Arcadio (16 page)

The fume of the dirty mill, my mother, my father, my brother Tomasso, all gone—
asunder
as it is the word in
La Biblia Blanca
, what,
Oyente
, would you now do? Would you go on down the road? Would you believe the newspaper story of Fred Shanks? Would you go on looking for the Show again, would you go asking people in the towns you passed if they had seen the Show, if'd been there, if there was any posters showing Heracles the lion
feroz?
Would you go back to the Show if you found it, back in the jewel wagon, back in the gilded chair before the silent gazers, still and silent evermore? Would you?

You, the listener of the singer's song,
Oyente
, who are you anyway? Why have you come this way and why have you stayed so long? I hardly see you now.
Oyente!
It gets dark and many stars come out in the Texas sky that my old ancestors Mescan and Texan saw, same sky same stars I do believe. And if you were to sing my song to another listener when my voice has stopped, how would you sing it to
your
listener,
Oyente
, would you be true to what I've sung to you, would you be careful not to add some of your own song to it what would be your song,
your
song, who are
you?
When I am silent. When I am gone into the night, into the darkness that has fallen all around us. I have seen that nothing lasts everything slips through your fingers, which is an espression.
San Pablo
said so.
La Biblia
tells me so,
dice que sí
on many pages. For,
Oyente
, if you will look you will see how the little white dog slipped through my fingers, how Chupa and Tomasso and Hondo and Hombre slipped through my fingers. Even the Show slipped through my fingers.
El Mundo pasa
. The world slips through your fingers. This leaves only God and
Jesucristo
.

The dark is here,
Señor, Señorita, Corazón Dulce
, hearer of my song,
Oyente. Qué más digo
, what more shall I say?
Qué más decir
, what more is there to say? For I am sure Old Shanks is dead and gone, torn to pieces like his brother said, and oh the little white jumper is surely too deceased, dust; and the Dwarft too, ashes, and the Show tent ashes on the ground I bet you money. God knows it was rotted enough even when I was under it, could see the stars through rotten holes in it and the wind, even back there, blew pieces of it like wild flags, many nights I heard in the quietness of my tent of gazing, the cracking of the wild flags in the starry wind. That leaves the last thing, God and
Jesucristo
, father and son, only thing that is the same today and yesterday and forever more. I'm on my way to them.

The dark is here. I'll take a minute to be quiet and play a little of “The Waltz of the Spotted Dog” for all them that I loved and for all that slipped through these old fingers.

It's time to say farewell and so goodbye
adiós
old world, old world is passing away. And so I say so long
adiós
, so long to all I loved and will not hunt for anymore, to Chupa, Tomasso, Hombre, Hondo, to all
adiós adiós
so long. And so long
adiós
to all the Show, Old Shanks and Eddy the Dwarft and the little white jumping dog Junipero Perro, and Edna Pappas of
las palabras
and Heracles the lion
feroz
that found his old
feroz
again, so long, and to the gilded chair and to the jewel wagon, all that I will never find again and will no longer hunt for, all is gone,
adiós adiós
so long. And so goodbye to you,
Oyente
patient listener I feel half in love with you. When you sing your songs so close to someone for so long a time and they listen, you feel them listening with love you feel close to that
Oyente
listener.
Oyente
there in the dark I have sung you my own very life please to not forget me.
So long!
Here, take from my lips this kiss whoever you are, dear
Oyente
. So long!
Oyente!
The night falls, I cannot see you!
Oyente!
Have you vanished so quick?
Oyente!
Where are you hiding? I am alone,
la noche baja, la noche cae
. Night falls.

IT
IS
NIGHT
.
THE
vision has passed. In the ancient fragile city starlings and bells. The world breaks. Cities fail, towns die. Fields vanish and rivers wither; some wild things can be counted, there are so few. A great mystery may be near. I often dream of water, some of it deep. Sometimes, Uncle Ben, I do not wish to live any longer in this world. Sometimes I want to go home, where we all were. That simple house of early solitude and strangers rises before me, built again, melancholy house of the dark entrance, of the door with the forbidding dark figure. But no one would be there to answer my call at that door: Hello! Hello! And you, Ben, would not be there, even as you were not when I went away through that mysterious portal (it was so grand for a house so plain). Uncle Ben! I have today given you back your darling creature; Arcadio! your creator Ben has come to me through you. And I, both teller and listener, solitary maker, grand and absurd and homesick, who am I? what is life? why are we all here where is God?

Yet you, hearing me—who are you, where have you come from, why have you stayed so long to hear me?
Oyente!
who are we, what is life why are we all here where is God?