Читать книгу The President’s Room - Ricardo Romero - Страница 14

The laurel tree in front of our house is tall and leafy. Every time someone comes to visit us for the first time, they tell us it’s the tallest laurel they have ever seen. It’s been there since before they built the house, since before the neighbourhood was even a neighbourhood. Just like in the attic, inside its foliage the rays of sunlight become visible. I know this because I used to climb it, though now I don’t. Now I go to the attic. Or the terrace. Because there are times when I don’t go into the attic and I stay on the terrace, looking at the roofs of the neighbouring houses, the tops of the trees on the block, the motorways on the horizon and the buildings in the centre, an approaching storm or the cloudless sky. When there are no clouds, there’s so much light that it’s as if I can’t breathe. The afternoon sun bounces off the white floor of the terrace, blinding me. The only thing I can see then is the top of the laurel tree appearing several feet above. Dark. And the question arises, and I panic a little. I imagine myself taking a run-up and jumping, trying to reach the laurel tree and falling with my arms open wide. However hard I try, whether with my eyes shut or with them half-closed, squinting against the sun’s glare, I can never imagine myself reaching it. I can never imagine myself landing on the branches. The question goes unanswered and I’m left feeling slightly dizzy, sensing that I was about to feel something new. What I can feel is me hitting the pavement. A dry thud that judders and stuns. Like when my grandfather used to spank us. But my grandfather’s no longer here and the laurel tree is.