Thine is the Kingdom

by Abilio Estevez

  And the miracle is that the Wounded Boy appears by the table of the Dead, dressed in Lucio’s pajamas, his hair a mess from all his days in bed. None of the characters who live in this Island have ever seen God (at least not the way they imagine Him, given that, as you know, God is visible throughout Creation, we see Him every day in many ways we cannot comprehend). These characters all fall to their knees because they think they’re seeing God. They don’t think it like that, so explicitly, but in an almost inexplicable way, which almost gets confused with the happiness they feel at seeing him live and well, when they had thought at any moment he might not live. Darkly, however, something tells them that this Wounded Boy has something to do with their destinies. And he, like a good father, goes up to each of them, strokes their heads, mentions their names as if he’s known them all his life. And it turns out to be lucky that they’re holding their heads low, and can’t see the look of pity that is coming now into the eyes of the Wounded Boy.

  IV

  Finish Gloriae Mundi

  And the light of a candle shall shine no more at all in thee.

  — Apocalypse 18:23

  The path over here was always bordered by royal palms, that’s why they called it the Palm Grove. They said the palms had been here for years, since long before Godfather arrived to buy the land and build on it. They said that Godfather didn’t destroy them on account of Angelina, because she defended the royal palms, though Godfather had only wanted evergreen oaks. The evergreen oaks reminded him of the oak trees of Europe, please recall that Godfather came over as a young man, practically an adolescent, and grew rich here, but never could forget Spain. Tonight the royal palms aren’t there. And night has paused above the trees. Red night, above black trees. But the royal palms aren’t there. There’s no wind, and since there’s no wind and no palms, no one can hear their whispering (which makes them sound not like palms but like pious old women during the parish novena). The world stands still tonight. Night itself is in danger, as if the sky were about to join with the earth at any moment.

  And the sky seems to join with the earth. It’s just a moment, maybe one second, not long enough to count. Irene went outside, the laments were torturing her. All night long she’d been listening to laments. No telling if she went toward The Beyond or toward This Side, the Discus Thrower or the Laocoön. She picked up a flashlight and went outside. She met Helena and Merengue, as was to be expected; they were also feeling tortured by the laments, the whimpering that gave the impression the Island was full of wounded folk. As might be supposed, the three of them knew all along that there were no wounded, that this was just another one of the Islands tricks. No sooner had they started for one corner, toward the Moses, for example, than they heard the wails coming from around the bust of Martí; when they got to the bust of Martí, they heard the wails coming from the fountain with the Boy and the Goose. Enough to drive you crazy. It’s the wind, Merengue asserted. The wind, yes, the wind, footstep there were some abyss). Sebastian has discovered her and has run over. Why are you crying? He sees her looking shocked, takes one of her hands and realizes she’s trembling. Clinging to the thighs of Hermes, Marta sobs. Sebastián lets her calm down. He leads her then to the gallery and sits her down in a rocking chair. She lowers her head, sits for a long time in silence. If you didn’t know she had gone blind, you would think she was looking at the palms of her hands.

  Just a little while ago, the Wounded Boy went to see her. When she sensed his footsteps, Marta knew it was he by that aroma that accompanies him, that strange aroma of dried flowers, old letters, dresser drawers stuffed with photographs, books, and memories. She also knew it because the footsteps didn’t belong to any of the inhabitants of the Island, and she had come to recognize who was who by the sound of their footsteps. He announced to her, I want to give you a gift, Marta, and his voice had the timbre of tall, strong men, still a little childish but all men anyway, I know it has been your lot to suffer and I want to give you a gift, and that voice, there was no doubting it, had to belong to a dark blond man with clear white skin, a man with large eyes and hands, who knew very well where he was going and how he was getting there in life. As you might deduce, she did not speak. He seemed to know Martas desire, her need to travel (even though it was only in dreams) to those cities that must exist beyond the horizon (even when she sometimes came to doubt it). He stayed there a long time telling her of remote cities, speaking of civilizations that had disappeared and civilizations yet to appear, telling her of times past and times still to come, and when he decided to leave, he left her even more desperate than ever to open her eyes before Giotto’s Bell Tower, the Paris Opera, the Paseo de Gracia, the Hagia Sofia … But after she had been alone for a while, Marta noticed that her eyes could see. You shouldn’t imagine a sudden recovery of her sight, but a slow process through which things began to appear before her eyes, the naked and faded walls of a room that she wasn’t sure was her own, pieces of furniture worn out with use, a morning without radiance entering timidly through the possible frame of a possible window, to fall on a clock without numbers or hands; everything seeming dimensionless, as if it were some blurry print from an encyclopedia.

  I went out into the Island, I saw there weren’t any trees there, the great rectangle that is the Island consisted of a patch of sand, the houses were there, true, but empty, without windows or doors, without furniture, without people, without the smells of the kitchens, without the chattering that sometimes makes the Island the capital of noise, I tried to find somebody, it was all pointless and then I went into the street and found a pile of trash, a mound of papers flying in the wind, and I didn’t know which way to turn, I didn’t have any reference points, the tower of the parish church had disappeared, for instance, and what I did was walk and walk not knowing where I was going, the trees had no leaves, like in winter (in the countries where there is a winter), and the earth had turned to sand, and there weren’t any flowers, I noticed they were dried up on the ground, and the sky was steel grey, as the sky of the Island rarely is, and the smell that came on the wind was a smell of putrefaction and how couldn’t there be a smell of putrefaction if there were piles of trash everywhere, mountains of garbage, of junk, at times you could hear gunshots, at times I thought I saw the radiance of fire, and I asked myself, is this the dream I can dream? is this the city my eyes have access to? there was one moment when a whirlwind dropped down, dragging along dead birds, and another whirlwind dragged furniture, photographs, I saw a coach pass by without coachman or horses, by itself, as if that stiff wind were carrying it too, a lady dressed in clothes from another era was seated in the back, though when it came closer I saw it wasn’t a lady but a dress torn to shreds, and I felt chilled, so chilled. Marta cried out several times. No one ever responded. She wanted to return to her rocking chair, to her blindness, to her unsatisfied desires, to return to those long barren afternoons when she at least had hope to nourish her. She thought she was sitting down to cry beneath what she took to be a tree (and actually was a guillotine). She thought she sat there crying for a long time. She felt night was falling when it had already fallen. She felt they were touching her on the shoulder when the child had been calling her for a long time already. Who are you? The child didn’t reply, he only signaled me to follow him, and I of course followed him without stopping to doubt, that child was the only living being I had seen since I left the house, and we walked and walked without talking, without talking we went down toward a kind of cave, at a certain point he ordered me, Wait for me here, and I had no other choice but to obey his order, I didn’t care if he was a boy or a devil, what I cared was that there were someone by my side, it’s worse to be alone than to be in bad company, you’ll learn that when you find yourself lost, surrounded by sand and by garbage, when he came back to get me we began entering through dark little passages, through narrow little passages, until we came to a library, don’t ask me how I knew it was in a library, I suppose because of the shelves where there must have once be
en books, and because of a certain religious air, I mean, an air of true religiosity, though the place was full of beds, of children, of women, of old folks, and then it didn’t seem like a library but a hospital, and in fact I was in a library converted to a hospital, you could hear laments like you do here, like those in the Island on days when the wind comes from the south, and I lay down on the bed that the child pointed out to me, and I suppose I fell asleep. She fell asleep to defend herself, to escape, to make the time pass, to be unaware of the passage of time, so that when she woke up and they were taking out the refugees, it would be easier to join up with the group without understanding, without asking idle questions. They led them down long paths (the word path here is a euphemism). They led them through desolate places during a single, very long night. They must have reached the sea (if that’s what we can call the red expanse that vaguely recalled the sea). Moored to a dock was a ship. Well disciplined, we climbed aboard, I was struck that before boarding, each one turned for an instant to look back, I did so too, I saw a city, seemingly made of glass, or not even a city, but an accumulation of reflections, a series of miniature pieces breaking up into flashes of light, and I felt like crying, and I saw that everyone was crying like me, we had to set sail, we didn’t want to set sail, a sensation of anticipated nostalgia was overcoming us (don’t ask me nostalgia for what), we could hear the sound of the ship’s whistle, and it was pulling out from shore leaving a wake of dark red foam, I figure it was then that I heard that sound, a sound I couldn’t compare to anything else for you, a unique sound I couldn’t begin to describe, I turned, I saw a beautiful and terrible spectacle, the city blowing to bits, flying apart in countless, swift, luminous particles, the way I always imagined galaxies were destroyed.

  There should perhaps be no doubt, the Wounded Boy explains, the saint who has caused more canvases to be painted is that officer in the Emperor Diocletian’s praetorian guard, that convert to Christianity, the dashing young man whose almost naked body we see always covered with a greater or lesser number of arrows and darts, that benevolent patron of archers and tapestry-workers, Saint Sebastian, whose feast is celebrated on January 20, from the fifth century to the present hundreds of painters have concerned themselves with him, why it is that of all the ordeals, of all the martyrdoms there have been in the world, it has been Saint Sebastian’s that has done the most to trouble the artists isn’t very difficult to understand. The Wounded Boy speaks softly, as if to himself. No doubt various hypotheses could be put forward, the one that seems to approach the truth most closely isn’t the purely aesthetic one, naturally, stoning, emasculation, beating aren’t as beautiful as martyrdom by arrows (I won’t take into account here any Freudian interpretations, the phallic metaphor — worthy as that is, of course), it is obvious that the image of a nearly naked lad, tied to a tree or to a column, receiving arrows with the ambiguous and tear-stained expression of someone begging for clemency, is extremely tempting and cries out for pictorial representation, nor need it be said that, were Sebastian an eighty-year-old man, he would not be so captivating, youth, martyred beauty, is more moving than anything else could be, an ugly tortured body isn’t the same, unfortunately, as a beautiful tortured body, nor is a handsome triumphant body the same, unfortunately, as a handsome tortured body, the beautiful and wounded body gives the double satisfaction of pleasure mixed with pity: supreme joy! a body that makes us feel we should save it before possessing it is the body to which we aspire (whether we recognize it or not), it must finally be concluded: what’s most fascinating is the component of torture that beauty acquires here, as far back as the Renaissance, or perhaps even earlier, Western man has given in to the enchantment that the pain of others provokes in him, if men such as Van Gogh or Kafka or so many others had been happy we wouldn’t admire them so much, pain consecrates, that is likely why (I speak only in terms of probabilities, I don’t guarantee anything) so many ideologies have proliferated that exalt hunger, sacrifice, pain, as a means of redemption, the main problem consists in the fact that it isn’t so much the sufferer who is saved through pain as those who watch the suffering; suffering, insofar as it is a spectacle, acts as a cathartic, the great ideologues of suffering, the great political figures, the great religious reformers, don’t suffer in their own flesh and bone, instead they watch the suffering of their people with tearful eyes and they declaim, This is the path of salvation, moments before sitting down to a generous table, it’s comforting to know that you’re capable of being moved by the pain of others when you’re about to go off and sleep sweetly on feather mattresses, to think that others are dying of hunger and recognize your own generosity in thinking of them, this makes the ideologue of pain feel satisfied with himself and prepares him to continue enjoying his existence.

  Of the hundreds of Saint Sebastians there are to see in the art galleries of the world, the Wounded Boy continues, some are unrivaled, look here, consider this one by Perugino, between columns, under Renaissance arches, with just two arrows wounding his body and that peaceful landscape in the background, here you see the one by Antonello da Messina, and the one by Andrea Mantegna, literally riddled with arrows, that of Luca Cambiaso, with this nervous outline that intensely communicates the sensation of suffering, while he sees angels arriving, all these angels, bearing the crown of martyrdom, this one by Luca Signorelli, who, taking enviable advantage of simultaneity, allows us to see the saint being brought by his enemies and later shot with arrows by them (observe: his enemies — what an interesting detail — aren’t the saint’s contemporaries, but the painter’s), here are these two engravings by Dürer (with that strength of his), this one tied to the tree is my favorite, but you should keep in mind these particularly enchanting three: by Giovanni Antonio Bazzi, nicknamed II Sodoma, which was even admired by Vasari (who didn’t admire II Sodoma); by El Greco, robust and real, very alive given that only one arrow has pierced him, right below his heart; and by Honthorst, perhaps the most beautiful one, in which Saint Sebastian seems dead (just seems it, you should know that Saint Sebastian didn’t die from the arrows), look at him, defeated by pain, bearded, human, your contemporary and mine, with a body so perfect it makes you want to cry.

  So speaks the Wounded Boy to Sebastián, sitting in the gallery, in Irene’s rocking chair, with a notebook open on his lap in which he writes from time to time. From the notebook emerge the prints of the various paintings of Saint Sebastian, on which he has been noting the galleries where they can be seen.

  (Sebastián sees the Wounded Boy writing in the notebook. What are you writing? Notes. What for? For continuing the story.)

  No, old man, don’t make literature, you don’t have and you won’t have even a little laudanum to relieve your staying up late, you won't have it. The best thing for you to do is finish giving your legs an alcohol rub and go outside to see if you can find Helena, Irene, Merengue, somebody, anybody, to alleviate your loneliness. Because now, I don’t know what’s happening with me, I feel this loneliness more than ever, it must be because I’m waiting, though it shouldn’t be because of that, I always waited, I’ve always been waiting, and I’ve never known for what, waiting for something when you don’t know what it is, that’s the worst kind of waiting, the perfect form of waiting, yes, and by the same token the most maddening form. Professor Kingston finishes the alcohol rub and wraps up, he’s cold, very cold. He leaves the volume of Coleridge on the nightstand, unread, and discovers something of monumental importance: on top of the sheets, the footprints of a cat. It goes without saying, he is deeply shaken. The tracks mean many things, the most important of which is that what he took to be a dream wasn’t one, no, so it wasn’t a dream, it wasn’t a dream. And if it wasn’t a dream … Professor Kingston observes the tracks as if a real dream were taking place.

  He was lying down, it was still night. Since he had left the bathroom light on, it wasn’t totally dark. He opened his eyes. Sitting in the little rocker, there was Cira (it had to be Cira, that woman dressed in black and wear
ing gloves and whose face was covered by a veil). Cira, he called. It seemed to him that the woman smiled, though it was hard to tell. She petted the cat she had on her lap. Not any cat, but Kublai Khan, the cat that accompanied her until her death. Cira picked up the animal, and the animal jumped to the bed, walked across the sheets, started purring by his side. Professor Kingston closed his eyes before asking, Why did you return? She didn’t answer. When he thought he opened his eyes, neither she nor the cat were there.

  There are the tracks, the cat was here. Still incredulous, Professor Kingston wipes his fingers across the dirt the cat’s feet have left on the sheets. Then he realizes that, more than ever, he needs to find somebody, anybody, he wraps the scarf around his neck and goes out into The Beyond, where it is intensely cold and it’s nighttime, how could it be nighttime? I thought it was dawn, I saw the dawn light coming in through the cracks in the window, it’s nighttime and not just that, the sky is red and threatening, it looks like it’s trying to join with the earth, and if it does, then what? a catastrophe. Professor Kingston moves forward through the undergrowth with difficulty, partly because his body aches but mainly because he has forgotten the path. He turns down, to the left, looking for the disjointed little door that takes him into The Beyond, but he walks and walks and doesn’t find the little door. He thinks: It’s better to orient yourself by Vido’s father’s carpentry shop. So he walks straight ahead, as if he’s going toward the river, which he doesn’t hear, which has disappeared, the carpentry shop doesn’t appear either, Professor Kingston goes in circles, wanders aimlessly, gets lost among unknown scrub. At times he thinks he sees a waterfall, at times a group of men in the sea, at times a white house, far off in the distance. He knows, however, that all this comes from those persistent memories of his childhood, I have three recurrent memories of Jamaica: one of Dun’s River Falls, those mysterious waters that never stopped falling, with their deafening, insistent sound; one of a group of elegant men, in suits, with the sea up to their waists (on one occasion my mother explained it to me, it was a Christian baptism on Gunboat Beach); one of a meadow, a snow-white house in the distance, atop a hillock. That’s all the Jamaica I have, all the Jamaica I keep with me, that is all the Jamaica I need, apart from English, and knowing I was born in Savanna-La-Mar (not in Kingston, as everyone believes), hundreds, thousands of years ago. You’re cold, Professor, and you’re getting tired from walking around lost, from not finding the little door that will lead you to The Beyond, the red sky frightens you, that sky that you’d say could fall to earth at any moment (the catastrophe draws near). You’re cold, Professor, and your bones ache, and you can’t hear anything but the echoes of your own thoughts. If you could just get back home … Professor Kingston tries to trace his path back, to find his house. All he accomplishes is to get to a rocky piece of land, where a man is sitting on top of a dead tree stump. It’s him. He doesn’t have to see him to know it. It’s him. The Sailor. Picking up his courage, Professor Kingston approaches. There you are again, young man, ever young, impeccable sailor’s uniform, black curly hair, large eyes, perfect mouth, there you are again, waiting for me, this time it’s me you’re waiting for. I’m looking for my way back, the professor says, exaggerating his Jamaican accent without realizing it. Standing up, the Sailor reveals his superior height; extends his hand and takes him by the arm, leads him to the beach. There is Cira, and he points to the woman in black dress and veil, with the sea bathing her bare feet. Gracefully, Cira says good-bye. Professor Kingston approaches. The woman lifts her veil, smiles. There is Cira, young and beautiful, without the marks the leprosy had left on her. I’d forgotten your face, he exclaims with embarrassment. She keeps on smiling. At the moment he takes off her gloves to see Cira’s hands, the hands she would never let him see, it begins to drizzle. You were missing from my life for so many years, he confesses, that a moment came when I didn’t know if you were ever really there, I remembered Kublai Khan better than you, some absences are unforgivable, I never understood what you had come into my life to do if you were going to leave it so soon, later, little by little, as you learn all things in life, I began to realize that you had come so I would understand what it is to be alone, the learning experience that was reserved for me in this existence was, it seems, to get to know loneliness, and getting to know it after living with you was the most complete way to get to know it, when you left I went to New York, I found Havana suffocating, Havana was you, and you weren’t there, New York is the loneliest place you can be if you’re alone, because in New York you’re nobody, just a bit of ash, and that’s what I am, what we all are, and that’s what it’s so hard for us to learn, a bit of ash that someone could blow away at any moment.