Obabakoak (26 page)
Authors: Bernardo Atxaga
“How much farther to the top?” my friend asked once the view had disappeared. We were going uphill again now.
“About another forty bends. But don’t worry, once we get there we can look down on the whole valley of Obaba. Just a few more and we’re home! It’s hard going though, isn’t it?” I added.
“It certainly is. And you say you used to come up here on your bikes…”
“A couple of times a week, what’s more.”
“You were real cyclists then!”
“Not as good as Hilario, though…”
“Hilario?”
“Yes, Hilario: the best racing cyclist in the world. And born in Obaba into the bargain.”
Naturally my friend didn’t know who I meant and so I settled down to the eleventh memory of the night—too many perhaps for one journey, too many, even, for one book. But that night my memory was like dry tinder, which the heat generated by the landscape set burning.
“He had a pale blue racing bike, one of those that are light enough to lift with one finger,” I began, once I’d apologized for my fondness for memories, “and every evening he’d put on his shorts and his bright-colored jersey and cycle off to train along the roads around the village. Whenever he passed us we’d shout: ‘There goes Hilario!’ And when he cycled up behind us and overtook us on this very road, we’d always be full of appreciative comments: ‘Did you see the way he passed us? Like a bat out of hell! He’s an amazing cyclist!’ In short, we admired him. We ourselves sped downhill crouched right over the handlebars, and we were pretty good, miles better than the fainthearted cyclists who rode sedately around and around the square, but compared to Hilario we were nothing. He was in a class of his own. And if, for example, one of the older boys suggested to us that Hilario wasn’t really that good, we’d immediately say: ‘What do you mean he isn’t that good? How come they let him wear that cycling jersey then?’ And if the boy made some remark along the lines of ‘Anyone can get a jersey,’ we’d burst out laughing: ‘Oh, they can, can they? Why don’t you go and ask for one then? Go on, and let’s see what you come back with!’ Well, when you’re a child, all arguments tend to be
ad hominem
since it’s generally assumed that the motivating force behind most human actions is envy. Not such a false assumption, it must be said.
Besides, we had proof. There were, for example, the three photographs hanging on the walls of Obaba’s smartest bar: Hilario smiling, Hilario with his arms raised in triumph, Hilario crossing the finishing line first. It was no use some envious villager trying to convince us otherwise. Our faith in him was unshakable.
And one day, before we’d had time to grow up a bit, a cycle race was announced. The race would pass right through Obaba, along the very road we’re driving now. ‘And Hilario’s competing too,’ someone must have said. And the news became a chant that we never tired of repeating among ourselves.
The day of the race arrived, a Sunday, and we all went up to the top of the pass, where we’re going now in fact… and what’s more we walked up; our parents wouldn’t let us go on our bikes because of all the cars, and as soon as we got to the top, we went and sat down on that mound over there, do you see it?”
“Yes, yes, I see it,” said my friend.
“We came up here to get a better perspective on the race and because this was the final uphill stretch on the route.”
“And… ?”
“Well, we were sitting on the mound when, suddenly, a murmur ran through the crowd, horns sounded, a rocket exploded, and the cyclists were upon us. ‘There are three breakaways! Three breakaways!’ someone shouted and we all craned our necks, preparing ourselves to see Hilario. Because, of course, we just took it for granted that he would be among the three in the lead; we hadn’t the slightest doubt. We waited a little longer and then the three cyclists appeared around the bend, about to make the sprint to the top and win the mountain prize. ‘Come on, Hilario!’ one of us shouted. But why that cry of ‘Come on, Hilario!’? Was he among the three? No, he wasn’t. It was odd, but not one of the three leaders was Hilario.
‘Did you see the state they were in? They could barely control their legs!’ one of us said, breaking the silence that had fallen over the group. ‘You’re right, they were absolutely shattered. The main group will soon catch up with them,’ said another in support of this. ‘Hilario’s probably saving himself for the final attack. It’s almost better that way. You know what a great finishing sprint he’s got… !’ said another.”
And the main group passed and no sign of Hilario,” my friend guessed, silently pointing to the lights in the valley below us. The lights of Obaba.
“Well, we didn’t see him at any rate. We saw a caravan of publicity cars, we saw motorcyclists in black leather, we saw cyclists of all sizes and colors, but as for Hilario, not a sign. And when the main group whistled past and headed off downhill, we were all confused, we didn’t know what to think. ‘What’s going on?’ one of us exclaimed angrily. Because it seemed more like a cruel blow from fate rather than any failure on the part of Hilario.
And so, slightly crestfallen, we started walking down the hill, home. ‘The one time the race comes through Obaba and he has to go and fall off,’ said the one rather angry member of our group. ‘Fallen off?’ the rest of us exclaimed. ‘Of course he must have fallen off! Why else would he drop out?’ he argued. ‘Knowing how tough Hilario is, it must have been a really bad fall. You don’t think he could have hurt himself, do you?’ asked the youngest among us.
Soon we were all sorrowing over the misfortune that must have overtaken that flower of Obaba, our knight, Hilario. And then, when we’d reached that wide curve we passed just a short time ago, we heard the sound of car horns. We looked back and… I bet you can’t imagine what we saw. Well, we saw a worn-out old truck with a big broom attached and in front of the truck…”
“Hilario!” said my friend.
“That’s right! Hilario in his black shorts! Hilario in his bright-colored jersey!
A hole opened up in our stomachs. ‘He’s coming in last!’ we shouted, almost on the verge of tears. And at that precise moment, possibly out of respect for us and for our disillusion, the sun slid behind a cloud.
I don’t know how long we stood there, openmouthed and with that hole inside us. As far as I was concerned, the moment seemed an eternity. And, at last, when both truck and cyclist reached us, a querulous cry left our throats: ‘Come on, Hilario!’ …
And with that shout both the cycling race and our childhood ended.”
My friend thought highly of the story and advised me to try and get it published. In his opinion it certainly didn’t belong in the category of the “futile, empty, and trite” and therefore fulfilled one of the conditions of good literature. Any reader could see him or herself reflected in that mirror full of children and bicycles.
Although grateful for my friend’s kind words, I had no intention of following his advice. Publishing my memories of a cycling idol seemed an irrelevance, especially since for me the search for the last word—of the other story, the one about the lizards—was becoming ever more pressing. But, immediately following our conversation, on the next bend, something unusual happened, an event I did feel obliged to record. “It is not for the writer to scatter stories that chance has brought together,” I thought, and I acted accordingly.
So on with the story of what happened along the road. But before I do anything else, I would first like to refer to a letter the writer Théophile Gautier wrote shortly after passing through a village very similar to Obaba, for what he said in that letter very much expresses what my friend and I felt at that point on our journey.
Gautier recounts the following story to his esteemed friend Madame Devilier:
When I got there the village was holding a celebration and everyone was gathered in the square. I joined those men and women of the countryside and do you know what I saw? A fine crystal glass had been placed on the ground and a dancer with right powerful, agile legs was spinning and turning around it. He would dance away from the vase, approach it and again move away; sometimes, when he leaped into the air, for example, it seemed he would fall on top of the fragile glass, that he would trample and break it. But at the very last moment, his legs would part and he would dance on, smiling and happy, as if it cost him not the least effort. Then he would move away, draw near and move away again. However, as the turns he gave around the glass grew ever tighter, one felt he must inevitably crush it, so much so that, in expectation of that outcome, we who were gathered there, found ourselves breathing to the rhythm of the bells the dancer wore on his ankles, our anxiety waxing and waning in time to them.
Suddenly, the whole square fell silent, the bells too. The dancer sidestepped the glass just barely brushing it. Realising that this jump would be the last, I closed my eyes, just as I would to avoid seeing the fatal axe blow dealt by the executioner. Then I heard an explosion of applause. I opened my eyes again and there stood the glass, intact. The dancer gaily scooped it up from the ground and drank the white wine it contained.
That dance had a profound effect on me. It seemed to me that women and men like you and me are just like that crystal glass and that very often we feel as if there were some invisible dancer turning and spinning around us, the dancer who bestows, directs and snatches away life, the dancer who, clumsier than that dancer in the square, will one day fall upon us and shatter us.
Gautier was not lying. The dance really did have a profound effect on him and he never forgot it. The proof is another passage that appears in chapter 9 of his memoirs:
Once, when I was staying in Madame Cassis’ house, I suddenly remembered an old friend of mine. And no sooner had I mentioned his name than that same friend, whom I believed to be in Greece, appeared as if by magic in the room. A shiver ran through me, because that same week I had experienced two other
coups d’hasard.
I had a feeling that hidden forces were walking behind me and were determined to sport with me, the way a dancer spins and plays around a glass tumbler.
But that’s enough of Théophile Gautier and of the two long quotes I chose as illustrations of a most unusual feeling. It’s time to move on again to the “next bend” in the road, to what happened when my friend and I had almost reached Obaba and were within sight of the palm tree hung with lights that the uncle from Montevideo had left switched on, as he always did when he was expecting visitors.
We were driving down the middle of the road, chatting about that habit of my uncle’s, when, suddenly, after bend number twelve, we saw a car parked at the side of the road. A red Lancia.
“Isn’t that—?” I began. But before I could finish my question, the person I was thinking of emerged from behind a thicket.
“Ismael!” exclaimed my friend.
By then our headlights were full on him and you could see with absolute clarity the small flattened head and the round eye peeping out from the hollow formed by Ismael’s cupped hands.
“Did you see what he’s got in his hands?” I said.
“There’s no doubt about it,” whispered my friend, “it’s a lizard.”
It was then that we felt the proximity of that dancer who bestows, directs, and snatches away life. I don’t know how much it was just a consequence of our tiredness and the idle talk we’d enjoyed that night. Perhaps we’d talked and drunk too much, but whatever the reason, the fact is we were frightened. It seemed to us that, like Gautier, we too were at the mercy of dark forces, the same forces that had planned and organized many of the things that had happened to us prior to that night: They had furnished us with the opportunity to enlarge the school photograph; they had called our attention to the lizard held next to Albino María’s ear; they had arranged for us to discover the article on lizards and mental pathology.
“What is the man up to?” said my friend as we passed.
“I don’t know and I don’t care. We’ve had quite enough adventures for one night,” I answered, putting my foot down on the accelerator. My one desire was to get away from that old primary school classmate of mine as fast as possible. I didn’t even feel like waving to him from the car.
“We’ll think about it all tomorrow,” I said.
“That’s fine by me. First things first.”
My friend was as anxious as I was to forget what we’d seen.
“Yes, we need to be in good shape for tomorrow’s session. As you see, the palm tree’s all lit up and ready. We can’t disappoint the uncle from Montevideo.”
“Of course not. Games should be taken very seriously.”
And that was how the Ismael affair came to be postponed but not concluded.
Ad maiorem literaturae gloriam,
I hope.
We parked the car by the illuminated palm tree, at one corner of my uncle’s garden.
“Let’s see what’s in the post for us,” I said to my friend, plunging my hand into the wooden mailbox. I drew out a piece of paper.
“The program, I assume,” my friend guessed correctly.
“Yes, you know what he’s like, the same old ritual.”
And going over to stand in the light from the palm tree, we read the note my uncle had written.
“Breakfast at ten with orange juice, fresh croissants, pancakes and butter, coffee and tea, but no jam because I haven’t managed to find any that I like. From eleven to one, the reading of stories on the porch at the rear of the house, because it’s the coolest place at that hour. At one o’clock, martinis in the garden served with an olive and a slice of lemon. Any discussion of the stories read earlier is strictly forbidden, since an argument might ensue that could provoke serious digestive upsets. Instead, we will speak only of trivial things. At two, lunch, which is top secret, but if I say it’s in the hands of Antonia from the Garmendia house, I need say no more. At four, coffee and the first cognac. At five, the second cognac and an analysis of what was read in the morning. A word of warning: I have changed my mind. I am no longer against plagiarism. See you tomorrow.”
“He’s got something up his sleeve,” I said, reading those last lines. Then, in utter silence, we mounted the stairs to the bedrooms on the top floor of the house. It was three fifteen. Five minutes later we were both asleep.
