“I’d always felt a certain guilt because I believed I’d ripped you off. Now I see that it was me who got the worst part of the deal.”
“I never ripped you off, because the true value of all this isn’t in the money that I gave you, but all that time and work it took me to find the aquifer. Now people swear you won’t find better water than mine in the entire province.”
“Whoever’s got the good water will have the good life.” the old tenant replied. “I’m happy for you.”
The term “patriarch”, which has fallen in disuse these days, fit the grandfather like a glove. Now, the old man rested among apple trees a few feet away from the woman who had borne him three children–perhaps as compensation for the three fingers he had lost.
After a few adventures and diversions, the two eldest, Saúl and Samuel, followed their father’s steps, while the youngest, Anabel, insisted on studying Fine Arts and ended up as a restorer specialized in Flemish paintings.
Aurelia adored her aunt and was always impatient for summer, when Anabel appeared with a mountain of paintings to restore and an enormous accordion that horrified the whole family and made the dogs howl.
She had an eye for detail and a firm pulse but lacked an ear for music.
Aware of her limitations but deaf to discouragement, every morning and every evening she left the house and walked into the woods–where even squirrels scampered away–to play her music.
Funnily enough, her sister in law, who loved milking the cows, swore that whenever Anabel played, the cows gave more milk and farted less–details which she felt grateful for.
It was widely known that animals enjoyed music but not that cows had such bad taste; although, perhaps the fact that they spent their days ruminating made them more sensitive to certain nuances that the human ear could not perceive.
Aside from the disproportionate love for the accordion, which had earned her a handful of enemies among their neighbors, the offending musician was so chirpy and charming that her niece begged her parents to let Anabel sleep in her bed. Aurelia loved the hours she spent listening to stories about her aunt’s love affairs and the reasons why she had rejected five marriage proposals.
“The one I liked the most snored and the second on my list was Siberian.”
“And what’s wrong with being Siberian?”
“He insisted that we moved to Siberia. One spring he even took me there and my fingers went so numb that I couldn’t paint or play. I think he did it on purpose.”
“Did what on purpose?”
“Be Siberian; it was a shame because I actually loved him.”
Aurelia missed her aunt dearly but was glad that she was away at that time, especially on the dreadful morning in which her father felt forced to kill a pregnant woman.
The poor man was so troubled by what he had done that he refused to eat for three days, and if he ate again it was only because he knew that if he disappeared, so would his family.
His brother could not manage on his own and would eventually break down too, just as he had when he was widowed.
Forgetting lively Tatiana had taken Samuel three years of wandering the world dragging his sorrow. During that time he worked any job that came his way, anything that would not even closely remind him of the happier times when they still lived under the roof of the patriarch, to whom they almost gave a grandson.
Chapter II
She dreamed of dead children, and not because her father had stopped one from entering this world, but because some kind of “thing” or virus, call it what you will, was stopping millions of children from arriving at this world.
But what would they come here for? They would die suffering or live terrorized…
Someone once wrote that fear of death was worse than death itself, and Aurelia could confirm the truth in that statement even though she had never herself died.
When she woke up at dawn and gained consciousness of the world’s happenings, her heart sank so deep that she wondered how it could keep finding its way back to her chest.
At those times, she sought refuge in books, especially in those where women and men throughout History, braved the most terrible adversities. It sometimes cheered her up, but there were days when she felt disheartened as it dawned on her that none of these characters had ever faced an enemy of such cunning.
This enemy did not fire canyons, or carry a sword, it did not drop bombs or poison; neither did it shoot from behind or burn people at stakes. All it did was let his chosen ones move freely in search of new chosen ones who could continue to move around freely.
Its canny soldiers, true members of the fifth column, infiltrated in the enemy’s lines. They had no faith or flag–or maybe it is fitter to say that they belonged to all faiths and kneeled before all flags, unaware of the fact that they were unflinchingly and blindly following the orders of a quiet general that never tired of winning battles.
Alexander conquered Persia, Julius Caesar, Egypt–including its Queen–, and Napoleon occupied half of Europe, but a despicable virus who had never pronounced a single order or word, had become the absolute owner of every existing nation, as well as of all of those that had ever existed in History.
Only a ridiculous bastion resisted surrender, but it was just a matter of time before it fell too. After all, there was no Asterix or Obelix in that farm, nor any old druids capable of making magic potions that increased ones’ strength and courage.
The only potion in that fragile stronghold was the chicory coffee that Aurelia’s mother made, because real coffee was no longer available. This had deeply affected her father and uncle, who scowled and cursed under their breaths every time they drank the bitter thing.
As compensation, her father returned to smoking and Aurelia found this relapse somewhat funny, as he had spent the last three years congratulating himself every night at dinnertime for having had the courage to give up the damned vice.
In the afternoons, he often sat on the rocking chair out on the porch, lit his dark, wooden pipe and rested for a while, wrapped up in even darker thoughts.
Aurelia watched him from her window and interpreted his mood in the rising smoke, like a Native American reading a message in a faraway fire.
Slow and paced combustion followed by a soft puff told her that he was in peace with himself and that it would be matter of minutes before he drifted to sleep. If he breathed in all at once and then followed it with a nervous cough or a thick stream of smoke, it meant that a wave of fear, anxiety or bitter memories of the death of the innocent had come over him.
How many had fallen already?
At home, nobody wished to count.
***
One rainy morning a man stopped by the fence, his face had once been in the cover of every newspaper cover and appeared of often on TV.
He had become immensely rich and was known for his generosity with the least fortunate, but now he stood there with a ragged jacket and ruined shoes.
