Armonía Somers - The Naked Woman

The crowd marched down a path flanked by apple trees laden with fruit, some of which gleamed amid the leaves the way they do in postcards, while others had already fallen heavily to the ground. The two-footed ants had forgotten everything, even that ripe apples don’t last on the branches for long. Everything except the woman, and now, of course, the cloak. Juan’s stupid gesture had been like a slap in the face. Now that she was covered, they felt disappointed somehow. How could the Naked Woman they had dreamed of for so long have become this forest ranger with long hair and an effeminate face? But naked or not, there she was, finally, as real as Juan and his lamp, or the dog standing next to them.

The crowd turned onto the main street that led to the village hall, growing as it went. The buildings on either side began to spit out eyes, legs, clubs, and dirty words, not to mention a sizable pack of mongrels that perfectly suited their masters. The sun, meanwhile, had grown unbearable. The smell of the dry wooden houses, sweating trees, and cracked earth was overpowering; this was especially true for the woman’s feet, which lacked the same resilience. Her wounds were raw. Her rest behind the haystack had barely helped, and now she was being forced to walk again over burning dust and rough, hypocritical stones. In addition to the cloak, she also had to put up with a sudden change in pace. She had been swept into an angry, suffocating world where for some reason she was supposed to wear a yellow raincoat. She rebelled for a moment, planning to shrug it off and throw it at her stunned entourage so she could continue on in her true form, the way they had first known her, but then she remembered the tenderness of the man with the lamp; she had experienced it so recently it could hardly be forgotten. Of course, he was no longer the same man as the one from the haystack, with his lovely waist, pure kisses, and desire. All that was left of him was a poor delivery man trying to shield her from the wolves with a cloak. She would have liked to look upon him as she had before, but was afraid of how much he might have changed, that he would now be a poor, terrified approximation. Just minutes after she had experienced true meaning, these ridiculous animals had replaced her man with a cheap forgery. They thought she was an imposter too. They were capable of making an imposter of God himself in their desperation to have Him cast judgment. But there was always the sun. She felt it in her wounded feet. It wouldn’t let up for a second, and it would end up burning their fields, drying the udders of their cows, depriving them of every last drop of water.

Finally, the villagers arrived. She could tell from the change in the murmuring around her. Everyone was saying something different, and the resulting sticky mixture suggested that some kind of climax was imminent. The crowd began to convulse; everyone wanted to be at the front, to take the lead in the capital proceedings. So long as it wasn’t their death being discussed , she thought sympathetically. For that they’d want to be last in line.

But what, in fact, were they planning to do? She hadn’t considered this on the way here. Her lovely, empty head had had no time for the risky, futile business of analytical thought. The heat, a panting mouth, the smell of dry wood, painful feet, the fleeting temptation to pull off the cloak: that was as much as she had been able to process. She had been so ready to defend herself that she wasn’t able to ask any questions, not that she wanted to. The only thing that bothered her was that the bells had stopped ringing over to her left. The noise had ceased suddenly, with a strange final clang, as if the metal domes had hurried down the stairs to see what was going on outside. The crowd was disfigured by the silence. The noise had filled it close to bursting, and now it was experiencing what a woman who has just given birth feels the first time she puts her hand on her stomach. But the stupor gave way to voices and questions: Who was she? Who was going to hand her over, defend her, judge her? The twins? Juan? His wife and son? The dog, perhaps?

Clearly, she was collective property. According to the youngest legend in the world, she had stolen someone’s bread, bitten into someone else’s fruit, and drank another person’s wine. And they were all afraid of how she had chewed up their brains, how they had instinctively set out to hunt her, how she had incited all those bodies to look for her. A new madness was now unleashed: the appropriation of all possessions belonging to Juan, the man who had found her. The man’s wealth was so great that even though his feat had transformed him into a kind of demigod, they could not forgive him. Their hatred of the twins lessened, shifted focus over to him. Now heads were merging together to outthink that of a single fool, their individual ambitions forming a new whole that would act in one voice. Juan unwittingly found himself at the center of a trance that was expanding at bewildering speed.

The woman understood the danger of their situation. Had she, a naked, destitute woman, really caused all this madness? Or was she being used as an excuse for something already lurking inside of them? Whatever the cause, the hostility was certainly intensifying. They came at Juan with axes, pitchforks, and shovels. She instinctively put out an arm to protect him: a pointless, childish gesture. The men, egged on by the leonine fury of their scorned women, knocked both woman and lamp to the ground. She got back up painfully. The general consensus seemed to be that this was the best way to cut Juan down to size. They dimly sensed that by dispossessing Juan, in addition to taking away his illicit wealth, they could disgrace him, make an example of his joy. The woman, in her nakedness, had reminded them too vividly of what they kept under their own clothes. The creature had cast a spell over their beds and unveiled the terror in their souls, laying their nightmares, resentment, and petty miseries bare for all to see. For a long time, they had been happy in their wooden houses, but now, suddenly, someone had told them about iron and glass. And one of their own was now the enemy because he had allied himself with this stranger’s revolutionary passion. If he protects her, he loves her, and if he loves her on his own, he is against us , they thought. We would have handed her over naked beforehand or taken her together.

“Kill her!”

The stark, menacing words exploded in Juan’s eardrums. He embraced the woman, feeling that she belonged to him now more than ever: an oddly intimate moment in broad daylight in the middle of the street. It was then that the villagers’ hatred, only temporarily diverted, rained down upon his body. He collapsed, two blows from a shovel to the back of his head and his spine propelling him forward. They had to make room for him to fall to the ground, a lost pine in the forest.

The enormity of this event was too much for them. Juan lay injured on the ground, and several tongues froze in their mouths. But more knew just how to rile the crowd back up again.

“And now her! The naked beast!”

They were spurred on by a voice that, insofar as it was recognizable, belonged to the withered man in charge of ringing the bells. Their hammers, pitchforks, and shovels were raised once more. But then an unexpected cry was heard.

“Fire! Fire!”

They spun around like a collective top. For reasons unknown, whether because of the heat of the sun or an errant candle knocked over in the commotion, the church, wooden like every other building in the village, had burst into flames.

“Fire! Fire!”

They knew that fire couldn’t possibly be extinguished by more fire, but still they spat the word back at the flames. It had all happened too fast. Now that they’d taken a moment to work out what was going on, it was all they could do to scream their heads off.