by Luis de Lión
It was the big ceremonial procession with all of the requisite stops for offerings along the way.
Only it was a procession without the traditional theatrical pieces, without the kids dressed as angels; with bells, yes—but instead of clanging joyously, they tolled death—without bombs and firecrackers bursting overhead, which had been replaced by shotgun discharges and the metal clash of machetes.
But the women decided to rescue their husbands, their boyfriends, their fathers, their brothers, their sons; so they stationed themselves at the first corner, and when the procession showed up they called out to them, pleading—holding their palms together in front of their faces in the holy gesture of supplication—they called out in tears; but the men, instead of paying them any heed, grabbed them by their braids, dragged them to the ground, ripped their dresses; they struck them with machetes and with pieces of firewood and slapped them in the face, on the breasts, in the sex, on the ass, on the legs, on the arms, until they left them lying there facedown or face-up in the streets, bleeding; and then, marching right over their bodies, over the weeping of the children, over their loves, and brotherly loves, and motherly loves, they continued the procession through the streets of the town.
And the procession was sad. And it sparked anger: to see the anti-woman going up and down the streets on the shoulders of all the men; and with lanterns made of bones to light the way, with the smoke of bones for incense, and they trampled on the land the ancestors had walked, on their memories, their names, their surnames, their dreams, and on their deaths.
But nothing could be done about it. It was her and her cofradía, the Cofradía of Death.
However the worst was still to come. Because when she finished parading through town and came back to the square, but before she was carried up into the vestibule of the church so she could bless the people—like the other one had done every year—she asked them to take her to the only pila in town, in front of the municipal building and to one side of the temple. She was thirsty for life and she wanted to begin killing now. They obeyed her. As soon as she could just barely make out the water in the main tank of the pila—as if it were the sole reason she had resurrected, as if she had come from many leagues away just to find it—she leapt from the image carrier, ran quickly through the crowd of men—who became a road of corpses for her to run over—and bent over the water to drink a gulp, which she swished around playfully in her mouth, like a child’s game of cat and mouse; meanwhile the water, seeing itself reflected in her skin, began to lose its sky color.
Suddenly she took off the crown, the cape, the dress and, for one instant before she got into the water, they could see her for what she really was: her muddy gaze—more empty than black—her jagged bones like white barbed wire; and, just for that one moment, they could even see the very best she had to offer: the well of her sex—the only part of her that was flesh—black flesh—which those present wanted to sink themselves into, so that, from there, they could see the other world, and then drown and rot.
However, her striptease had been so fast that few had been able to get a look at her; and so, the mature men and the young men, dripping semen—and the old men, dripping urine instead of semen—started pushing to get as close to the pila as possible; and then they took out their machetes and shotguns, and, balling up their fists, picking up stones and sticks, forming groups—of fathers against sons, godfathers against their fellow godfathers, brothers against brothers, friends against friends—they set about fighting like beasts; while the water—abruptly stripped of all life by a cold heat—first, lost every last bit of its sky color that had clung on; and then turned into bones of water, whose ashes the wind dispersed; and the pila was left like a tomb without a single cadaver in it yet.
But no one was thinking about the water, nor about the future thirst that would result; nor were they thinking how the death of the water happened first in the pila, then climbed up into the faucet, ran inside the pipes, and went all the way back to the spring on Cucurucho Hill; because they were all cutting the air to shreds with their machetes, shooting whoever happened to be in front of them, wounding each other, killing, abusing, screaming, creaking from pure heat, from pure jealousy; and some of them—because they hadn’t been able to get close enough to kiss her, to grope her, to fuck her, to die on top of her—picked up handfuls of dirt, kissed it, and threw it onto her.
But no one saw what became of her. Because when the battle was finally over, in the fragile silence they could only hear the silence of the dead, the moans of those still in the throes of death, of the survivors, who, staggering, were trying to get up and walk; and later, in the cantina or in the bowels of the back streets, they heard again the clanging of machetes and the dry sound of the shotgun blasts, the goodbye to lives, the silence as the dead passed over to the other side, the silence of that other side, the weeping of the women, who marched through the town, each looking for the cadavers that belonged to her; the exhaustion, the death, the final silence.
—They should have at least taken him to jail.
—They were afraid of him. They thought that after being in there he would have come out even worse. In jail men become even more animal than when they go in.
—But they wouldn’t have that stain on their hands. That’s why there’s justice, there’s judges, there’s an army that executes people.
—Vos, you think as if you were a judge, as if you were the army. It’s like you’re on their side.
—But they should have at least turned him over to the authorities so they could take him to the insane asylum.
—You keep talking as though you weren’t from here, as though your face and your surname don’t already betray you, make it obvious to everyone. You’re wrong. So . . . ¿you really think he’s crazy, then?
—¡But he tried to rape the mother of God! Of course he’s crazy.
—You don’t understand, vos. Since you never come down from your altar, since you never have any real contact with anyone, you don’t see what’s in the hearts of the men in this town. There’s no son’s love for his mother there; no, there’s only desire; a pure desire to fuck her.
—¿The mother of God, Our Holy Mother? You better make the sign of the cross over your mouth right now.
—That’s just it. She’s not our mother. She’s just another fucking Ladina; except that she was put here to show us up; you know, a town Ladina. The proof is in the fact that people come here from the city, go into the church, and they see her as nothing special. Sure, she’s not the Virgin of their huge Cathedral there in the capital; but she’s not even a little whore from their cantinas. By contrast, the people here fall all over themselves for her; they have huge festivals for her, they treat her like the Queen, but it’s clear why—it seemed like, while Concha was talking, she was emptying herself, as though she were bleeding from an old wound, but one that was somehow still fresh—¿You know something? I’ve figured it out: when the men from here are in the city, they look for the face of the Virgen in the faces of the Ladinas; but when they’re here in the village, they look for the face of the Ladinas in the face of the Virgen. That’s why the Virgen is the Queen and the Ladinas are all “Miss This” or “Señora That.” We, on the other hand, are “la Juana,” “la Concha,” “la Venancia.” ¡We’re yard chickens! ¿You know something?—her eyes lit up from some unkn
own source, like from another world, from some other blood: I don’t love you.
But she didn’t have to tell him that. He already knew it.
—Because you never dirty your hands with shit . . .
But he wasn’t hearing Concha’s voice; he thought he was hearing the voice of his mother, who had always reproached him for his hygienic manners, for not wanting to come into contact with the things of this world, for putting on airs, for his unmanly mannerisms, which he had picked up in the seminary where the priest had taken him to study for the priesthood. He had gone there just a little Indian boy—even if his papa had had money—and he had come back an adolescent, full of another world, of other customs.
—And because you’re a hollow-ass faggot.
He felt like the palo de jiote, a tree that looks solid but really is nothing but hollow branches, wood that’s only a shell, skin that just peels off; a useless tree, not even good for firewood.
Just him and his house and his patio. Nothing more.
The servant of his solitude had gone, and now his voice, which was asking the things around him where she was, would just bounce off the walls and go straight back into his mouth where it would slowly decay never to come out again, rendering him mute. His eyes drained out into the empty chest in the room—which she had left open on purpose in order to leave him blind. His hands touched what wasn’t there, vigorously grabbing at the absence; but they were stained by nothing, touching only those few things she had left only because she had not seen them, like for example, a comb, a few strands of her long hair.
—I’m gonna take everything with me. I won’t leave you a single thing I brought to this house: this old dress, these panties, these ribbons, these rubber sandals, this slip, this undershirt, this apron. And when I get to the door I’m gonna wipe my feet good so that I don’t even take a speck of dust with me. Too bad I can’t take the dirt with me that I brought on my shoes when I came into this place that very first time.
His feet searched for that other pair of feet; they walked from one side to the other, crazy, smelling her footprint, her last footprint. Suddenly, his eyes fell on a pile of ash in a corner of the patio.
—¿What’s this?
—Everything that he gave me, I’m gonna leave here with him. But I’ll burn it so that not even my memory will remain for him. For a man like him, just the ashes. The wind will come by and carry them away.
—This must be all the things I gave her. Shoes, nice clothes. Yes, that’s what it is. I can tell because some of them didn’t burn up all the way. It’s unbelievable; she was even capable of burning them. She left me nothing of hers. Unless . . .
And he went out into the yard to see if he could at least find a trace of her from one of her peculiar habits, the one where she would go empty her bowels after every meal; but she didn’t like to use the outhouse; she’d always go beside one of the coffee plants there in the yard. But she hadn’t even left that.
—I’ve gotta answer nature’s call, but I’m gonna hold it. I don’t even care if I end up having to do it out in the street where everyone can see me. But I’m not gonna leave him so much as my shit.
Later, when it started to sink in that she had really gone, totally and forever, he decided it would be best just to get used to his loneliness again, the way he had the first time. And he tried to forget everything, to void himself of all memory, to kill that part of time in which he had lived accompanied. But her scent, her heat, was everywhere, in every corner of the house.
Her scent . . .
—I don’t love you, because you never dirty your hands with shit . . .
But he knew that her dark skin was full of birds.
Her heat . . .
—And because you’re a hollow-ass faggot.
If only he had tasted her, just once.
And then he had the urge at that instant to answer nature’s call himself—and he wasn’t going to do it in the outhouse either, but under a coffee plant—and then he’d take out his cock and get it up and stick it in that nasty shit. But his intestines were empty.
He went to bed late. And . . .
¿Did someone open the door to his dream or the door to his room? But he hadn’t even shut his eyes. Well, okay, he had shut his eyes; just not to go to sleep, but to shut out the darkness outside, to seek the whiteness inside: white moon, white paper moon; round soul floating in the middle of the round darkness, right in the middle of the round moon floating in the middle of the round darkness him just him but tiny tinier than the one who was thinking himself inside his head even tinier than the one who was tiny inside his head; tinier than the tiny one that was inside of the tiny one that was inside his head tinier than the tiny one that was tiny inside the one that was tiny inside his head . . .
Better open his eyes. Then, everything kind-of normalized. Then, there in the darkness, things were different. Then, he was his normal size; or even bigger—bigger than the objects he could make out around him. For instance, there, spread out over the bed, the roof beams were just splinters, the door was a little door, like in a dwarf ’s house, his bed was the little bed of a dwarf, his body was the little body of a dwarf and only he—the place from where he looked out at all these little things—was big, enormous, gigantic. Big; because, as far as his eyes told him, everything else was small. Huge giant peering out from his horizon. He could stretch out his enormous little hand and pick up the things in the room, smash them to pieces. Big from inside his head. But no, it was really only bullshit; things were just far away . . .
Better to alternate, opening and shutting his eyes. Better not keep them shut too long because one sees himself small; but better not keep them open too long because one sees himself large. Better open and shut his eyes, better to open and to shut his eyes, better to open and, ¡you, shut your eyes! You, ¡open! and to shut your eyes, ¡you better open and shut your eyes! better october and shun your eyes, better october born and shotgun your eyes, better octobernine* born october ernine born october ernine, born jesus—what am I saying—jesus octobernine not jesus octobernine no what a sin better shut his eyes better shotgun his eye better shoot the other, the other, no they done killed him like swine they killed him no not like swine I do not like swine I do not eat swine for swine eat the es aitch of Juan Caca the swine its flesh is unclean I do not eat the flesh of the swine I was born on nine on nine of octobernine on nine not mine the other, the other no he done died like swine opened his eyes and shut them like swine they shotgunned his eyes they shot his eyes they shunned nor shut the nine nor time did they give him to shut the nine but at daytime not nighttime not nighttime if daytime one sees himself little little inside the little little inside the little inside the little no better open his eyes no you see yourself large better shut your eyes no you see yourself little better open and shut your eyes better october and shotgun your eyes better shotgun your eyes in october better shun your eyes in october better . . .
—¿Who is it?
Whoever ¿ ? it was that had come, stuck her hand through some crack in the door—who knows how—and pulled the bolt; all the while he stayed stock still from ¿fear? ¿sleepiness? She slowly opened the door so as not to ¿wake him? ¿frighten him?; closed it softly and, without striking the ground with her feet, as though floating through t
he air, began to walk toward his bed.
He remembered: in the semi-darkness of the room, he could just make out a body drawing near; a white body, her beautiful hips, firm as could be, rising; her legs like the old palm trees there in the church vestibule, her face ¿of an old woman?; her steps left a vapor trail of white dust that illuminated the room just a little, that darkened the day that was always there in his head, that killed the light on the altar of the saints, her light . . .
—¡The light! ¡The light!—he remembered he had said, but the eternal candle turned mortal: the flame went from yellow to green and from green to nothing.
—¡Light, light, light!
And the woman came forward.
And he was immobile, like he was tied to his bed from ¿fear? or ¿sleepiness?
The woman came up next to him, lifted the blankets, lay down by his side, let the blankets fall over the two of them, turned toward his body and, then, yes he really did shut his eyes, then yes it really was a pure dream.
¿Or everything happened in the dream just not as in a dream?
Because then his head really did go black, the night moved from outside to inside his head and . . .
i feel her . . . putting her hand inside my underwear, i feel . . . her stroking what even i myself have not stroked, i feel her . . . sliding the little cap up and down, i feel . . . a delicious little feeling like I have never felt now that she is stroking me, i feel her . . . opening her thighs now, i feel her . . . thighs burning me, i feel that . . . between her thighs there are little hairs like the ones I have, i feel that . . . below those little hairs there is a little cave, i feel her . . . make my cock fly in the direction of that little cave, i feel . . my cock go into the little cave, i feel that . . . that little cave is hot, slick, i feel that . . . this is like pure heaven, i feel . . . how delicious it is, i believe that . . . heaven is not up there above but down here, below, i feel her . . . pulling me closer, hugging me, kissing me; i can’t breathe, jesus, how tasty, how delicious, i feel her . . . pushing me away now, now pulling me closer, now i’m pushing away, now pulling you closer, now pushing away, now pulling closer, pulling you, pushing, pulling you, pushing, pulling you, jesus, how delicious pushing pulling you closer pushing pulling i . . . am going to die . . . going to leave this world . . . i’m . . . going to . . . leaveleave . . . leave . . . leave . . . lea . . . ve . . .