooms did not permit anyone to give in to sorrow was not broken. Probably he was also reminding him that his devotion to the Son was such that no task would have seemed to him inappropriate if the purpose was that of tempering his fate.
So the Father remained silent—touched by that man’s proximity. By the intelligence, by the control. He was, just that afternoon, measuring his own solitude and, looking at Modesto, was aware of seeing in him the only person who in those hours inhabited with dignity the open landscape of his distress. And in fact, at moments like those, when we are called on to endure secret, or not easily expressed, sorrows, it’s secondary characters, of programmatic modesty, who from time to time break the isolation we have forced ourselves into, with the result that we find ourselves, as happened to me only a few days ago, granting strangers irrational entrance to our labyrinth, in the childish illusion of being able to gain from it a suggestion, or an advantage, or even just a fleeting balm. In my case, I’m ashamed to say, it was the stock boy in a supermarket who was meticulously placing some frozen foods in the right case—but I wouldn’t know exactly what to call it—his hands reddened with cold. I don’t know, it seemed to me that he was doing something similar to what I ought to do, analogously, to the case of my soul—but I wouldn’t know exactly what to call it. I ended up telling him. I was pleased to see that he didn’t stop working while he said he wasn’t sure he had understood clearly. So I explained better. My life is broken, I said, and I can’t get the pieces back into place. My hands are getting colder and colder, I haven’t been able to feel anything for a while, I told him. He must have thought he was dealing with a lunatic, and in fact that was the first time I thought I might go mad—an eventuality that the Doctor, foolishly, felt he could exclude, before I hit him with the clock. The secret is to do it every day, the supermarket stock boy told me. You do something every day, and so it becomes easy. I do it every day, I don’t even notice anymore. Is there something you do every day? he as
ked me. I write, I said. How nice. What do you write? Books, I said. Books about what? Novels, I said. I don’t have time to read, he said—it’s what they always say. Of course, I understand, I said, it’s not serious. I have three children, he said—maybe it was a justification, but I took it instead as the start of a dialogue, as an authorization to exchange something, and so I explained to him that, odd as it might seem, I could put pieces of a book one on top of the other without even looking at them, I just have to touch them with my fingertips, so to speak, while the same operation becomes impossible when I apply myself to the pieces of my life, with which I can’t construct anything that has a sensible form—or even just refined, if not pleasant—and this in spite of the fact that it’s an activity I devote myself to practically every day, and so many days by now that, you know, I told him, my hands are frozen, I don’t feel anything anymore.
The Young Bride Page 8