Juan Saer - The One Before

He broke the watchthe glass that protected the great face whose Roman numerals ended in florid filigreesdelicatehe scattered the pieces onto the smoking heap of ash that two nights ago had been a flickering fire he himself had set

He had squatted for a momentutterly absorbed in the childish task of brushing all the gray, caked-on lumps of soot from the glassafterward he paused and gazed at his surroundings

It continued to drizzleslowly impalpablycondensingso that it looked more and more like mistexpanding toward the great circular horizon

His face remained firmer and calmer than if he had raised it to see the time on Big Ben

He was so accustomed to that plain which seemed to retreat before him even as he advanced that he felt for a moment the illusion of not having progressed at allhe had become so familiar with it and at the same time had always thought of himself as such a genteel and resigned sort of fellowthat the notion of wandering around in it for the past five dayshis horse had tripped in a ditchcracking one of its front hoovesthe notion of having walked around in circles without being able to find any point of reference a ranch a treeor any possibility of using the stars to guide him since it had not let up raining for more than a few hours in the whole five days and even when it had the sky had never fully clearedthe notion of being lost on the plainwithout a thing to eat without speaking anything but English without seeing another living thing besides some birdsblack stiff highin the airmigratingthey didn’t seem to elicit any emotion from himserene confirmationcold desperationperplexity

The moment before he broke the watch his perplexity had grown somewhatdiscovering that after having walked for two days straight and stopping only once in a while to catch his breathhe had arrived once more at the place where a brief respite from the rain had allowed him to light a weak fire in the hope that someone would notice its glowthe perplexity grew somewhat settling in his face in the form of a wry smile

Nobody had seen a thingnot the fire he had lit nor the other firesthe ruddy face with bluish bags under the eyesthe red hair surrounding his large balding forehead and patethe unrelenting water makes them glisten

Again he has come to the place where he lit the firehe removed the watch from his packbroke itscattered the little shards of glass onto the ash heapsquatting

He stopped and gazed toward the horizon el pajonal he didn’t know the straw was called thatit extended all the way to the uniform horizonmonotonously

He was up to his hips in itstraw

Sometimesthere were little clearings between the tufts of grassa man could lie down there and disappearone had to be there to know such clearings existed

When he advanced the blades of grass whipped open and then closed behind himhe stoppedturned aroundnot even a trace of his passagehe was going in circles and couldn’t tell the differencenot at allhis language his memory said I have gone in circlesI have gone in circles I wasn’t always looking this way

He can’t detect the smallest difference

It’s precisely the samethe rain is denser or more transparent closer or farther away from the horizonthe gray skybelowthe straw el pajonal he didn’t know it was called thatto the horizongray uniform monotonous

Reasonably and gracefully I acceptI have gone in circlesI’m facing the other directionNow I’m calling out againI’m in the same place againI thinkI persevereJeremy Blackwood in the name of the companyestablishes the cardinal directionsI’ll find the salting room

He looked at the ash heapthe broken watchscattering he continued to walk

He walked some incalculable interval

blackness more even than the straw and denser than the rainwhipped by the supple blades of grassimmersed to the hipsit rang in his mind in his memoryfor hourseven if it paused for a moment it did not crackHe could not filter the silence

A dry snap ending in a sort of slipping snappingback in place the blades of grass unleashedthatnoise and made it swayingand resounding

He awoke

Everything remained thereidenticalsevereimplacablethe rain the sky the horizon the straw

I know I’ve gone forwardthe company from Londonhe knew he was walking and advancingI seeat dawn a point identical to the restan identical pointbut not the sameI’m sureit is my own wordagainst the rain the sky the horizon the straw

He pants

Everything is wetthe leather sacktwisted stuck to his bodythe waterdrippingover his facehis carrot-red locksdarkly blazing

He walked all dayI’m going to stop when the water stopsstopping only to catch his breaththe night came and the mist

He stopped

He toppled forwardonto the straw blades that opened and closed like a whip

He remained sleepingstill

At dawn his dreams unfurleda phosphorescent screenhe saw Londonfloatingilluminated like a transparent cathedralLondonred bricksthe sound of carriages resounding on the pavementgossips calling out from window to windowmarketsshort pyramids of tomatoesfish laid out smooth and open like womenlive shrimps dragging themselves across the fishmonger’s counterlewd red beefsteak dismemberedprostitutes flashing their sin-stained titslittle boys running among the merchantsmusic from taverns and from the blind beggars rising above the throng

He awoke immobilizedhis face squashed against the straw moved a bithis eyes still closedhis smile shattered by his position and the shivering

I will get to the salting house because the company has chosen medignified honored predestinedJeremy Blackwood redheaded and well bred with the reasoning and the memory of his stationto defeatthe temptation of the identical of the immobile

Blessed be London

Blessed be the throng that walks its benevolent pavements

Blessed be the light that shines from the windows of its houses

Blessed be the noise and the color of the cities

Jeremy satslowlyhe kept his eyes open for a momentproud

He lowers his head and sees againthe blackened ash heapthe scattered shards of glass the broken open watchthe great face whose Roman numerals ended in florid filigreesdelicate

Glory

To English travelers and more than anything

Glory

To Jeremy Blackwood who left not a trace of his journey

Nothingness doesn’t occupy my thoughts so much as my life, I read, some days ago, in a letter from Pigeon Garay. I don’t give it the least thought all day; and I spend all night having dirty dreams. It must be because nothingness is a certainty, and there is a race of men, to which, presumably, I must belong, who only dance to the music of the uncertain.

That’s the kind of thing that, occasionally, from abroad, I receive from Pigeon Garay. Or this: “Living abroad doesn’t leave a trace, only memories. Often memories live outside us: a Technicolor film for which we are the screen. When the projection ends, darkness overcomes us again. Traces, on the other hand, which come from deeper, are the mark that accompanies us, deforms us and molds our face, like a punch molds a boxer’s nose. One is always traveling while abroad. Children don’t travel, they just expand their native country.”

Another of his letters brought the following reflection: Garlic and the summer are two traces that always come to me from far away. Being foreign is a complex, useless mechanism that has taken garlic and the summer from me. When I find garlic and the summer again, foreignness demonstrates their unreality. I am trying to tell you that being foreign — that is, my life for the past six years — is a moronic circle, or perhaps a spiral, that pulls me around, again and again, level with the center, but a bit further away each time. Re-reading this, I can confirm as usual that I have left the essential thing unsaid.