Obabakoak (39 page)

“What do you want? Do you want me to give you a literature class, is that it?” asked my uncle with his most provocative of smiles.

“We’re used to it, Uncle. Don’t you worry about us,” I replied. The literary gatherings in his house usually ended with him delivering a vehement lecture.

“You may well both be used to it, but you never take a blind bit of notice of me. You least of all, Nephew. Since to you I’m just a relic from the nineteenth century…”

“Get on with it, Uncle. We can see how pleased you are with our ‘mistaken’ interpretation of the story. But do get to the point, it’s getting late.”

“Late? Surely you’re not leaving tonight.”

“I’m afraid so. Don’t forget he’s a doctor. He has to go to work tomorrow.”

“I’ve no option but to go back, but you could stay. I can get the train,” said my friend.

“If there is one, of course.”

“Oh, there is one. There’s one I sometimes catch and that leaves quite soon. I can tell you the exact time right now,” said my uncle, opening a drawer and pulling out a train schedule. “It’s at nine fifteen,” he told us.

“Well, if you don’t mind going back on the train, I’ll take you to the station and you can catch that one. If we leave the house at nine, that’ll give us plenty of time.”

“Fine.”

“The fact is it would suit me if you stayed,” said my uncle, looking at me. “As you know, I haven’t got a car, and what with Samuel being here…”

“Don’t worry, Uncle. I’ll play taxi driver and take you anywhere you want. You ought to get some benefit out of having a modern nephew like me.”

“That’s settled, then. Now on with the literature class,” said my friend.

“Where were we?”

“We were discussing why it was a lizard and not a snake?”

“Ah, yes. Well, I think that mothers in those days were very sensible, and were very careful when it came to frightening their children. They needed to frighten them but only a little, not so much that they would be utterly terrified by the story and develop a listless, cowardly attitude toward life. And from that point of view, the lizard was much more suitable. Because, thanks to some sort of instinct, the child understands that the danger is not a serious one. He’ll follow his mother’s advice but he’ll do it just in case, without giving much importance to the matter.”

“We obviously weren’t blessed with that instinct,” I remarked.

“Perhaps it isn’t a question of instinct,” said my friend. “Maybe the child reads the expression on his mother’s face or in her voice or in her gestures, and so understands that what she’s telling him isn’t so very important. If the mother were to mention a snake, his reading would be quite different.”

“Yes, that’s an interesting point. You can’t tell a story about snakes without feeling some sort of repulsion or anxiety. Maybe you’re right.”

“But some lizards are dangerous. The
Lacerta viridis
for example,” I said.

“I don’t think so, Nephew. As Ismael told you, the lizards in this country are harmless. And so, by the way, are those in England. You only have to think of that poor lizard Bill whom Lewis Carroll’s Alice met. He’s the saddest creature in the whole book.”

“I don’t remember him,” I confessed.

“Neither do I,” said my friend.

“Wait. I’ll show you.”

My uncle went over to the bookshelves and, after searching first one shelf then another, he returned holding the book.

“Look, there he is.”

The illustration showed some animals, a rabbit and a rat among them, holding down a small, contrite lizard and forcing him to drink brandy.

“They want to get him drunk against his will. A real unfortunate, our Bill.”

“You can say that again, Uncle.”

The illustrations were delightful and we would like to have looked at them all. But the uncle from Montevideo was a very impatient teacher. The lesson must go on.

“Anyway, getting back to the subject of your mistaken interpretation of the story, you were really groping in the dark. Far more than one would have expected from two lovers of literature,” he said, adopting his strict and severe tone again. “Because, on reflection, the lizard story could also be interpreted from your point of view. I mean, it’s possible to understand it using that ‘intertextuality’ you’re so keen on.”

“Do go on, worthy uncle, you’re speaking like Solomon himself.”

“Laugh if you want to, Nephew. But what, for example, do you make of this lullaby: ‘Never fall asleep in the woods, my dear; for a hunter might find you and take you for a hare.’”

“It’s obviously about the same thing. Which just goes to show that this preoccupation mothers have with losing their children must be very widespread,” said my friend.

“And there’s more. For example, what about the character of Sacamantecas? Or have you forgotten what they used to tell us when we were children? ‘Never go out alone at night or Sacamantecas will carry you off.’”

“I certainly do remember. He appeared in all my nightmares,” said my friend.

My uncle’s eyes were shining.

“Well, do I have a surprise for you! What do you think of this: All those stories were invented in the nineteenth century!”

“That I can’t swallow, Uncle,” I replied. “I can go along with you as far as the universality of the theme is concerned, and I accept that the lizard may be nothing but a variation on that theme, but as for it all starting in the nineteenth century, that I really can’t believe. With all due respect, it seems a bit of an exaggeration to me.”

“All right, fine, I agree I’ve gone too far. Maybe not every single one of the stories arose in the nineteenth century, after all there have always been mothers. But what I meant was that it was precisely in the nineteenth century that there was a boom in such stories, that was when they were developed and became popular. And that, dear nephew, is the truth.”

“And why was that? What happened to make mothers more than normally preoccupied? Tell us quickly, Uncle. If you don’t, I’ll miss my train!”

“The train! Exactly!”

My uncle was very excited.

“What about the train?”

“Will you give me three minutes to tell you?”

“It’s a quarter to nine. You’ve got until nine o’clock.”

“Right, listen carefully. The railway arrived here in the mid-nineteenth century and it represented an enormous change, a change we can’t even imagine now. Remember that the only form of transport until then had been the horse, every journey and all transportation involved horses. Right, so there everyone is with their personal quadruped at home when suddenly there’s this contraption that can reach speeds of up to eighty miles an hour. It frightened people and many of them refused to get on and travel in it. And those who did, that is, those who were brave and bold enough to get on the train, had a terrible time. First, they all felt sick. Second, they would look out of the window and be unable to see the landscape or it would look all fuzzy, like a blurred photograph.”

“Really? I don’t believe it!” I exclaimed.

“Oh I do,” affirmed my friend. “We have to bear in mind that our eyes get used to speed the minute they’re open. But that wouldn’t have been the case in those days. Not as regards the first generation of train travelers. Their eyes wouldn’t have been adapted to it.”

“This history of the train says exactly the same thing,” said my uncle, who had gotten to his feet again to show us another fat book.

“We’ve only got ten minutes, Uncle. We haven’t got time to read the whole book,” I said.

“Then I’ll go on. Well, as I was saying, the train was a real shock for those people. And so it wasn’t long before rumors began to spread; that the machine signaled the imminent arrival of the end of the world, that it caused some disease or other… that sort of thing. That was the prevailing mood when someone had the happy idea to ask this question: ‘How is it that it goes so fast?’ Answer: ‘Because they grease its wheels with a special oil.’ ‘Really? And how do they get that special oil?’ ‘How? Nothing simpler, by melting down little children. They capture any children they find wandering about here and take them to England. And there they melt them down in huge pots and …’”

“That’s what they said?”

“Yes, that’s what they said. It was the start of the industrial age and a lot of children must have gone missing while their parents were working in the factories. People just linked the two facts. And they were so convinced by that story that they took it out on the stations and started setting fire to them. Look at this photograph…”

My uncle opened the thick book containing the history of the train and showed us a photograph of a station burned to the ground. At the bottom of the photograph was written: “Martorell station after being set on fire by the women of the village.”

“The women, not the men.”

“Exactly. It was the mothers.”

“But, Uncle, how, if I may be so bold, do you link this business about the train with the story about the lizard?”

“Intertextuality, Nephew, intertextuality.”

“Be more precise, please.”

“By the shortest route, Nephew. What did we say before? We reached the conclusion that the story about the lizard and the story about Sacamantecas were one and the same, right? That they were two stories whose one aim was to protect children. Now tell me: What does the word
Sacamantecas
mean?”

My friend got in before me: “Someone who extracts fat or oil.”

“We could extend that definition and say: ‘Someone who extracts the fat or oil needed to grease the wheels of a train.’”

“Are you sure?”

“Of course I am. Because Sacamantecas was a murderer who became famous just around the time the train arrived on the scene. As far as I know he didn’t dedicate himself to killing children, in fact his victims were all very old. But, of course, the mothers didn’t pick up on that fact. All they knew was that their children might disappear. That was their great fear. And the character of Sacamantecas grew out of that fear.”

“Not a murderer of old people, but a stealer of children.”

“Exactly. A typically nineteenth-century story, as I said before.”

“A beautiful lecture, Uncle.”

“Thank you, Nephew. And let’s hope you show greater lucidity next time. You’ve both got more than enough imagination, but you don’t reflect enough.”

“That’s just what Ismael said.”

“Well, it’s not surprising. Fancy making an accusation like that. And all because of a childish story that not even children entirely believe.”

“At least it served some purpose. Having heard your lecture, I’ll get on the train in quite a different frame of mind,” said my friend, getting up.

“What time is it?”

“Almost nine o’clock, Uncle. We have to go.”

“Come on then. I’ll walk you to the car.”

The garden was not as it had been at midday. The monotonous song of the crickets had been silenced and a very fragile white moon was now making its way across the sky. It was the quietest moment of the day.

The farewells between my uncle and my friend took longer than expected and when we set off for the station it was already a few minutes past nine.

“How many bends are there from here to the station?” asked my friend.

“Not many. It’s a very straight, flat stretch of road. I think we’ll get there in time. But be warned, I’m going to have to drive very fast.”

“As you wish. I commend my soul to your skill.”

“It hasn’t been a bad weekend, has it?”

“It certainly hasn’t. And in the end all the unknown factors were explained.”

“The X and the Y.”

“The X of Mr. Smith and the Y of Ismael.”

“But how odd that two such different unknowns should end up in the same equation!”

“That’s life!” exclaimed my friend with the theatricality he always gave to such phrases.

But the speed I had to drive at did not favor conversation and we traveled the rest of the way in silence, listening to music on the radio. We reached the station with just two minutes to spare before the train left.

“Well, that’s that. Back to work tomorrow,” my friend said with a sigh as we sat down on a bench on the platform.

“There wasn’t any sign on Ismael’s hut, was there?” I said. The image of that repellent hospital for lizards had just resurfaced in my mind.

“Why mention that now?” he asked, looking me in the eye.

“Oh, nothing. I was just remembering what Ismael told us. About him belonging to a special society and all that.”

My friend looked bemused.

“Don’t you remember? He said he was a member of a society for the protection of animals. But what intrigues me now is that there wasn’t some special sign on the hut. I don’t know. It seems logical that there would be something, don’t you think?”

“What are you trying to say? That the second unknown hasn’t yet been fully explained? Weren’t you listening to your uncle? Ismael himself explained it all in graphic detail.”

The station loudspeakers announced the arrival of the train. I didn’t have time to go into subtleties.

“All right, all right. But I’d still like to find out about that sign.”

“What possible importance can it have? Even if Ismael did lie to us, so what?” cried my friend, embracing me warmly. “Promise me one thing. That you won’t go and see if that wretched hut has got a sign on it or not! I know you too well and I’m sure that’s what you intend on doing.”

“Here’s the train,” I said.

I must confess that most of my life has been dogged by obsessions and that never, not even as a child, have I been able to muster the strength of mind to expel from my head those harmful, disagreeable “tenants.” Any idea, however strange, can settle in my mind and live there, for as long as it likes.

My friend had asked me not to go to the hut and part of me demanded the same thing: that I abandon that story once and for all and go to bed.

But it was no use. The idea was inside my head and refused to leave. I had no option but to go to the hut and find out if there was a sign or not.

I returned to Obaba at the same speed at which I had driven to the station a quarter of an hour before and, passing my uncle’s house, I parked the car next to the stone steps by the church.