The last memories he had of Soto all had to do with his typewriter: the carbon paper Lazkano brought him, which he used to make copies. Copies made in tracing paper. How could Diego not have guessed that Soto would zealously keep those copies in a second salmon-pink-colored folder? One for the originals, one for the copies. Soto wanted to be a writer – his attitude was already that of a writer, precociously, ever since he was nineteen years old – but even though he wrote innumerable outlines, he hardly saw any of his works published while he was alive; the play Gloria directed and produced was perhaps his most renowned work.
The books Soto never got to write filled Lazkano’s mind. When Lazkano wrote his stories, he tried to do so as he imagined Soto would have done, although it was impossible. He tried to remember his tone of voice, but he’d almost forgotten it. Although Soto’s image was very present in his mind, he’d forgotten his voice. With the passing of time he’d made up a new voice, but he knew it wasn’t the real one. When Lazkano asked himself why he decided to become a writer, he harbored no doubt: it was because of Soto’s influence. Because he decided, consciously or unconsciously, to take charge of the work Soto had left undone. He hated theater though, that was true. He chose some of Soto’s tendencies while discarding others. Sometimes we live instead of the dead, doing things they would have done in their honor. Won’t that entity that’s beyond sanity and madness laugh at us, knowing that most of the things we do, we do them for someone that isn’t us? Are we the original or the copy in the transfer paper under the carbon paper? One and the other, in turns? Or maybe we are the most thorough confusion, the black carbon paper used over and over and over again, an unintelligible chaos? Do we at least know when we are truly the original and when the copy of that person we admired? Are we really conscious that as the typewriter’s ribbon gets spent and increasingly faint, the original becomes grayer, more diffuse, while the copy underneath – if the carbon paper is new – looks sharper than the original?
If there was one thing that Soto was, he was a fun guy, a volcano of exciting ideas, although it’s true that, often, sentences someone might say in jest might later gain weight and significance if they die a tragic death.
“What does a rational dictator do before he’s about to be gunned down by a firing squad?”
“You don’t know that joke, Lazkano? It’s a revolutionary’s joke…”
“A rational dictator, primo, gives an order before being gunned down: shoot me!”
Making a special effort, making an especially painful effort, Lazkano could almost imagine Soto’s future, from the day they disappeared them until today. He could imagine Soto getting deeper into the organization, needing to go farther and farther from home, hiding in a farmstead in the French countryside, in a too-quiet environment for him, ready to leap into action at any given moment, or escaping to stare at the sea for a while, thinking that the first kidnap victims of an armed group are its own militants, that it’s in fact a self-kidnapping, one that never ends, until they die or they’re caught or they defect. Lazkano could imagine Soto reading spy novels or anything that fell into his hands, newspapers from beginning to end, complaining always that there was never enough reading material, the members of his commando complaining too because his voracious need to read put the whole group at risk when he made them all detour from the established route to stop the car and buy books, or carbon papers, the bloody carbon papers, “there’s a bookshop here, come on, it’s just a small detour,” “vire à esquerda,” turn left, “lado direito,” on the right. He could imagine Soto moving into action, and returning after a device had failed, or being detained and miraculously escaping the gendarmerie by the skin of his teeth, or mentally sharing with his companions the aliquot responsibility that corresponded to each for the dead caused in an explosion, or leaving the organization, or planning for his future in jail, or reaching a top-level post just as he was about to leave it all behind, “it has to be you, this is an emergency, we wouldn’t ask you in normal circumstances, but we don’t have anyone else,” and listening to the radio while in hiding, almost always the news, but also some music channel every now and then, Italian opera and France Culture, or, the very opposite, he could imagine Soto claiming that the only viable and legitimate way was the political way, or removed from the public arena, teaching literature at a university, or doing his doctoral thesis on Gabriel Aresti, proclaiming, for example, let’s say, that Gabriel Aresti was a virus sent from outer space, or writing a comparative analysis between the poems of Gabriel Aresti and David Bowie’s songs, passionately and with huge doses of imagination.
Making a big effort, making an enormous effort and at risk of putting his mental health at risk, he could imagine Zeberio working in his parents’ lighting showroom, zealously drawing up the store inventory, whether it was the inventory of a lighting store or a store filled with accumulated explosive materials; carrying small messages to Iparralde, the French side, or bringing small messages across from Iparralde, always working on his own, until he was detained, until they took him out of his house in the middle of the night, in handcuffs and with a black sweater over his head; or creating his own business, something to do with solar panels perhaps, and climbing roofs on the mountains and valleys of the Basque Country to install them, working always in the open air and feeling that his work had a point, that those solar panels contributed to creating a freer nation; he could imagine him as a counselor in his hometown, as a representative of an illegalized party, or angry with his neighbors because he didn’t want them to organize an homage to him after spending thirteen years in jail. He could imagine Zeberio visiting his friend Soto in the prison in La Santé, laughing or crying or arguing enthusiastically, “the armed struggle doesn’t make sense anymore,” or “of course it does,” or “the things I have to hear,” or “so many people are getting killed or caught lately,” or “maybe what’s happening is that Spain’s Minister of Home Affairs is now ruling our viscera,” “no way, think CIA, more like it,” “fuck off, please, don’t tell me now that you too believe that they insert microchips in our molars,” and “how can you be so sure they don’t?” “the days of Ol’ Owl Newhood are over,” “Ol’ Owl Barrionuevo is a special zone,” “we’re throwing rocks at our own roof,” “you have no perspective, you can’t have it, history will absolve us,” “that’s what Fidel used to say and look at him,” “look at him what,” “well, look at how he’s doing,” “tell me how he’s doing,” “he’s about to snuff it, on his last legs,” “coming to the point of snuffing it is one of the laws of life,” “maybe it is,” “do you feel strong, at least, Soto?” “I feel strong, Zeberio,” “that’s a lot,” “courage, my friend.”
As if meaning to say: “nutcase, brother, let’s go, there’s a festival in Ustaritz.”
“We’ll follow on foot from here.”
They warn them that it’s important they all know the surrounding mountains. Soto is not happy, he’s not exactly fond of mountain hiking, but once he accepted, Lazkano followed, of course. Who is he to question his two friends?
The weather is spectacular: the first few rays of sunshine always so welcome come the spring, a moderate breeze, blue skies. They take off carrying small backpacks and enough food to last the day. They each carry an aluminum canteen filled with water, some cookies, reineta apples, sandwiches. On top of that, Soto surreptitiously grabs a bottle of wine at the last moment, without saying anything to the others. It’s a weekday and there are hardly any people on the mountain tracks. They engage in animated conversation under the generous shade of the beeches, inhaling tiny traces of moss in the air, before they undertake the steepest slope. Pope John Paul II was in Loyola last winter, and there was nothing else to talk about on the TV and radio news and in newspapers, “how tiresome they were,” Soto points out. But Zeberio is not completely against that visit, thinking that the Pope might have carried over a message that could bring peace.
“The Vatican is going to conspire in our favor, is that so? Th
anks to them we will achieve our own independent little state, like theirs, ain’t that a joke. That dude didn’t come here for anything other than to criticize the divorce laws and to delay abortion laws…”
Soto is always very belligerent about the church, he doesn’t let them get away with anything.
“Not all priests are the same, Soto. The Basque church fulfilled an important role as an intermediary; the survival of the Basque language, who do you think we owe it to?”
“Fuck our mother tongue if it needs the baptismal font to survive! I’d rather be a Frenchie if that’s the case…Cherchez la femme, and fuck them all!”
“Even at the inception of ETA, the church had…”
“Yes, of course, and they were there when Adam and Eve fucked for the first time, I know the story.”
As the conversation grows increasingly heated, Zeberio points at little caves, huts and cabins peppered along their route: “There, there and there.” There. “And there too.”
That’s all he says: there. Or maybe he specifies something else: “too humid there,” or maybe “there, don’t even think about it.” With that, he makes it clear what each of those hiding places are good for.
As the vegetation becomes sparser and the shelter of trees diminishes, the conversation shrinks too. They begin to run out of strength, and they need everything they’ve got to face the steep slope. Despite being the biggest and hairiest one of the three, with his big beard, Zeberio is also sweating the least. Every now and then, when he sees Soto gasping for air, barely able to make it, Zeberio increases his pace, forcing his companions to walk faster and feeling superior to them for an instant, silently mocking his friends’ suffering. One-upmanship is a curious beast, the way we inadvertently use it when we suddenly experience it, even if it’s a squalid and ridiculous kind of power, we use it as a whip in the most innocent of ways sometimes, and other times we pitilessly harass and subjugate our friends with it. And if we enjoy it, it’s not necessarily because we’re sadistic and don’t love our equals, but because we love ourselves a little more and won’t disdain an opportunity to show our ability to have one over them. Perhaps it’s not exactly like that. But there are moments and moments. And sometimes it was like that. In that moment, it was like that.
“Some water?”
“Keep your holy water for whenever you need it, Zeberio. I have my own.”
Zeberio decides to be a bit evil. “Look, the peak is over there,” he tells them.
His friends use the last remainder of their reserves to get there, as well as the last of the water they carry.
But when they reach the peak, as soon as Soto and Lazkano put their backpacks down, Zeberio continues walking on, whistling.
“It’s right over there: just one more hill.”
“There’s another hill?”
Another hill, and another. Zeberio pulls their leg over and over. And he keeps telling them: “There and there;” or maybe: “there, don’t even think about it;” “too humid there.”
Maybe that’s the lesson: there’s always another hill.
By the time they realize, the fog is over them. A tiny trace of moss takes over the air and stays there. A slight scent that, against all logic, seems to come from the sky this time.
“Maite ditut maite, gure bazterrak, lanbrak ezkutatzen dizkidanean,” Zeberio sings.
Lazkano accompanies him, whistling shyly along to Mikel Laboa’s song about his love of Basque landscapes half-hidden in the mist; he’s the extra there, a distant second voice there to support Zeberio’s, he always was, next to his two friends – “uh, uh, wah, wah.”
“Let’s hope it doesn’t rain.”
“No, it’s gonna hold.”
But it doesn’t hold.
A thunderclap booms as if ready to destroy heaven and earth. As the rumble still echoes in their auditory chambers, the downpour catches them, unprotected, in a completely exposed area without a single pathetic tree to shelter under. Their footwear and summer clothes are immediately soaked, and hard as Soto tries to push his dripping mane from his face, it keeps steaming up his glasses; his “toupee,” needless to say, has seen better days. They are wearing shorts, Zeberio is the only one wearing long woolen socks. Soto’s and Lazkano’s ankles are covered in little cuts and scrapes caused by the brambles and the nettles. Having slipped in the mud, Soto hits the ground twice: reckless man of asphalt that he is, he’s not even wearing hiking boots, but his usual sports shoes. Zeberio and Lazkano have to help him stand up. Every time he falls on the ground he swears loudly and feels his backpack to make sure that the bottle of wine he grabbed without saying anything to his friends hasn’t broken. Lazkano had never seen Soto so annoyed.
“Who said it would hold? It didn’t motherfucking hold, you fuckers.”
Zeberio can’t confess this to them now, but he’s taken them down a shortcut he doesn’t usually take, thinking they would reach their destination quicker that way. But he’s lost now.
It’s almost as if he’s deliberately choosing the most zigzagging paths, and although he did hike up to the peak some time ago, it was actually quite a long time ago. Zeberio’s clumsiness is a hundred-percent down to his unfamiliarity with the route. The mist, however – not everything is bad news – hides Zeberio’s slips and his worried face from Soto’s and Lazkano’s eyes. It’s not only Soto and Lazkano who are stumbling along now.
“Don’t lose sight of whoever is in front of you, okay?” He noticed the nervousness in his voice when he issued the warning. Did the other two notice their guide’s unease?
Zeberio slips again and hits the ground face-first.
“Kissing the ground now? You’re developing some very Vatican-y habits lately, my friend,” Soto jokes, without the strength to smile. His sarcasm can’t smooth out the rough edges this time.
When he gets up from the ground, Zeberio doesn’t feel the muddy, gravelly path he expected under his palms, but hard rock instead. And on the other side, he realizes, a slope. And something worse than a slope: a precipice. “That’s the best part. The risk of the fall, and the certainty that you’ll have the chance to fall again.”
They should stop and seek refuge somewhere. But where?
Soto is still grumbling. He would beat Zeberio up something good if he knew they were lost.
“You’re going to get us killed by pneumonia, Wojtyla.”
“Calm down: we’re going to take shelter over there.”
“There? Where is there, Zeberio? There’s always another hill.”
There’s always another hill. We won’t live long enough to see it.
Saved by the bell. Zeberio breathes again. At last, a safe place where they can wait things out. The unease is over. This there is familiar to him; a hut made out of dark rock, guarded by a barrier. Nothing is more comforting than the feeling of knowing that you have been lost, when you no longer are. They walk into the shepherd’s hut. An owl has its nest there, in one of the gaps that doubles as a window. It doesn’t even flinch when the three young men come in. It scrutinizes the three friends with its eyes wide open, without fear, with curiosity, paternalistically, even.
“Shit!”
Soto’s heart is about to leap out of his chest.
“This…won’t this dude bring us bad luck?”
Having regained his strength, Zeberio is all jokes now.
“It’s an owl, Soto, a beautiful, wise bird if there ever was one.”
The owl’s neck does an almost 360 degree turn. It’s an extraordinary sight.
“I’d say it looks like Ol’ Owl Newhood…You don’t think it’s been sent by Orwell’s Big Brother?”
Nineteen eighty-four is still a few months away.
“Take your footwear off and leave the clothes by the door, try not to dampen the hay too much.”
It’s raining nonstop outside.
“It doesn’t look like it’s going to stop raining,” Lazkano dares to offer, limiting himself, like he almost always does, to corroborating som
e small informative aspect.
It’s getting dark. The rain won’t stop. They’ll have to spend the night there.
“There are a couple of blankets there.”
“I’m not about to sleep under horse blankets, Zebe. I don’t need any more bugs than you tonight.”
“I brought them myself the other day,” Zeberio counters, extracting a couple of woolen coverings from a hidden box quite proudly, like someone offering clean sheets in a hotel. “Surprised?”
In the hideout, according to what Lazkano can see, there are also some iron bars and dry matches. As if he didn’t admire him enough before, witnessing Zeberio’s planning abilities makes him rise even higher in his estimation.
Soto is suddenly animated. The Scottish woolen blankets are to blame.
“Unbelievable, Zeberio. Really? What is this, your love nest? Is this where you bring your little nuns? You like sex in the wilderness, hey?”
“Do you have anything to eat left?”
Soto’s face brightens up.
“Diego, get the bottle of wine out of my backpack!”
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