Читать книгу The Journey - Miguel Collazo - Страница 9

Bímer and Beres had seen the city, but they had gotten a false impression of it (which must be what had always happened to Jalno). Anyway, the world of the valley wasn’t really how Jalno had imagined it. It was, in any case, as bad or as good as the desert, the same as the sea would undoubtedly be; the same as everything. The valley was simply different. The men of the valley also used to have a sort of Jalno who used to frighten them and keep them roped up in prohibitions and mysteries. But now they knew, through Borles, that there really weren’t any borders or savage lands.

Jalno! Why was he so hard to forget? “Noahsark, let’s go look for the machines; we’re lost without them. Before the disaster, Nur B, my father, said that the machines would always be there, waiting for us. Do you understand, Pigeon? The machines!”

Right now he wished he had Jalno here with him, so he could ask him what good the machines were. There the machines sat, strange, useless. They weren’t good for anything, or hardly anything. Besides, they were stupid and dangerous.

It wouldn’t be a bad idea to destroy them. Of course it wouldn’t be a bad idea! On top of everything, the machines had the terrible habit of driving people crazy. What had happened to Bímer? Bímer had moved far away, and one day Beres went to look for him and found him on the other side of the valley, surrounded by machines, a demented smile plastered on his face.

Borles had stretched out on the thick fresh grass in the valley and listened to Beres tell the story.

Beres told him he hadn’t liked the look on Bímer’s face, or the machines, which Bímer had endowed somehow—Beres didn’t know how—with the power of movement. Beres also told him that one afternoon his brother came looking for him, but he wasn’t walking like everybody had done up until then; he was sitting on a machine that carried him here and there, wherever he wanted. No, Beres hadn’t liked that.

But Bímer didn’t want to abandon his machines or come back; he felt fine. He petted his machines and said, “Look here, Beres, look how good they are. Our father was right. I’m sure he was right about a lot of other things, too.”

Seeing the crazed look on his brother’s face, Beres was inclined to think the opposite. No, Jalno hadn’t been right; he’d been crazy, like his brother.

Right, Borles thought, listening to him; but he was already disillusioned enough to believe either way. Beres might be making up the whole story, just like Jalno—after all, wasn’t he Jalno’s son? One minor point: there were lots of machines in the valley; why were the ones that Bímer took the only ones that worked? Well, who cares. For his own part, he didn’t want to know anything about the machines, whether they made him feel better or not. Someday he’d fall asleep forever, some afternoon just like any other, and everything would end.

In the valley you didn’t feel either bad or good, and that was sufficient. When a storm came, Borles had a roof, and at night he wasn’t doomed to watching the stars. He was free of the threatening sky. What more could he hope for? If Bímer was happy with his machines, that was fine with Borles, good for him. If someone wanted to go to the desert, he wouldn’t be like Jalno and try to frighten him. After all, everybody looks for a place of his own, or rather: he finds it. And Borles’s place was always the least bad option, or the one he thought would be. There, in his city, among the ruins, Borles had his spot. And if somebody suddenly showed up telling him he’d found something better, he wouldn’t follow. He wouldn’t run anymore, or scream at night when the fear came over him, the big fear; because there’d always be scares and minor anxieties, and things and sensations he’d never be able to explain. But fine. He couldn’t ask for more, didn’t want to ask more.

The valley world had brought him new things; some were bad, others good, of course. Among the good things, for example, was the fact that he always, or almost whenever he felt like it, had a woman at hand. Desert life hadn’t been pleasant at all in that regard: walking, and sleeping wherever night caught you; desiring, craving a woman, and watching her roam away somewhere; and waiting until one day, perhaps the worst possible day, she was standing in front of you with that beautiful thing in her eyes, looking at you. Yes, the valley had come with new anxieties, but it had also come with women, and Borles wasn’t going to move from there.

Bímer didn’t go away for good, either; he visited the city regularly and one day he announced he was coming back with his machines.

Borles heard him from a distance and yawned. He seemed to have so little in common with him. It was as if he’d never known him, as if he’d just showed up and he didn’t even know his name.

Regardless, Bímer began to infiltrate his life, or part of it. Borles didn’t mind when Bímer took his children and told them about the machines, but afterward—and this did bother him—the kids came back to him with strange ideas and plagued him with absurd questions, and each day he noticed they were a little less pleased with his company. Fine, thought Borles, if they opened their mouths one day to say they’d decided to leave, he sure wouldn’t wait for them to finish talking. He’d tell them, “Go on, then!” What good did children do? Especially that Orna, that Larte. That noisy Bumis! Right, maybe he wouldn’t wait for them to tell him; maybe he wouldn’t even wait for them to think it. If his children preferred that crazy Bímer and the insanity of his machines, perfect, that’s their problem!

Bímer and his machines! Well, even Beres was getting excited about them. Not so strange, after all; they were brothers, sons of an unpleasant Jalno who made things up and was convinced they were real. Fine, take them. He gladly gave up his children to them. But afterward, not a tear, not a whine!

Those machines!

To think he used to get worried about such things and spend months chewing his fingernails.

Machines for doing what? For doing the same things Bímer did?

If Bímer and his machines, if Beres and a few more, if his own children, if all of them together were getting the idea of building houses like the ones in the city, perfect! That was just fine. Same thing if they suddenly felt like tearing them all down (except for his!) and making new ones, completely different. Perfect. They could do whatever, anything at all, except bother him, bother Borles.

Borles had his roof—he didn’t want a better or a worse—and he didn’t need anything else, nor did he want to find out he might need something else. Everything was fine, just fine!