Between the Discus Thrower and the fountain with the Boy and the Goose, the afternoon following upon the downpour has caught Vido by surprise. He lies down beneath a white ateje tree, almost hidden among the aralia and hibiscus flowers. For the moment, no one could be sufficiently discerning to explain why he has lain there. Even the most ingenuous, even the simplest sorts of people realize that not every human action can be explained. At least not with the clumsy faculties we’ve been given. That is, it would be proper to write: Vido has felt free to sit under the ateje tree. This is even what he thinks himself. It turns out, however, that the ground and the grass are damp and agreeably cool. In this case, what is agreeable is not merely the coolness Vido discovers, but the way the damp makes Vido discover his own body, stretched out on the grass, experiencing the dampness. Likewise, right when he lies down, the breeze (a cool breeze, unusual for the Island, that has picked up following the rainstorm) begins to sway the branches of so many trees. Raindrops left behind by the downpour fall from the branches. From where he lies Vido sees them fall, and sees the afternoon sun shining in each one of them. It is a drizzle. At last, a drizzle, more discreet. More luminous, too. These don’t look like drops of water but drops of light, if that’s possible. Vido begins to hear the white ateje branches moving. Then he distinguishes the sound the breeze produces when it enters the casuarinas. The voluptuous whistling of the casuarinas is different from that of the serious white ateje. The guava tree moves with the sound of a silk curtain, while the royal palms send out a stern warning. The likable dragon tree laughs. The rubber plant laughs even more uninhibitedly The bamboos, on the other hand, complain. The frond of a coconut palm falls to deafening applause. Vido puts his hands to his ears. He stops listening. He listens. He stops listening. He listens. Yes, I hear you all! he shouts.
My mother gave me this chain days before her disappearance, Mercedes says as she leans over to pick the chain up. Irene fastens the chain around Mercedes’s neck. It’s pretty, she says. How is the Wounded Boy? Better, much better, he doesn’t have a fever anymore and he’s breathing easily, sometimes he utters words I don’t understand. And you, how are you? Irene collapses in an easy chair, dries her eyes, which are already dry, tries to smile. I don’t know, I don’t know, I still can’t remember, I spend hours thinking about Emilio, about my mother, about the little house in Bauta, the day flees past while I try to find a memory, and here you see me with my head empty. Mercedes feels compassion for Irene, caresses her head. Forget about losing your memory, dear, you’ll drive yourself crazy, look at the Island, it’s so beautiful, so happy to have gotten that downpour. The other woman listens to her without seeming to listen, and shrugs. Do you want to see him? Mercedes nods. Irene stands up, content to be able to do something.
There lies the Wounded Boy. Irene has given him the best room with the best bed, the master bedroom, and for herself has prepared a chaise longue at the boy’s feet. Irene cares for him as if he were a son, as if he were Lucio (may God forbid). Two nights ago, when the children found him and came running to tell about it and raised a commotion among everyone, when Merengue and Lucio carried him, with the help of Rolo and Vido and followed by all the rest, after they decided that calling the hospital or the police would mean giving him up into the hands of his murderers, no one doubted, no one had to ask, they just brought him straight over to Irene’s house, fully aware that she would pay closer attention to him than anyone else, that she would attend to him better than anyone else. Not even Helena herself said a word. And when they called Doctor Pinto, he didn’t have to ask. As soon as they opened the great iron gate that faces Linea Street to let him in, he went to Irene’s house and asked her in the cracked voice of a rum drinker: Where do you have him?
There lies the Wounded Boy. Irene feels his forehead and smiles with relief, whispers, No, he doesn’t have a fever. Mercedes looks at him, closes her eyes and looks at him again. She instinctively arranges her hair. It isn’t possible! She feels a very odd sensation, something inexplicable suddenly paralyzes her, leaves her motionless, without gestures, without words, in the middle of the room. She tries to remember the moment when the rumor spread that Sebastián and Tingo had found someone wounded in The Beyond, in the carpentry shop of Vido s father, and they had been walking around like crazy from one end to the other, illuminated by Merengues and Helena’s flashlights, trying to find out who all the blood had spilled from that appeared in every corner of the Island. Mercedes remembers she was getting lost around the watering hole, around the bamboo, near Carmela s Elegguá, when Tingo carne running, shouting, A wounded guy, a wounded guy Wounded, where? someone asked, perhaps Helena, who is always the first to react. And Merengue — Merengue? no, Lucio, yes, it was Lucio who yelled, In the carpentry shop! And they set off running through the weeds toward the shop as best they could, since it’s true The Beyond is impassable. And although that happened merely two nights ago, it seems to Mercedes that years have gone by since the moment they arrived in the old warped wooden shack and saw the boy there, covered with blood, on the carpenter’s table, wrapped in the Cuban flag. She was struck then by his handsome tanned skin, his curly jet-black hair, his strange Bedouin profile, the dark mole at the corner of his mouth. Drying her dry eyes, Irene approaches her, Is anything wrong? Mercedes smiles, No, I’m fine. Yes, there lies the Wounded Boy. He is white, very white, with a sweet, gentle profile, and straight blond hair, and young, young … No mole darkens the corners of his mouth. When his eyes open at times, you can see two striking blue beads. Mercedes comes up to the edge of the bed and stands there observing him. Young man … who could have wounded him like that? Irene (sometimes you could swear she could read your thoughts) caresses Mercedes’s shoulder and lets another whisper escape, It must have been the devil to wound an angel like this, only a devil, and lowering her voice yet more, making the whisper even more of a whisper, she adds, Listen, Doctor Pinto says they aren’t bullet wounds. No, don’t look at me like that, they aren’t bullet wounds, Doctor Pinto explained to me confidentially this morning, listen up: confidentially, no one is supposed to know this, hear this, they aren’t bullet wounds, no, they wounded him with darts, with arrows.
One fine day the beggars appeared, yes, they were seen arriving around sunset, there were two of them, a man and a woman, ragged, dirty, we couldn’t get near them, only Uncle Leandro, who was getting close to sainthood, was brave enough to bring them each a bowl of soup, to be friendly, even to exchange a few words with them, after eating they went wandering around the beach for a while, a moment came when they disappeared and we didn’t notice, and when they reappeared the next day we didn’t notice that either, the next day four of them came, no, I’m wrong, five, yes, five, they came with a little girl who was even dirtier and more ragged than they were, Uncle Leandro fed them again, my mother went and helped too, I remember, my mother didn’t talk, she stood there watching them like when she used to go into the Chapel of Christ Washing the Feet, the one in Corrales Street next to the fire station, and see the image of Our Lady of Sorrows there, they have an impressive image of the Mater Dolorosa there, all dressed in black, with black lace, real tears, or they look real, holding a handkerchief in her hand, the Dolorosa they have there always deeply impressed my mother, and you can still see her if you go there today, and they (the beggars) went into the water after dinner, they didn’t take off their clothes, just went into the water, and they stayed in the sea until late at night, followed by my mother’s watchful gaze, she’d sit down to sew, but she wasn’t really sewing, that was just a pretext, just watching them, and my uncle would shut himself inside to meditate, haven’t I told you yet that around that time Marta started losing her eyesight? to read she had to stick her eyes right up against the pages of the book, when she woke up in the morning she went to the window and asked, What’s that out there, and that out there was a ship, she also bumped into the furniture and mixed up the medicines and barely could write, I was the one who noticed that Marta was starting to
lose her eyesight, my uncle was such a saint he only worried about swimming, meditating, reading enormous old tomes, you know, saints don’t have time for anybody else, and as for my mother, she spent hours sitting in the rocking chair facing the window, watching the sea with a strange, cheerful expression, like someone who’s just about to become happy, an expression we never could figure out, never did figure out, my mother only stood up when the beggars arrived, more of them every day, greater numbers every day, one day six came, the next day ten, the next fourteen, until there were more than twenty and every day they stayed longer, wandering around the house, swimming in the sea, shouting, singing, laughing, they seemed like the happiest beings on the planet, though Marta and I were terrified of them, we only dared contemplate them from afar, while my mother (my uncle, busier all the time with his own sainthood, no longer bothered with them) brought them food and conversed and laughed with them, one night we even heard her singing in the center of a large circle they had formed by the seashore while they applauded each verse of the song, a Spanish song that went something like I'm the woman from Lagartera and I bring Lagartera lace, I remember: I got closer, hiding behind the sea grape bushes, and saw how she sang, restless hands, fiery eyes, trembling voice, while the land breeze stirred her hair and made her voice vibrate ephemerally yet nevertheless lent her an image of timeless-ness, the image of a woman who had sung forever and who would sing forever a song with no beginning and no end.
The downpour left Professor Kingston feeling cold. He still feels cold. He is sitting in his little rocker and looking in horror at the cardboard fan on the bed. Also in horror he looks at the notebook on the table with his English class notes prepared. Professor Kingston hasn’t been able to get up from the little rocker. Every time he tries, a sharp pain in the area of his hips, and farther within, in his sacrum, and farther within, much farther, a pain so strong and so profound that it no longer seems like a pain in my body but a pain in my soul, a pain in the world … the fact of the matter is that the pain keeps me from standing up, I’ve been sitting here for I don’t know how long, sitting here for an infinity, I can’t stand up, I give it a better effort each time, I tell myself I have to be brave, and I call on more strength than I have and I can’t get to my feet, my legs won’t obey me, Í must be brave. Professor Kingston is thinking that if the sailor were to show up now, he would have to sit still before him. There’s nothing else he could do. What bothers him most is his hearing, which up to a few hours ago had always been more reliable than his sight, and right now he seems to have lost it. It’s as if the Island had disappeared and only he has remained, sitting forever in the little rocker. No sound reaches him from outside. The trees can’t be heard. Could it be that no breeze is blowing? Impossible, outside there should be a different song coming from each tree, it’s me, it’s that I’m deaf, deaf and motionless, What to do? I remember when I would sit in the countryside and listen to the particular way each tree had for responding to the breeze, there were irate trees and happy trees and hapless and sad and euphoric and elated and timid trees, there were trees like human beings, but not now, there’s no one, no one, and to top it all off I can’t move, and I’m also cold.
* * *
It is necessary to have Irene go shopping to find the right justification for letting Helena stay by herself, taking care of the Wounded Boy We have decided that this should be an enjoyable task for Helena, we have decided that she should enjoy watching the youth with his long, straight chestnut hair, the eagle profile of his face, his thin, pallid lips. We have decided that, as for almost every inhabitant of the Island, for Helena, too, this should be like having access to a saint. No one knows why this occurs to them. No one can explain their veneration for someone they don’t know, with whom they haven’t even spoken, for someone lying speechless, motionless, sick in bed. Like human beings (on whom they draw, after all), these characters are unaware of an infinite number of things about themselves. And the author, for all he would like to appear like the Creator, is also unaware of many things.
Every time Irene goes to the marketplace, it is Helena who stays to take care of the Wounded Boy. For her this is an enjoyable task. She likes to watch the youth, with his black hair, curly and short, and his soft profile. From the moment she learned he had been shot with arrows, Helena has looked at him with unction. Suffering always leads to devotion and respect. When, as now, she is alone with him, Helena talks to him as if he could hear her, and perhaps aid her. Like other human beings, the characters in this tale feel helpless and in need of a higher being.
Sometimes I feel afraid, boy, no, that’s a lie, it isn’t sometimes that I feel afraid, it’s always, I’m always afraid, boy, remember that I am, they say, the best manager the Island has ever had or could ever have, and I carry on my shoulders the responsibility of saving it, that’s why 1 go outside when everyone else is sleeping and scour the Island with my flashlight, I shine the light into every corner to see if every corner is still in one piece, I go looking for the spittoon, the hat stand that has eroded away unused, the wooden screen, the Victory of Samothrace, each one of the monstrous statues, the rocking chair, the Virgin of La Caridad in her modest glass case, I go looking to see that no tree has been damaged, no flower has been cut, I track, I follow every odor that doesn’t come from the Island, I look for traces, I know every sound, every corner, and I love these trees and these horrible statues, and I love the infernal heat, and I love the houses that make up the Island, these houses with their yellow-black walls, and I love the downpours that forebode the end, and the droughts that also forebode the end, and I love the way time stops in the Island, its handless clocks, the confusion, the labyrinths, the mirages, these stories that are told about it and if you come to believe them all you’ll end up going crazy, I love the senselessness of our lives, the hopelessness, the exhaustion we. all feel when dawn comes, tell me, why should you want a new dawn in this Island? I love Merengue’s white pastry- cart, I love Merengue and I love Merenguen lost son, I love. Chavito who’s off wandering I don’t know where, I love Casta Diva, and Chacho, and Tingo, and Tatina, and Irene, and Lucio, I love Fortunato, and Rolo, and Sandokán, I love Miss Berta, I love Marta and Mercedes, I love my son, Sebastián, who … my son, my son Sebastián, tell me something, Wounded Boy, are you here for Sebastián? I want to know what will come of everything I love, if you could let me glance ahead to the end, the epilogue, if at least I knew my efforts did some good, if I only knew that this Island was able to stay on the map of the world, that I’m not taking my flashlight and scouring the Island in vain, if I only knew that the cracks I see opening up every day will close up again some other day, if I only knew that the red sandalwood tree of Ceylon would always be a red sandalwood tree of Ceylon, if I only knew, if you could reassure me that…
He has closed himself up in his room with the book he stole from the bookstore. It’s a book with red covers. On one of the covers you can read: JULIAN DEL CASAL (a beautiful name, isn’t it, Sebastián?). The sepia-colored pages, the large, round, decorated letters. His room, like Noemi’s, is illuminated by a lamp. Sebastián opens the book at random (what he thinks is at random) and reads.
Noemi is sinful. Noemi is pallid and sinful. Pallid (applied to persons whose faces lack the normal rosy color of the healthy). Sinful (against the law of God). Noemi has red hair and green eyes, she is lying back on cushions, which are satin (a silk fabric), which are lilac-colored. Since she has nothing else to do, she is pulling the petals off an orange blossom. At her feet is an oven that heats her room. The piano, its lid raised, stands nearby. There is also a folding screen of Chinese silk in the room. Folding screen (device formed of several frames, united by hinges, so that it can be folded up or extended). Silk (fabric made with special fibers). The folding screen of Chinese silk shows cranes (long-legged bird, ash-gray in color) flying in a cross formation. On a night table stands a lamp. The white fan, the blue parasol, the kid gloves recline on the settee (referring to a seat or couch, wit
h or without arms, on which one may sit or lie). At the same time, the green spirit of tea steams up from a porcelain cup. What is Noerni thinking about? That the prince no longer loves her? That her anemia is wearing her down? That in her Bohemian vases (Bohemia: region of Europe famous for crystalware) she would like to trap a moonbeam? That she perhaps desires something even more impossible: to caress the feathers of Leda’s swan (Zeus in disguise)? No, poor Noemi has been counseled that in order to relieve the tedium (weariness, boredom) that is sowing a fatal quietude in her soul, she should drink, from a cup of carved onyx (agate, chalcedony), the red blood of a royal tiger, a king tiger, a tiger king.
It’s been days since Chavito came, it’s been days since I’ve heard from Chavito, explains Merengue. Helena listens to him, trying not to express anything, trying to keep her serenity, her strong woman’s air. Your son is at the disappearing age, it’s only proper. And she stands up, aware that nothing she could say would calm the black man, and the only thing that occurs to her is to go to the kitchen and come back with a bowl of custard and a fake little laugh, Come on, Merengue, you can’t hold on to a son, you know that. Chavito is all I have. For now, but the time will come when he’ll give you grandkids and great-grandkids and greatgreatgreatgrandkids, since you, being a black man after all, will live to be two hundred. Merengue laughs sadly, without feeling like laughing, and eats, also without feeling like it, the custard, which has a strong flavor of cinnamon. Nobody can make custard like you. That’s what Rolo says, I learned it from my mother, she could make it better. And they sit in silence, in the humid light of Helena’s living room. Merengue finishes his custard and leaves it on the table in the middle of the room. The times are bad, and the phrase is enough for Helena to understand that he actually meant to say something else. Yes, bad, terrible, would you be so kind as to tell me when they’ve ever been good? this Island! You’re right: this Island! Whoever thought of discovering it? The Spaniards, it’s all their fault — the spirit of adventure, the urge for nobility, the ingenuous sense of honor! — if this little bit of land hadn’t been discovered, you’d be running around the Ivory Coast in a loincloth, and I’d be cleaning the floors of a convent in Santander. Now Merengue does laugh with feeling. And I wouldn’t be selling candy? Helena shakes her head: You’d be going around with your cart selling elephant tusks.
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