“Then the days of Satan are the days of Christ, for Jesus came to disperse: the power of the earth belonged to One; Jesus distributed it among all men, rebel, humble, slave, poor, sinner, the sick. If all are Caesar, then Caesar is no one, Father…”
Ludovico was amazed to hear in the mouth of one of his sons the arguments denying all aspiration toward recovering perfect unity. With sadness he realized he was facing a rebellion that could not be contained; for the first time, he felt old. “Thirty-three and a half days … That is little time. We can wait.”
“No, Father, you do not understand. Each one will be dreamed those days by the other two and thus he will be dreamed for sixty-seven days. But the one dreamed will actually live an equivalent time; and that makes one hundred and a half days. And because as he ceases to be dreamed by the other two, the one dreamed, not to die, must join one of the dreamers to dream of the third; that now makes two hundred and two days. And as the third ceases to be dreamed he must join the one already dreamed to dream of the one who has only dreamed but has not yet been dreamed; then, three hundred and four days shall have passed.”
“That is still not too much; we have more than four years.” Ludovico again shrugged his shoulders.
“Wait, Father. We love you. We shall tell you what we have dreamed, once we have dreamed it.”
“That is my hope.”
“But to tell you what we have dreamed will take as long as dreaming it.”
“Nine hundred and twelve days? That is still only half the time I wanted. There are 1,825 days in five years.”
“More time, Father, much more, for each one will tell what he dreamed about the other two, plus what the others dreamed about him, plus what he lived in reality as he was dreamed; and then each one must tell the others what he dreamed he was dreaming as he was dreamed; and each must tell what he dreamed as he dreamed what the other dreamed as he was dreamed by him; and then what each one dreamed dreaming he was dreaming the dreamed one; and then what the other two dreamed dreaming that the third one dreamed, dreaming, he was dreaming the dreamed one; and then…”
“Enough, son.”
“Forgive me. I do not mock you, nor is this a game.”
“Then, tell me, how long will all these combinations take?”
“Each one of us will have the right to thirty-three and a half months to exhaust all the combinations.”
“That is one thousand and a half days for each of you …
“Yes: two years nine months and fifteen days for each one…”
“Which would be eight years and four months for the three of you…”
“They will be, Father, will be. For only if we fulfill exactly the days of our dreams can we then fulfill our destinies.”
Ludovico smiled bitterly. “At least you know the exact time. For a moment I believed the combinations would be infinite.”
The boy smiled in return, but his was beatific. “We must, in turn, tell all the combinations of our dreams to you, for we hold no secret from you.”
“That is my hope,” Ludovico repeated, but now with a lingering sadness.
“And it is the narration, not the dream, that is infinite.”
Ludovico ordered the carpenters on the Squero de San Trovaso to construct for him two lightweight and well-ventilated coffins, for it was not their purpose to lie under the ground but to travel with him and remain undisturbed for long days at a time while each of his sons lived the dream the other two dreamed of him.
From the ship carrying them to land he watched the golden cupolas, the red-tile roofs and ocher-colored walls of Venice fade into the distance. The challenges had been made. One was the infinite destiny the three boys had chosen — violating the warning of the gypsy woman of Spalato, forgetting the instructive example of Sisyphus and his son Ulysses — after reading the manuscripts contained within the three bottles; a second, finite, destiny was that he had chosen for them; it had an hour: afternoon; a day: a fourteenth of July; a year: five years from now; a place: the Cabo de los Desastres; and a purpose: to see Felipe face to face, to settle the accounts of their youth, to fulfill their destinies in history, not in a dream. The times foreseen in the boys’ dreams would not work out so that he, Ludovico, could attend his appointment on the Spanish coast. He must, by force, shorten the boys’ dreams, steal from them three years and four months, interrupt them in time … he must deceive them, prevent one from telling another what he dreamed the dreamed one was dreaming, he must prevent one from being told what the other was dreaming as he was dreamed by him, cut short the dream the third dreamed he was dreaming as he was dreamed … cut short their dreams … As he told himself these things, Ludovico struggled against the deep and strange love he felt for the three youths placed in his care. He kept his decision to himself: he would have enough integrity, intelligence, and love to reunite his destiny and that of the three boys, make equal sacrifices for all four. But even thinking this, was he not admitting that from now on, none of the four would have the unified destiny a dream dreamed or a will willed?
He calmed his agitation by reflecting: “That is the price of a destiny in history: to be incomplete. Only an infinite destiny like that imagined by the three boys can be complete: that is why it cannot occur in history. One lifetime is not enough. One needs many existences in order to fulfill a personality. I shall do whatever possible to assure that this finite date in history — an afternoon, a fourteenth of July, within five years — does not deprive my sons of their infinite destiny in dream…”
And so he laid down a challenge to himself, a self-imposed challenge, an act of voluntary flagellation that would serve as witness to his conscience of the good faith that motivated him. There could be nothing better than to see for the last time the splendid sight of Venice, the glimmering scales of her canals, the sealed light of her windows, her white jaws of marble, her solitary stone squares, her silent bronze doors, the motionless conflagration of her bells, her shipwrights’ pitch beaches, the green wings of the lion, the empty book of the Apostle, the blind eyes of the saint: Ludovico was a man forty years old, bald, with olive-colored skin and green protruding eyes, with a sad smile marked by the lines of poverty, love, and study … He was seized by enormous bitterness. Felipe had been right. Grace was neither immediate nor gratuitous: one had always to pay history’s price: the denunciation of a witch who denied the pragmatic efficacy of grace, Felipe had said then; the foreshortening of dreams that extended beyond calendar years, Ludovico said today.
He did not tear out his eyes. He did not even close them. He simply decided not to see; he would see nothing, never again, he would be voluntarily blind; he, blind, his sons, sleeping, until their destinies flowed together and were again joined — by dissimilar routes, with different purposes — in Felipe’s presence; then their pledges could be redeemed: history colored by dream, as well as dream penetrated by history.
He would not see again. They sailed away. In the distance, San Marco, San Giorgio, La Carbonaia, La Giudecca; in the distance, Torcello, Murano, Burano, San Lazzaro degli Armeni. The image his pilgrim’s eyes beheld, the most beautiful of all cities, was what would remain. They had not fled in time. No one ever flees Venice in time. Venice imprisons us within her own spectral dream. He would not see again. He would not read again. The dreamer has another life: wakefulness. The blind man has other eyes: memory.
THE BEGUINES OF BRUGES
They say that one winter night, oh, about five years ago, a slow-moving cart drawn by starving horses entered the city of Bruges. Its driver was a very young man of handsome appearance: by his side sat a blind beggar. Patched canvas covered the cart’s contents.