The Lives of Things (10 page)

On both sides of the street, buildings were creaking and crackling. He remembered that at the far end, on a crossing, there was a monument surrounded by benches. He would go and sit there a while, pass the time, perhaps the entire night: he had nowhere to go, what else could he do? No one had anywhere to go. That street, like all the others, was swarming with people. The population seemed to have multiplied. He trembled at the very thought. And it came as no surprise to find that the monument had also disappeared. The benches were still there, some of them occupied. Then the civil servant remembered his wounded hand and hesitated. From the darkness others were emerging and taking up every available space. He could find nowhere to sit.

He had no desire to sit. He turned left, towards a street that had once been narrow but which now had wide, deep openings on both sides, veritable gaps where buildings had once stood. He had the impression that, were it daytime, all those empty spaces would look like perspectives strung together from north to south, from east to west, as far as the city boundaries, if such a term was any longer meaningful. It occurred to him that he could leave the city, go to the outskirts, into the countryside, where there were no buildings to disappear, cars to vanish in their hundreds, things that changed places, and ceased to be there or anywhere else. In the space they once occupied, there was nothing except a void and the occasional dead body. His spirits revived: at least he would escape the nightmare of spending a night like this, amidst invisible threats, going hither and thither. At first light, perhaps he would find some solution to the problem. The Government (G) was sure to investigate the matter. There had been previous cases, although less serious, and they had always found a solution. There was no cause for alarm. Order would be restored to the city. A crisis, a simple crisis and nothing more.

Near the street where he lived some lamps were still lit. This time he did not avoid them: he felt safe, confident, and should anyone question him, he would quietly tell his tale of woe, point out that this was obviously part of the same conspiracy to undermine the security and welfare of the city. It did not prove necessary. No one demanded to see the palm of his hand. The few lit streets were crammed with people. One could only cross the road with the utmost difficulty. And in one street, perched on top of a lorry, a sergeant from the Territorial Army (TA) was reading out a proclamation or warning:

—All members of the public are warned that by order of the Supreme High Command of the Armed Forces the eastern sector of the city will be bombarded from seven a.m. by means of Ground Artillery and Air Attacks as a preliminary measure of retaliation. People who live in the area about to be bombarded have already been evacuated from their homes and are being billeted in government installations with the necessary safeguards. They will be compensated in full for any material losses and the inevitable privations they have suffered. The Government and the Supreme High Command of the Armed Forces can assure all citizens that the plan drawn up for a counter-attack will be carried out to its ultimate consequences. Given the circumstances, and the order of the day, ‘On your guard and palms up’, having proved to be ineffective, our new slogan will be: ‘Look out and attack’.

The civil servant sighed with relief. He would no longer be obliged to show his hand. His self-confidence was restored. The renewed sense of courage he had felt half-an-hour earlier became even stronger. And there and then he made two decisions: he would go back to his apartment, collect his binoculars and take them with him beyond the eastern zone of the city from where he could watch the bombardment. And once the sergeant had finished reading his statement, he joined in the animated conversation that ensued:

—It’s an idea.

—Do you think it will work?

—Of course, the Government knows what it’s doing. And, as a reprisal, can you think of anything better?

—They’ll be taught a lesson this time. Should have happened sooner.

—What have you done to your hand?

—The biological liquid didn’t work and only made matters worse.

—I know of a similar case.

—Me too, they told me that it was a disaster for the hospitals.

—I was probably the first case.

—The Government will recompense everyone.

—Good night.

—Good night.

—Good night.

—Good night. Tomorrow is another day.

—Tomorrow is another day. Good night.

The civil servant went off contented. His street was still dark, but this did not worry him. The delicate, imponderable light coming from the stars was enough to show the way, and in the absence of any trees, the darkness was not too dense. He found the road different: several more buildings were missing. But his apartment block was still there. He walked on, most likely more steps had disappeared. But even if the lift should not be working, he would devise some means of reaching the second floor. He wanted his binoculars, he longed for the satisfaction of watching a whole area of the city being bombarded, the eastern sector, as the sergeant had confirmed. He passed between the posts of the missing door and found himself in an empty space. Unlike the building he had seen that morning, all that remained of this one was the façade, like a hollow shell. Looking up, he saw the night sky above and the odd star. He felt a sense of outrage. No fear, only an overwhelming and salutary wrath. Hatred. Blind rage.

On the ground there were white forms, naked bodies. He remembered what he had heard in the tobacconist’s that morning: ‘Not so much as a ring on their fingers.’ He drew closer. Just as he thought, he recognised these corpses: some of them were his neighbours in the same block. They had chosen not to leave the building and now they were dead. Naked. The civil servant placed his hand on a woman’s breast: it was still warm. The building had probably disappeared when he had reached the street. Silently or with all that creaking and cracking he had heard everywhere when at home. Had he not stopped to listen to the sergeant and then lingered behind to have a chat, there would probably have been one more corpse here: his own. He looked at the space in front of him where the building had once stood and saw another building further on move, suddenly shrink, like a ragged sheet of dark paper which some invisible fire from the sky was scorching and destroying. In less than a minute, the building had disappeared. And since there was an even greater space beyond, a kind of corridor opened up, and went off in a straight line to the east. ‘Even without binoculars’, muttered the civil servant, trembling with fear and hatred, ‘I must see this.’

The city was immense. For the rest of the night the civil servant headed east. There was no danger of getting lost. On that side, it took longer for the sky to light up. And at seven, already morning, the bombardment would begin. The civil servant felt exhausted but happy. He clenched his left fist, already savouring the terrible fate that was about to befall a quarter of the buildings in the city, to befall everything to be found there, and the OUMIs. He observed that hundreds, thousands of people were walking in the same direction. The same bright idea had occurred to all of them. By five, he had already arrived in the open countryside. Looking back, he could see the city with its irregular outlines, several buildings which appeared to be taller only because the adjacent buildings had disappeared, just as in a sketch of ancient ruins although, strictly speaking, there were no ruins, only a void. Aimed at the city, scores of cannons formed the curve of a circle. So far, not an aeroplane in sight. They would arrive at seven o’clock on the dot, and there was no need for them to arrive sooner. Three hundred metres from the cannons, a cordon of soldiers prevented spectators from getting any closer. The civil servant found himself lost in the crowd. How irritating. He had worn himself out getting there, he had no apartment to return to once the bombardment was over, and now he was going to be deprived of watching the spectacle and enjoying his revenge. He looked around him. People were standing on packing-cases. An excellent idea which had never occurred to him. But behind, perhaps a kilometre away, there was a row of forested hills. Whatever he might lose in terms of distance, he would gain in height. It seemed an idea worth pursuing.

He made his way through the crowd which was already thinning out in that direction, and crossed the open space separating him from the hills. Very few people were heading there. And towards the hill ahead of him, no one. The ashen sky was almost white but the sun still had not risen. The terrain gradually sloped upwards. Between the artillery and the city boundary a row of heavy machine-guns was now being installed. Heaven help any OUMIs that turned up on this side. The civil servant smiled: they were about to get their just deserts. He regretted not being a soldier. How he would have loved to feel in his wrists, yes, even in his wounded hand, the vibrations of a weapon firing, to feel his whole body tremble, not with fear this time, but with anger and blissful revenge. The physical impact on his senses was so intense that he had to pause. He thought of turning back in order to get closer. But realised that he could never be as close as he wished, that in the middle of that crowd he would see precious little, so he carried on. He was now approaching the trees. No one in sight. He sat on the ground with his back to some bushes whose flowers brushed against his shoulders. From all around the city people continued to arrive. No one wanted to miss the spectacle. How many people could be there? Hundreds of thousands. Perhaps the entire city. The countryside was one black stain which was rapidly spreading and already overflowing in the direction of the hills. The civil servant trembled with excitement. After all, this was going to be a resounding victory. It was about seven o’clock. What could have happened to his watch? He shrugged his shoulders: he would have an even better watch, more accurate, of superior quality. Viewed from where he was standing the city was unrecognisable. But everything would be restored in due course. First, punishment.

At that moment he heard voices behind him. The voice of a man and the voice of a woman. He could not make out what they were saying. Perhaps a pair of lovers sexually aroused by the impending bombardment. But the voices sounded tranquil. And suddenly the man said in a clear voice:

—Let’s wait a little longer.

And the woman:

—Until the very last minute.

The civil servant could feel his hair stand on end. The OUMIs. He looked anxiously towards the plain. Saw that people were still arriving like a swarm of black ants, and he was determined to win that prize, category C. He quietly circled the thick clump of bushes, then got down, almost crawling behind some trees clustered together. He waited awhile, then got up slowly and spied. The man and woman were naked. He had seen other naked bodies that night, but these were alive. He refused to believe his eyes, heartily wished it was seven o’clock, that the bombardment would commence. Through the branches, he could see people from the city quickly advancing. Perhaps they were already within hearing distance. He called out:

—Help! There are OUMIs here!

Startled, the man and woman turned round and began running towards him. No one else had heard him and there was no time for a second cry for help. He could feel the man’s hands tighten round his throat and the woman’s hands pressing against his mouth. And before he even had time to look, he already knew that the hands about to strangle him did not bear any letter; they were smooth with nothing except the natural purity of skin. The naked man and woman dragged his body into the woods. More naked men and women appeared and surrounded him. When they moved away, his corpse was lying there stretched out on the ground, naked. Not so much as a ring on his finger, had he ever worn one. Not even a bandage. From the wound on the back of his hand came a tiny trickle of blood which soon dried up.

Between the woods and the city there was no empty space. The entire population had come to witness the great military operation of reprisal. In the distance the drone of aeroplanes approaching. Any clocks that might still be working were about to strike seven or silently mark the hour on the dial. The officer in charge of the artillery was clutching a loudspeaker to give the order to fire. Hundreds of thousands of people, a million, held their breath in suspense. But no shots were fired. For just as the officer was about to shout Fire! the loudspeaker slipped from his hand. Inexplicably, the aeroplanes made a narrow curve and turned back. This was only the opening signal. Total silence spread over the plain. And suddenly the city disappeared. In its place, as far as the eye could see, another multitude of naked men and women emerged from what had once been the city. The cannons disappeared along with all the other weapons, and the soldiers were naked, surrounded by men and women who had earlier worn uniforms and carried weapons. At the centre, the great dark mass of the city’s population. But this, too, was almost immediately transformed and multiplied. The plain lit up as the sun rose.

Then from the woods came all the men and women who had been hiding there since the revolution began, since the first OUMI disappeared. And one of them said:

—Now we must rebuild everything.

And a woman replied:

—There was no other remedy since we were those things. Never again will men be treated as things.

The Centaur

The horse came to a halt. His shoeless hooves gripped the round, slippery stones covering the river-bed which was almost dry. Using his hands, the man cautiously pushed back the thorny branches which obstructed his view of the plain. Day was breaking. Far away, where the land rose, first in a gentle slope, for he remembered it being similar to the pass he had descended far north, before suddenly being broken up by a balsatic mountain ridge rising up in a vertical wall, stood some houses which from a distance looked quite small and low, and lights that resembled stars. Along the mountain ridge which cut out the entire horizon from that side, there was a luminous line as if someone had passed a light brushstroke over the peaks and, because still wet, the paint had gradually spread over the slope. The sun would appear from that direction. One false move as he pushed back the branches and the man grazed his hand: he muttered something to himself and put his finger to his lips to suck the blood. The horse retreated, stamping his hooves and swishing his tail over the tall grasses that absorbed the remaining moisture on the river-bank sheltered by overhanging branches forming a screen at that black hour. The river was reduced to a trickle of water running between the stones where the river-bed was deepest and at rare intervals forming puddles wherein fish struggled to survive. The humidity in the atmosphere forecast rain and tempest, perhaps not today but tomorrow, after three suns, or with the next moon. Very slowly the sky began to light up. Time to find a hiding-place in order to rest and sleep.

The horse was thirsty. He approached the stream which seemed quite still beneath the night sky, and as his front hooves met the cool water, he lay down sideways on the ground. Resting one shoulder on the rough sand, the man drank at his leisure despite feeling no thirst. Above the man and the horse, the patch of sky that was still in darkness slowly moved, trailing in its wake the palest light, still tinged with yellow, the first deceptive hint of the crimson and red about to explode over the mountain, as over so many mountains in different places or on a level with the prairie. The horse and man got up. In front stood a dense barrier of trees, with defensive brambles between the trunks. Birds were already chirping on the uppermost branches. The horse crossed the river-bed at an unsteady trot and tried to break through the entangled bushes on the right, but the man preferred an easier passage. With time, and there had been all the time in the world, he had learned how to curb the animal’s impatience, sometimes opposing him with an upsurge of violence which clouded his thoughts or perhaps affected that part of his body where the orders coming from his brain clashed with the dark instincts nourished between his flanks where the skin was black; at other times he succumbed, distracted and thinking of other things, things that certainly belonged to this physical world in which he found himself, but not to this age. Fatigue had made the horse nervous: he quivered as if trying to shake off a frenzied gadfly thirsting for blood, and he stamped his hooves restlessly only to tire even more. It would have been unwise to try and force an entry through the entanglement of brambles. There were so many scars on the horse’s white coat. One particular scar, which was very old, traced a broad, oblique mark on his rump. When exposed to the blazing sun or when extreme cold made the hairs of his coat stand up, it was as if the flaming blade of a sword were striking that sensitive and vulnerable scar. Although well aware that he would find nothing there except a bigger scar than the others, at such moments the man would twist his torso and look back as if staring into infinity.

A short distance away, downstream, the river-bank narrowed: in all probability there was a lagoon, or perhaps a tributary, just as dry or even more so. It was muddy at the bottom with few stones. Around this pocket as it were, a simple neck of the river that filled and emptied with it, stood tall trees, black beneath the darkness only gradually rising from the earth. If the screen formed by trunks and fallen branches were sufficiently dense, he could pass the day there, completely hidden from sight, until night returned when he could continue on his way. He drew back the cool leaves with his hands and, impelled by the strength of his hocks, he climbed on to the embankment in almost total darkness, concealed by the thick crests of the trees. Then, almost immediately, the ground sloped down again into a ditch which further on would probably run through open countryside. He had found a good spot to rest and sleep. Between the river and the mountain there was arable land, tilled fields, but that deep and narrow ditch showed no signs of being passable. He took a few more steps, now in complete silence. Startled birds were watching. He looked overhead: saw the uppermost tips of the branches bathed in light. The soft light coming from the mountain was now skimming the leafy fringe on high. The birds resumed their chirping. The light descended little by little, a greenish dust changing to pink and white, the subtle and uncertain morning mist. Against the light, the pitch-black trunks of the trees appeared to have only two dimensions as if they had been cut out of what remained of the night and were glued to a luminous transparency that was disappearing into the ditch. The ground was covered with irises. A nice, tranquil refuge where he could spend the day sleeping.

Overcome by the fatigue of centuries and millennia, the horse knelt down. Finding a position to suit both of them was always a difficult operation. The horse usually lay on his side and the man did likewise. But while the horse could spend the entire night in this position without stirring, if the man wanted to avoid getting cramp in his shoulder and all down his side, he had to overcome the resistance of that great inert and slumbering body and make him turn over on to the other side: it was always a disquieting dream. As for sleeping on foot, the horse could, but not the man. And when the hideout was too confined, changing over from one side to another became impossible and the sense of urgency all the greater. It was not a comfortable body. The man could never stretch out on the ground, rest his head on folded arms and remain there studying the ants or grains of earth, or contemplate the whiteness of a tender stalk sprouting from the dark soil. And in order to see the sky, he had to twist his neck, except when the horse reared up on his hind legs, lifting the man on high so that he could lean a little further back; then he certainly got a much better view at the great nocturnal campanula of stars, the horizontal and tumultuous meadow of clouds, or the blue, sunlit sky, the last vestiges of the first creation.

The horse fell asleep at once. With his hooves amongst the irises and his bushy tail spread out on the ground, he lay there breathing heavily at a steady rhythm. Semi-reclined and with his right shoulder pressed up against the wall of the ditch, the man broke off low-lying branches with which to cover himself. While moving he could bear the heat and cold without any discomfort, although not as well as the horse. But when asleep and lying still, he soon began to feel the cold. And so long as the heat of the sun did not become too intense, he could rest at his ease under the shade of the leaves. From this position, he perceived that the trees did not entirely shut out the sky above: an uneven strip, already a transparent blue, stretched ahead and, crossing it intermittently from one side to the other, or momentarily following in the same direction, birds were flying swiftly through the air. The man slowly closed his eyes. The smell of sap from the broken branches made him feel a little faint. He pulled one of the leafier branches over his face and fell asleep. He never dreamed like other men. Nor did he ever dream as a horse might dream. During their hours of wakefulness, there were few moments of peace or simple conciliation. But the horse’s dream, along with that of the man, constituted the centaur’s dream.

He was the last survivor of that great and ancient species of men-horses. He had fought in the war against the Lapithae, the first serious defeat suffered by him and his fellow-centaurs. Once they had been defeated, the centaur had taken refuge in mountains whose name he had forgotten. Until that fatal day when, protected in part by the gods, Heracles had decimated his brothers and he alone had escaped because the long, drawn-out battle between Heracles and Nessos had given him time to seek refuge in the forest. And that was the end of the centaurs. But contrary to the claims of historians and mythologists, one centaur survived, this self-same centaur who had seen Heracles crush Nessos to death with one terrible embrace and then drag his corpse along the ground as Hector would later do with the corpse of Achilles, while praising the gods for having overcome and exterminated the prodigious race of the Centaurs. Perhaps remorseful, those same gods then favoured the hidden centaur, blinding Heracles’ eyes and mind for who knows what reason.

Each day the centaur dreamt of fighting and vanquishing Heracles. In the centre of the circle of gods who reunited with every dream, he would fight arm to arm, using his croup to dodge any sly move on the enemy’s part, and avoid the rope whizzing between his hooves, thus forcing the enemy to fight face to face. His face, arms and trunk perspired as only a man perspires. The horse’s body was covered in sweat. This dream recurred for thousands of years and always with the same outcome: he punished Heracles for Nessos’ death, summoning all the strength in his limbs and muscles as both man and horse. Set firmly on his four hooves as if they were stakes embedded in the earth, he lifted Heracles into the air and tightened his grip until he could hear the first rib cracking, then another, and finally the spine breaking. Heracles’ corpse slipped to the ground like a rag and the gods applauded. There was no prize for the victor. Rising from their gilt thrones, the gods moved away, the circle becoming ever wider until they disappeared into the horizon. From the door where Aphrodite entered the heavens, an enormous star continued to shine.

For thousands of years he roved the earth. For ages, so long as the world itself remained mysterious, he could travel by the light of the sun. As he passed, people came out on to the roadside and threw garlands of flowers over the horse’s back or made coronets which they placed on his head. Mothers handed him their children to lift into mid-air so that they might lose any fear of heights. And everywhere there was a secret ceremony: in the middle of a circle of trees representing the gods, impotent men and sterile women passed under the horse’s belly: people believed this would promote fertility and restore virility. At certain times of the year they would bring a mare before the centaur and withdraw indoors: but one day, someone who saw the man cover the mare like a horse and then weep like a man was struck blind for committing such a sacrilege. These unions bore no fruit.

Then the world changed. The centaur was banished and persecuted, and forced into hiding. And other creatures too: such as the unicorn, the chimera, the werewolf, men with cloven-hooves, and those ants bigger than foxes but smaller than dogs. For ten human generations, these various outcasts lived together in the wilderness. But after a time, even there they found life impossible and all of them dispersed. Some, like the unicorn, died: the chimerae mated with shrewmice which led to the appearance of bats; werewolves found their way into towns and villages and only on certain nights do they meet their fate; the cloven-footed men also became extinct; and ants grew smaller in size so that nowadays you cannot tell them apart from other small insects. The centaur was now on his own. For thousands of years, as far as the sea would permit, he roamed the entire earth. But on his journeys he would always make a detour whenever he sensed he was getting close to the borders of his native country. Time passed. Eventually there was no longer any land where he could live in safety. He began sleeping during the day and moving on at dusk. Walking and sleeping. Sleeping and walking. For no apparent reason other than the fact that he possessed legs and needed rest. He did not need food. And he only needed sleep in order to dream. And as for water, he drank simply because the water was there.

Thousands of years ought to have been thousands of adventures. Thousands of adventures, however, are too many to equal one truly unforgettable adventure. And that explains why all of them put together did not equal that adventure, already in this last millennium, when in the midst of an arid wilderness he saw a man with lance and coat of armour, astride a scraggy horse charging an army of windmills. He saw the rider being hurled into the air and another man, short and fat and mounted on a donkey, rush to his assistance, shouting his head off. He heard them speak in a language he could not understand and then watched them go off, the thin man badly shaken, the fat one wailing, the scraggy horse limping and the donkey impassive. He thought of going to their assistance but, on taking another look at the windmills, he galloped up to them and, coming to a halt before the first windmill, he decided to avenge the man who had been thrown from his horse. In his native tongue, he called out: ‘Even if you had more arms than the giant Briareas, I’ll make you pay for this outrage.’ All the windmills were left with broken wings and the centaur was pursued to the frontier of a neighbouring country. He crossed desolate fields and reached the sea. Then he turned back.

The centaur, man and beast, is fast asleep. His entire body is at rest. The dream has come and gone, and the horse is now galloping within a day from the distant past, so that the man may see the mountains file past as if they were travelling with him, or he were climbing mountain paths to the summit in order to look down on the sonorous sea and the black scattered islands, the spray exploding around them as if they had just appeared from the depths and were surfacing there in wonder. This is no dream. The smell of brine comes from the open sea. The man takes a deep breath and stretches his arms upwards while the horse excitedly stamps its hooves on protruding marble stones. Already withered, the leaves that were covering the man’s face have fallen away. The sun overhead casts a speckled light on the centaur. The face is not that of an old man. Nor that of a young man, needless to say, since we are talking about thousands of years. But his face could be compared with that of an ancient statue: time has eroded it but not to the extent of obliterating the features: simply enough to show they are weather-beaten. A tiny, luminous patch sparkles on his skin, slowly edging towards his mouth, bringing warmth. The man suddenly opens his eyes as a statue might. With undulating movements a snake steals off into the undergrowth. The man raises a hand to his mouth and feels the sun. At that same moment the horse shakes his tail, sweeps it over his croup and chases off a gadfly feeding on the delicate skin of the great scar. The horse rises quickly to his feet accompanied by the man. The day has almost gone and soon the first shadows of night will fall, but there can be no more sleeping. The noise of the sea, which was not a dream, still resounds in the man’s ears, not the real noise of the sea but rather that vision of beating waves which his eyes have transformed into those sonorous waves which travel over the waters and climb up rocky gorges all the way to the sun and the blue sky which is also water.