Alberto Vazquez-Figueroa - One Hundred Years Later

“And what’s wrong with being Siberian?”

“He insisted that we moved to Siberia. One spring he even took me there and my fingers went so numb that I couldn’t paint or play. I think he did it on purpose.”

“Did what on purpose?”

“Be Siberian; it was a shame because I actually loved him.”

Aurelia missed her aunt dearly but was glad that she was away at that time, especially on the dreadful morning in which her father felt forced to kill a pregnant woman.

The poor man was so troubled by what he had done that he refused to eat for three days, and if he ate again it was only because he knew that if he disappeared, so would his family.

His brother could not manage on his own and would eventually break down too, just as he had when he was widowed.

Forgetting lively Tatiana had taken Samuel three years of wandering the world dragging his sorrow. During that time he worked any job that came his way, anything that would not even closely remind him of the happier times when they still lived under the roof of the patriarch, to whom they almost gave a grandson.

Chapter II

She dreamed of dead children, and not because her father had stopped one from entering this world, but because some kind of “thing” or virus, call it what you will, was stopping millions of children from arriving at this world.

But what would they come here for? They would die suffering or live terrorized…

Someone once wrote that fear of death was worse than death itself, and Aurelia could confirm the truth in that statement even though she had never herself died.

When she woke up at dawn and gained consciousness of the world’s happenings, her heart sank so deep that she wondered how it could keep finding its way back to her chest.

At those times, she sought refuge in books, especially in those where women and men throughout History, braved the most terrible adversities. It sometimes cheered her up, but there were days when she felt disheartened as it dawned on her that none of these characters had ever faced an enemy of such cunning.

This enemy did not fire canyons, or carry a sword, it did not drop bombs or poison; neither did it shoot from behind or burn people at stakes. All it did was let his chosen ones move freely in search of new chosen ones who could continue to move around freely.

Its canny soldiers, true members of the fifth column, infiltrated in the enemy’s lines. They had no faith or flag–or maybe it is fitter to say that they belonged to all faiths and kneeled before all flags, unaware of the fact that they were unflinchingly and blindly following the orders of a quiet general that never tired of winning battles.

Alexander conquered Persia, Julius Caesar, Egypt–including its Queen–, and Napoleon occupied half of Europe, but a despicable virus who had never pronounced a single order or word, had become the absolute owner of every existing nation, as well as of all of those that had ever existed in History.

Only a ridiculous bastion resisted surrender, but it was just a matter of time before it fell too. After all, there was no Asterix or Obelix in that farm, nor any old druids capable of making magic potions that increased ones’ strength and courage.

The only potion in that fragile stronghold was the chicory coffee that Aurelia’s mother made, because real coffee was no longer available. This had deeply affected her father and uncle, who scowled and cursed under their breaths every time they drank the bitter thing.

As compensation, her father returned to smoking and Aurelia found this relapse somewhat funny, as he had spent the last three years congratulating himself every night at dinnertime for having had the courage to give up the damned vice.

In the afternoons, he often sat on the rocking chair out on the porch, lit his dark, wooden pipe and rested for a while, wrapped up in even darker thoughts.

Aurelia watched him from her window and interpreted his mood in the rising smoke, like a Native American reading a message in a faraway fire.

Slow and paced combustion followed by a soft puff told her that he was in peace with himself and that it would be matter of minutes before he drifted to sleep. If he breathed in all at once and then followed it with a nervous cough or a thick stream of smoke, it meant that a wave of fear, anxiety or bitter memories of the death of the innocent had come over him.

How many had fallen already?

At home, nobody wished to count.

***

One rainy morning a man stopped by the fence, his face had once been in the cover of every newspaper cover and appeared of often on TV.

He had become immensely rich and was known for his generosity with the least fortunate, but now he stood there with a ragged jacket and ruined shoes.

He stared immobile at the signs.

“No trespassing. Danger of death”.

“You are only authorized to get water and cheese”.

The man walked up to the chest, opened it and studied its contents. He chose a piece of the toughest cheese, raised his hand in gratitude and left the way he had come.

“I’m glad I didn’t have to shoot him; I’ve got a friend who used to work for him and who held him in the highest regard.”

“Is your friend still alive?”

“I don’t know, but wherever he is he’ll be grateful that I fed the man who once gave him enough to put food on his table.”

Aurelia did not wish to ask what her father would have done had it been his friend standing by the fence, because she knew the answer too well. Bonds of friendship no longer existed, in that regard the villain’s victory had been thorough, placing the question of whether it was worth to carry on fighting.

If the pandemic had not made its appearance it would have been that very month at the beginning of summer when Aurelia would have packed her suitcases and left her home to study Fine Arts and become a woman as fabulous as her aunt.

Except for the accordion, of course.

No accordion, no guitar, not even a bandurria, because there was no need to be an orchestra conductor to know that her family’s fate was nowhere close to the path of music.

Aurelia was not sure that her aunt had ever got any close to being a competent restorer, but the mere fact of feeling close to Anabel and grasp a small part of her wonderful “art of living” was enough.

Maybe Anabel could even help her achieve her secret dream to become a magician.

It was not really “secret”, since she had used every member in the house as audience to test her newest tricks; from making eggs disappear to turning a bunny into a chicken or having them take out the same card of the deck every time.

When she was still a little girl, her grandfather used to tell her:

“Don’t place too much trust in your fingers’ abilities; they are deceitful things. I had three that abandoned me in a single day.”

Despite all, she still trusted her fingers, although now that she lacked an audience, she could hardly practice her tricks.

The only one who showed some enthusiasm towards her tricks was Coco, but the poor beast was so dim that he even had a hard time learning to bark threateningly.

If a stranger, no matter how bad they looked, turned up at the other side of the fence, all Coco did was wag his tail and wait for his “bosses” to join him. These were two massive mastiffs who really knew how to make an impression by snarling and baring their teeth.

Even if the heat encouraged the sick to stay in their homes and await their fate with resignation, it did not dissuade the hungry, who left in search of anything that might soothe their pangs.

But there was nothing left.

Five weeks after the first alarms set off, and even though it happened within Chinese borders, the citizens of the world’s largest cities threw themselves like a plague at the supermarkets, leaving the shelves so empty that looking at them was painful.