A month later the two of us were in Dublin.
Finis coronat opus
FINIS CORONAT OPUS, said Mr. Smith, switching off his little tape recorder. Then, before my friend and I had time to say a word, he had thanked us for listening to the story and was hurrying off toward the village square.
“Where are you off to?” we called after him. But he continued on, walking ever faster. Striding along in his white suit, he looked like a master of ceremonies urgently needed back at the festivities.
“Who do you think he is?” I said.
“I don’t know. But one thing’s for sure, he’s a writer,” said my friend.
He too was a little disconcerted by what had happened.
From our vantage point, the world seemed a peaceful, silent place. A south wind was blowing — the wind of madmen and of all those unsatisfied beings ceaselessly searching for something, the wind of the poor in spirit, of those who sleep alone, of humble daydreamers — and it awoke in us the illusion that everyone and everything were in their right place, exactly where they should be: the stars high up in the sky; the mountains and the forests sleeping placidly around us; the animals all sleeping too and hidden away somewhere — some among the grasses, others in pools in the rivers, the moles and mice in burrows beneath the earth.
We would like to have stayed there because — at least compared with the dank Amazon that Laura Sligo and her friends had wandered — it reminded us of the ineffable gardens described in old novels. But we had to get up and continue our journey. We couldn’t arrive at the reading the following morning jaded from lack of sleep. One more beer and we’d call it a night.
We walked the path from the cemetery to the square in silence, convinced that, if we spoke, we would disturb the beneficent spirits at that moment stirring within us, who would then escape through our open mouths to their home, the upper spheres. We had plenty of time, the summer was only just beginning. The time would come for us to comment on the story Mr. Smith had just told us.
Once back in the whirlpool of the fiesta, our eyes scoured every corner of the square. But there was no white suit to be seen, no hat stood out above the crowd.
“Our honest old man appears and disappears as if by magic,” said my friend.
“Let’s drink our last beer to his health,” I replied.
“Good idea. I’ll go and get us a couple of bottles.”
He managed this more easily than the first time and we went and sat down on the church steps. According to the church clock it was two in the morning.
“You see, everyone plays their own game,” I said to my friend, after taking my first sip of beer and pointing to the two groups that had formed at the fiesta. Because by then not everyone at the fiesta was dedicating themselves solely to drinking and holding loud conversations in the bars. A fair number of couples had broken away and wandered off into the dark to dance and kiss.
“Those who are inside want to get out and those who are outside want to get in,” my friend remarked.
“What?”
“Oh, nothing, just a bit of nonsense,” he said by way of excuse. “It’s something my grandfather was always saying. He said that married people tend to envy single people and vice versa. In other words, those who are inside would give anything to get out and those who are outside would give anything to get in.”
“And what made you think of that now?” I asked.
“From what I see in the square. It just occurred to me that many of those who are dancing would rather be in the bar, while many of those in the bar would rather be dancing. Such is life!” he said with a theatrical sigh.
“My father had a similar saying. He said that in heaven there’s a huge cake reserved solely for married people who’ve never once regretted getting married. The cake’s never been touched.”
We both laughed at the scepticism of our elders. Their view of love was very different from that of the Mr. Smith to whose health we were drinking.
But our state of mind predisposed us more to melancholy than to joking and we soon dropped the funny remarks. It was fine that there was a fiesta going on, but we didn’t want its atmosphere to infect us, not that night. My friend and I formed a third group at the fiesta. And we fell silent again, letting ourselves slip back into our earlier mood, thinking and now and then listening to the slow, gentle tunes the band was playing. And when the clock chimed half past two, we finished our beers and walked back to the car.
“What time does tomorrow’s session start?” my friend asked.
“My uncle didn’t say but I imagine it’ll be around ten.”
“As early as that?”
“Well, at ten we’ll have breakfast. We’ll start the stories around eleven.”
“How many are you going to read?”
“About four. And you?”
“I’m not sure yet. Only one I think. I’m there to listen rather than to read. And your uncle? Will he read something?”
“He didn’t tell me that either. But I’m sure he will. I imagine he’ll read some short essay. ‘On why the nineteenth century was the second and last Golden Age,’ or something like that.”
“We’re in for a good time then.”
“I hope so. Besides, you know how well we always eat on these occasions!”
“Like princes!” exclaimed my friend emphatically.
We were back at the car. The noise and music from the fiesta were far from us again and my friend and I — at peace at last, breathing easily and enjoying the quiet — smoked a farewell cigarette. Our final reflection was dedicated, of course, to Mr. Smith.
“It’s a shame he didn’t come with us. He wouldn’t have made a bad companion at tomorrow’s session,” my friend said.
“It’s my fault. I did think of inviting him, but then I lost my nerve,” I replied.
“There have been a lot of unknowns tonight, haven’t there? Ismael’s lizards, Mr. Smith’s stories…”
“I should say! I haven’t had such a strange night for ages!”
“Nor have I. But it’s been really good. It’s nights like this that make life bearable.”
“Anyway, let’s go,” I said, starting the engine.
There were one hundred and twenty-seven bends in the road between that village and Obaba: eighty uphill, rising gently to the top of a long slope, and from there, over the other side of the mountain, another forty-seven downhill. It took a little over half an hour to drive, through forests all the way, leaving the sea behind us.
Despite all the bends our journey along the road of moths that night turned out to be a safe, quiet drive through the trees; the lights of the few cars coming in the opposite direction were visible long before they reached us.
“How do you know there are one hundred and twenty-seven bends?” my friend asked me when we’d already driven around twenty of them.
“I told you earlier that I spent my whole childhood cycling around here. The number of times I’ve ridden up here, pedaling furiously and shouting: forty! forty-one! forty-two! I know these bends by heart,” I went on, “See that one up ahead? Well if you count the bends coming from Obaba it’s number one hundred. But if you count from the village we’ve just left, it’s number twenty-seven.”
“It must be a very special place for you,” my friend said, smiling.
“Not just because it’s the hundredth one, but because of the fountain there used to be up here. Well, that still is up here. You saw the ditch that crossed it,” I replied… speaking in the past tense, of course, because no sooner had he asked the question than bend number one hundred was behind us.