Oh, the plan, thinks Bradford, on his knees as he listens to more muffled moans and feels his belly burn, senses that he’s out of time. I let your parents take you home. I hired people to report to me and tell me all about your sobbing mother, your drunk father, your always decent brother, the only decent one in that pathetic tin shack. About that sad school they sent you to when what you deserved was a private institute. The cardiologists told me you were improving, but they couldn’t control the arrhythmias and I guessed, oh, I guessed, even before the night that joined us forever, that it was fear, that it was a panic you couldn’t endure. That was the name of the nymphs’ collective terror when the great god Pan appeared: panic, and that’s what you felt, that horror. They brought you back to the hospital, thin but still strong, your father spouting nonsense about how he couldn’t take care of you, my joy at his alcoholism and misery and at your mother’s surrender, and then that first night everything was confirmed, because all those things you saw, they were worse in a hospital, of course, and I let you suffer, I needed to be sure, it was a test you had to pass, I let you reach the edge and I brought you back once—how many times, Juan, when you were older, did you joke that I was your own personal resurrector—and that night, when I knew and everyone knew that you weren’t going to survive if the ventricular arrhythmias continued, we talked. What’s wrong, I asked you, and you told me about men and women no one else saw and who talked to you, but also about a forest through a window and about feet that floated and about someone eating a woman’s neck, and you said you didn’t know who they were but they wouldn’t leave. There are more of them here, you told me; here, they scream. Your eyes had lost their shine. And I taught you the simplest method of blocking what was happening to you, the one I’d never needed but that the Englishwoman taught all the Order’s members. I put a hand on your stomach in just the way I’d heard her explain, and you recoiled a little, your body sick of being handled and hurt. Still, you endured it, and you learned the technique in seconds. There’d been no trick or illusion, you were the one we were waiting for, you were the medium, and when you stopped seeing what you’d been seeing you fell back on to the pillow, and gradually your breathing and your heart calmed down and you asked me, what do I do if they come back? and I said, for now, you repeat that same exercise. Oh, Juan, the trust of that first time. If only I could see your eyes one last time, before I enter the Darkness.
I brought you home with me when you recovered. We were never apart. When the Darkness you opened took my fingers, I could never again be inside you. I could only watch. Two more times. And that was all. And now the Darkness takes me: it eats my entrails first and there is no pain and I have time to think and try to see your eyes, but now they’re too far away, you’re far away now, and I ask the Darkness for compassion because now I hear it for the first time ever.
Compassion. And when the Darkness takes another bite and I smell its glee mixed with the scent of my blood, while I watch as it eats my hands, my shoulders, attacks my side, I remember how you told me once that the Darkness doesn’t understand, that it has no language, that it’s a savage or too-distant god. Will I be remembered as the man who found the medium and saved him more than once? Will they write about me, will my name be uttered in admiration? I must not think of my glory. Let it be secret if it must. I will stop pleading for compassion. There are no words from this world for the entrance into the Darkness, no words for the last bite.
III
The Bad Thing About Empty Houses
Buenos Aires, 1985–1986
I had very few years and I was already
firmly old
ELENA ANN?BALI, The House of Fog
Gaspar opened the window and felt the cold, wet drizzle on his skin. It was Saturday afternoon: the neighborhood bike shop would be open by now. He needed to bring his bike in to be fixed: he’d broken the chain and some spokes in a dumb accident that morning, when he’d clipped the curb on the corner by his house. He liked to ride very fast, especially on Saturdays, early, when the streets were empty. He had barely hurt himself, just a few scrapes on his elbows and knees, a scratched cheek.
He tried to leave the house quietly so he wouldn’t wake his father, but he was surprised to see him already awake, serious but serene, coming from the kitchen with a cup of tea. As always, there were no electric lights on in the house, only the TV in the living room, which was empty but for the yellow corduroy sofa that was so big it was practically a bed. When Juan saw Gaspar, he went over to him and switched on a small lamp on the floor. His other hand held a cigarette.
“You shouldn’t smoke,” said Gaspar.
“Don’t bust my balls.” Juan took Gaspar’s chin in his fingertips to get a look at the fresh scrape. Then he knelt down to inspect his pants, stained with grease from the bike chain.
“I fell.”
“Don’t lie to me. That’s your first warning.”
“I was riding fast and I hit a curb.”
Gaspar felt how his father came closer and sniffed at him in a way that struck him as . . . possessive? Something like that. As if he could eat him, but for real. Though it was also affectionate.
“How many times have I told you why you need to be careful? We’re alone. I’m sick. If they think I don’t take good care of you, they’ll come for you. They’ll separate us. I can’t be keeping tabs on you all the time.”
“I know. It was nothing.”
“Okay. Wash it well with soap.”
“I already used hydrogen peroxide and washed. You think the stain will come out of my jeans?”
“I have no idea,” Juan said, and took a long drag on the cigarette. He picked up the mug of tea he’d left on the floor and turned off the lamp. “If it doesn’t, you can buy another pair.”
“Are you okay, Dad?”
“Better. You?”
“Yeah. I’m going to the park to see if they can fix my bike. I’ll probably go around to Pablo’s, too.”
“Whatever you want. I’ll be in my room.”
“Upstairs or down?”
Juan hesitated a moment. Finally, he said: “Down.”
“I’ll be home later to sleep. Do you have food?”
Juan didn’t answer, but he came over to Gaspar and slowly opened the hand he had squeezed into a fist, rubbing his palm as if to warm it.
Pablo heard and then saw Gaspar and his bike rounding the corner. As always, the sight of his friend brought an automatic smile to his face, then he forced himself to be serious: he was ashamed to show how happy he was to see Gaspar. He wasn’t the only one who reacted like that. Everyone loved Gaspar, from the kiosk attendant to the corner grocer to the mechanic, not to mention almost all the parents and the girls who laughed when they saw him go by. Gaspar lived in a mansion and went to the most expensive school in the neighborhood, which was bilingual and had its own pool, but he didn’t act arrogant or make you feel like he had money, he was normal and generous and he’d lend you anything, clothes, a VCR, his video rental card, books. Gaspar’s life was very different from the others”： his father, who was sick and almost never left the house, didn’t work. A woman came to clean and cook for them: she left their food ready while Gaspar was at school, and he almost never saw her. Other visitors—lawyers and accountants, according to Gaspar—brought money and took care of the school tuition fees and the bills. No one lived like that, with everything just taken care of, at least no one Pablo knew. Even though the Petersons were rich, they didn’t live like rich people: they hardly had any things. But they never lacked for money, and if they ever needed something, those strange employees would appear right away, as if they were standing guard.