Ema the Captive

by Cesar Aira

  And so it was. One day the travelers began to see pheasants. The first (the very first Ema had ever seen) was dark, with a fanlike crest and a disproportionate, smoky-black tail. It appeared on the forest trail and froze. The horses trembled and refused to take another step. The bird’s beak was slightly open, and its wings shivered. At one point it shook its head as if to say no.

  The presence of the pheasants ordained a peculiar kind of elegance. The long silhouette low to the ground, the wavering balance of the tail, the compact little head. And above all the cries, to which nothing in the forest can compare. The cry of the pheasant is the reverse of any music. A compact sound that reaches its full intensity with the first effort, or even before, as soon as it emerges into the world. Inevitably, it brings to mind the solidity of gold. One wonders how it is possible for the pheasant to remain afloat on the flimsy surface of the grass and not sink into the planet like a stone in water.

  Further on, a red-and-blue shogun-pheasant stepped out in front of them. Just like the other one, it placed itself in the middle of the path and stared at them with a gaze that no eyelid had ever eclipsed.

  Then came the turn of a big gray pheasant, one of the so-called Augustinian turkeys, accompanied by a diminutive parrot-pheasant, which seemed to be acting as its guide.

  The day was a sequence of apparitions. Before dusk the travelers were lucky enough to see a golden pheasant, unexpectedly there before them. It shone in the shafts of sunlight filtering down through the leaves. Gazing at it for those few seconds, they felt the air darkening, the night coming on. It could have been a statue: an allegory of wealth.

  Everything had fallen silent around them. Only the hesitant, faraway song of the goldfinch, and the thunder that generally accompanied the setting of the sun. The travelers felt that if the golden bird cried out it would destroy their eardrums. But it did not.

  They had no desire to keep going. After eating a few leaves and smoking, they fell asleep. The next day, their progress was interrupted by pheasants standing still on the path, and then by something more extraordinary.

  The group came out into a broad clearing that seemed empty at first, but immediately the colors of the pheasants, scattered in the grass, rose up from the ground. A whole flock. The dominant male and his regents, hens and chicks, all in the same mold: red, yellow and blue, slim like greyhounds, with puffy chests, delicate necks, and crests of shiny blue-black cartilage. They stared right through the intruders.

  As the travelers had predicted, the following day they reached the place where the mighty Catriel installed his court each autumn. It was a low-lying site, sloping down to the Pillahuinco, with bridges across the river, jetties, each with its cluster of boats, curved beaches on both sides, and steep banks covered with bathing boxes. The travellers had an aerial view, and were captivated by the bright, motley jumble. A strip beside the river, roughly two leagues long, was entirely occupied by mansions, bigger and more beautiful than any Ema had ever seen. The morning breeze made the cloth walls billow, and the whole city looked like a rippling lake of colors: royal purple, blues, golds, and above all the Indians’ emblematic color: faded orange. Here and there, in deliberate contrast to the silk and paper, funerary towers of white stone, in the middle of little graveled squares.

  Not even the beautiful pheasants had prepared the newcomers for that scenographic display. They proceeded along the edge of the tableland for an hour without taking their eyes off the city below, until they found a descending path. They plunged into the foliage and immediately lost sight of the capital. There were tents or little makeshift shelters among the plants, which must have been the rest houses of functionaries.

  The group descended slowly, taking till midday to reach the suburbs. Inevitably, they stared at everything in a state of provincial amazement; everything was interesting. A veritable multitude was milling in the streets, people of different races and appearances. A riding instructor went by, followed by ten children on white mules. A strong, stocky Amazon riding a shaved goat. Two women painted like queens of the night: blue with white stars. A blind man painted black. Gloomy-looking fishermen heading for the river with rods on their shoulders. Carriages of bamboo and lacquered wood, which must have been occupied by rich notables, driven by servants wearing feathered golden helmets who used staffs with bells to clear the way. The children walked on stilts or swung on swings. Ema and her friends came out onto one of the avenues that led to the center. The stores were majestically large and very far apart. Often the entrance was at the far end of an atrium watched over by guards and dogs.

  Hardly anyone noticed that they were foreigners, and those who did paid them scant attention. The city was invaded on a daily basis by diplomatic delegations sent constantly and for no reason at all by Catriel’s tributaries, who numbered in the hundreds. The diplomats would present their respects to the appropriate official, who would politely direct them to elaborate lodgings on the river bank, where the buildings were hidden by vegetation and there was nothing to remind the visitors that they were in the middle of a city, except for pointed roofs appearing over the treetops, or the opening vaults of the palaces. Ema and her friends had lunch, swam, or went for walks along the riverbank, looking at the fishing boats, chatting with the bathers. In the depths of dark hollows, between walls of Spanish moss and white creepers never touched by the sun, there were secret little stores, from which a slow figure would occasionally emerge, or darting children. The vicinity of the river instilled a calm. In the afternoon invitations came for the individual members of the group, which then broke up definitively. Some went to see actors, others enrolled in the famous building school, most went to live with new friends. Ema and her two children went to the house of a warrior who had fallen in love with her at first sight, although he had two other wives. With him she spent a brief and tranquil season. He was a good-natured, boyish individual. His favorite pastime was hunting with paralyzing gases, and he was away almost all the time. When he returned, dramatically painted all over, he would play dice and drink with his friends all day. On one such occasion he told Ema that one of his guests, an official from the court, wanted to take her as a concubine. She was curious about life at the palace, and he let her choose whether to stay or go.

  A carriage drawn by oxen was sent to fetch her the next day. She was taken to the royal palace, in one of whose wings lived the courtier, whose name (Ema never found out why) was Evaristo Hugo.

  The palace’s outbuildings and pavilions were scattered along the river; some were even built over it and on the other side. The complex was completely formless, and rather like a labyrinth since it always had to accommodate an indefinite number of residents from all levels of the hierarchy. The carriage in which Ema arrived entered via a side road, and when it came to a halt, somebody opened the door. Ema and the children had traveled with the shutters closed. They found themselves in a sloping garden, under a veranda made of raw planks, with white paper curtains. The minister, her new husband, came to greet her in person and showed her the rooms prepared for her according to his orders.

  That was it. Her new life began with the absolute calm of an “always.” During the first days she wondered why everything was so slow. It was etiquette, delaying the moments. Etiquette made them perfect, inserting perfect obstacles like clouds before each action, even the most immediate. And yet, at the same time, the obstacles precipitated the action, triggering it in a static reality. The function of etiquette was to make everything seem impossible and, more than that, to create a background of impossibility for all the trivialities and details.

  Ema shared a pavilion with Evaristo Hugo’s eight other concubines and about twenty children. The rooms changed shape from day to day, advancing into the garden and withdrawing each time the servants shifted the webs of rope and cane on which the walls of cloth or paper were stretched or hung, like sheets. The garden had the air of a miniature, which made it unique and much admired. Anyone wal
king in it felt like a giant: flowers the size of pinheads, tiny trees, paths too narrow to set a foot on.

  Close observation revealed that the garden was in fact made up of two slopes, one above the other. The miniaturization was an effect of the distance between them. The sound of the water set up an echoing between the two lawns.

  Every morning the women went down to the river, where they spent the better part of the day. Pink rocks jutted out of the bank; the children used them as diving platforms. The women roasted chicken and fish, collected wild fruit, and led a mock pastoral life. They were often accompanied by Evaristo Hugo himself, or other officials. They would go out sailing, or rather floating, letting the boats drift with the current around the dark meanders. Fish were bred in tanks beside the river. On the muddy little islands there grew a chrysanthemum whose flowers opened flush with the ground. Sometimes the tidal bore brought sea anemones.

  With the beginning of the cold came a change in the outward forms. A vast weariness came over the men. There was a textile fair, at which the women of the court bought caps and blankets. Evaristo Hugo’s wives ordered new rush mats and made quilts filled with down. Herbalists set off with great pomp on expeditions to renew the medicinal supplies for winter. Society prepared itself to disappear for months on end.

  Before the party to celebrate the beginning of winter, Evaristo Hugo took his large family to spend a week on one of the islands, where he had his summer residence. The air had cooled already. They traveled and arrived beneath an impressive layer of clouds. The first days on the island were melancholic, because of the gray afternoons and a general restlessness. Evaristo Hugo did practically nothing but sleep, or admire the fish caught by his cooks with a weary look on his face.

  When she woke up one morning, Ema smelt the perfume of snow. Although it had barely dawned, the light was different, perfect. The patch of sky she could see through the window was of a blue so clear it seemed almost dark. A silhouette appeared on the paper curtain.

  “Who’s there?” she asked sleepily.

  By way of an answer, a hand came in and tossed snow into the room, with a laugh. Ema was quick to lift the blanket, but an icy droplet fell on her face. She got up and went to join the others in the gallery; they were lost in mute admiration. The white island, the freezing air, the pallid sun powerless to warm the earth: that layer would not melt.

  All the island’s trees, blue pines and limes, looked like scoops of ice-cream. The smooth surface of the snow on the ground was an invitation to leave prints. The cry of the woodcocks sounded different, fearful perhaps.

  “It’s a sight worth seeing. Shall we wake him up?”

  The minister didn’t like to rise early. But he had slept all the previous afternoon, and all night too. It was just as well to interrupt his melancholy nightmares. He seemed at once delighted and sad, as always.

  “What will become of the ants? Snug, deep in the earth. And the moths are larvae now, swaddled in mauve silk.”

  Evaristo Hugo sat down under a parasol — the glare was bothering him — and began to smoke. He fell asleep sitting there.

  The children didn’t wait for their breakfast, they were too impatient to go out and play. They held a snowman competition. They woke up the minister to choose the best and complained bitterly about each of his decisions. Then there was a snowball war, and they screamed so much that Evaristo Hugo decided to return to the capital immediately, before the children shattered his nerves.

  The bulk of the family embarked on a ship with three sails made of woven rushes. Hugo left a good while later, with Ema and another young woman, on a skiff with a single square sail. There was a boatman at the helm. The three passengers sat watching the banks. It was all the same: a limitless white.

  “What strange stuff snow is!” said Evaristo Hugo. “I wouldn’t know how to define it. I think it’s a kind of solid form, but not like the truly solid things it covers: rocks, tree trunks. It’s a state, and yet we shall have to look at it for such a long a time . . .”

  He sank into his thoughts. As they approached the city they saw more and more children flying the white kites with which they welcomed the first snows. Evaristo Hugo smoked the cigarettes held for him by the women. The water seemed black in contrast with the land. Now and then a tree would move, for no apparent reason, shedding a snowball. The minister had decided, before leaving the island, to have a red square painted on his chest. Nevertheless he sighed melancholically. Ema took his hand.

  “You must be wondering why I’m so downcast,” he said.

  “There’s not always a reason.”

  “True. I’m weary like a beggar. I wonder when life will end.”

  The other wife laughed.

  “I thought beggars led a carefree life.”

  “Not so,” he said, shaking his head. “Before they can reach the door and ask for a glass of water, they have to gnaw at stones.”

  “Why do all the beggars here at the court try to arouse pity by saying they’re asthmatic?”

  “Who knows? I’ve never been able to work it out.” Any display of knowledge was, Evaristo Hugo felt, a lapse of taste. “Look at that.”

  Along the rim of the riverbank, a row of black mice stood out clearly against the snow, all facing the water. Scared by the boat passing by, they opened surprising wings and took off. The two young women cried out in amazement.

  “Bats,” said Evaristo Hugo.

  On the shore, a man on horseback was leading a flock of about a hundred lively little goats.

  “The king’s goats,” said Evaristo. “They’re taking them to the mountains for winter.”

  A bird fluttered over them, brushing their heads. The boatman at the helm raised a palm leaf and shook it to keep the bird away.

  “The first white wagtail,” said Evaristo Hugo. “They’re so annoying. When are they going to exterminate them?”

  Ema laughed at her husband’s obstinate gloominess. He was having an attack of fatalism. He felt that he was at death’s door, a useless, broken man. He confused her. And himself: that was the only purpose that his intelligence served, he said. He told anyone who would listen that he had no understanding of public administration and performed his functions blindly. According to him, it was a miracle that he hadn’t yet made a fatal blunder and ruined the empire’s prosperity. He had a mid-ranking position: religious secretary.

  “But after all,” he said, “what is politics? Its science is laissez-faire. Its technique, the nose of a queen.”

  Or: “And yet politics exists. It is the speck of dust on which the rock of eternity rests.”

  If someone asked about his occupation: “My work consists of painting myself red and maintaining a sceptical attitude.”

  His motto: “I have a mighty hammer but cannot use it because the handle is red hot.”

  When they reached the city, enormous clouds rose over the horizon, announcing the continuation of the snow. It snowed that night and the following days. Ema amused herself inside, with some maps that Evaristo Hugo had promised her during the trip, and produced as soon as they returned. Each one, opened out, covered almost the whole floor of the little room to which she had retired to study them. Folded up, they fitted in a pocket. They were made of fine, wrinkly paper. Those maps would accompany Ema for many years, long after her departure from the indigenous kingdoms. They set her dreaming. They were painted with vegetable dyes applied with wadding. They represented Catriel’s realm as the center of the world. Then the lands of his tributaries, the edge of the forest, and even the empty zone separating Pringles from Azul. The western kingdoms, by contrast, were barely sketched in. No two maps were the same, although many showed the same region. Beautiful miniatures stood in for absent inscriptions: the capital with its palaces and bridges, villages in remote clearings, and even the fort in Pringles and the settlement, where Ema was able to recognize the hut in which she had lived.r />
  One of the maps, her favorite, was devoted to the pheasants: their distribution and populations. Meticulous drawings represented each of the breeds. The bigger the drawing, the more birds it stood for.

  Weeks later, a page with white stripes on his face, a form of decoration reserved for servants of the royal family, brought Ema a message. Laughing, and beating elaborately around the bush, he finally explained that one of Catriel’s concubines had conceived the desire to see her, and asked if she would be good enough to visit the royal lodgings the following morning. Ema agreed indifferently, although she was surprised. Neither Catriel nor his wives and children showed themselves to common mortals. Evaristo Hugo himself never approached the chief, even when officiating at a relatively high level in the rituals, and saw him barely once or twice a year, on predetermined occasions. But then she remembered something that she had once heard, the story of a beautiful captive woman, named F. C. Argentina, carried off to the most improbable of destinations: the royal harem. Until then she had considered it a legend, but it could well have been true. And that might explain it: the captive might have been curious to meet the minister’s young wife, having discovered that she too was white.

  The next day Ema was led to an empty room with only three walls: where the fourth should have been was an opening onto a snow garden. To the right, contrasting discreetly with this background of white light, was a gray, shadowy figure: the queen sitting on a rush mat with a child asleep beside her. She invited Ema to sit down on a square rug next to the mat. She was wearing a skirt of red cloth, and her chest was bare.