Selected Cronicas

THE PRINCESS (IV)

And there the matter would have rested had I not seen something which I had never noticed before.

What was it? Whatever it was, it was no longer there. A chick had flickered momentarily in her eyes only to disappear, as if it had never existed. And a shadow had formed. A dark shadow covering the earth. From the moment her trembling lips almost involuntarily mouthed the words: ‘I want one, too’ — from that moment, darkness intensified in the depths of her eyes into remorseful desire which, if touched, would close up like the leaf of the opium poppy. She retreated before the impossible, the impossible which had drawn near, and which, in a moment of temptation, had almost become hers; the darkness of her eyes changed colour like gold. Slyness crept into her face — and had I not been there, she would slyly have stolen something. In those eyes, which blinked with cunning knowledge, in those eyes there was a marked tendency to steal. She gave me a sudden look betraying her envy: you have everything; and censure: why are we not the same, then I would have a chick? and possessiveness — she wanted me for herself. Slowly I slumped into my chair, her envy was exposing my poverty and left my poverty musing: had I not been there, she would have stolen my poverty as well. She wanted everything. After the tremor of possessiveness subsided, the darkness of her eyes revealed her suffering. I was not only exposing her to a face without protection. I was now exposing her to the best of the world: to a chick. Without seeing me, her moist eyes stared at me with an intense abstraction, which made intimate contact with my intimacy. Something was happening which I could not understand at a glance. And desire returned once more. This time her eyes were full of anguish, as if they had nothing to do with the rest of her body, which had become detached and independent. And those eyes grew wider, alarmed at the physical strain as her inner being began to disintegrate. Her delicate mouth was that of a child, a bruised purple. She looked up at the ceiling — the dark shadows round her eyes gave her an air of sublime martyrdom. Without stirring, I watched her. I knew about the high incidence of infant mortality. The great question she was asking concerned me as well. Is it worthwhile? I do not know, my increasing composure replied, but it is so. There, before my silence, she surrendered to the process, and if she was asking me the great question, it must remain unanswered. She had to surrender — and without anything in return. It had to be so. And without anything in return. She held back, reluctant to surrender. But I waited. I knew that we are that thing which must happen. I could only be her silence. And, bewildered and confused, I could hear her heart, which was not mine, beating inside me. Before my fascinated eyes, like some mysterious emanation, she was being transformed into a child.

Not without sorrow. In silence, I watched the sorrow of her awkward happiness. The lingering colic of a snail. She slowly ran her tongue over her thin lips. (Help me, her body said, as it painfully divided into two. I am helping, my paralysis replied.) Slow agony. Her entire body became swollen and deformed. At times, her eyes became pure eyelashes, avid as an egg in the process of being formed. Her mouth trembling with hunger. Then I almost smiled, as if stretched out on an operating table, and insisting that I was not suffering much pain. She did not lose sight of me: there were footprints she could not see, no one had passed this way before, and she perceived that I had walked a great deal. She became more and more distorted, almost the image of herself. Shall I risk it? Shall I give way to feeling? she asked herself. Yes, she replied to herself, through me.

And my first yes sent me into rapture. Yes, my silence replied to her, yes. Just as when my first son was born and I had said: yes. I had summoned the courage to say yes to Ofélia, I who knew that one can die in childhood without anyone noticing. Yes, I replied enraptured, for the greater danger does not exist: when you go, you go together, you yourself will always be there: this, this you will carry with you whatever may become of you.

The agony of her birth. Until then I had never known courage. The courage to be one’s other self, the courage to be born of one’s own parturition, and to cast off one’s former body. And without being told whether it was worthwhile. ‘I’, her body tried to say, washed by the waters. Her nuptials with self.

Fearful of what was happening to her, Ofélia slowly asked me:

— Is it a chick?

I did not look at her.

— Yes, it’s a chick.

From the kitchen came a faint chirping. We remained silent, as if Jesus had just been born. Ofélia kept on sighing.

— A tiny little chick? she confirmed, with some uncertainty.

— Yes, a little chick, I said, guiding her carefully towards life.

— Ah, a little chick, she said pensively.

— A little chick, I repeated, trying not to be unkind.

For some minutes now, I had found myself in the presence of a child. The transformation had taken place.

— It’s in the kitchen.

— In the kitchen? she repeated, pretending not to understand.

— In the kitchen, I repeated, sounding authoritarian for the first time, and without saying anything more.

— Ah, in the kitchen, said Ofélia, shamming and looking up at the ceiling.

But she was suffering. Feeling almost ashamed, I became aware that I was taking my revenge at last. Ofélia was suffering, shamming, looking up at the ceiling. Her mouth, those shadows around her eyes.

— Why don’t you go into the kitchen and play with the little chick?

— Me …? she asked slyly.

— Only if you want to.

I know that I should have ordered her to go rather than expose her to the humiliation of such intense desire. I know that I should not have given her any choice, and then she could say that she had been forced to obey. At that moment, however, it was not out of revenge that I tormented her with freedom. The truth is that this step, this step, too, she had to take alone. Alone and without delay. It was she who had to go to the mountain. Why — I wondered — why am I trying to breathe my life into her purple mouth? Why am I giving her my breath? How can I dare to breathe inside her, if I myself… is it only that she may walk, that I am giving her these painful steps? Am I only breathing my life into her so that one day she may momentarily feel in her exhaustion that the mountain has come to her?

Perhaps I had no right. But there was no choice. This was an emergency, as if the girl’s lips were becoming more purple by the minute.