The stone wall was warm from the sun. I paused by the portal. The courtyard was large, with brambles in the corners. By a well lay a tattered flag, its pole broken, and a tangle of blood-smeared sheets. The stained glass in three high windows was ablaze with light. The wind picked up and the panting of waves reached me. The entrance to the castle was a dark mouth with a staircase at the end. Three doors gave onto the landing. I chose the middle one. The room seemed to have been built for giants, with a hearth for giants. Another room followed with a table in the middle in the shape of a counter; some thirty iron soldiers armed with lances were positioned between the huge windows and on either side of the doors. Another room, resembling a corridor, had twelve windows facing the sea; the opposite wall was covered with bits of broken mirror. As I was studying the wall that shattered me to pieces as though I were merely a composite of shards, I noticed the scent for the first time: the smell of the yellow roses from our rosebush at home that climbed all the way up to the railing on the rooftop terrace. A stairway with only a few steps led straight to a small door. I opened it. The room was dark, merely a box with neither window nor balcony. The door slammed shut behind me. With my back to the wall, I scarcely dared to breathe; I heard footsteps approaching, someone walking with the help of a cane. Clack, clack, clack. . The wall I was leaning against swung ajar and I spied a room in penumbra; there was only the light of a hearth. A man seated in an armchair was looking straight at me. Come in. He had sunken eyes, a long beard, and gnarled hands. A pistol lay on the table in front of him. After telling me to sit, he began to speak. The castle has had many visitors, some who wanted to kill me, others who wanted to save me. Between the two, everything I possessed has been taken from me. No more tapestries or valuable, centuries-old furniture. . but I wept most for the loss of the sun. . he pointed to a large nail in the middle of the hood above the hearth, it once hung there, solid gold, larger than my belly. It had a face with a mouth, eyes and nose. Are you listening? Just by reaching out your arm, you could kill me. The gun is loaded. I could also kill you. It must be a grand thing to stem a life that is just beginning, but I won’t because you have that stunned animal expression, and stunned animals have always evoked my respect because of the world’s great need for them. Look, there are some things I need to say: Wise men should not weep for the living or the dead. . Youth is always sad, and it always rests in other people’s hands. . He took my hand. Youth is for stroking wood, stone, the tender skin of one’s first love. Even before sunrise, the sun already knows that it is the sun, and that the dew has been waiting for it long before daybreak, waiting even before it was born. He let go of my hand. The wall at the back of the hearth glimmered, as did the eyes of the old man seated in his chair. In every man we find deep roots that bind him to the great symphony of the world. . I tiptoed out of the room. I crept along, staying close to the wall, finding only closed doors, lightless windows, stairs. All at once, the moonlight illuminated a corner where shadows lay across the floor. I heard groans. I did not know where I was. The bolts on the doors that I tried to open were all rusty. . until finally one yielded. . and a strong hand grabbed me by the ankle. I managed to smother the cry that was about to emerge from my throat.
XV THE PRISONER
I AM IMPRISONED HERE UNTIL THE END OF MY DAYS. I AM THE master of this castle. It was seized from me by a distant relative from a poor side of the family, whom my parents took in while still a child. Everything I had, he had as well. But he was envious of me, and the envy that festered within him could have filled seven wells. With smiles and gentle manners he earned my trust; he was my most beloved friend. But then, as soon as the war began, he robbed me of everything I had. First the gold sun, then the two chalices encrusted with diamonds, rubies, and emeralds, and the candelabras adorned with moonstones. The castle chapel was emptied of valuables. Despoiled of saints, altars, retables, crown-bearing angels. People were paid to loot and rob, taking all the silver and gold, the tapestries with scenes of war, of hunting parties, of raging seas, of love. When armed men arrived at the castle, he turned me over to them to avoid being killed himself, telling them he was the poor one, I the rich. He had my knees broken. I lay for God knows how long in the open grave where the bodies of the executed were dumped. Dragging myself, my belly to the ground like a snake, I was able to make it back to the castle. The hatred in his eyes when he saw me was spine-chilling. His threatening figure towered over me as he looked at me and said that as punishment he would not allow me to die. I was brought to this dark room. Sometimes he brings me food. Other times he forgets. I never see him. He knows how to choose the moment of one’s sleeping death. Feel no pity for me. Do not try to save me. Perhaps I have the punishment I deserve for my lust, for having believed myself more powerful than God. He has made himself the master of my discernment; he has become my lord. I live for him and through him. I am him. I am his wickedness, his cruelty. My prison is not these walls, but my own flesh and bones. Never allow yourself to be defeated. He paused for a moment, then continued in a changed tone. Observe and admire the perfect order of the stars, the passing of time with its retinue of seasons: the gates of summer, the gates of winter. Observe the waves, attend to the grandeur of the winds that the angels blow from the four corners of the pulsating heavens. The lightning that streaks everything with fire, the crawling thunder. . I adored rosy cheeks, turgid buttocks, honey-sweet breasts, dawn-colored thighs, snow-white, nacreous feet. . Books that impart wisdom, blazing sunsets from my windows, the pearly light of the night star. My life had been a perfect jewel, a diamond. What are my broken bones but a way of binding me to the realm of memories, to everything I once had and still retain because it dwells in the darkest recesses of my heart? Tell me, where are the nymphs of old, surrounded by lilies and the water that flows through the deep umbrage of my woodlands, weaving garlands of nightshade, sleeping in dark grottos resonant with the cries of love lost? My flesh is tired, my skin as brittle as glass. I sleep on the floor surrounded by tranquil spiders and the dust that I ingest, the dust that I am and that I will become when, far from the blue cries of the sirens, a blinding light will welcome me to the land of the pure. Pray, pray always that man might behold the marvelous abundance granted him so that he might not destroy it or fling it into the abyss of terror where everything freezes over. .
Half deranged by the words of that madman whose face I had not even glimpsed, I crawled backward, too filled with dread to turn my back to him. And with the sound of his strangely sweet voice still ringing in my ears I found myself rolling down a viscous slope. When I got to the bottom, I tried to stand. My arms could reach from one wall to the other. I crept along the sewer line until a breath of fresh air hit me and I lost consciousness.
XVI THREE GIRLS AND AN ORANGE
LOOK, THERE’S A BOY AT THE MOUTH OF THE SEWER LINE FROM the castle. Is he dead? If he were dead his face would be paler. The voices reached me from afar, slowly waking me. They were the voices of girls. Of girls standing around me. Then a shadow leaned down and something soft, perhaps a blade of grass, perhaps a feather, grazed my cheek. I couldn’t stand the tickle. Don’t give him any love pats. I could see six feet, six legs, six knees. Three girls were observing me, amused. He has one eye open, he’s just pretending to sleep. See how it shines? I sat up, and the girls ran away, laughing and shrieking. A flight of seagulls circled above them. The shrieking girls with their feet in the water, and the seagulls on that bright morning transported me to a very different world. An orange soared through the air. The girls were playing, tossing it back and forth. Nice and round, it surged upward against the blue and then fell swiftly into the two hands at the end of two arms that awaited it. From behind a rock that prevented me from seeing her fully, another girl, who looked like a figurine in a Nativity scene, was approaching. All of her, I later noticed, was the color of a camellia flower; she had large, black eyes and thick hair that fell down her back. The other girls immediately surrounded her. One who was very blonde asked: Are you still crying over him? Forget him. If he wants to travel the world singing, let him, and wish him well. Her fiancé left her? asked the girl who was wearing a yellow blouse. Yes. Isabel was so afraid he would be killed in the war, but it only took one of his arms. And now he says he doesn’t want to marry with just one arm. The figurine girl started explaining to the girl in the yellow blouse what the others already knew. Her fiancé’s father was a blacksmith and he, the son, was strong and brave; he used to help his father forge iron. Hammer and anvil were all sparks. . I moved closer to them. The figurine girl glanced at me, and I don’t know what she saw in my eyes but as she looked at me hers moistened. The blonde girl said, Isabel loved him very much. We’ve known each other since we were little and used to play in front of the castle, making paper boats out of newspapers. Then we’d go down to the beach and float them on the water, lying facedown on the crab rock. The figurine girl looked at me again, and again it seemed that her eyes and mine had no wish to hold any other gaze. So now you know the whole story: He doesn’t want to marry with one arm, it doesn’t matter that I’ve waited for him for so long, dreamed of him for so long. My mother is happy: What would you do with a one-armed cripple for a husband? You’ll find another who’s better, richer and has the right number of arms and hands. . The figurine girl started running toward the waves screaming that she wanted to die. They took her farther down the beach, and the girl in the yellow blouse walked over to me and tossed me the orange.