Pedro Paramo Read online

  "You asked me to remind you. That's what I'm doing. Dear God, I'm doing what you asked me to. Come on! It's almost time for you to get up."

  "Leave me alone, woman."

  The man seemed to sleep. The woman kept on scolding, but in a quiet voice:

  "It must be after dawn by now, because I can see light. I can see that man from here, and if I can see him it's only because there's enough light to see. The sun will be up before long. I don't need to tell you that. What do you bet he's done something wrong. And we took him in. It doesn't matter that it was only for tonight; we hid him. And in the long run that will mean trouble for us. . . . Look how restless he is, as if he can't get comfortable. I'll bet he has a heavy load on his soul."

  It was growing lighter. Day was routing the shadows. Erasing them. The room where I lay was warm with the heat of sleeping bodies. I sensed the dawn light through my eyelids.

  I felt the light. I heard:

  "He's thrashing around like he's damned. He has all the earmarks of an evil man. Get up, Donis! Look at him. Look how he's writhing there on the ground, twisting and turning. He's drooling. He must have killed a lot of people. And you didn't even see it."

  "Poor devil. Go to sleep . . . and let us sleep!"

  "And how can I sleep if I'm not sleepy?"

  "Get up, then, and go somewhere you won't be pestering me!"

  "I will. I'll go light the fire. And as I go I'll tell what's-his-name to come sleep here by you, here in my place."

  "You tell him that."

  "I can't. I'd be afraid to."

  "Then go about your work and leave us alone."

  "I'm going to."

  "What are you waiting for?"

  "I'm on my way."

  I heard the woman get out of bed. Her bare feet thudded on the ground and she stepped over my head. I opened and closed my eyes.

  When I opened them again, the sun was high in the sky. Beside me sat a clay jug of coffee.

  I tried to drink it. I took a few swallows.

  "It's all we have. I'm sorry it's so little. We're so short of everything, so short. . . . "

  It was a woman's voice.

  "Don't worry on my account," I told her. "Don't worry about me. I'm used to it. How do I get out of here?"

  "Where are you going?"

  "Anywhere."

  "There's dozens of roads. One goes to Contla, and there's another one comes from there.

  One leads straight to the mountains. I don't know where the one goes you can see from here," and she pointed past the hole in the roof, the place where the roof had fallen in.

  "That other one down there goes past the Media Luna. And there's still another that runs the length of the place; that's the longest."

  "Then that may be the way I came."

  "Where are you heading?" "Toward Sayula."

  "Imagine. I thought Sayula was that way. I always wanted to go there. They say there's lots of people there."

  "About like other places."

  "Think of that. And us all alone here. Dying to know even a little of life."

  "Where did your husband go?"

  "He isn't my husband. He's my brother, though he doesn't want anyone to know. Where did he go? I guess to look for a stray calf that's been wandering around here. At least that's what he told me."

  "How long have you two been here?"

  "Forever. We were born here."

  "Then you must have known Dolores Preciado."

  "Maybe he did, Donis. I know so little about people. I never go out. I've been right here for what seems forever. Well, maybe not that long. Just since he made me his woman. Ever since then, I've been closed up here, because I'm afraid to be seen. He doesn't want to believe it, but isn't it true I would give anyone a scare?" She walked to stand in the sunlight.

  "Look at my face!"

  It was an ordinary face.

  "What is it you want me to see?"

  "Don't you see my sin? Don't you see those purplish spots? Like impetigo? I'm covered with them. And that's only on the outside; inside, I'm a sea of mud."

  "But who's going to see you if there's no one here? I've been through the whole town and not seen anyone."

  "You think you haven't, but there are still a few people around. Haven't you seen Filomeno? Or Dorotea or Melquiades or old Prudencio? And aren't Sostenes and all of them still alive? What happens is that they stay close to home. I don't know what they do by day, but I know they spend their nights locked up indoors. Nights around here are filled with ghosts. You should see all the spirits walking through the streets. As soon as it's dark they begin to come out. No one likes to see them. There's so many of them and so few of us that we don't even make the effort to pray for them anymore, to help them out of their purgatory. We don't have enough prayers to go around. Maybe a few words of the Lord's Prayer for each one. But that's not going to do them any good. Then there are our sins on top of theirs. None of us still living is in God's grace. We can't lift up our eyes, because they're filled with shame. And shame doesn't help. At least that's what the Bishop said. He came through here some time ago giving confirmation, and I went to him and confessed everything:

  '"I can't pardon you,' he said.

  "'I'm filled with shame.'

  "That isn't the answer.'

  '"Marry us!'

  "'Live apart!'

  "I tried to tell him that life had joined us together, herded us like animals, forced us on each other. We were so alone here; we were the only two left. And somehow the village had to have people again. I told him now maybe there would be someone for him to confirm when he came back."

  "'Go your separate ways. There's no other way.'

  "'But how will we live?'

  "'Like anyone lives.'

  "And he rode off on his mule, his face hard, without looking back, as if he was leaving an image of damnation behind him. He's never come back. And that's why this place is swarming with spirits: hordes of restless souls who died without forgiveness, and people would never have won forgiveness in any case — even less if they had to depend on us. He's coming. You hear?"

  "Yes, I hear."

  "It's him."

  The door opened.

  "Did you find the calf?" she asked.

  "It took it in its head not to come, but I followed its tracks and I'll soon find where it is.

  Tonight I'll catch it."

  "You're going to leave me alone at night?"

  "I may have to."

  "But I can't stand it. I need you here with me. That's the only time I feel comfortable.

  That time of night."

  "But tonight I'm going after the calf."

  "I just learned," I interrupted, "that you two are brother and sister."

  "You just learned that? I've known it a lot longer than you. So don't be sticking your nose into it. We don't like people talking about us."

  "I only mentioned it to show I understand. That's all."

  "Understand what?"

  The woman went to stand beside him, leaning against his shoulder, and repeated in turn: "You understand what?"

  "Nothing," I said. "I understand less by the minute." And added: "All I want is to go back where I came from. I should use what little light's left of the day."

  "You'd better wait," he told me. "Wait till morning. It'll be dark soon, and all the roads are grown over. You might get lost. I'll start you off in the right direction tomorrow."

  "All right."

  Through the hole in the roof I watched the thrushes, those birds that flock at dusk before the darkness seals their way. Then, a few clouds already scattered by the wind that comes to carry off the day.

  Later the evening star came out; then, still later, the moon.

  The man and woman were not around. They had gone out through the patio and by the time they returned it was already dark. So they had no way of knowing what had happened while they were gone.

  And this was what happened:

  A woman came into the room from t
he street. She was ancient, and so thin she looked as if her hide had shrunk to her bones. She looked around the room with big round eyes. She may even have seen me. Perhaps she thought I was sleeping. She went straight to the bed and pulled a leather trunk from beneath it. She searched through it. Then she clutched some sheets beneath her arm and tiptoed out as if not to wake me.

  I lay rigid, holding my breath, trying to look anywhere but at her. Finally I worked up the courage to twist my head and look in her direction, toward the place where the evening star had converged on the moon.

  "Drink this," I heard.

  I did not dare turn my head.

  "Drink it! It will do you good. It's orange-blossom tea. I know you're scared because you're trembling. This will ease your fright."

  I recognized the hands, and as I raised my eyes I recognized the face. The man, who was standing behind her, asked:

  "Do you feel sick?"

  "I don't know. I see things and people where you may not see anything. A woman was just here. You must have seen her leave."

  "Come on," he said to his wife. "Leave him alone. He talks like a mystic."

  "We should let him have the bed. Look how he's trembling. He must have a fever."

  "Don't pay him any mind. People like him work themselves into a state to get attention. I knew one over at the Media Luna who called himself a divine. What he never 'divined' was that he was going to die as soon as the patron 'divined' what a bungler he was. This one's just like him. They spend their lives going from town to town 'to see what the Good Lord has to offer,' but he'll not find anyone here to give him so much as a bite to eat. You see how he stopped trembling? He hears what we're saying."

  It was as if time had turned backward. Once again I saw the star nestling close to the moon.

  Scattering clouds. Flocks of thrushes. And suddenly, bright afternoon light.

  Walls were reflecting the afternoon sun. My footsteps sounded on the cobblestones. The burro driver was saying, "Look up dona Eduviges, if she's still alive!"

  Then a dark room. A woman snoring by my side. I noticed that her breathing was uneven, as if she were dreaming, or as if she were awake and merely imitating the sounds of sleep. The cot was a platform of reeds covered with gunnysacks that smelled of piss, as if they'd never been aired in the sun. The pillow was a saddle pad wrapped around a log or a roll of wool so hard and sweaty it felt as solid as a rock.

  I could feel a woman's naked legs against my knee, and her breath upon my face. I sat up in the bed, supporting myself on the adobe-hard pillow.

  "You're not asleep?" she asked.

  "I'm not sleepy. I slept all day long. Where's your brother?"

  "He went off somewhere. You heard him say where he had to go. He may not come back tonight."

  "So he went anyway? In spite of what you wanted?"

  "Yes. And he may never come back. That's how they all do. 'I have to go down there; I have to go on out that way.' Until they've gone so far that it's easier not to come back. He's been trying and trying to leave, and I think this is the time. Maybe, though he didn't say so, he left me here for you to take care of. He saw his chance. The business of the stray was just an excuse. You'll see. He's not coming back."

  I wanted to say, "I feel dizzy. I'm going out to get a little air." Instead, I said: "Don't worry. He'll be back."

  When I got out of bed, she said:

  "I left something for you on the coals in the kitchen. It's not very much, but it will at least keep you from starving."

  I found a piece of dried beef, and a few warm tortillas.

  "That's all I could get," I heard her saying from the other room. "I traded my sister two clean sheets I've had since my mother died. I kept them under the bed. She must have come to get them. I didn't want to tell you in front of Donis, but she was the woman you saw . . . the one who gave you such a scare."

  A black sky, filled with stars. And beside the moon the largest star of all.

  Don't you hear me?" I asked in a low voice. And her voice replied: "Where are you?" "I'm here, in your village. With your people. Don't you see me?" "No, son. I don't see you."

  Her voice seemed all-encompassing. It faded into distant space. "I don't see you."

  I went back to the room where the woman was sleeping and told her:

  "I'll stay over here in my own corner. After all, the bed's as hard as the floor. If anything happens, let me know."

  "Donis won't be back," she. said. "I saw it in his eyes. He was waiting for someone to come so he could get away. Now you'll be the one to look after me. Won't you? Don't you want to take care of me? Come sleep here by my side."

  "I'm fine where I am."

  "You'd be better off up here in the bed. The ticks will eat you alive down there."

  I got up and crawled in bed with her.

  The heat woke me just before midnight. And the sweat. The woman's body was made of earth, layered in crusts of earth; it was crumbling, melting into a pool of mud. I felt myself swimming in the sweat streaming from her body, and I couldn't get enough air to breathe. I got out of bed. She was sleeping. From her mouth bubbled a sound very like a death rattle.

  I went outside for air, but I could not escape the heat that followed wherever I went.

  There was no air; only the dead, still night fired by the dog days of August.

  Not a breath. I had to suck in the same air I exhaled, cupping it in my hands before it escaped. I felt it, in and out, less each time . . . until it was so thin it slipped through my fingers forever.

  I mean, forever.

  I have a memory of having seen something like foamy clouds swirling above my head, and then being washed by the foam and pinking into the thick clouds. That was the last thing I saw.

  Are you trying to make me believe you drowned, Juan Preciado? I found you in the town plaza, far from Donis's house, and he was there, too, telling me you were playing dead. Between us we dragged you into the shadow of the arches, already stiff as a board and all drawn up like a person who'd died of fright. If there hadn't been any air to breathe that night you're talking about, we wouldn't have had the strength to carry you, even less bury you. And, as you see, bury you we did."

  "You're right, Doroteo. You say your name's Doroteo?"

  "It doesn't matter. It's really Dorotea. But it doesn't matter."

  "It's true, Dorotea. The murmuring killed me." There you'll find the place I love most in the world.

  The place where I grew thin from dreaming. My village, rising from the plain. Shaded with trees and leaves like a piggy bank filled with memories. You'll see why a person would want to live there forever. Dawn, morning, mid-day, night: always the same, except for the changes in the air. The air changes the color of things there. And life whirs by as quiet as a I murmur . . . the pure murmuring of life . . . . "Yes, Dorotea. The murmuring killed me. I was trying to hold back my fear. But it kept building until I couldn't contain it any longer. And when I was face to face with the murmuring, the dam burst. "I went to the plaza. You're right about that. I was drawn there by the sound of people; I thought there really were people. I wasn't in my right mind by then. I remember I got there by feeling my way along the walls as if I were walking with my hands. And the walls seemed to distill the voices, they seemed to be filtering through the cracks and crumbling mortar. I heard them. Human voices: not clear, but secretive voices that seemed to be whispering something to me as I passed, like a buzzing in my ears. I moved away from the walls and continued down the middle of the street. But I still heard them; they seemed to be keeping pace with me -ahead of me, or just behind me. Like I told you, I wasn't hot anymore. Just the opposite, I was cold. From the time I left the house of that woman who let me use her bed, the one — I told you - I'd seen dissolving in the liquid of her sweat, from that time on I'd felt cold. And the farther I walked, the colder I got, until my skin was all goose bumps. I wanted to turn back; I thought that if I went back I might find the warmth I'd left behind; but I realized after I walked a
bit farther that the cold was coming from me, from my own blood. Then I realized I was afraid. I heard all the noise in the plaza, and I thought I'd find people there to help me get over my fear. That's how you came to find me in the plaza. So Donis came back after all? The woman was sure she'd never see him again."

  "It was morning by the time we found you. I don't know where he came from. I didn't ask him."

  "Well, anyway, I reached the plaza. I leaned against a pillar of the arcade. I saw that no one was there, even though I could still hear the murmuring of voices, like a crowd on market day. A steady sound with no words to it, like the sound of the wind through the branches of a tree at night when you can't see the tree or the branches but you hear the whispering. Like that. I couldn't take another step. I began to sense that whispering drawing nearer, circling around me, a constant buzzing like a swarm of bees, until finally I could hear the almost soundless words Tray for us.' I could hear that's what they were saying to me. At that moment, my soul turned to ice. That's why you found me dead."

  "You'd have done better to stay home. Why did you come here?"

  "I told you that at the very beginning. I came to find Pedro Paramo, who they say was my father. Hope brought me here."

  "Hope? You pay dear for that. My illusions made me live longer than I should have. And that was the price I paid to find my son, who in a manner of speaking was just one more illusion. Because I never had a son. Now that I'm dead I've had time to think and understand. God never gave me so much as a nest to shelter my baby in. Only an endless lifetime of dragging myself from pillar to post, sad eyes casting sidelong glances, always looking past people, suspicious that this one or that one had hidden my baby from me. And it was all the fault of one bad dream. I had two: one of them I call the 'good dream,' and the other the 'bad dream.' The first was the one that made me dream I had a son to begin with. And as long as I lived, I always believed it was true. I could feel him in my arms, my sweet baby, with his little mouth and eyes and hands. For a long, long time I could feel his eyelids, and the beating of his heart, on my fingertips. Why wouldn't I think it was true?