The threads of the heart, p.20
The Threads of the Heart, page 20
“Her body hasn’t been found,” replied Manuel, Juan’s go-between now that he had settled in the village. “Some say she escaped with the help of her servants.”
“What?” Eugenio said, all smiles. “Your rebels let the greatest enemy of the people slip through their fingers? Do you want my opinion? Your revolution is a failure! A tiny garrison of civil guard, a common captain with no prospects and a few bourgeois who weren’t too bad: the big fish got through the net! Anyway, for the moment, I’m not moving! The army will soon take back your damned commune and I prefer to keep out of the fighting. But at any rate, you can tell Juan that Salvador has been saved. As soon as Frasquita has finished her prayers, you can go talk to him. He’s got his own little cave. Don’t you think it takes the cake that a follower of Bakunin should be put back on his feet by saints and ghosts from another world? Not to mention that those damned creatures stole my notebook! One way or another, your revolution will have to pay me for all that! And the sooner the better!”
Apart from Salvador, the rebels wounded in the previous day’s fighting had been laid on the ground in the largest of the caves in the side of the mountain. As he approached the huge cave, it seemed to Manuel that the stone itself was groaning, but it was the laments of the wounded echoing around the rocky walls.
He felt as if he was entering the mouth of hell when he crossed the threshold: what filtered through to the outside was as nothing compared with the din in the vast cave. Beneath the roof of this natural cathedral, the sounds of pain were like a deep lugubrious pedal note on the organ: the weeping of the wounded and the howling of the wind merged with Blanca’s steps in a terrifying symphony, in which every drop of water secreted by the monumental stalactites also had its place. A few torches, their flames flickering in the icy breath from the stones, emphasized the sinister, desolate aspect of this place where his companions lay dying.
Manuel stood there for a few moments, stunned, contemplating this antechamber of Gehenna, this nightmare of shadow and stone where doomed wretches waited for the great gate of the dead to open to them. To tear himself from the morbid thoughts inspired by this Dantesque spectacle, he had to concentrate on his breathing and feel his heart beating in his chest, he had to convince himself that he was still alive. Only then could he overcome the anguish that had caught him by the throat.
He went from one friend to another, whispered in their ears, listened to their confidences, caressed the sweat-plastered hair of a dying man, and thanked Blanca. She was doing her best to clean, bandage, relieve and comfort all these men who only the previous day had been perfect strangers to her. The months she had spent walking had made her terribly thin, but she kept the emphatic gestures and heavy gait of the strong woman she had been. This persistent memory of a body incapable of being thought of as thin gave her a deceptively robust look.
“You can’t see anything,” she muttered in a low voice as she came and went amid the bodies lying on the ground or resting against the damp walls. “You’ve put them here and now we have to grope about in all this noise to tend to them. It’s amazing how the slightest whisper becomes a roar in this hole. And these poor lads are even stopping themselves crying out as much as they can. So you can imagine the screams of pain! This morning, we ourselves had to bellow to bear the din. Even those who are suffering the most have understood, and they bite their shirts. And then there’s that wind that comes from the back of the cave and chills the blood. It would have been better to leave them outside in the shade of the trees, the weather’s mild. What an idea to pile them up here! Move them! We’ve been doing what we can. We’ve pulled them into the light on blankets, but in order to get them properly settled they’d have to be lifted, and most of them are too heavy for Frasquita and me. As for Eugenio, he refuses to move them, he says we’ll kill them by carting them about like that. It’d take two people like you to lug them about without making them scream too much.”
“I’d gladly send you a few of the boys to help you,” replied Manuel, shaken by the spectacle of the dying, “but, to tell the truth, it isn’t easy down there either.”
“Are you still fighting?” Blanca asked, walking back with him into the open air and the silence of the trees.
“No. But there are so many bodies, so many wounded! We have to restore order, calm everyone down, stop the looting, reassure those who are starting to regret yesterday’s events. Things aren’t over yet. I’m going to talk about all this with Juan. But would you be willing to come down tomorrow to help? There are women and children down there who need care, and Eugenio’s refusing to go.”
“That doesn’t surprise me! I’ll come on one condition: that you bring me back here before nightfall.”
“I promise. Tell me, do you think I can go see Salvador?”
“Why not?”
“Because of the ghosts and the saints. I wouldn’t like to be in the way.”
“So you’re scared too! You know, these stories of ghosts are just rumors, you mustn’t believe everything you hear! Look at these poor boys, half of them are having hallucinations because of Eugenio’s drugs, the others are in pain and almost dead, is it any surprise we see strange things in this gloom? When fear becomes tangible, when it mixes with the air we breathe, we try to find a face for it.”
“Eugenio says that ghosts stole his notebook.”
“Eugenio’s the king of liars! And unfortunately, that’s the least of his vices. Come on! Frasquita’s no witch, she knows things that have been forgotten and she has a gift, that’s all! Your rifles and knives are much more dangerous than the powers she summons.”
“If you’re talking about powers, that means you believe in them!”
“I believe in everything. But I believe without fear.”
Suddenly, Frasquita’s daughters ran past, pursued by their brother Pedro. Manuel gave a start and Blanca yelled at them to calm down, not to go into the woods, and above all to remain together. Manuel caught the hint of anxiety in the old woman’s voice, and that made all the confidence she had managed to instill in him fade abruptly. His fears, which had briefly vanished, returned with a vengeance, and he had to force himself to enter the cave where Frasquita was taking care of Salvador.
It was much brighter than the big cave that was being used as a field hospital, the sunlight poured in through the wide opening, and only the far end kept its secrets. Manuel noticed for the first time that there was a narrow passageway there, which seemed to lead into the belly of the mountain, and it struck him that you would have to be very thin to slip into that crevice. He had never thought about it before, but it was very dark at the back of all these caves where he and his friends had found refuge. The generalized sense of dread that pervaded the camp had put him in a state of alert, even though it did not feel quite the same in the woods as it did in the town. It seemed to him now just as unlikely that you could get to sleep in one of these caves, even though he had already spent several nights here, as in the town hall surrounded by traces of blood and remembering the previous evening’s screams.
He really would have liked to sleep, though!
Frasquita was finishing her prayer at Salvador’s bedside. His face was swollen and only one eye seemed alive, buried there and forgotten as if in dough that has been left to rise for too long. That blue gleam ringed with purple told Manuel that his friend wanted to know.
Out of respect for Frasquita’s mysterious work—his entrance had not distracted her from her prayers—he waited, turning his broad-brimmed black hat in his hands, then took a few steps forward. The look that Salvador had given him as he stood there in the mouth of the cave had been enough to get the ghosts and other infernal creatures out of his head.
When Frasquita had finished at last, she greeted Manuel.
“Are you leaving his face uncovered?” he asked her in a low voice. “Aren’t you going to protect him from the flies?”
“No insect will come to rest on his wounds.”
“How can you be so sure? There are lots of bluebottles in these caves.”
“I very much doubt you’ll see a single insect on his face.”
“Did you tell him everything that happened down there?”
“No.”
He had stopped thinking about it, but as he watched her go out he saw her silhouetted against the light and thought he could make out some bright figures with her. Again, he shivered. He decided not to turn his back on the far end of the cave and placed himself in such a way that he could see, on the left, the opening that looked out on the sky and the trees and, on the right, the shadowy depths of the little cave.
More or less reassured, he recounted yesterday’s and today’s events to Salvador’s half-open eye. As he spoke, the rest of the face withdrew into the background. In that one blue eye, the pupil was throbbing and all the words he uttered plunged into it, as if translated into images. Even silent, unrecognizable and in pain, Salvador remained the best antidote to Manuel’s fear. He would so much have liked to hear his velvety voice, at once gentle and authoritarian, which always swept away doubts and urged to action. To see him so diminished, unable to lead the town into battle at this crucial moment, seemed the worst of injustices. Manuel owed him so much: two years earlier, the exiled Catalan had formed an affection for this boy who had just lost his mother and had not yet finished growing, and had taught him to read, write and fight.
With a gesture of his hand, Salvador indicated that he wanted to write. Manuel knew where he kept his writing case; he took out his materials for him, dipped the pen in the ink and presented it to him along with a blank page. But writing while lying down proved to be a complicated operation: the black ink trickled in rivulets down the wounded man’s fingers, staining his forearms and his shirt, which was already covered in dried blood. A single sentence sufficed to exhaust him. All the more so as, in order to read and write, Salvador usually rested his little spectacles on his nose, spectacles he had had to do without this time.
“In order to survive we must spread the revolution.”
Manuel read the one sentence aloud.
Spread the revolution. He developed the idea to make sure that he had quite understood: rouse the surrounding towns, announce the good word, unite the other little groups and secret societies active in the region, not remain isolated in the face of the response that was being prepared. Shout from the rooftops the victory of a few pitchforks over the rifles of the civil guard. But which way to go? Salvador was becoming agitated, pointing in all directions at once.
His donkey’s bridle in his hand, Manuel was getting ready to go back down to the place where he had left his horse when he noticed the cart. Frasquita was trying with the help of her children to get it through the woods and back onto the path.
“What are you doing?” Manuel said, surprised.
“I’m going on my way,” replied my mother.
“You can’t leave now, you’re too useful to us. And besides, you’d get lost, alone in these woods.”
“And who’s going to keep me here against my will?”
“Nobody. You aren’t our prisoner! You and your children will want for nothing. Even the villagers don’t know where we’re hiding. They won’t come looking for you here. Blanca!” He yelled at the figure he had just noticed between the trees. “Come quickly! I can trust you with your friend. Keep a close eye on her, make sure she doesn’t go and get herself killed on the road!”
“Frasquita!” Blanca said in surprise as Manuel went on his way. “You’re leaving just as the sun is going down! Where were you planning to go at this hour, with your youngest about to close her eyes and the others not much more awake?”
“You know perfectly well I can’t stay any longer. You youself warned me in Santavela. The ogres . . . Do you remember? . . . ”
“Did that vermin try something?” Blanca said indignantly, drawing her friend aside from the children.
“No, but I sense a threat, there’s something lurking here.”
“Wait until tomorrow! He doesn’t act hastily, and I think he’s afraid of you. Come! Manuel didn’t arrive empty-handed, he brought us some flour and two goats. We’ll put the children to bed between us tonight in the same cave where we slept yesterday. Nothing will happen, they’ll rest with their bellies full. Just wait, girl! Tonight, the roads are no safer than our holes in the rocks. Let the world calm down. After that, you can walk as much as you want.”
Frasquita yielded to Blanca’s persuasion.
In the cave that served as their shelter, bats were whirling in all directions and they felt cold tongues licking their bodies at regular intervals. From the first night, Pedro’s drawings had appeared on the smoothest walls of their new dwelling. In their frames of stone, waves of chalk broke over the white face of the miller, who seemed to be offering his empty smile to the darkness. A toothlessly smiling Neptune in a sea of rock. Before falling asleep, my brother pursued that inner sea of his, and one of its opaline waves moved against the current of cold air and the rumble that came with it until it died at the far end of the cave. Standing facing the great fresco with a candle in her hand, swept along by the tide, Angela was following the long movement of the water with her eyes. Her gaze came to rest where Pedro’s gesture broke.
A passage. The wind was emerging from the mountain through a passage. The two children shoved their heads inside. They could not see the end of it, although they could hear what sounded like distant sobbing. Suddenly, the mountain exhaled and spat its icy breath in their faces.
They would set off the next day for the centre of the earth. For tonight, it was best to block that opening.
A few large stones were enough to silence the noise.
After making sure the children were asleep, Frasquita and Blanca stood together at the mouth of the cave and talked. Frasquita was still wearing her wedding dress, stained now with the blood of the wounded.
“Don’t you have anything else to put on?” Blanca asked.
“No, it’s all I brought with me,” Frasquita replied, showing her the bag in the colors of the olive grove that she carried across her shoulder. “José gambled me away and Heredia took me. They all stood behind their windows watching the humiliated woman, the one her husband had sold like a donkey. So I put on this dress, did my hair, and left. I thought about Lucia and her sequined dress.”
“I remember your wedding day. You were very beautiful before they withered you. Where do you want to go now?”
“Wherever my feet take me.”
“You always had that whiff of departure about you. Like me, you’ll be a stranger everywhere. But in my case I know what drove me onto the roads.”
“What?”
“My blood first of all—my mother was a gypsy and my father was always off somewhere—and then Eugenio. Eugenio’s crimes. Do you think it’s possible to forget your own child? I did everything I could to leave him far behind, and now he’s caught up with me for good. I’m his mother, you understand that, don’t you? He’s pursuing me, me, the only person he can’t deceive, the only person who knows everything, and I can’t stop him, I can’t save these children who aren’t mine by denouncing the one creature who ever came out of my belly.”
Frasquita could find nothing to say to console her friend, who was not weeping. They stood for a long time, side by side, in the silence of the night.
“Three men will die tonight in the cathedral cave,” my mother said after a while. “Eugenio pointed them out to me and I said a prayer over them to make them sleep. They’ll go without even noticing. What’s going to happen now?”
“If you leave tomorrow, Eugenio will go after you. In pursuit of your little Clara who attracts him as light attracts a moth. Don’t be fooled, he’s only tending to these poor men because your children are here! He’s waiting for his opportunity. If you stay, it’ll come in the end, that’s for sure. But here, there are two of us to keep an eye on him. If you leave, you’ll be alone on the roads, because I shan’t abandon these poor suffering boys. And besides, the whole region may well go up in flames, the town may only be the beginning. In these caves, we’re a long way from the coming battle.”
“So Eugenio will follow me everywhere, just as he followed you here! And why wouldn’t he choose to remain with you?”
“He’s not afraid of losing me anymore, I walk too slowly for his liking.”
There was a cracking sound in the shadows, and Frasquita turned abruptly toward the wood and peered into the pitch darkness.
“The horror lurking here, I sense it,” she murmured, her eyes still fixed on the dark mass of the trees. “I’ve never felt that before. Something is breathing in these caves, that wind that comes from elsewhere . . . ”
“It’s the wind of war, rising from the plain,” replied Blanca, looking at her friend’s tense, still face.
“It’s not just that. The memory of the slaughter and the fear of dying, the pain of the wounded and this monster lying in wait, all of that is mixed up with my memories of Santavela. And these prayers exhaust me! Last night, I saw the afterlife over our heads and the dead caressing the living. I’m afraid of sleeping, Blanca, I’m afraid of dreaming again. My dreams are full of that face I just sewed up. It seems that in mending him I brought the borders of two worlds closer together. Death is prowling around us.”
The screams of the mountain
Salvador’s wounds did not become infected, not a single fly ventured onto them, and the very next morning the swelling began to subside.
After saying her prayers at his bedside, Frasquita bent over the motionless face she had reshaped. The eyes were closed, he must be sleeping. It pleased her to look at her work. She loved to see the wounds dry, the crusts form, the edema diminish. His features were already taking on a way of moving that she recognized.
