B0040702LQ EBOK (3 page)

... but first, dear friend, allow me to speak briefly of
the stars, for it is in astronomy books that one finds the
best descriptions of this daily wandering, this mysterious
process of living which no metaphor can adequately
encompass. According to the followers of Laplace, our
universe was born out of the destruction of a vast ball or
nucleus drifting through space, drifting alone, moreover,
with only the Creator for company, the Creator who
made everything and is in the origin of all things; and
out of that destruction, they say, came stars, planets and
asteroids, all fragments of that one lump of matter, all
expelled from their first home and doomed ever after to
distance and separation.

Those, like myself, who are sufficiently advanced in
years to be able to discern that dark frontier of which
Solinus speaks, feel cast down by the description science
so coldly sets before us. For, looking back, we cannot see
the world that once enwrapped us like a cloak about a
newborn babe. That world is no longer with us and
because of that we are bereft of all the beloved people
who helped us take our first steps. At least I am. My
mother died fifteen years ago and two years ago the
sister who shared my house with me died too. And of
my only brother, who left to travel overseas whilst still
only an adolescent, I know nothing. And you, dear friend, you yourself are far away; at a time when I need
you so, you too are far away.

This paragraph is followed by a few barely legible lines
which, as far as I can make out, refer to the psalm in which the
Hebrews in exile from Zion bemoan their fate. Then, on the
third page, the canon concludes his long introduction and
embarks on the central theme of his letter:

... for you know as well as I, that life pounds us with
the relentlessness and force of the ocean wave upon
the rocks. But I am straying from my subject and I can
imagine you growing impatient and asking yourself
what is it exactly that troubles me, what lies behind all
these complaints and preambles of mine. For I well
remember how restless and passionate you were and
how you hated procrastination. But remember too my
weakness for rhetoric and forgive me: I will now explain
the events that have led to my writing this letter. I hope
with all my heart that you will listen to what I have to
say with an open mind and ponder as you do so the
lament in Ecclesiastes: 'Vae soli!' Yes, the fate of a man
alone is a most bitter one, even more so if that man, like
the last mosquitoes of summer, can barely stagger to his
feet and can only totter through what little remains of
his life. But enough of my ills; I will turn my attention to
the events I promised to recount to you.

Nine months ago last January, an eleven-year-old
boy disappeared into the Obaba woods, for ever, as we
now know. At first, no one was much concerned by his
absence, since Javier - that was the boy's name, that of
our most beloved martyr - had been in the habit of
running away from home and remaining in the woods
for days on end. In that sense he was special and his
escapes bore no resemblance to the tantrums that, at
some point in their lives, drive all boys to run away
from home; like that time you and I, in protest at an
unjust punishment at school, escaped the watchful eyes of our parents and spent the night out in the open,
hidden in a maize field ... but, as I said, this was not
the case with Javier.

I should at this point explain that Javier was of
unknown parentage or, to use the mocking phrase so
often used here to describe him, `born on the wrong
side of the blanket'. For that reason he lived at the inn in
Obaba, where he was fed and clothed in exchange for
the silver coins furnished to the innkeepers - vox populi
dixit - by his true progenitors.

It is not my intention in this letter to clear up the
mystery of the poor boy's continual flights, but I am sure
Javier's behaviour was ruled by the same instinct that
drives a dying dog to flee its masters and head for the
snowy mountain slopes. It is there, sharing as he does the
same origins as the wolves, that he will find his real
brothers, his true family. In just the same way, I believe,
Javier went off to the woods in search of the love his
guardians failed to give him at home, and I have some
reason to think that it was then, when he was walking
alone amongst the trees and the ferns, that he felt
happiest.

Hardly anyone noticed Javier's absences, hardly anyone sighed or suffered over them, not even the people
who looked after him. With the cruelty one tends to
find amongst the ill-read, they washed their hands of
him saying that `he would come back when he was
good and hungry'. In fact, only I and one other person
bothered to search for him, that other person being
Matias, an old man who, having been born outside of
Obaba, also lived at the inn.

The last time Javier disappeared was different, though,
for so fierce was my insistence that they look for him, a
whole gang of men got together to form a search party.
But, as I said before, nine months have now passed and
poor Javier has still not reappeared. There is, therefore,
no hope now of him returning.

Consider, dear friend, the tender hearts of children and the innocence in which, being beloved of God, they
always act. For that is how our children are in Obaba and
it gives one joy to see them always together, always running around, indeed, running around the church itself,
for they are convinced that if they run round it eleven
times in succession the gargoyle on the tower will burst
into song. And when they see that, despite all their
efforts, it still refuses to sing, they do not lose hope but
attribute the failure to an error in their counting or to
the speed with which they ran, and they persevere in
their enterprise.

Javier, however, never joined in, neither then nor at
any other time. He lived alongside them, but apart. The
reasons for his avoidance of them lay perhaps in his
character, too serious and silent for his age. Perhaps too
it was his fear of their mockery, for a purple stain
covered half his face, considerably disfiguring him.
Whatever the reason, the conclusion ...

The third page ends there. Unfortunately the top of the following page, page four, is badly affected by mould and none of
my efforts to clean it up have met with much success. I have
only been able to salvage a couple of lines.

Reading them, one has the impression that Canon Lizardi
has once more abandoned the story and returned to the sad
reflections of the beginning of the letter. At least so I deduce
from the presence there of a word like `santateresa', the local
word for the praying mantis, an insect which, according to the
nature guide I consulted, is unique in the natural world for
the way in which it torments its victims. The author of the
guide comments: `It devours them slowly, taking care not to
let them die at once, as if its real hunger were for torture not
for food.'

Was Lizardi comparing the behaviour of that insect with
the way life had treated the boy? For my part, I believe he was.
But let us leave these lucubrations and look at what Lizardi
did in fact write in the legible part of that fourth page.

... do not think, dear friend, that I ever abandoned or
neglected him. I visited him often, always with a kind
word on my lips. All in vain.

I was still caught up in these thoughts when, at the
beginning of February, one month after Javier had run
away, a pure white boar appeared in the main street of
Obaba. To the great amazement of those watching, it did
not withdraw before the presence of people, but trotted
in front of them with such calm and gentleness that it
seemed more like an angelic being than a wild beast. It
stopped in the square and stayed there for a while, quite
still, watching a group of children playing with what
remained of the previous night's fall of snow.

The upper part of the fifth page is also damaged but not as
badly as the page I have just transcribed. The dampness only
affects the first three lines. It goes on:

... but you know what our people are like. They
feel no love for animals, not even for the smallest
which, being too weak to defend themselves, deserve
their care and attention. In respect of this, I recall an
incident that occurred shortly after my arrival in
Obaba. A brilliantly coloured bird alighted on the
church tower and I was looking up at it and rejoicing
to think that it was our Father Himself who, in His
infinite kindness, had sent me that most beautiful of His
creatures as a sign of welcome, when, lo and behold,
three men arrived with rifles on their shoulders ...
they had shot the poor bird down before I had a chance
to stop them. Such is the coldness of our people's
hearts, which in no way resemble that of our good St
Francis.

They reacted in just the same way towards the white
boar. They began shooting at it from windows, the
braver amongst them from the square itself, and the
racket they made so startled me that I came running out
of the church where I happened to be at the time. They only managed to wound the animal, however, and in the
midst of loud squeals, it fled back to the woods.

Since it was a white boar, and therefore most unusual,
the hunters were in a state of high excitement; they
could already imagine it as a trophy. But that was not to
be, at least not that day. They returned empty-handed
and, faint with exhaustion, they all ended up at the inn,
drinking and laughing and with great hopes for the next
day. And it was then, on that first day of the hunt, that
Matias confronted them with these grim words: `What
you're doing is wrong. He came here with no intention
of harming anyone yet you greet him with bullets.
You'd be well advised to consider the consequences of
your actions.'

As you will recall from the beginning of the letter,
Matias was the old man who loved the boy best and was
so grieved by his disappearance that many feared he
might lose his mind. And there in the inn, hearing those
words and what he went on to say, no one doubted
that this was exactly what had happened. For in his view,
the white boar was none other than our lost boy, none
other than Javier, who, because of the sad life he had led
as a human being, had changed his very nature. It seems
he argued his case as follows:

`Didn't you see the way he stopped in the square to
watch the boys playing in the snow? Isn't that just what
Javier used to do? And, again just like Javier, didn't the
boar have a purple stain around its snout.'

Those who were present say that the old man's
speech was followed by a heated discussion, with some
hunters denying that the boar had any such stain and
others passionately affirming that it had. Now tell me,
dear friend, can you imagine anything more foolish?
What kind of a person is it who raises not the slightest
objection to the idea of the boy's metamorphosis and
believes, therefore, that it was indeed Javier hiding
beneath the boar's rough coat, and yet grows irate and
argumentative over the incidental detail of a birthmark? But, as you well know, superstition still lingers in places
like Obaba and just as the stars continue to shine long
after they are dead, the old beliefs ...

The first ten lines of the sixth page are completely illegible
and we can learn nothing of what happened in the days
following the boar's first appearance. We can, on the other
hand, find out what took place later, since the latter part of
page six and the whole of page seven are perfectly conserved.

... but one night the boar returned to Obaba and,
gliding through the shadows, made its way to a solitary
house situated some five hundred yards from the square.
Once outside the house, it began to beat and gnaw at the
door, emitting such furious grunts that the people who
had been sleeping inside were dumbstruck and unable to
call for help, so great was the terror that gripped them.

I should not say that the animal acted with criminal
intent for I know it is wrong to attribute to animals
faculties that are proper only to men. And yet I am
sorely tempted to do so. How else can you explain its
determination to enter the house? How else explain the
damage it caused to the livestock when it saw that it
could not break down the door? ... for I should tell you
that, before disappearing back into the woods, the boar
killed a horse and an ox kept by the inhabitants in a
nearby outhouse. But I am not proud and I know that
only our Father can know the true reasons behind such
behaviour.

After what had happened, the hunters' anger was
roused and many who until then had remained calm
decided to throw in their lot with the hunting parties
that had already been established. And, as ever, old
Matias was the one dissenting voice. He went out into
the streets and pleaded with those setting off for the
woods:

`Leave the boar in peace! You'll only enrage him by
doing this! Javier will recognise you!'

The hunters responded with violence, forgetting it
was an old man they were dealing with, an old man
speaking to them, moreover, out of his delirium. Then
they continued on their way. But you should not judge
their rudeness and their intemperance too harshly. For,
as I explained, they were quite beside themselves with
terror. They feared the boar would continue to attack
their livestock, livestock which is on the whole of the
poorest quality, so poor it barely provides enough to
feed and clothe them. But Matias had his reasons too:

`Javier has nothing against you! He only attacks those
who did him harm before!'

Unfortunately for everyone concerned, what the old
man said was not pure madness. For the family the boar
had attacked was the least Christian in Obaba, its members having for generations been much given to cruelty,
a propensity they gave full rein to during the recent
war. Often, when they got drunk at the inn, they had
made Javier the butt of their cruelty, mocking and even
beating him, for evil always vents itself on the weak. But
was there a connection between the two facts? Should I
entirely disregard what the old man said? These were the
questions I asked myself, the questions that tormented
me.