The girls ran ahead, and Alicia had to run to catch up with them. When they were close, with the sun already out, she asked them, as usual, to be silent so as not to wake up Victoriano, and to crouch as they walked so he could not see them in case he did. Nervous but with shiny eyes, the children obeyed, trying to hold back their laughter with their hands.
Alicia was climbing up with the baby, but he was so small that she didn’t feel his weight. Her older boy guided her, told her where to step. She trembled, determined to do what she had not dared do on other occasions. It was different now, they were running out of time. It was now or never; if she waited any longer, it would be too late.
The girls clambered up the cliff, holding on to the rocks. They were naked, suntanned, electric, and agile like monkeys.
When they reached the top, Alicia looked down, and her heart shrank. This is utter madness, she thought. She had stood there several times, reviewing all the proceedings in her head, rehearsing it all mentally in order not to fail at the moment of truth. Night after night she had prepared herself for this moment. But now, when it was real and there was no turning back, nothing seemed according to plan, even in her darkest forebodings. The cliff felt more hostile, more merciless. Its height, which had seemed tolerable to her, opened into a black void, terrifying and abysmal. It would take them ages to fall to the bottom, they would hit the rocks on the way down, their bodies would be mangled before reaching the water. They would not die quickly, as she had thought, but, instead, descend slowly through the morning mist, and the children would have time to realize what was going on, to feel the panic, to scream at her for help, and not to forgive her for all eternity. “Let’s forget it! This time we’ll go back the same way we came,” Alicia said, but then she remembered Victoriano, his threats to kill them and rape the girls. If he ever touched her girls, if he mistreated them, could she ever forgive herself? Would Ramón forgive her? I’ll jump with the children now. There is no other solution, she thought.
Then she realized that the children were not going to stand still waiting for her to push them. They were going to run helter-skelter, to squeeze by and defend themselves. She would have to run after them. This had not occurred to her before, perhaps because it wasn’t ever real. She had imagined them holding hands with her and jumping into the void, unaware, half asleep, tired of living, resigned to their fate, accepting death. But the creatures ahead of her, playing and jumping around, were full of vitality. They were life itself, and they would cling to her with overwhelming energy. “Oh Lord, forgive me for planning such a stupid atrocity. What I must do is kill Victoriano.” She felt strong and determined. She had been hiding Ramón’s sword. She would do it. She and Tirsa would kill him. Could they do it? Would the enormous and rusty sword be serviceable? No, they could not do it. What would probably happen is that he would kill them first, and that the children would be left at his mercy. There is no other way out, she thought. Today there is no turning back.
The extent of her pain surprised her. Even though in her soul she knew, or wanted to convince herself, that this time they would not jump either, she suffered as if they were going to. She firmly believed that she had suffered all the pain that a human being could withstand, that she knew suffering deep and wide, that it was already familiar terrain with no surprises. But her suffering now was a hundred times, a thousand times worse than all she had been through before. She was horrified at the intensity of the anguish her heart could tolerate.
The children found the hole that led to the interior of the big rock, used by Ramón and his men in search of treasure years ago.
“Look, Mom! Look at all the bats!”
“Come here, Mom, the toads are so ugly!”
“Mom! Help me catch one, Mom.”
Alicia suddenly realized that her children were happy. Many times before, she had watched them behaving in the same way, saying the same things, playing in the same manner, but she had not realized that. Now she saw it clearly: that all her years of tragedy were for them just everyday life. They had nothing to compare it with; they missed nothing. Like other times before, she convinced herself that she should go down the cliff, walk back home, and forget about demented solutions. How was she going to kill her own children, when neither hunger nor Victoriano had yet been able to? It made no sense. It was absurd. Horrible. She was not going to do that. She wouldn’t do it for anything in the world. Her pain diminished, allowing her to breathe again. An unexpected joy of life came over her, and to see the children alive, alive in spite of everything, made her happy.
She almost told them, like often before, “Let’s go back home, children, our excursion is over.” But she remembered the three years they had been abandoned on the isle without hope. They would be in the same situation after three more years, and in three more, six; and three more, nine, and three more, twelve, and three more, fifteen. The words died in her throat. It was better to jump and be done with it.
Over and over she made up her mind, got close to the abyss, looked at the children, and changed her mind, anguishing in her doubts. Her heart could not take it any longer. The sun had not reached high noon yet, and there was still a layer of green mist over the ocean.
Behind the fog, on the horizon, Alicia saw a radiance. Points of light were moving, shining. They twinkled, died down, they reappeared suddenly, to disappear again as quickly. She remembered watching the sky as a child in Orizaba when sometimes she had been able to see, very high and far away, the fireworks celebrating a neighboring town’s patron saint. But now the lights were low, at water level.
“The last thing I need,” she said. “A ghost ship.”
She felt light-headed, and shivers went down her spine.
“Oh, Ramón, don’t do this to me. Don’t send me mirages also; we had to pay so dearly for yours.”
She rubbed her eyes, bit her lips, but the brilliant points of light were still there. They were compacting, becoming a solid mass.
“Please, Ramón, don’t make fun of me, not now. Take away this vision and give me strength to jump, before the suffering makes me hesitate again.”
The children, lost in their world, were making a lot of noise, holding on to her legs, pulling her to and fro. As usual, they wanted to go into that hole inside the rock, catch a toad, or wanted to know if it was true that bats could smoke. She remained mute, motionless, and stunned, without being able to free herself from her hallucination. A big gray thing was advancing toward the isle, cutting through the waves and dispersing the fog.
“Ramoncito!” she summoned her son. “Come here. Tell me, what do you see over there? But don’t lie to me, don’t pretend. Just tell me what you see.”
“It’s a ship, Mom.”
There it was, facing them, in the water. Metallic and solid, identical to the one she had seen reflected in her husband’s eyes before he died.
“Make some signals, son,” Alicia ventured in a weak, brittle voice.
The boy waved his arms. Alicia did not dare to, she did not want to fall into that trap. Her body was paralyzed, but her heart was racing. She would not make any signals. She would not shout at a ghost to ask for help. It was all a dream, and she was bound to wake up. Since everything was lost, at least she would keep her composure, her reason. She remembered her own dictum: only what one can touch exists. That ship was intangible; it did not exist. Ramoncito was screaming: “Here, we are heeeere!”
The two girls came to see what was going on, and they went crazy when they saw the ship. Ramón took off the piece of material he was wearing as a loincloth, and waved it over his head. The girls soon imitated him. They let themselves be carried away by their enthusiasm. They were running in every direction, yelling for help, waving their rags as if possessed.