Obabakoak (22 page)

“That’s why so many stories have been written on the great themes,” I said, taking up the thread of the conversation again. “I mean stories that turn on themes like death and love and the like. In fact exactly the same thing happens with songs.”

“Didn’t Valentín send you something about that?” he said.

“Which Valentín? The one who lives in Alaro?”

“That’s the one.”

My friend was referring to a writer we often saw.

“That’s right, he did. He sent me a manual by Foster Harris. If I’m not mistaken,” I went on, “Harris has some very odd theory about the short story. According to him, a story amounts to nothing more than a simple arithmetical operation. Not an operation involving numbers, of course, but one based on the addition and subtraction of elements such as love, hate, hope, desire, honor, and other such things. The story of Abraham and Isaac, for example, would be the sum of pity plus filial love. The story of Eve, on the other hand, would be a simple subtraction, love of God minus love of the world. Moreover, according to Harris, additions tend to produce stories with happy endings and subtractions ones with tragic endings.”

“So he ends up saying more or less the same as us, then.”

“Yes, although his theory is even more restrictive. Anyway, who knows? Maybe that’s all we are, a few unfortunates ruled by the most elementary arithmetic.”

“Even so, what we’ve said doesn’t seem to be enough somehow. And having a way of looking at the world that is capable of capturing the essence of something isn’t enough either. A good story has to have a strong ending too. At least I think it does,” my friend asserted.

“Oh, I agree, I think a good ending’s indispensable. An ending that’s both a consequence of everything that’s come before and something else besides. And the need for such an ending would explain, I think, the abundance of stories that end with a death. Because death is the ultimate definitive event.”

“Absolutely. Just look at the Chekhov story, or the one by Waugh, or at the story about the servant from Baghdad you told me in the café. They’re all packed with meaning and they all have very powerful endings. The story about Baghdad reminds me of what happened to García Lorca. He flees from Madrid thinking he’s going to be killed there, and then… it’s almost a prophetic story, really excellent. The best of the night in my view.”

I smiled at my friend’s words. At last he’d returned to the story I’d told him in the café. The moment had arrived to produce the card I had hidden up my sleeve.

“Oh, there’s no doubt it’s good. But if it was my story I’d change the ending. I hate all that fatalism,” I said.

My friend looked at me in astonishment.

“I’m serious, I really dislike the fatalism in that story. It seems so implacable, the kind of thing reflected in the saying that life is just like a throw of the dice. What the story is telling us is that we’re born with a fixed destiny and that our will counts for nothing. We have to accept our destiny, whether we like it or not. If death comes for us, we have no alternative but to die.”

Shrugging his shoulders, my friend gave me to understand that he saw no other option.

“If you say so. But to me it seems to be the only possible ending for the story,” he explained.

“Well, I’ve given it another one.”

“You mean you’ve written a variation on the story?” he said, raising his eyebrows.

“I certainly have. And here it is.”

And from a file I’d left in the backseat of the car I took out two pages covered with writing.

My friend burst out laughing.

“Aha! Now I understand. I thought there was something fishy going on when you started talking about the literary tastes of Boris Karloff and all that. One minute we were talking about lizards and what Ismael had got up to and suddenly, with no explanation, you’d gone and changed the subject. Of course! You just couldn’t wait to show me what you’d written. It’s true, isn’t it? You’ll never change!”

His last words were a reference to the reputation I had among my friends, who all agreed that I would do absolutely anything just to get a chance to read them my stories.

“Lord, pardon this your incorrigible servant!” I said raising my eyes to heaven.

“Oh, all right, but let’s go down to the square first. I’m only prepared to listen to your variation on the story with a beer in my hand,” said my friend.

“And I’ll have to pay for the beer, I suppose.”

“Of course.”

“A writer’s lot is a hard one. You even have to bribe people just to be able to work,” I exclaimed before getting out of the car.

In the square we saw that the musicians in the band had taken a break and that an accordionist had replaced them on the stage. The two or three bars available and the area around them were crammed with people shouting to each other and laughing.

It was almost harder getting the drinks than it had been determining what made a good story. At last we got them and—spotting some benches along the path near the cemetery—we fled the noisy bars.

We both felt happy. Our night was becoming more and more like the meetings held once a year in England by members of the Other Society. The only difference was that our meeting was not being held in a hotel in Piccadilly and our stories were not, at least in one sense, gothic.

And having reached this stop on the road, I will again pause to transcribe my variation on the story as I told it to my friend. The journey toward the last word will continue later.

ONCE UPON A TIME
, in the city of Baghdad, there lived a servant who worked for a rich merchant. One day, very early in the morning, the servant went to the market to do the shopping. But that morning was different from other mornings, for he saw Death in the marketplace and Death looked at him oddly.

Terrified, the servant returned to the merchant’s house.

“Master,” he said, “lend me your fastest horse. Tonight I want to be far from Baghdad. Tonight I want to be in the far city of Isfahan.”

“But why do you wish to flee?” asked the merchant.

“Because I saw Death in the marketplace and he gave me a threatening look.”

The merchant took pity on him and lent him the horse, and the servant left in the hope that he would be in Isfahan that night.

The horse was strong and swift, and, as he had hoped, the servant reached Isfahan just as the first stars were coming out. Once there, he went from house to house, begging for shelter.

To any who would listen he said: “I’m running away from Death and I need somewhere to hide.”

But the people were frightened at the mention of Death and they all shut their doors to him.

For three, four, five hours, the servant walked the streets of Isfahan in vain, knocking at every door and growing wearier by the minute. Shortly before dawn he reached the house of a man named Kalbum Dahabin.

“In the marketplace in Baghdad this morning Death gave me a threatening look and so I have fled the city to seek refuge here. Please, I beg you, give me shelter.”

“You can be sure of one thing, if Death gave you a threatening look in Baghdad,” said Kalbum Dahabin, “he won’t have stayed there. He’ll have followed you to Isfahan. He must be within our walls already for the night is nearly over.”

“Then I am lost!” cried the servant.

“Don’t despair yet,” replied Kalbum. “If you can stay alive until sunrise, you’ll be saved. If Death has decided to take you tonight and he fails, then he’ll never be able to carry you off. That is the law.”

“But what should I do?” asked the servant.

“We’ll go straight to my shop in the square,” ordered Kalbum, shutting the door of his house behind him.

Meanwhile Death was approaching the gates of the city of Isfahan. The sky was beginning to grow light.

“Dawn will be here at any moment,” he thought. “If I don’t hurry I’ll lose the servant.”

At last he entered Isfahan and sniffed the thousand smells of the city, searching out the servant who had fled Baghdad. He instantly discovered his hiding place: Kalbum Dahabin’s shop. He was off like a shot, running in that direction.

A light mist hung over the horizon. The sun was beginning to regain possession of the world.

Death reached Kalbum’s shop. He flung the door open and… he couldn’t believe his eyes. For in that shop he saw not just one servant, but five, seven, ten, all identical to the one he was looking for.

He gave a sideways glance at the window. The first rays of sun were already filtering through the white curtain. What was going on here? Why were there so many servants in the shop?

He had no time to find out. He grabbed one of the servants in the room and rushed out into the street. Light was flooding the whole sky now. That day the neighbor who lived opposite the shop in the square was cursing and furious.

“When I got out of bed this morning and looked out the window,” he said, “I saw a thief running off with a mirror under his arm. A thousand curses on the blackguard. A good man like Kalbum Dahabin, the maker of mirrors, deserves to be left in peace!”

SOMEONE WAS WAVING
to us as he approached the bench where we were sitting. The cemetery path was half in darkness and we could not at first make out his face and—bearing in mind that we knew no one in that village—we simply assumed he was one of those enthusiastic types you get at all fiestas, the sort who feels happy and wants to be everybody’s friend. But, gradually, his silhouette grew clearer. We saw something white on his head.

“He’s very tall. He must be over six foot five,” I said to my friend.

“And he’s wearing a hat,” my friend said to me.

“And he’s got white hair and a beard.”

“Therefore…”

“It must be the old man from the highway café,” we concluded, both exploding in laughter at the same time. When he reached us, the old man leaned his back against the lamppost next to the bench.

“I know a much better story than that!” he exclaimed by way of greeting.

“He seems to be following us around almost the way Death followed the servant from Baghdad,” I whispered to my friend.

“No, it’s not that,” my friend replied. “It’s just that, like you, he’ll do anything in order to get to tell his story. There’s no doubt about it, he’s your natural soul mate.” Then to the old man he said, “Do come and join us.”

The old man came over to us but indicated with a gesture that he preferred to remain standing.

“Would you like some beer?” my friend asked.

He shook his head.

“I prefer whiskey,” he said.

“You say you know a better story. But better than what?” I asked him. I wanted to find out just how aware he was of what he was saying.

“Baghdad, Isfahan, bah!” he replied.

My friend and I looked at each other. He wasn’t as crazy as he looked.

“What’s your name?” we asked him.

“Smith. My name’s Smith.”

This time it was his turn to laugh.

“At least tell us where you’re from. You’re not really a stranger to these parts, are you? Were you born around here?”

“Be quiet! My name is Smith!” he said, adopting a fierce expression and placing a finger to his lips.

“Sit down with us then, Mr. Smith,” my friend suggested. “Sit down and tell us that wonderful story of yours. You’ll find no better audience than us. And we promise never to ask you your real name.”

This time he did sit down in the space made for him by my friend, not on the lower part of the bench, but on the back, like a teenager.

“I’m afraid I can’t tell you the nice story now, the one about the monkey from Montevideo. Sorry, my friends.”

“That’s fine, but you must tell us another story,” we insisted.

“Something from your own life, for example. It’s not fair to promise us great things and then tell us nothing.”

“All right, my friends, a story. It’s not the nicest one, but the truest. Something that happened to me a long time ago.”

“Go on.”

He stood up again and brushed the dust from his jacket and his trousers as if wanting to spruce himself up a little first. Then he took out the small tape recorder from his pocket and, after a couple of failed attempts, pressed the Record button.

The red light was on, he had to begin. Mr. Smith gave a little sigh and began to tell us his story, which he intoned rather than spoke.

The road to the last word is a long one. I’ll pause again here and write down the story that Mr. Smith told us on that cemetery path. I’d be neglecting my duty if I didn’t. As someone once said: “Let nothing that has been lived be lost.”

I’ve transcribed the story almost exactly as it was on the tape, merely correcting, or rather, translating a few words and expressions originally in English. I felt they spoiled the flow of the narrative.

Just one more point. The story was untitled and it was my friend and I who gave it the title it now bears: “Maiden name, Laura Sligo.”

Here it is then. Over to Mr. Smith.

LAURA SHELDON
(maiden name, Laura Sligo), was looking out from the village of La Atalaya at the vast expanse of jungle and listening to the songs of all the inhabitants of the Upper Amazon, to the song of the
arambasa,
of the
papasí,
of the
carachupausa,
of the duck known as the
mariqui
ñ
a,
of the shy
panguana
that dies after laying only five eggs, and of the blue parrot known as the
marakana.
And to the song of the
huapapa
and of the
wankawi
and of the great
yungururu.
And also to the song of the sad
ayaymaman,
whose cry is like that of a lost child.

She was listening to the songs of all these birds and of a hundred more and of another hundred still.

But she was not only listening to the birds; she was also listening to the fish of the Unine, of the Mapuya, and of the other rivers in the region, as she sat there, at the door of a shack in La Atalaya, so far from Iquitos, gazing out at the jungle, especially at the green Tierra Alta, where the Unine rises, for that was where all the tracks left by her missing husband, Thomas Sheldon, pointed. It was late evening and Laura Sheldon (maiden name, Laura Sligo) was wondering what could have happened in that jungle, as she sat listening to the birds and to the fish, as she sat listening to the song of the brilliant
akarawasu,
of the
gamitana,
of the
shiripirare
and of the
paichea,
which grows to a length of nearly ten feet and has a tongue made of bone, and of the
añashua,
the electric eel that kills with one flick of its tail, and of the
shuyua,
which can walk on land, and of the
paña
or
piraña
and of the
maparate
and of the
palometa,
which is good to eat.