touch the sky with your hands, above all else, there is this: ripe fruit into which you can sink your teeth by the fading light of day’s end . . . look at that sunset! He tossed the pit as far as he could, wiped his lips with the back of his hand, and left me alone, my mouth filled with the taste of peach.
THE GIRL IN THE TWO-TONE DRESS
A LITTLE GIRL DRESSED IN GREEN AND RED, WITH CHOCOLATE-COLORED stockings, stopped in front of me as I was rubbing my face, which was just beginning to be covered with fuzz. She was carrying a basket chock full of Swiss chard. Juli-Juli had given me a shirt and a pair of trousers because the clothes I was wearing when we met again were in such a sad state, old and tattered. I never mentioned to him the lie about the stolen trousers, and he never said anything about it either. I don’t know why, but, as the little girl studied me, I was glad I wasn’t in rags. She stood in front of me, motionless, like a pine tree, looking at me with prying, adult eyes. She placed her basket on the ground and, before sitting down beside me, she brushed the sleeve of my shirt with her fingers. How sweet . . . I still had the peach stone in my mouth and didn’t know what to do with it. What are you eating? I didn’t reply. I took the stone with two fingers—when what I really wanted to do was to spit it out as far as I could—and threw it away. A farmhouse stood between us and a village that was a bit farther away. Is that your house? With a wag of the finger she indicated that it wasn’t. I stood up slowly, as if I didn’t want anyone to notice, and started walking; I realized at once that the girl was following me. She trudged along behind me, half dragging her basket of Swiss chard on the ground. The sun was at our back and the girl’s shadow was small next to mine, like my sister Laieta’s when I carried armfuls of carnations to the front of the house to tie them in bunches of twelve. Are you from that village? Yes. Are you lost? She set the basket on the ground, pulled out a yellowing chard leaf and laid it at my feet. How ugly, she said. I turned around and asked her where she had found the chard—there weren’t any vegetable patches around—and why she ventured into the fields all alone and so young. She didn’t answer. She touched my shirt sleeve again, it’s the color of olives, she said as her lips made a little sound of admiration. She maneuvered around to my left side and, taking me by the hand, she said, Papà. We walked on, one step after the other. I’ll take you home, you can show me where it is. We approached the farmhouse. An old woman sat at the entrance sorting lentils. She gave us a dirty look and immediately lowered her head again and continued working. After observing us for a while, a scrawny, docked-tail dog tethered to a ring by a long, rusty chain began to bark. It jerked so hard on the chain as it barked that it risked choking to death. Shut up! Shut up! We left the farmhouse behind and had scarcely taken thirty steps when a boy bolted out of the house, racing in the direction of the village as if the devil were on his tail. The village was an ancient one; the narrow street we headed up was paved with river pebbles that formed a pattern. The houses had small windows and every door had a peep window with iron bars across it. Potted plants hung down over the balconies, green with crimson blooms. Everything held the stench of manure and the smell of carobs. Leaning out of a window, a girl with wet hair and a towel around her neck stared at us and spat just as an old peasant woman dressed in black stepped out of her house carrying two chickens by the feet, their crests redder and curlier than the flower of the pomegranate tree. When she caught sight of us, she stormed back inside and slammed the door. The young boy from the farmhouse ran toward us shouting, his face contorted with rage, they’re here! They’re here! There was an instant uproar. Child snatcher! You’re not going to take this one the way you did the other! She’s a relative of the deceased mayor. He should be lynched! Hang him! Old men and younger men with sticks and pitchforks were coming up the street toward us. She’s a relative of the mayor. Hang him. Hang him. Without thinking twice, I let go of the little girl’s hand that had begun to clasp mine tighter and tighter, and I ran for it. I ran from the village, across a dry riverbed and a field as flat as the palm of my hand. My flight was halted by a ravine that I followed until the village behind me started to resemble the village in a Nativity scene. Just as I was turning around to wave goodbye to it, I tripped over some legs and fell flat on the ground.
THE MAN SLEEPING BY THE DYING FIRE HAD NOT BUDGED. IN THE light of the embers and the fading day, his face looked sweaty, ringed by hair that was part yellow, part some unknown color. His upper cheeks were marked with red streaks and his nose was covered with warts. A thread of saliva oozed from the corner of his mouth. His shins were coal black. He was sleeping on his side on a cushion of grass. As I watched him, he opened his eyes and closed them again. He was heaving, his bronchi clogged with cobwebs. There was a smell of coffee. I found some in a pot and poured it into an empty tin that was lying about. Almost as if those two sips of coffee had been poppy nectar, I fell asleep immediately. People began parading through my spirit, a never-ending procession determined to march up and down. The procession finally entered my house, paying no mind to where it treaded and crushing all the carnations. I kept thinking: They know not what they do. When I awoke, on the summit of an unfamiliar peak, atop some unnamed mountain—real or of fog—an icy moon the color of seashells was shining high above. A meteor shower swept across the sky. I had never seen one before. The stars are weeping because we are at war, said the old man, who had sat up. He seemed to have always known me. The stars fell at a slant; the wind at such heights must have kept them from falling straight down. Many dissolved in midair, others reached the ground. Some were pink, some bluish. They have grown weary of seeing so much death. I’ve always heard, I told the man, that a meteor shower is a harbinger of war; I would never have thought I would see one when there has been a war going on for so long. There are all kinds of meteor showers: those that herald war and others, like this one, that could mean that a war is unfolding and who is to say when it will end . . . everyone knows when a war starts, son, but no one can be certain when it will end. Even little children know that, I said. What do you mean? That what is known to everyone isn’t worth repeating. I’ve come to realize that people talk just to hear their own voices and they always say the same thing. And how would you like things to be? I’d like for people to speak only the things worth saying and nothing more. If you didn’t know it already, it’s worth remembering that life is repetition. Why don’t you want people to repeat themselves when they talk? Because I find it tiring. So then you shouldn’t like yourself either, as you are nothing more than a repetition yourself. I haven’t liked myself for years. I am annoyed by my own self. Everything about me annoys me, starting with my hair and all the way down to my feet . . . including this spot on my forehead. I’d rather be a plant, the kind that sprouts and sprouts without realizing it’s alive. But they do realize they’re alive; they know in which direction to turn to draw more light and sun, and those that need shade know to turn toward the shade. And seeds always find a way to plant themselves and take root where they should. A mountain plant would never choose to grow in a garden. And if a man moves it to a garden it will die of sadness . . . More coffee? How did you know I’d already had some? I always sleep with one eye open, the way hares do; I find that in order to sleep soundly I need to have a hare’s fear about me. We drank coffee, I from my tin and he from a dented pan. I asked him how he managed to procure it, because it wasn’t much of a stretch to say that we hadn’t seen any at home since the war began. From a tattered suitcase he removed a paper cone. He had a roguish gleam in his eyes. Thanks to my religious medallions. Many grocers and many soldiers who are the sons of grocers are still believers. They purvey the coffee and I give them religious medallions in exchange. Mine are the most beautiful. An old woman who lives in the middle of the forest, near the river, makes them; she’s a real beast, worse than ringworm. Look at these—they represent Our Lady of the Angels. You see? Take a good look at them. The Virgin’s dress is lovely, every bit of it is stunning, but I don’t know how she manages to have the Virgin’s faces look as evil as her own. I’ll give you some so a bullet won’t cut you down. Keep them with you always; perhaps some
