Читать книгу The Anarchist Who Shared My Name - Pablo Martín Sánchez - Страница 17

V

(1899–1900)

ROBERTO OLAYA WAS NOT MISTAKEN. AS he had predicted, the inspector and his son were unable to leave Béjar for the entire Christmas holiday. He was wrong, however, about one thing: Pablo did not have time to read Robinson Crusoe during the stay. In fact, he only got through the first few pages, so preoccupied was he with the thrilling discovery of true friendship and true love. The port at Vallejera did not reopen until the new year, practically the end of the vacation—a fateful vacation in the life of Pablo Martín Sánchez.

That Christmas Eve of 1899, after the midnight mass—known in Spain as la misa de gallo, the “rooster mass”—the two boys left their hiding place behind the balustrade and went to find the rest of the crowd from the inn.

“Where did you run off to?” Julián asked his son.

Pablo gave no answer. His eyes were shining with a glow Julián had only seen once before: the day, now long past, when he found him shivering at Plaza de Santo Domingo in Madrid. The four actors, the livestock dealer, and the newlyweds decided to prolong the night a bit, so the group returning to the inn was reduced to Julián, Pablo, Doña Leonor, Robinsón, and the traveling salesman, who spent the whole walk trying to convince them of the benefits of Palleschy Ointment, a surefire cure for chilblains. When they had nearly arrived back at the inn, Robinsón whispered in Pablo’s ear:

“Look, see that house down the side street? That’s the Gómez house. That window up there is Angela’s room.”

Pablo looked up.

“Of course,” Robinsón added casually, “Our attic skylight is just across from her window.”

Pablo had a hard time falling asleep that night. He tossed and turned in bed, unable to slow his mind down. At his side, Julián snored in deep slumber, his head topped with a nightcap with a tassel at its tip. The bell of a nearby church, probably San Juan Bautista, marked the passage of the hours with its metallic clang. Two bells, three bells, four bells … and when the church bell marked five, Pablo was still awake, still obsessing. It was as though Angela’s eyes were staring at him from the interstices of sleep, enormous and unsettling. He finally got out of bed and exited the room on tiptoe, without bothering to put on a pair of slippers. He ascended the attic stairs and pushed on the door, which squeaked in protest at being forced into action at such an ungodly hour. He walked toward the faint glow of the skylight and sat in a chair that was directly below it, as though someone had placed it there intentionally. He opened the window and stuck his head out, receiving a gust of icy wind and a light dusting of snowflakes that quickly melted on his face. The Gómez house was just across the way, and he easily identified Angela’s bedroom, as Robinsón had indicated. Her window was no more than four yards away, and he could see the light coming from behind the closed curtains. Maybe she can’t sleep either, thought Pablo. Suddenly, as if in response to his thoughts, a voice spoke behind him:

“She always sleeps with a light on.”

Pablo jumped in his seat, tipping it over and falling to the floor with a clamor.

“Sorry!” said Robinsón, unable to contain his laughter. “I didn’t think you’d come back up here.”

“I almost died!” Pablo stuttered.

“From surprise or from falling?” Robinsón asked, sarcastically.

“From both, I think.”

And they both smiled in the darkness.

“You like Angela, don’t you?” Robinsón asked.

“I don’t know,” replied Pablo, blushing. “I guess so.”

“Well then we better be careful from now on.”

“Why?”

But Robinsón was already dragging the trunk that had given them cover the night before and placing it under the skylight.

“Here, hop aboard,” he said, without answering his friend’s question. From up on his watchtower, he repeated, “She always sleeps with a light on.”

“You said that. Why?”

“Because she’s afraid.”

“Afraid of what?”

“The dark, I think.”

“How strange.”

“You won’t believe it, but it happens to me too sometimes. But you know what my papa says?”

“No, what does he say?”

“That only brave people can be afraid. People who don’t feel fear can’t be brave, because brave people are the ones who know how to overcome their fear.”

The two boys sat in silence, staring at Angela’s glowing window and trying to understand the deep meaning of these words, until the cold made their teeth chatter.

“Come on, let’s go back to sleep, the sun’s coming up,” Robinsón yawned. “And if I was you, I’d forget about Angela, unless you want her cousin to make mincemeat out of you.”

But there are times in life when there’s nothing to do but jump into the meat grinder and see what happens.

PABLO DID NOT SEE THE GIRL in the blue dress again over the next few days, despite spending long hours watching her window from the inn’s attic. Robinsón accompanied him, replacing him when his legs fell asleep or when he had to go to the toilet. But Angela did not appear to want to be seen behind her curtain. They also did not see her in the street, or at the Nativity Mass, or at the New Year’s party at the Casino Obrero. They did, however, see her father, always dressed in the colonial style, with his long sideburns that went all the way down to disappear under his shirt collar. They also saw her mother, and two of her older sisters, and even her cousin Rodrigo Martín, who shook his fist at them from a distance. But Angela did not appear anywhere, as though, following the fleeting encounter at San Juan’s, the earth had mysteriously opened and swallowed her down. So New Year’s Day came and went, and with the new year came the end of the vacation, and with the end of the vacation came an improvement in the weather, and the roads were finally cleared so that the inspector and his son could once again climb onto Lucero’s back to continue their route beyond the port of Vallejera.

“Tomorrow will be our last day here,” Pablo said to Robinsón on the eve of Epiphany.

A thick silence filled the attic, which neither boy dared break.

“You know what?” said the innkeeper’s son, scratching his arm. “The path to my hideout is clear now. We can go tomorrow, if you want …”

Pablo could not keep his eyes from lighting up.

“But before that, you have to pass the test, of course. The friendship test.”

“What do I have to do?”

The question floated in the air for a few seconds.

“We have to each tell a secret and swear on our blood that we’ll never tell anyone else,” Robinsón said finally, taking a pocketknife from his pocket. “You first.”

Pablo looked at the pocketknife and felt a squirming in his belly. It was time to show that only those who feel fear are truly brave. They were sitting facing each other on the trunk, and night had fallen a good while ago, although some twilight filtered in through the skylight from the unclouded sky, making silvery glimmers appear on the polished blade of the knife. The pregnant cat rubbed up against the boys’ legs, seeking warmth or petting. After a few seconds that passed like hours, Pablo took the knife with a trembling hand, without really knowing what to do with it.

“This is the first time you’ve ever done this, huh?” Robinsón asked in a whisper.

Pablo nodded yes.

“Give it back then. I’ll go first.”

And, taking the pocketknife in his left hand, he made a tiny cut on the tip of his right index finger. A dark drop of blood appeared almost immediately.

“Now you,” he said, offering Pablo the knife.

Pablo took it back, pressed the blade into the tip of his right index finger and closed his eyes. He breathed deeply, and when he looked again, the blood was already starting to flow from the cut.

“Press your finger to mine,” Robinsón said, “And now swear that you’ll never reveal my secret to anyone.”

“I swear I’ll never tell anyone,” said Pablo, pressing his finger firmly against his friend’s.

“And I also swear that I will never tell your secret to anyone,” replied Robinsón, and he then put his finger in his mouth.

Pablo did likewise and tasted the sour-sweet flavor of blood, his own and another’s.

“Now the secrets,” said the boy from Béjar.

So the boy from Baracaldo told him that he had no sense of smell, that for him a rose and a fart smelled exactly the same, and a rotten egg had the same odor as freshly mown grass, which is to say none at all. This appeared the very height of mystery to Robinsón, and he answered with a confession equal to the circumstances: he told him that Juan, the altar boy, had found a tin full of photographs of naked women in the sacristy.

“When he showed them to me,” he said, “I stole one of ’em when he wasn’t looking. Want me to show you?”

Pablo had never seen a naked woman before and he nodded his head yes, feeling excited and fearful all at once. Robinsón went to the corner of the attic, where there was a big pile of broken-down furniture, and returned with a photograph. In the faint light of the tallow lamp Pablo saw the image of a young woman with small, firm breasts, gracefully leaning against a ladder, her arms in the air, her gaze lost in the distance, her face engraved with a smile, and her crossed legs meeting at an ample triangle of pubic hair. Only her feet were covered, with shiny boots and wool socks leaving just a bit of her calves visible. Pablo was stupefied, fascinated by this image, which would linger in his mind for a good long while, while Robinsón smiled as he watched Pablo’s face.

“Alright, that’s enough,” he said after a moment. “If you look at it too long, you wear it out.”

And he went back to hide the photo among the old furniture in the corner. When Pablo was able to speak again, he asked, “Have you done it before?”

“Done what?”

“The friendship test.”

“Yes, once.”

“Who with?”

Roberto Olaya peered out through the skylight at the starry night, and turning again to look at Pablo, said, “With Angela.”

THAT YEAR THE THREE MAGI DID not bring him a tin drum or lead soldiers, but Pablo was about to receive a far better gift. He got up early on Epiphany and let his father take advantage of the holiday to sleep as late as he wanted. He washed his face in the washbasin without making a sound, dressed in a hurry and went downstairs to have breakfast with Robinsón in the kitchen, as if he were another son of Don Veremundo and Doña Leonor. The night before, he had passed the friendship test, and today he was going to receive his reward. He could still feel a slight sting in his fingertip, but that was nothing compared with his excitement at the prospect of visiting his new blood brother’s hideout. Their breakfast was milk curds sprinkled with cinnamon and Robinsón’s father’s old war stories. Between spoonfuls, the innkeeper told them about his glory days as a syndicalist:

“I was in the Second International,” he explained proudly, stretching the truth a bit. “My comrades from the textile syndicate sent me to Paris, to represent the Spanish workers. There I met Friedrich Engels and I was there when they chose the first of May as International Workers’ Day.”

When they were done with breakfast, they slipped a hunk of bread and a big piece of chorizo sausage into a leather pouch in case they got hungry later. They put on gloves and woolen caps and left the inn. The sun was emerging from behind the snowy mountains, announcing a splendid day. They walked down Calle Flamencos and, when they reached the side street that led to the front door of the Gómez house, Pablo lifted his eyes, almost instinctively, with the vain hope of seeing Angela. And it happened. It actually happened. Just at that very moment, the window opened and a head covered in unkempt, chestnut-brown hair peeked out. Seeing the two boys, she shouted:

“Roberto! Hey, Roberto! Where are you going?”

“To my hideout,” he replied.

“Can I come with you?” the girl asked.

Robinsón looked at Pablo, but he didn’t need to ask.

“Of course! We’ll wait for you at the fountain.”

Five minutes later, Angela arrived at the fountain and Pablo lost his composure. She had pulled her hair back into a ponytail, and her skin was so brown that she almost looked like a mulatta; for this reason the gossips of Béjar murmured that she was the fruit of an illicit affair between her mother and some Caribbean negro. Of course, no one dared say such a thing in public, lest it reach the ears of Don Diego Gómez, lieutenant colonel of the Spanish army in the war overseas, who would be apt to blow his top and challenge the insulting party to a duel.

“Angela, this is Pablo,” said Robinsón. “Pablo, this is Angela.”

“Hi,” they both said at once, their voices mingling in the air. The girl smiled as Pablo stared.

“Where have you been?” Robinsón asked. “I haven’t seen you all vacation.”

“I had the flu,” Angela replied with aplomb, unaware that influenza would kill more than ten thousand people in Spain that year. “Today is the first day that my parents let me out. Shall we go?”

They crossed the village and set off on the road to Candelario. The snow was starting to melt, though ice patches still remained in the shadows. After five minutes, before arriving at the textile factory of Navahonda where Don Veremundo had lost his left hand, they abandoned the main road and went down through a steeply sloping oak grove. It smelled of moss and wet earth. Shortly, they arrived at the Cuerpo de Hombre River, blocking their way.

“It’s frozen,” said Robinsón after exchanging a look with Angela, which Pablo could not interpret. “I don’t know if it will hold our weight, we should go one at a time. Do you want to go first, Pablo?”

Pablo had never crossed a frozen river before—he didn’t even know a river could freeze. But he didn’t want to seem like a chicken. He swallowed and nodded.

“Be careful not to slip. Try to go in a straight line and keep looking ahead,” Robinsón advised.

Pablo put one foot on the frozen surface and noticed how the layer of ice strained under his weight as the water flowed beneath it. If I pull my foot back now, he thought, I won’t dare put it there again. So he stepped forward with his other foot, and found himself crossing the Cuerpo de Hombre, with fear and wonder, like Peter walking on the water to meet Jesus. For a moment he felt like he was losing his balance, that the world was trembling beneath his feet, but he lifted his arms and steadied himself like a tightrope walker, recovering equilibrium. He then proceeded forward with determination and reached the other side. Smiling, he turned around, but his smile froze on his face: Robinsón and Angela had disappeared. Then, upstream, someone shouted his name, and turning he could see his two fellow adventurers crossing a small wooden bridge, laughing hysterically. Pablo stayed put until the others reached him.

“Don’t take it wrong,” said Robinsón, wrapping his arm around Pablo’s shoulders. “It’s just the initiation ceremony you have to go through before you can visit my hideout. Right, Angela?”

“Yeah. And you were lucky,” she said to Pablo, smiling. “I tried it in the springtime, and I got sopping wet.”

“Let’s go,” said Robinsón, setting off walking. “We’re almost there.”

They went a few yards and then stopped. Their mouths emitted a dense fog, like the smoke from the textile factories that were the lifeblood of Béjar. The sun came filtering between the branches, and Robinsón approached an oak with a thick, majestic trunk, and pointed toward the top. There, hidden among the branches, Pablo could make out a little wooden house.

“My hideout,” said the innkeeper’s son, proudly, as he walked to the other side of the tree, where a series of branches, cut and nailed to the trunk, served as a ladder. He climbed up these steps and pushed on the door of the hideout. Angela went up behind him, with the agility of Tarzan, who a decade later would replace Robinson Crusoe as the idol of intrepid and adventurous children. From on high, they signaled to Pablo to join them. The tree house was small, but there was enough space for the three of them. The floor was covered in straw and there was a candleholder hanging from the ceiling with a stub of a candle. In a corner there was a sackcloth blanket, a brass canteen, a box of matches, a damp book, and a few basic tools, slightly rusted: a hammer, a handsaw, a box of nails.

“My papa built this place when I was born,” said Robinsón, “Before he lost his hand.”

It was cold, but they covered themselves in the blanket and gradually warmed up.

“What do we play?” Angela asked.

“We can tell jokes,” Robinsón suggested, “Here, I’ve got one. What do you call a girl with a frog on her head?”

“Mmm, I don’t know,” said Angela.

“Me neither,” Pablo gave up.

“Lilly!” said Robinsón, triumphant. “What vegetable is a dog that smells good?”

“Easy,” said Angela, sticking out her tongue. “Collie-flower! My turn. Here’s a joke they tell in Cuba, that everybody thinks is funny: On the street corner I met a little man. I pulled down his pants and ate the best part.”

Pablo and Robinsón found this hilarious, without even waiting for the punch line. When they stopped laughing, Pablo asked, “Alright, alright, who was he?”

“A banana!” Angela shouted, giggling. “Here’s another one: what do you call a deer that can’t see?”

“No eye-deer!” Robinsón replied, laughing. “My turn: between two big rocks there’s a little man who talks—who is he?”

“Mmm, I dunno,” said Pablo.

“Umm, the wind?” Angela ventured.

“No, a fart!” Robinsón shouted, buckling over with laughter.

“Nasty!” Angela shouted, giving him a smack on the head. “What about you, Pablo? Don’t you know any jokes?”

Pablo sat thinking for a moment, and finally said:

“As long as you keep me captive, I exist, but the moment you set me free, I die. What am I?”

Seeing that the others had no guesses, he gave the answer: “A secret.”

And so they spent the morning, goofing around and telling jokes, playing jacks, “I Spy,” and slaps, which helped them keep warm. Then they climbed down from the tree house and played the stick game hinque, and hide-and-seek, and even found a patch of wet earth where they drew a hopscotch and Robinsón showed that he was unbeatable at hopping on one foot. Then they went to the ravine to find some snow and built a snowman, but this turned into a snowball fight, and the half-built snowman ended up in a crossfire of laughter and snowballs hurled with too much accuracy. They looked for frogs on the bank of the frozen river and searched for mole and rabbit dens. When they got hungry, they went to get the canteen and filled it with water from the river, after breaking the ice with the hammer, and ate the bread and chorizo. Angela ate heartily after ten days of nothing but soup, eggs, and milk mixed with sherry. Then they went back up to the tree fort, lay down on the straw, and started telling stories. Robinsón told a scary story that he had heard from Juan the altar boy. Angela told stories from her life in Cuba, and her old Caribbean accent crept into her speech here and there. Pablo told them about the Lumière Cinematograph that he had seen in Madrid, which left them speechless. But, little by little, fatigue got the best of them and they fell asleep. When Pablo woke up, Angela’s head was resting on his chest, as if she were trying to hear his heartbeat. When she noticed that he was waking up, the girl looked at him with her enormous eyes. She lifted her head and was about to say something, but then thought better of it and pressed her ear back down on the left side of Pablo’s chest. Then, she sat up and asked Pablo the strangest question he’d ever heard in his life:

“You’re a vampire, huh?”

Pablo didn’t know what to respond, because he had never heard of vampires.

“You don’t know what a vampire is? Vampires don’t have hearts, that’s why they have to drink blood. And you don’t have a heart.”

“Yes I do,” said Pablo, disconcerted.

“No, you really don’t. I was listening and I don’t hear anything. You’re a vampire.”

“I’m not a vampire!”

“Yes you are, Pablo. Look, put your hand here,” said Angela, pointing to the left side of his chest. “Feel that? No heartbeat. But you can feel my heartbeat, see?” she said, bringing Pablo’s hand to her chest.

“What the heck are you jokers doing?” Robinsón asked, waking up.

“Um, nothing,” said Pablo, taking his hand quickly from Angela’s chest.

“Pablo doesn’t have a heart,” said the girl. “He’s a vampire. Look, feel.”

“Well I’ll be. You’re right,” Robinsón said in surprise.

“You guys are crazy,” said Pablo, standing to his feet. “I’m not a stupid vampire!”

“Yes you are,” Angela insisted, “but it doesn’t matter. I like vampires.”

Pablo felt a burning in his stomach, as if his guts had burst into flames.

“I do too have a heart!” he shouted, putting his hand again to the left side of his chest. Feeling nothing, he grimaced and left the tree house.

“Pablo, don’t go!” shouted Angela and Robinsón.

But Pablo was already running toward the river. After crossing the wooden bridge, he arrived at the road to Candelario and went running back to the inn, where he went directly up to the attic and hid in the trunk—not knowing that he was imitating a common vampire behavior. Enclosed in there, he could finally hear his heart, pounding with his distress. But when he searched for it with his hand, he discovered that it wasn’t beating on the left side of his chest, but on the right.

Pablo did not know then, nor would he ever know, but this surprising fact was due to a congenital abnormality that produces a lateral inversion of the internal organs, which years later would be named situs inversus, although it has been documented since at least the seventeenth century, with the death of an old soldier in the army of Louis XIV; upon opening his chest the doctors found his heart on the wrong side. This abnormality has a high correlation with another very rare condition: anosmia.