Gringo

XXIII

THAT

All that remained was a black hole between shattered crystals.

Gringo stood up. His eyes wandered around him as if he were waking from a nightmare. Then the strong scent of the pine trees entered him, the soft crunching of the snow: he didn't dare move. His eyes returned to that black hole — was he dreaming? Which side was the dream? Ma was standing behind the spring, very straight and tall in her white cape, almost merged with the snow, motionless. Not a sound. Chacko had gone back to his frozen tundra — perhaps carrying Rani on his mane, galloping out there in another dream. He bent down, took a handful of snow in his hand; a ray of sunlight fell like an island of gold. Life was soft and without a murmur — like a great gaze stretching on and on and losing itself, looking only at this infinity of snow in its own heart or out there, without distance and without center, everywhere immersed in itself, like a myriad of crystals each gazing at its own infinity and the myriads of infinities in each small crystal. And everything was forever in a total harmony. Rani appeared among the snows, tiny in her ermine cap, perhaps emerging from a shimmering crystal. Life began to move again with a "you" and a "me."

— Well — did you remember well?... What is it like, remembering?

— It hurts.

— Then what use is it?... Hurt, what is that? Chacko grazed all my leaves and left. 

She planted herself before him and puffed out her cheeks.

— We had a good time.

— What if he didn't come back?

She was dumbfounded.

— What are you saying! You really are strange, Gringo — you must have caught another "memory." 

She turned toward Ma, both fists on her hips:

— Ma, what is "hurt"?

And without waiting for an answer, she was off like a dart: "What use is an answer? It can't be breathed, it doesn't glide on the snow and it doesn't smell of anything. There. And it can't be grazed either — so?" She lived the evidence of each minute.

Gringo, for his part, wanted answers — many answers; he did not know that the true answer is the one that is grazed, like Chacko, and then there it is, it is done.

— Ma...

— Didn't you like the show? she said in a gently mocking tone.

— But...

— Yes-yes, I know — it's very serious! And She looked at him from the corner of her eye.

— But when it's very serious, that's the moment to mock a little, no?

— All those men... Oh! Ma, it was so dark!

— Were you not smiling?

— Yes. But... What does all that mean? Am I dreaming here, or was I dreaming out there? 

Gringo took Ma's hand; they walked together in the snow and everything seemed to dissolve: the questions, the memories, the pain... If he let the question slip, it would be over.

— Ma, tell me! Am I going back there?

— But you are there too, little one!

— That's dreadful.

— Yes, it's dreadful... if you are only there. And if you were only here, there would be no world!

— Rani would say: what use is the world? 

Ma burst out laughing like an amused little girl.

— It doesn't "serve" a purpose: it's a fact, like Chacko, the snow, and the cry of the geese behind the mist.

— It's a dreadful "fact."

— If you are only in the fact. Listen, little one... And there are also the crickets in the forest, are there not? And the white pigeons that fall like leaves on the riverbank — don't you remember? And there, on the boulevard, the student smiled above the swell.

— Yes, moments like that.

— But it is always the moment! It is always like that — only one doesn't notice. My great white country is always there, behind all instants and all lives — even behind that man about to be hanged. Not "behind": inside. It is inside the world, every minute. One notices or one doesn't. Did you not place your hand on the trunk of that chestnut tree? And then everything stopped: it was there. It is always there! You are not dreaming here — you are dreaming out there when you forget THAT, here. You are having nightmares, my little one, to tell the truth. One must live within the other — I am out there, in the forest, in many other forests, and I am walking here too, with a certain Gringo. There are not two worlds, little one: there is only one. My white corridor communicates with all times and all spaces. It is THERE, instantly. One must remember. Men remember only the nightmare.

— But why the nightmare?

— The nightmare is not remembering.

— But they are hanged, tortured — it's dreadful! Ma, I have been killed and killed... Perhaps at this very minute I am being killed again... somewhere.

— If you forget your smile, yes.

— That's very pretty... but it's dreadful.

— Yes, it's dreadful, my little one... but it's pretty too. One must bring the pretty into the dreadful.

— But why did the dreadful man need to be there at all! I don't understand. No, I don't understand. 

Ma remained silent for a moment. There was only the muffled crunch of the snow beneath their steps.

— And why did the eider need to be a fish first, and a shellfish, and a tiny seaweed in a ray of sunlight? The world moves. You are between the fish and the eider — a man between today and tomorrow. You also devoured pretty birds — now men devour with philosophies, religions, this and that... What do you know of tomorrow?

— In the courtyard, under the spotlight — it's dreadful. It may be today, but it is dreadfully dreadful today.

— But tomorrow must be made to grow in today! The white country must be made to grow in the old night. That is the "world." If there were no cries, they would grow only asparagus, my little one!

— Ma, you are mocking...

— No, I am not mocking. It is when I mock that I am most serious. Listen... 

She stopped in the snow. She was very straight and tall and majestic.

— Little one, the new earth must be made to grow.

— How?

— Not just a few "moments like that." When you have brought my great white country that does not die — not only into your head and your heart but into your body that comes and goes, every second — then...

— Then?

— Then you will be entirely the eider, and the old fish will fall away, as other creatures have fallen, and the beautiful will take the place of the dreadful. New wings must be made to grow! Beauty must be made to grow in its body and everywhere, every second. My great white country is there — always there, every second in the old earth!

— Will they want to?

— Did the fish ever want to become eiders?...

— When?

— Walk and you will know.

They arrived at the castle. The large windows sparkled beneath the snow. The cry of the geese could be heard in the distance.

— Look, she said.

Gringo leaned through the window. Everything was silent in the immense hall: a solid silence, as if time had stopped and been caught in a crystal. There was a being there, alone, dressed in white, bent over a table.

He turned around.

For a moment his gaze pierced Gringo. An immense, gentle gaze. Then everything melted away: the questions, the sorrows, today and tomorrow, here and there. It was THAT, pure. An eternal moment that filled everything. A softness that dissolves in softness and sinks to the far reaches of softness — as into a snow forever, and far-far at the end of all snows, into the softness again and again.

Gringo plunged in there like a seagull into the swell. He set out again into the old night for that joy.

Again and again... and always.

Like the cry of the geese behind the mist.