The Lives of Things (12 page)

This, too, he had done on several occasions, but they were so few over thousands of years. A futile action, merely frightening, an act which could have resulted in madness and perhaps did. But this was his land and the first woman he had seen there. The centaur ran alongside the trees, and the man knew that further ahead he would put the woman down on the ground, he frustrated, she terrified, the woman intact, he only half-man. Now a broad path came close to the trees and ahead there was a curve in the river. The woman was no longer screaming, simply sobbing and trembling. And at that moment they heard other cries. On rounding the bend, the centaur came to a halt before a small group of low houses concealed by trees. People were gathered outside. The man pressed the woman to his chest. He could feel her firm breasts, her pubes at the spot where his human body disappeared and became the horse’s pectorals. Some people fled, others threw themselves forward, while others ran into their houses and reappeared carrying rifles. The horse got up on his hind legs and reared into the air. Terrified, the woman let out another scream. Someone fired a shot into the air. The man realised the woman was protecting him. Then the centaur headed for the open countryside, avoiding any trees that might impede his movements, and, still clutching the woman in his arms, he skirted the houses and galloped off across the open fields in the direction of the two hills. He could hear shouting coming from behind. Perhaps they had decided to pursue him on horseback, but no horse could compete with the centaur, as had been demonstrated in thousands of years of constant flight. The man looked behind: the persecutors were still some way off, some considerable way off. Then, gripping the woman under her arms, he gazed at her whole body stripped naked under the moonlight and said to her in his former tongue, in the language of the forests, of honeycombs, of the white columns of the sonorous sea, of laughter on the mountains:

—Don’t hate me.

He then put her down gently on the ground. But the woman did not escape. From her lips came words the man was capable of understanding:

—You’re a centaur. You exist. She placed her hands on his chest. The horse’s legs trembled. Then the woman lay down and said:

—Cover me.

The man saw her from above, stretched out in the form of a cross. For a moment, the horse’s shadow covered the woman. Nothing more. Then the centaur moved sideways and broke into a gallop, while the man began shouting and clenching his fists at the sky and the moon. When his pursuers finally reached the woman, she had not stirred. And when they carried her off wrapped in a blanket, the men carrying her could hear her weep.

That night, the whole country learned of the centaur’s existence. What at first had been treated as some rumour from across the border to keep them amused, now had reliable witnesses, amongst them a woman who was trembling and weeping. While the centaur was crossing this other mountain, people came from the nearby villages and towns, with nets and ropes, and even with firearms, but only to scare him off. He must be captured alive, they said. The army was also put on the alert. They were waiting for daylight before sending up helicopters to search the entire region. The centaur kept under cover, but could hear the dogs barking at frequent intervals, and in the waning moonlight even caught sight of men scouring the mountains. The centaur travelled all night in a southerly direction. And when the sun came up, the centaur was standing on top of a mountain from where he could view the sea. Way in the distance, nothing but the sea, not an island in sight, and the sound of a breeze which smelt of pines, not the lashing of waves or the pungent odour of brine. The world appeared to be a wilderness waiting to be populated.

It was not a wilderness. Suddenly a shot rang out. And then, forming a wide circle, men emerged from behind the stones, making a great din, yet unable to hide their fear as they advanced with nets and ropes, nooses and staffs. The horse reared into the air, shook its front hooves and swung round in a frenzy to face his enemies. The man tried to retreat. Both of them struggled, behind and in front. And the horse’s hooves slipped on the edge of the steep slope, they scrambled anxiously seeking some support, the man’s hands, too, but the cumbersome body lost its footing and fell into the abyss. Twenty metres below, a jutting edge of rock, inclined at just the right angle, polished by thousands of years of cold and heat, sun and rain, and hewn by wind and snow, cut through the centaur’s body at the very spot where the man’s torso became that of the horse. The fall ended there. At long last the man lay stretched out on his back and looking up at the sky. An ever deepening sea overhead, a sea with tiny, motionless clouds that were islands, and immortal life. The man turned his head from one side to the other: nothing but endless sea, an interminable sky. Then he looked at his body. It was bleeding. Half a man. A man. And he saw the gods approaching. It was time to die.

Revenge

The boy was coming from the river. Barefoot, with his trousers rolled up above his knees, his legs covered in mud. He was wearing a red shirt, open in front where the first hairs of puberty on his chest were beginning to blacken. He had dark hair, damp with the sweat that was trickling down his slender neck. He was bent slightly forward under the weight of the long oars, from which were hanging green strands of water-weeds still dripping. The boat kept swaying in the murky water, and nearby, as if spying, the globulous eyes of a frog suddenly appeared. Then the frog moved suddenly and disappeared. A minute later the surface of the river was smooth and tranquil and shining like the boy’s eyes. The exhalation of the mud released slow, flaccid bubbles of gas which were swept away by the current. In the oppressive heat of the afternoon, the tall poplars swayed gently, and, in a flurry, like a flower suddenly blossoming in mid-air, a blue bird flew past, skimming the water. The boy raised his head. On the other side of the river, a girl was watching him without moving. The boy raised his free hand and his entire body traced out some inaudible word. The river flowed slowly.

The boy climbed the slope without looking back. The grass ended right there. Above and beyond, the sun burnt the clods of untilled soil and ashen olive-groves. In the distance, the atmosphere trembled.

It was a one-storeyed house, squat, whitewashed with a border painted bright yellow. A stark wall without windows, a door with an open peephole. Inside, the earthen floor was cool underfoot. The boy rested his oars and wiped away the perspiration with his forearm. He remained still, listening to his heartbeat, the sweat slowly resurfacing on his skin. He remained there for several minutes, oblivious to the sounds coming from behind the house and which suddenly turned into a deafening outburst of squealing: the protestations of an imprisoned pig. When he finally began to stir, the animal’s cry, now wounded and outraged, deafened him. Other cries followed, piercing and wrathful, a desperate plea, a cry expecting no help.

He ran to the yard, but did not cross the threshold. Two men and a woman were holding down the pig. Another man, with a knife covered in blood, was making a vertical slit in the scrotum. Glistening on the straw was a squashed crimson ovule. The pig was trembling all over, squeals coming from the jaws secured with a rope. The wound opened up, the testis appeared, milky and streaked with blood, the man inserted his fingers into the opening, pulled, twisted and plucked inside. The woman’s face twitched and turned pale. They untied the pig, removed the cord round its snout, and one of the men bent down and grabbed the two thick, soft testicles. Perplexed, the animal swerved round and, gasping for breath, stood there with its head lowered. Then the man threw the testicles to the ground. The pig caught them in its mouth, avidly chewed and swallowed. The woman said something and the men shrugged their shoulders. One of them started laughing. And at that moment they saw the boy in the doorway. Taken unawares, they fell silent and, at a loss as to what they should do, they began staring at the animal which had lain down on the straw, breathing heavily, its lips stained with its own blood.

The boy went back inside. He filled a mug and drank, allowing the water to trickle down the corners of his mouth, then down his neck on to the hairs on his chest which seemed darker. As he drank, he stared outside at those two red stains on the straw. Then he stepped wearily out of the house, crossed the olive-grove once more beneath the scorching sun. The dust burned his feet but, pretending not to notice, he walked on tiptoe to avoid that burning sensation. The same cicada was screeching on a lower key. Then down the slope, the grass smelling of warm sap, the inebriating coolness beneath the branches, the mud getting between his toes until it covered them.

The boy remained there, watching the river. Settled on the sprouting mosses, a frog as brown as the previous one, with round eyes under bulging arches, appeared to be lying in wait. The white skin of its gullet was palpitating. Its closed mouth creased scornfully. Time passed and neither the frog nor the boy moved. Then, averting his eyes with difficulty as if fleeing some evil spell, he saw the girl reappear on the other side of the river, amidst the lower branches of the willows. And once again, silent and unexpected, a blue streak passed over the water.

Slowly the boy removed his shirt. Slowly he finished undressing and it was only when he no longer had any clothes on that his nakedness was slowly revealed. As if he were healing his own blindness. The girl was watching from afar. Then, with the same slow gestures, she removed her dress and everything else she was wearing. Naked against the green backcloth of trees.

The boy again looked at the river. Silence descended on the liquid skin of that interminable body. Circles widened and disappeared on the calm surface, marking the spot where the frog had plunged in. Then the boy got into the water and swam to the other bank as the white, naked form of the girl withdrew into the shadow of the branches.

Acknowledgements

Harper Collins for permission

— ‘Reflux’ and ‘Revenge’ in:
Frontiers
(
Leopard III
), London: Harvill, 1994, pp. 293–304 and 305–7.

The Trustees of Oklahoma State University for permission

— ‘Embargo’ in:
Cimarron Review
, 110 (1995), pp. 10–19.

Own copyright

— ‘The Centaur’ in:
Passport to Portugal
(A Passport Anthology, No. 8), London: Serpent’s Tail, 1994, pp. 5–19; and
The Literary Review
, 38 (1995), 4, pp. 543–556.

— ‘The Chair’ in:
Passport to Portugal
(A Passport Anthology, No. 8), London: Serpent’s Tail, 1994, pp. 136–151.

— ‘Things’ in:
The Translator’s Dialogue: Giovanni Pontiero
(eds. Pilar Orero and Juan C. Sager), Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 1997, pp. 187–245.

Foreword