Читать книгу The Book of Gratitudes - Pablo R. Andiñach - Страница 21

He walked toward the rock where every night he sat to rest. It was near his house and its shape allowed him to lie down and see the sky. His wife was feeding the baby, born four weeks before; the other children already slept. He removed his sandals, because he liked to feel the earth itself beneath his feet. He felt that in this way his feet connected him to what was below the earth and his eyes to what was above the earth.

Then she arrived. Now the baby also slept. She sat beside him, on the same rock, and, as she did every night, she held his hand.

He thought about her hands, when she spun with her fingers and made those blankets to warm them in winter. She thought about the baby falling asleep at her breast, about that pink mouth that joined them and through which flowed milk and love.

A movement, a noise, reminded them that the sheep and the ox also slept in the yard, and that tomorrow would be a long work day. Suddenly they saw a falling star. They saw them almost every night and they loved to think about what a star might be like, where it might fall, and if someone might pick it up. He asked her, “Do you think a star will ever fall near us so we can pick it up and show it to the children? She answered, “I don’t know.” And they remained silent for a long time. It was one of those nights with a small moon, a thinning bow, almost gone, and she wondered about that opening and closing of the moon, so inexplicable and so beautiful.

They gazed at the sky. They measured distances by stades; they never knew what a light year was. Neither did they know what a star was or why they disappeared by day, but they knew that the town that lived behind the hills, their friends, who talked to the moon and awaited a reply, would never receive one. The moon was there to be admired, not to be spoken to. They did not know about the atom nor did they imagine a galaxy; for them the earth did not extend much beyond the circle of the horizon, that strange line that could never be reached.

They were almost asleep on top of the rock and beneath the sky. They liked that moment because it was when they gathered words and played with them. They did not know how they did that either, because they were words that came to them from inside. She told him, “Before going home to sleep, let’s say those words we began to build and let’s add others, something about children.” He said, “Yes, and something about fingers.” And they began saying them together, very softly, so as not to wake anyone:

O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth. . .

And they continued weaving words until they went to sleep.