Gringo

V

THE ENCOUNTER

SHE was incredibly beautiful.

Upright, hieratic against the high curtain of the forest. White. As if made of whiteness. Wrapped in a sort of shawl of no known bark — something from elsewhere. White too, with a little honey in it. Was she tall or short? Old or young? One entered another world. It was strangely still. There was no more sound, nothing vibrating — one entered into Her as into a clearing of light, and then one was held there, seized, as if sinking into motionless centuries; there was no longer me or you, here or elsewhere, neither "I was" nor "I will be" — one was gone, dissolved into a white, boundless softness, as if climbing back through time, ages, sorrows, on a slow wingbeat, forever, above the forests, the lives, the deaths — infinitely into a cloud of gentle light. And then a great gaze at the end, like a well of smiles opening up. Then it was home forever, sheltered forever, and everything was recognized, understood, loved in a total yes; the heart melted, pierced by lightning, beating suddenly with a million wings.

No one knew where She came from. Some said from the white mountains to the West, which held back the sun. No one knew her age. She was as old as the forest and all the tribes that had been born. And then she was so young all at once — her face breaking into a little girl's laugh, crystalline, mischievous. Oh! how she mocked.

— Well then, little one, have your wings grown?

Gringo ran his tongue to the corner of his mouth, sniffled a little. And suddenly he cried out, coming back to himself:

— Ma! but who are you?

Then She began to laugh, and with each laugh a wrinkle fell away, another wrinkle, rounding her cheeks and hollowing a little dimple in the middle — she was fifteen: exactly Gringo's age.

— Give me your hand... You know, I'm real! 

And she chuckled.

For a moment Gringo hesitated, ran his hand through his hair... The image of a little old woman bent double, crossing the Abattis¹ with her ever-present bag of herbs and roots, flashed in his head... And instantly the little old woman was there — not little, no: quite formidable, with that white light still seeming to envelop her like the fine mist at dawn over the tranquil igapó. She was "the Elder Woman."

¹ Abattis: a clearing of felled trees where the camp is pitched.

Gringo rubbed his eyes.

She sat beside him on the rock, pulled out her bag, opened it, searched among the herbs, the stones, the brown roots. There was a ray of sunlight on her neck. Gringo's heart was strangely moved. And without knowing what he was doing, he seized that very white hand with its small amethyst veins, and kissed it.

She smiled from the corner of her eye, rummaged again in her bag.

— Ma, I saw the snow well in the cave... and then Jacko left, quite alive.

He cleared his throat, for he was always a little shy before Her. One could hear the sound of the waterfall nearby.

— Here, she said, look carefully... Do you see these little ones?

She placed three small green shoots in the hollow of his right hand.

— One finds them under the waterfall. They cling to the rock... And these two pebbles — do you see the little stars inside them? Give me your hand.

She began rubbing one pebble against the other: a little powder fell into Gringo's hand.

— These are found in the riverbed. But you mustn't take them when they're beginning to turn green or brown — there must be many little stars inside. And then...

She took the three shoots, kneaded them well with a finger in the palm of her hand, made a small green ball that she mixed with the powder in the hollow of Gringo's hand.

— Now eat — you won't be hungry anymore. And She smiled again.

There was that white softness around her face, those narrow eyes filtering mockery and tenderness. Those eyes fascinated Gringo: they were never the same.

Without a word, he took the little green ball; it crunched slightly under his teeth from the powder, but... how fresh and astringent it was! — as if one were tasting the small rainbow of the torrent.

— Ma, you know...

He drew a breath; there were heaps of words and questions jostling inside him — he had to get them all out at once before they slipped back into the cave.

— They hate me.

— “That's to force you to be greater”, she cut in. 

And She could be as blunt as she was tender.

— Ma, I would like...

That word was so swollen with unspeakable things, as if all these silent hours and days listening to the sounds of the forest made up a music all his own, Gringo's.

— Ma, we've been here a long, long time listening to the crickets, the waterfall, the red  monkeys in the night. We listen... to what? The trees also listen for a long, long time: to the rain, the hummingbirds, the cry of the little tinamou. What do we listen to — what is there at the end, beyond the silence, as if it comes from far-far away, perhaps from the snow mountains out there? As if it resonated far, far away, without noise, without words. And it burns inside. I always want to walk, to leave, as if I'm about to find... what? What is at the end of the silence, there, when the crickets have gone quiet and it continues; what is at the end of the rain, when the rain has gone quiet in the leaves and it continues; what is at the end of the red  monkeys when they've left into the night and it continues — Ma, it's as if one didn't exist! One is over there, over there, where it hasn't yet come to be. And if I walk, it is still beyond walking. To the West, there are still trees and trees; to the South, to the North, everywhere there are crickets and more crickets, the hummingbirds, the Jacaré¹ — it is AFTER, do you understand? What is at the end? The balsas, the sipos, the violet-woods²: they grow and grow, they will always be trees... It's mad, Ma! And then I, Gringo, I will always be Gringo: the salted pirarucu and the farinha³, and the farinha and the salted pirarucu, and then they'll burn me, and then there'll be other little Gringos, always Gringo — and I'll listen again to what is beyond the silence, beyond the crickets, beyond the red  monkeys and the rain, the rain again. Oh! Ma, tell me what is after — tell me! Is there anything after, or will it always burn?

He spoke, and silence fell back, beaded with a little eternal waterfall that beads and will bead again when the Gringos are no more and other Gringos are there, the same — a man is millions of men, like the violet-woods through the centuries of centuries, until the day the planet sows its cargo of men and pain and one starts again... one Atlantis, two Atlantises — a little red parrot, a swallow and a little child of man with his question again in a clearing where the pretty waterfall beads.

¹ Jacaré: caiman. ² Violet-wood: amaranth. ³ Farinha: (manioc) flour.

— Oh! little one...

She joined her hands on her knees, closed her eyes: She was enveloped in white light and a smile. One might have said the Mother of all times leaning over her little children of man.

— I was waiting for you for a long time — you who burn for the earth. I was waiting... I am the Old Woman of time, I have waited in more than one clearing. I have been burned, buried more than once; I have toiled, searched in more than one man; I have been killed, adored, hated so many times; I came and went with wisdoms upon wisdoms that change nothing, with secrets and miracles that sink to the bottom of the waters... 

The rain began again, dense, warm, like an endless murmur. Small diamond drops ran from her hair knotted at the nape of her neck. She looked like a statue of gentle light leaning forward with a smile.

— But my secret is in no miracle, no magic powder, no wisdom — my secret is in your question, little one.

And She opened her hands upon her knees.

— I waited and waited for your question through so many little Gringos — and how long it takes for a burning to ripen, how many sorrows upon sorrows it requires... They venerated me, they buried me under their garlands of sweet jasmine and their prayers for small blessings and dubious triumphs — plenty of pirarucu, plenty of farinha, and pretty babies... or pretty reveries over drowsy immensities. But who, little one, who knew how to burn long enough to wrest the Secret, burning for nothing, burning in the walking and in the silence, burning step by step and day by day to ripen this single question of the earth and to force the walls of the little child of man?

— Tell me! Tell me the Secret!

She opened her eyes wide, like doors of diamond over a blue lake.

— One does not tell the Secret: one BECOMES the Secret.

— Tell me — I can bear it no longer!

— Watch the rain for a long time: become the rain. Watch the bird for a long time: become the bird. Watch the nothing that is there beyond the silence for a long time: become that something which is at the end of everything. At the end of everything...

— Ma, my heart aches.

— Little one, you are mine and I will carry you to my new earth.

— But it is far!

— It is in a single second.

Then Gringo seized that hand with its small amethyst veins, so seemingly white:

— I will not let you go.

— No, you will not let me go. Never. Whether here or there, with or without this hand you are holding, I will lead you to my living Secret, to the end of the cry of the crickets and the red  monkeys, to the end of a little child of man — to where the man after man begins. I have spoken.

She rose. She was tall and straight and white. Her immense eyes were open like a doorway of light. The wind blew through the clearing. A tiny drop beaded on Gringo's nose. It was a hundred million years ago behind a curtain of trees and rain. It was like a second that shone — that still shines in every little child of man thirsting for the Secret.

Who wants, who wants the Secret?

— Will I see you again?

— Each time you have taken a step forward.