Moisés Latt stopped his mind and murmured, “Thy will be done.” Then he submerged in the non-being of both. Jashe took the gold rings, placed one on Moisés’ left ring finger, another on her own, and the third on Sara Felicidad’s right thumb. With that ceremony, the marriage contract was signed. Now they were a family united until death did them part.
Moisés suddenly shouted, “Dolores!” And an old black mule, chased by clouds of flies that took delight in the stench of her backside, came out of a corral and limpingly galloped toward them. “My poor and faithful friend, you are going to make your last journey. You will take us to Entre Ríos. Once we’re there, you will die of fatigue. Console yourself with the thought that with your end our sorrows will end.”
The three of them mounted the animal, and under a huge umbrella covered with patches of indecisive colors, they began the slow, four-week journey that would get them to Shoske and César’s farm. During that time, they slept outdoors and ate, because Moisés managed to get small jobs like splitting logs, fixing shoes, rooting out nettles, cleaning lavatories, cutting hair, delousing children using a fine comb, and sharpening knives on his rat skin belt.
Meanwhile, Sara Felicidad hid her joy. She saw no misery anywhere. Traveling like that was a gift. Sleeping at the roadside, protected by the sky loaded with stars; breathing in the fragrances of the earth; saturating herself in the blessed smell of the mule; eating delicious dry bread accompanied by a tender, wrinkled apple; sharing landscapes with sparrows and ants; passing beneath trees, feeling the different caress of each shadow on her skin; all of it gave her the sensation of having no limitations. Within her spirit, a chorus made up of all human voices, those of now, of the future, of the past, began to resound in her spirit, a grateful sun arising from an infinite ocean of souls above which flew, illuminating it all, her father, transformed into a comet.
Yes, she had to hide, aside from the song, her joy. Jashe and Moisés, in order to subsist without love, fed on sadness. Submitting themselves to what they thought was Destiny, increased their mutual esteem, giving them the pride of resistance. The ability to withstand everything united them more than any passion. If they realized they were living in abundance, they would cease to be an essential solution, the one for the other. It was better to let them get along on the black mule, under the patched umbrella, locating their hopes in a future that would never exist, putting up with the instant as if it were a curse.
They reached Entre Ríos. The fertile, dark, moist lands became milky, arid, hostile. A frozen wind carried along balls of burned grass and huge tongues of dust. In those solitary places, amid a wheat field so dry that the ears of wheat sounded like bone rattles in the wind, languished Jashe’s sister’s farm. Before they entered the property, Dolores fell, fulminated. Having no shovel, they covered her with chunks of dirt as hard as rock and reached the door on foot.
“Jashe!”
“Shoske!”
Their sobbing embrace lasted for a quarter of an hour. A dark skinned man with curly hair and round eyes, of medium height but with large hands, observed the new arrivals with a timid smile. Hiding behind his robust right leg was his left, crippled by some childhood illness. Moisés offered him a game bag made of rat skin and a bouquet of wild flowers he’d cut on the road. César Higuera accepted the gift and embraced in his muscular, short arms the dry body of the man without teeth. The two sisters dried their tears and went into the modest house made of whitewashed adobes. Despite the year’s difference in their age and the fact that their bodies were different, they seemed like twins. Even though Shoske was much smaller, with narrow hips and very small breasts, now — because of the abandonment of the magic in Jashe — their two spirits had become identical, and the same sadness made them victims for all eternity. Shoske, without consulting her husband — not out of despotism but because of an absolute complicity — said to them, “We are one single family. Just as one part of my heart belongs to you, half of these lands, from now on, belong to you. We shall divide earnings and losses, our few joys and our many sorrows, and also this small cabin, which consists of nothing more than a dining room, bedroom, kitchen, and bath.”
Jashe, also without consulting Moisés, answered by emptying her treasure on the table. She gave her sister twenty-five coins and the watch, because they kept the rings. They drank a glass of brandy and immediately went to work. The wind never stopped blowing all day, constantly bombarding them with tiny stones and carrying off a large part of the wheat they were trying to store in a broken-down barn.
Sara Felicidad waited for them, wandering around the untilled land. She knew that lost place in the interminable plain would be her new home for a long time. Instead of rejecting that soil closed to the hand of man like a curled-up porcupine, populated by aggressive forces in the shape of scorpions, poisonous spiders, and snakes, she stretched out face down in a crack, kissed the arid land, and, opening her heart, poured into it an infinite river of love. She gave and gave until she fainted. When she recovered consciousness, she knew that the land had adopted her by causing a carpet of blue flowers to grow around her. The buzz of a hive of bees, hidden between the wheels of an old cart, called to her, offering honey, and a flock of sparrows perched on the barbs of the wire fence formed a wall of feathers that offered her a cool bit of shade. Snakes slithered over her legs, giving her long caresses without biting. She had placed love where there was none, and the wild land gave it back to her multiplied, transformed into a marvelous garden. When the sun went down, she went back to the house and waited for her elders, playing with her rag dancer. They returned with their eyes red and swollen, their hands covered with scratches. Shoske heated up some lentil soup containing bits of meat.
“You might as well know it, Jashe, Moisés, and Sarita. The meat is cat. We’re overrun with feral cats that eat our hens. Since we have to kill them, we’ve learned not to waste their meat. I suggest you start eating it right now. This land gives us very little food.”
My grandmother and my mother pursed their lips and stared at the plate with badly dissimulated sadness. Latt emptied his glass in one gulp and raised a piece of cat to his mouth to grind up, making exaggerated sighs of satisfaction. Jashe, with her chronic resignation, followed the example of her husband. The meat had a strange but not disagreeable taste. She took a bit of it and forced it into her daughter’s mouth. Sara Felicidad wept a pair of tears and, aware of her obligation, ate another piece. This communion by means of the sacrificed feline provoked a pleasant relaxation.
Shoske interrupted it: “Sister, you have to know: papa and mama are dead.”
Moisés and Sara Felicidad clung to Jashe, holding her up in their arms.
“When you left, I felt very alone, like a shadow that had lost its body. Not having anyone to follow, I felt non-existent. A short time later, César arrived looking for work. He came from Russia. He was a schoolteacher, but tired of the jokes his students made about his limp, he decided to change countries. Remember how our parents were: two complicated people fighting all their lives to be simple. They believed in good and evil spirits, in magic, in the powers of every animal, object, or plant, but because of a fear that extended to the entire Universe, they submerged themselves in ignorance. They never read a book or talked to each other. They spoke only to communicate practical things. When they had nothing to do, they were mute, one next to the other, staring at the fire or the clouds in the sky.