B0040702LQ EBOK (14 page)

In this exercise, we will enter into a relationship of gradual
intimacy with a character who has yet to metamorphose
from a `he' into an `I', and will discuss the enormous effort
involved in such a manoeuvre (in some cases, in parallel with
what is, after all, purely a change of form, something terrible
occurs with all the fury of a tempest). Sooner or later, everyone has to undergo a change that is almost as momentous as
birth itself, and only when that happens can you be who you
are and always have been: you have to stop referring to yourself as `he' or `she' or `you' or `they' (those who do so - out of
altruism or self-denial or because it's an easy option - put others before themselves) and at last begin the reinstatement
of the T.

The first-person confession will be accompanied by information that merely describes the surroundings or the action,
and then it doesn't matter if the third person is used: `He lives
in a house in a cul-de-sac, where there are no other houses,
only the backs of various buildings that have their entrances in
adjacent streets. It is a two-storey house, and not a single ray of
light has ever shone into any of its rooms. The first memory
he had was of nurses prodding him with pincers and other
implements, making him moan with pain; then there was a
long period of emptiness, during which he must have been
under almost continual sedation. Finally, he was given this
house; the State granted him a monthly allowance on condition that he only goes out very late at night, when everyone
else is sleeping.'

To describe actual events, the narrative will continue in
the third person without as yet a glimmer of emotion: 'Yesterday, in the street, despite the lateness of the hour, he came
across a group of individuals talking loudly and deciding there
and then, just like that, the fate of some poor devil who had
stolen something - a wallet perhaps - and whom they had
managed to corner; they were kicking and punching the
boy. He approached the group and simply shouted out: `No!'
and they fled; it might have been his voice, cracked and shrill,
that frightened them most, but it was almost certainly his
appearance.

The supposed thief was lying on the pavement and his
mouth and nose were bleeding; his eyes were swollen and he
probably couldn't see anything. Our protagonist went to him
and pressed a muslin handkerchief into his hand; the other
man, despite his wounds, first wiped the blood from his face.
The wallet was still lying on the ground; he examined it and
found it empty: the other passers-by had run off with every last
penny. He helped the young man to his feet and almost had to
drag him to a bench where he lay him down; the wounded
man told him that he had nowhere to go, that he came from a
city a long way off, that he hadn't eaten for several days.

He decided to help him; he had never helped anyone
before. He lifted him up as best he could, for he had never
been strong, and dragged him the few yards to his house.

In a room on the ground floor there was an old bed and he
laid the young man down on it as delicately as his own clumsy
limbs would allow; he covered him with a blanket and the
young man fell asleep. He was little more than an adolescent,
but he was obviously hungry and in need of attention.'

Now the central character expresses his innermost
thoughts, but still speaks of himself as someone removed from
what is happening, and at no point does he mention the `I':
`He went up to his bedroom and tried to go to sleep, to no
avail: there was a living creature in his house, and he was filled
by all kinds of sensations and feelings that he had never had
before. So he went downstairs to look at him. The boy was
breathing very fast and sweating. He barely touched him, but
the boy's forehead was burning. He went into the kitchen and
got several damp cloths which he placed on the boy's face,
arms and legs in order to lower the fever. The boy also had an
ugly wound on one temple and the man cleaned it as best he
could. He had read about this in his books - which covered
the majority of manifestations of human wisdom - and he at
last had the opportunity to put that rudimentary knowledge
into practice. He stayed there all night, just watching. Towards
daybreak, the boy gave vent to the most terrible screams. He
was delirious and was doubtless dreaming about what seemed
to him to be hideous monsters ...' Suddenly an `I' creeps
into the man's reasoning: `My nightmares, on the other hand,
are always filled with people.' However, he immediately
returns to anonymity: `The boy slept and slept. He was like
that for three days, delirious, shouting out names, places, dates.
Finally, on the night of the third day, he woke up, though he
could still not open his eyes, because the swelling had not yet
gone down. He remained lying on the bed, but said nothing.
The man prepared him some food and helped him to eat it;
the wounded boy devoured it all eagerly.

Then the boy sat up and, still blind, told him his story. He
spoke for a long time; it was a monologue, but then the man had no idea how to respond anyway, since he had never
spoken to anyone. Then the boy asked about him. Our protagonist was embarrassed; it occurred to him that he could
make up a story about the person he would like to have been
and about the places he would like to have visited. But he
reasoned that the boy would recover his sight at any moment,
and so it made no sense to lie. He told the boy that he would
explain everything once he was restored to health. He found
it hard to articulate words. On paper it was so easy for him, but
it was agonizing to speak, and when he finished those few
brief utterances, he felt exhausted.

And thus passed three more days which were filled with the
boy's talk; he could still not get up and his eyelids remained
sealed tight.

At the end of those three days, the boy said things to him
that seemed incredible. He thanked him for his kindness,
declared that he was the only person who had helped him in
that cruel city; he heaped praise on him, comparing him to
certain celestial beings, but this was one subject that was
poorly covered in the man's library and so he was not quite
sure what was meant. The boy even tried to hug him, sitting
up and groping the air with his hands, but the other man
eluded the embrace, making him lie down again, telling him
that he should conserve his strength.'

The narrative suddenly changes; now the `I' starts to invade
the text; there is a gradual intensification of his state ofsomno-
lent unrest, triggered by a simple physiological event: `I
noticed a burning sensation in my eyes; I touched them and
felt something wet: it was like water and tasted very salty; it
kept falling in drops, one after the other, and I could do nothing to stop it. Then I remembered having read that when
people can no longer contain their emotions, they weep. That
confirmed to me that, in some way, I must be a human being,
not a monster or some impossible creature as I had heard
people call out when they saw me wandering the streets late at
night.'

The call of the `I' is irresistible, and the narrative will continue in that form: `I took care of the boy, I fed him and washed him; he couldn't praise me enough and kept saying
that he felt a rare affection for me.

One morning, he called to me from his room. I had only
just woken up and I heard him saying: `I can see again! I can
see again!' I considered not going downstairs, I wanted to run
away; if he saw me now, he would be terrified and leave for
ever, the one person who had given meaning to my whole
existence. Nevertheless, in deference to him, I decided to
answer his call, despite the fear and shame gnawing at me
inside. I went slowly down the stairs and got as far as his door.

The boy had his back to me. He was standing examining
the planks of wood that had been nailed up at the windows,
not to keep light out, but so that no one would look in from
outside and see me. When I went into the room, I coughed in
order to interrupt the thread of his thoughts and to warn him
of my presence.'

The character in the story cannot, at that precise
moment, withstand the turmoil he is feeling and so he again
steps back from what is happening, to regain some distance:
`When he saw him, the boy ran to him and embraced him.
He said that he was profoundly grateful, that he didn't
know how he could ever repay such kindness; he spoke
enthusiastically of his decision to go back to his village and
work on the land with the other members of his family; he
told him that he should come too because there the air
was clean and the people were friendly, the days passed
pleasantly and the seasons were less harsh; in short, he declared
that life in his village was kinder than in the city and that
people appreciated others for what they were. Again he
embraced him.'

Having reached this point, he has no option but to confess
all with the `I': `I was dumbstruck, I was so moved I could
barely breathe, and I wondered how it was possible for the
boy not to notice my face and body. I was on the point of
asking what he thought of my physical appearance, but to do
so would have been discourteous. Then he told me that he
wanted to return to his village as soon as possible, and that,
once there, he would write to me so that I could join him for a visit or to live if I chose. I gave him the money for his
ticket back, and after some initial protests, the boy took it
and left.

The house was empty again; I did not want to touch the
bed, with its tangle of sheets and blankets; I did not even want
to wash the muslin cloths with which I had cooled his fever.
I looked at it all for hours at a time. For long days, I waited
for his letter to arrive. The only correspondence to arrive
punctually was my allowance from the State.

I have been waiting for several months and, although I have
not entirely lost hope, I now have my doubts. Perhaps the boy
was just saying those things, perhaps he had been frightened
by my appearance, but, for some reason, had wanted to pretend otherwise ... fear or money or prudence; perhaps it
was all a nightmare and the most beautiful thing that ever
happened to me never really happened at all.'

When the letter did finally arrive, so intense was his distress
that he had to turn away from himself again: `The envelope
bore only the address, not the name (he had no valid name in
any case). The page of tiny, blue, spontaneous handwriting
was full of joyful expressions of gratitude, sincere apologies for
the delay in contacting him. The young man invited him to
go to his village: he wanted to show him the hills and the
orchards, the river and the local paths, the reaping and the
harvest, he wanted him to meet all the people who had helped
him to understand who he was and where he should spend his
life.'

For the conclusion, however, our character has no alternative but to be brave; he has the strength he needs (although, up
until then, he had not known it) and he uses it convincingly
(up until that moment, he had thought himself incapable of
this); he will never again refer to himself with anything but
an `I': `At that moment, I put the letter back in the envelope
and I sealed it. In pencil, I wrote diagonally across it: 'NO
LONGER LIVING AT THIS ADDRESS'. That night,
while everyone was sleeping, I went out into the broad
avenue where I had once seen a scarlet letter box. As I slipped
the letter in through the slot, I took a deep breath, I felt an enormous sense of relief. Now I could simply go back to
being the person I have always been. I too know where I
should spend my life; I too know who I am.'

© Isabel del Rio

Translated by Margaret full Costa

There are circumstances - when a silence suddenly falls, when
the sun appears for a moment in a sky covered in dense cloud
- that make us doubt the certainty of our surroundings, and it
is precisely then that it occurs to us - as if there were no other
possibility - that we might have invented the whole thing
from start to finish. The story could thus begin simply (and
the style too will have to be minimalist: short sentences, few
adjectives, brief descriptions of real things, but none of any
perceived emotional turmoil), with someone arriving home
after a short walk, someone who knocks at the door, who
knocks and knocks. No one opens it, though. The woman in
the story is sure that someone is in, which is why she raps on
the door so hard she almost skins her knuckles. It occurs to
her that it is a day of celebration (during the brief hour that
she was out of the house, the others have had time to prepare a
party in her honour). There is no need to specify whether the
person has gone out without her key or has lost it. She
remembers, at that moment, that there is another key above
the doorframe; she gropes for it blindly, but she is clumsy and
the key falls soundlessly onto the doormat. There will be
some description of the key, that it is a shiny, bronze-coloured
key; it is an excessively small key to open such a heavy door.
Despite that, however, she turns it just once in the lock and
the door swings open. Once inside, she reads the message
written on a banner that spans the corridor from wall to wall:
HAPPY BIRTHDAY.