Casta Diva reaches the rabbit cages very early, right after dawn. She has dreamed that Tingo and Tatina were turning into rabbits and that she went out and saw the Island invaded by rabbits. As was to be expected, she woke up shaken and ran to the cages where Homer Linesman opened up without looking at her, pronouncing an opinion about life that she didn’t understand. And now she arrives at the cage where Chacho and Primavera live together, and she is unable to keep from retching. The foul smell escaping from the cages makes her think of a cadaver slowly rotting under the elements. Chacho, she calls, and the only response is a slight movement in the cages, a strumming of rabbits’ feet. Can I feed them some grass? she asks Homer, but he’s already melted into the morning grey. Casta picks up some of the grass piled there in a rusty pail. She opens the door to the cage of Chacho and Primavera. The rotting smell is stronger now and she has to make an effort not to vomit. She leans over a little. Inside, within the darkness of the cage, there is a frightened movement and silence. Casta Diva discovers the whiteness of Primavera, her red eyes observe her meekly. Next to her, she thinks she spies Chacho, but it can’t be Chacho, that little undefinable thing that also looks at her with great terrified eyes. Chacho, she calls, and it must take her last drop of courage to enter the cage. Primavera doesn’t even move when Casta enters. Chacho, however, lets out a screech and almost disappears under the white fur of the rabbit, which only moves her nose. Chacho, I brought you food, and she throws the grass down at the feet of the rabbit, which doesn’t move. Casta Diva sings in her worn-out soprano, Full of hope you search for the path that your dreams have promised for your worries’ you know the fight is long and that it’s cruel… Chacho moves away from Primavera and lifts his little arms, covers his ears, screeches. Casta continues singing, But you fight until you bleed for the faith that makes you stubborn … The hair disappears from Chacho ‘s little head, his eyes sink in until they are two purple shadows, as does his mouth, his head shrinks until you can’t see the shadows that his eyes and mouth have become, his torso, his legs contract, just as the screech contracts, leaving an echo that also dissipates, his little head joins together with his feet to become an infinitesimal thing that slips into all that dried grass, all that shit.
Today I saw that the stars had started to go out, they say that when the stars start to go out, it’s that the world is coming to an end, I don’t get that, but since they say it I repeat it, the world’s coming to an end as soon as next year comes, you know, next year the Island’s going to fall to pieces, they say, I know that ‘cause of the stars, because they started to go out, and because the ants lost their way back to their caves, that’s something they also say, and the birds got lost, they couldn’t get back to their nests, and Professor Kingston died, they found him with his eyes open, lying in bed like he was counting the rafters in the ceiling, and the Barefoot Countess hasn’t come by here again, Uncle Rolo is sad, Irene doesn’t even know her own name, my mamá stopped talking, my papá turned into a rabbit and disappeared into the shit in the rabbit cages, they say, and I don’t get it, you know, that’s why they call me Tingo-1-Don’t-Get-It, because I never can get it, and I had to be the character in this book that doesn’t get anything, and the only thing I get is that nobody gets it here, the others steal the cheese and I take the fall, and look how much I ask and nobody answers, it’s ‘cause there aren’t any answers, you know, and if it’s true that when the stars go out the world is coming to an end, then the world’s going to end at any moment, I saw them (the stars, I mean), I saw them with my own two eyes, just like that, like they were going out one by one, until the sky was just a dark mass you couldn’t call a sky anymore, and how’s the world supposed to come to an end? is it going to be an explosion, a volcano, a hurricane, an earthquake? where s it all going to end for us? I bet I’ll go with the explosion and end up in a better place than this, I really don’t get it, with all the places you could get born in, why I had to end up in this Island, where you walk and walk and no matter which way you walk you’re going to the sea, the sea’s everywhere, why I had to end up in this heat, and have to feel like crying so much, and that’s exactly what Helena says, I saw Helena crying, looks like she saw the stars going out too, and the ants and the birds wandering around lost, and she knows the Island’s going to fall, and she knows more than I do, she seems to get it, she was saying she had a dream about a red king who was tying us to the trees so we could suffer the sun’s punishments, a red king who cut off our heads so we could live better, ‘cause according to that king a head just gets in a man’s way, Helena says that that’s what all the kings are like, red, green, or black, whatever color they are, and I don’t know anything about that, they call me Tingo-1-Don’t-Get-It for the simple reason that I don’t get it, and the only thing I do get is that nobody gets it around here, and besides, there’s nothing to get anyway, you know, the best you can do here is to shut your trap while you’re watching the stars go out, a few more each time, two, three, four stars less every night, until there aren’t any left and then the Island will blow up like God meant it to blow up, as for that, God’s the one who knows how it ought to blow up, and the truth is, the more I think of it, I’d rather blow up with the Island, I mean what if it’s true that there’s nothing outside of the Island, what if the world doesn’t exist, and it’s a good thing that the raft Sebastian and Vido and I made wasn’t worth anything, I’d rather have a bad Island I know than a good continent I don’t know (and I bet the continent’s a lie).
They constructed the raft out of logs stolen from the charcoal maker. They tied each log on with ropes and vines. For a mast they used a stick for knocking down lemons and for a sail, a linen sheet that Vido swiped from Miss Bertas drawer. Sebastián got hold of a compass and a book called The Captain’s Journal of Christopher Columbus. Tingo brought bottles of water, a few pieces of bread and a can of condensed milk. They hid the raft behind the sea rocks, tied it with a rope to the surviving lumber of an old dock and met to make plans in the ruins of Barreto’s (that tropical Gilles de Rais). Sebastián said categorically, We have to flee, there’s no help for it, I have it on good authority that this land is starting to get sick, the stars are already going out, and a lightning bolt destroyed the red sandalwood tree of Ceylon, there’s no birds in the trees, and Consuelo’s house collapsed. He took out a great map of the world and spread it over the ground. The only way to flee is by sea, living on an Island means that sooner or later you have to face the sea. If we go up north, Vido said pointing to the map, we’ll run into Key West, if we head northwest we might end up somewhere in Mexico, but if we head northeast we’d get to the Canary Islands, or even better all the way to Andalusia, except both northwest and northeast mean going over enormous expanses of ocean, the shortest, straightest, and surest route is north, Key West, from there we could go overland to New York, and in New York we could take a real ship to Europe, so I propose north. Sebastian seconded him. Tingo shrugged. They left that very night as soon as it was dark, so that the sun wouldn’t harm them during their passage. Because, besides, as they say, the sun gives sailors hallucinations, makes them see islands where there’s nothing but sea. And I wonder, Sebastián pointed out, raising a hand, couldn’t this Island we live on be one of Don Christopher’s hallucinations, couldn’t we be an illusion for sailors who’ve lost their way? I have no doubt that we’re just a mirage, that none of us actually exists and that we’re trying to flee from a place that isn’t real either. And as it was difficult to refute any of Sebastian’s reasoning, there was silence. I think, Vido reasoned after a while, that even if we don’t exist, we believe we do, and the belief is good enough to make us exist somehow, and I propose besides to keep on believing it so I can believe we’re fleeing and believe we’re finally arriving in Europe.
I’m going with you, says Mercedes, I’m tired of waiting, of spending my whole life waiting, waiting, waiting, it’s so awful to wait! waiting for life to change, for life to stop being this monotony of getting up, go
ing to City Hall, and coming back to go to bed so I can get up again the next day, go back to City Hall, and keep on going in a circle that never ends, I’m sick of walking along the same paths, through the same palm groves, by the same sea, the same houses, the same heat, always, always heat, autumn, winter, spring, heat! I’m sick of light, of my eyes always burning from the light, of being nobody on account of the light, I’d rather have been born in a land where time exists, where clocks had hands and the hands moved forward, listen to me, we don’t live in an Island but on a sailing ship stuck in a dead calm, I should have left before, I should have followed my uncle Leandro, who fled to India, flee, flee, the only thing this Island proposes, flee, that’s the magic word, the word that turns your life upside down just by mentioning it, as if in Brussels, in Rome, in Prague people didn’t get bored the same way they do here, I guess they do, they must get bored, in some other way, but just as bored, that’s why I’ve always thought the surest bet would be to live within the pages of a novel, God, what I wouldn’t give to be a character in a novel! it’s the only way to have a truly intense life, full of vicissitudes, an imaginary life, I dreamed of being the great character of a great book, I dreamed of being Nana as Venus in the Theatre des Varietés, and that the theater would be full to see me, and going out almost naked and not caring if the timbre of my voice was like a cat’s or if I moved clumsily about the stage, my natural grace would be so intense the public would have to applaud me wildly, yes, I’d be Nana awakening everyone’s admiration even though I’d have Nanas tragic ending, or perhaps I’d be a governess, go to a house in London, find two diabolical children, two children who can see something I’m incapable of seeing, two children who make me undertake a battle against the forces of evil, God, what I wouldn’t give to be a character in a novel! Alicia, for example, Alicia pursuing Arturo Cova through the labyrinths of the Colombian jungle, or the picaresque Moll Flanders, who was a whore at the age of twelve and for twelve years was a thief, and married her own brother, and became rich and died repentant, and who, tell me, who wouldn’t like to have been for just a few hours Mathilde La Mole? Mathilde, generous Mathilde, carrying Julian’s head, burying his head in a sumptuous ceremony, who wouldn’t like to be Anna, the passionate Karenina? God, what I wouldn’t give to be a character in a novel! anything would be better than the arid reality of every day in this Island, so wait for me, I’m going to flee too, I’m also going to hurl myself into the sea on that raft, now I understand my mother and comprehend that life is anything but this, boys, I want to be free, free, free even to end the days of my life tragically, rotten like Nana but free, yes, free, and you can only get that by escaping, confronting the horizon on a raft…
There’s a problem. Turns out neither the boys, nor you, Mercedes, have taken into account the designs of the Island. Tonight a devilish gust of wind will rise up, and when they get to the sea rocks where they hid the raft, they’ll find the cable broken, the raft drifting off, far from the beach, a little dot floating away (their hope is lost with it) to the horizon, Miss Berta’s sheet unfurled to the wind.
The eyes of the Sacred Heart are living and watching her. It’s no use trying to avoid them by getting lost in the pages of Figures from the Lord’s Passion. She can’t concentrate. The eyes fascinate her, they follow her everywhere and fascinate her. She has attempted various chores, apart from reading: darning, cleaning the ornaments on the shelf, looking for a good paragraph from Azorin for her Spanish class, preparing the pictures of Lake Leman for geography. Nothing. The eyes are staring at her, and if she turns her back on them, there go the eyes to bury themselves like two picks in her back. God, stop watching me! Miss Berta doesn’t know what to do. She goes into the bedroom several times. Doña Juana is sleeping her gentle, perfect sleep, the rhythm of her breathing is steady; her hands, folded over her linen nightgown, hold the rosary as if she meant, with this posture, to anticipate deaths surprise. Above the bed, the bronze cross that had belonged to Francisco Vicente Aguilera. Miss Berta regrets that classes have ended for the end-of-the-year vacations; the classes at least can distract her, she can forget the eyes, Doña Juana, and Psalm 23 that she can’t stop repeating. She likes to find herself facing the boys, talking about all the things they don’t know, so she can escape, so she … She goes to the window. Night is falling. The Island is disappearing, it is a mere impression. The verses of Psalm 23 return obsessively to her,
The Lord is my shepherd,
I shall not want.
He maketh me to lie down in green pastures,
He leadeth me beside the still waters
God, stop spying on me! Miss Berta, looking out the window, watches the Island as if she wanted to discover something miraculous in it. The Island is a dark thing that melts away under the arriving night and, when dawn comes, will it again become the same Island as ever, damper and more luxuriant perhaps, but the same as ever? And Miss Berta is just about to say, Miracles are just a con game to swindle simple minds, she’s about to repeat, mockingly, the verses of the psalm, she feels ready to start blaspheming now, when beneath the avocado tree, two paces from the gallery, back turned to her, she sees a man with an umbrella. An old man. He sticks out because of his unsteady way of taking shelter beneath the umbrella and beneath the avocado tree, and his back is stooped, and you can just see, under his hat, how white his hair is. Who is it? What’s he doing taking shelter beneath an umbrella and an avocado tree, when it isn’t raining? He raises the lapels of his jacket. Must be feeling cold. Miss Berta strains to see him better, though night is a foggy glass in front of the foggy windowpane. There’s one detail, one simple detail that startles her. And it’s a particular that is probably of no importance, though there’s no doubt that sometimes it is precisely the particulars that have the greatest importance. The old man dressed up in a black suit and hat, nevertheless is wearing worker’s leggings and spurs that shine in spite of the foggy windowpane. Miss Berta goes out into the gallery
— Good evening, sir, are you lost? how can I help you?
The old man turns halfway around, with difficulty, as if all his bones ached, and asks in a weak voice:
— I would like to have a glass of water, Miss.
— Come, come in here.
Berta takes him by the arm and leads him to her house thinking, If he’s not a hundred years old he’s not far from it, what does he need those spurs for? When they enter, the old man takes off his hat, sighing with relief.
Thine is the Kingdom Page 29