Selected Cronicas

GENTLE AS A FAWN

Her name was Eremita. She was nineteen years old. A trusting face, some pimples. Where was the attraction? Yet there was something attractive about that body which was neither ugly nor beautiful, in that face where a sweetness craving greater sweetnesses brought a sign of life.

Beauty is perhaps the wrong word. There probably was no beauty there although certain indefinable traits attracted like water. There was certainly living substance; nails, flesh, teeth, a mixture of resilience and weakness, constituting a vague presence which could suddenly materialize in the form of a questioning head ready to do one’s bidding the moment you uttered the name: Eremita. Her brown eyes were indescribable and bore no relation to the rest of her face. As independent as if they had been planted in the flesh of an arm from where they could watch us — open and moist. Her whole being was of a sweetness close to tears.

Sometimes she would reply with the rudeness typical of maids. She explained that she had always been like that, even as a child. Yet it had nothing to do with her character. There was nothing hard about her, there was no suggestion of any perceptible law. ‘I was afraid,’ she would say quite naturally. ‘Boy, was I hungry!’ she would exclaim, and for some strange reason there was never any more to be said. ‘He has a lot of respect for me,’ she would say, referring to her boyfriend and, despite the cliché, anyone listening to her entered a delicate world of animals and birds, where all creatures respected each other. ‘I feel so ashamed,’ she would say, and then smile, enshrouded in her own shadows. If she hungered after bread — which she would quickly devour as if someone might snatch it away from her — it was thunder she feared, and having to speak which made her embarrassed. She was kind and honest. ‘God forbid,’ she would mutter, distracted.

For she had moments of distraction. Her face took on a smooth mask of impassive sadness. A sadness more ancient than her nature. Her eyes became vacant; one might even say a little cold. Anyone near her suffered without being able to help. All one could do was to wait.

For this strange infanta had succumbed to something. No one would dare to touch her at such a moment. One could only wait, solemnly watching over her with bated breath. All one could do was to hope that the danger might pass. Until with an unhurried gesture, almost like a sigh, she would awaken like a newborn fawn struggling to its feet. She had returned from her repose in sadness.

She was returning, perhaps no richer, but certainly more reassured after having drunk from who knows what fountain. But a fountain which must have been ancient and pure. Yes, she had hidden depths. Although nothing could be discovered simply by exploring those depths — profundity itself had to be explored, just as one discovers shadows in darkness. It is possible that if someone were to travel further, to cover leagues in the dark, they might find some trail, guided perhaps by the fluttering of wings, by an animal’s tracks. Then — all of a sudden — the forest.

So that was her mystery: she had discovered a short cut into the forest. That was almost certainly where she vanished in her moments of distraction. Only to return, her eyes filled with sweetness and ignorance. Her eyes brimming with tears. An ignorance so vast that it could absorb all the wisdom of this world.

That was Eremita. Had she surfaced with everything she found in the forest, she would have gone up in flames. But what she had seen — the roots she had bitten into, the thorns which had drawn blood, the water in which she had bathed her feet, the golden darkness which had enfolded her in its light — none of this she could describe: it had been seen at a glance, and in great haste. So the mystery remained intact.

When she emerged, she was a housemaid once more. Who was constantly being summoned from the darkness of that shortcut to more servile tasks — to wash clothes, to mop the floor, to serve this one and that one.

But was she really serving? For anyone looking closely would have noticed that she washed clothes in the sun; that she mopped the floor — drenched by the rain; that she hung the sheets — out in the wind. She took care to serve from a much greater distance, and to serve other gods. Always with that integrity she had brought from the forest. Without thinking: simply a body, quietly going about her chores, her face radiating a gentle hope which can neither be given nor taken away.

The only trace of the danger she had faced was her furtive way of eating bread. In everything else she remained serene. Even when she stole money which had been left lying on the table or slipped the odd parcel of food to her boyfriend. For she had also mastered the art of petty theft during her excursions into the forest.