Gringo

XII

ONE DAY, WHEN THE EARTH WILL SUFFOCATE...

HE gathered a handful of jasmine for Her, put on a white tunic and a shawl he let hang around his neck, and was about to go out when he changed his mind, took the papyrus scroll from the writing-table, and opened the carved chest beneath the window: his treasure. THE Treasure. Dozens of straw-colored scrolls — they smelled pleasantly of cedar oil. He closed the chest and went out through the small door behind the curtain.

Then the immense corridor, low, squat, with its apertures pierced by sunlight through which a bunch of palm fronds burst forth. He was walking towards Her and already a light came from his eyes, a light breath caressed his bare torso — he was almost dancing; this moment was the only one that existed amid the dark beating of the gongs and the cry of the parakeets, in a labyrinth of small similar gestures and poignant nothings that made one day, two days, thousands of days coming and going like a cry never cried.

And when would that cry come, the one that would bring the walls tumbling down?

And we would be in it forever in the true Fullness, in every second.

He clutched his handful of jasmine; he went toward Her as if to a spring. As if to hope.

The guards pushed open the enormous door.

He was in the throne room.

She was very small, far away, and white in her long gown, seated on that straight throne carved from a single block of black diorite. And everything was so immense, so bare, beneath the great blue falcon with its outstretched wings.

She was slightly bent over; a white headband, set with an amethyst, was around her forehead.

 Gringo remained motionless for a moment — everything here was eternal; one entered here as if into the rosy sands of Abu Simbel caressed by the gentle scent of the Nile. And everything sank into a total acquiescence, like a well of tenderness beneath the world's weary eyelids.

She opened her eyes. Gringo ran toward Her like a deer.

— Happy day, little one! Happy day!

She took Gringo's hands; he sank into those eyes as if as if there were something at the end, there, deep inside her heart, centuries of tears kept behind a door — oh! open that door and depart forever in a wondrous debacle, and all would be said, and it would be clear daylight upon the world.

He pulled himself together.

— Ma, you know, they...

— Hush! I know.

She gestured toward the curtain. So they were there as well... Gringo's heart clenched. She was so alone in that immense hall. She was so small in the middle of these cold centuries. The jasmines scattered over her knees. She smiled with mischief:

— Well then, still unhappy, little one? You want to leave?

— Oh! Ma... when I'm here it's good, but...

— Leave for where, child? The four corners of the world are the same — the world is in every corner! In a thousand years you'll be looking at a little lizard and scratching your head...

A small green gecko raced down the steps at full speed, throwing its legs out on either side as if it were about to flatten itself on its belly.

— Ma, tell me! Tell me one irrefutable thing! Gringo struck the steps with his bare hand.

— But you little canary, one doesn't say irrefutable things. The only irrefutable thing is to change the world!

And She laughed, pointing to the curtain behind.

— Poor fellow, what does he think of it?... He only wants to change queens.

She laughed, and her small laugh was so delightful, like a clear waterfall amid these frozen centuries. One might have said She was fifteen.

— Wait, let's be serious...

She drew from the folds of her gown a small packet carefully wrapped in silk cloth, and opened it. A blue shimmer. And She placed a garland of lapis-lazuli around Gringo's neck.

— You see this...

She placed her finger on each stone, pressing hard against Gringo's chest.

— Each stone on the path, each stone for a life... 

And her fingers ran along the garland.

— But at the end of all the stones, there is the ring that links them all. Each stone for a question, each stone for an answer. But at the end... there is something else. Something else.

— Tell me!

— But one doesn't tell the something else, little one: one does it.

— How?

— And how does the little gecko run on its legs?

— I've run long enough in a man's skin, Ma.

— You want to become a god? A swallow?

Gringo paused to consider the swallow; that wasn't bad, a swallow...

— But a swallow forever and ever?

— Ah! there it is, little one... Something that will be everything: a swallow, a little lizard, a round pebble — a garland of men, a garland of what else?

— No more garland! Every second to be full! 

She smiled with mischief:

— They say one must go to heaven for that, or to the land of the dead.

— That isn't true — you know it well, you've told me a thousand times, I have a thousand papyrus scrolls in my chest! You've told me so many secrets, Ma — I am your scribe. But the wisdom is old, I am twenty-six and I am thirsty.

Ma's face became grave. She closed her eyes. Her body seemed to fill with light like an alabaster vase in the flame.

— Listen, little one... They call me old... and I have waited so long for them to want something other than this. I have millennia and I wait. I have treasures of adventure. But who is thirsty, little one, except for small marvels and happy offspring? Who believes in more than man?

— I believe.

— What will you do, all alone as a different species among the old tribes?

A silence fell. One heard the muffled sound of the gongs. Gringo felt suddenly heavy, as if carrying the weight of the world with its gongs, its dead, its spice markets in a chattering swarm.

— What is the secret of change? he murmured. Where is the Passage?

— One day, when the earth will suffocate from its human science and its barbarous myriads... 

Then She lifted her great diamond eyes to Gringo.

— You will be there, I will call you. Now go — they are waiting for us.

Gringo rested his forehead on Her knees. It seemed to him he was dissolving in a white blaze.