The Tuner of Silences (4 page)

For years, my father was a gentle soul, his arms enveloped the earth, and the most time-honoured tranquillities nestled in their embrace. Even though he was such a strange and unpredictable creature, I saw old Silvestre as the only harbinger of truth, the sole foreteller of futures.

Now, I know: my father had lost his marbles. He noticed things that no one else acknowledged. These apparitions occurred mainly during the great winds that
sweep across the savannah in September. For Silvestre, the wind was ghosts dancing. Windswept trees became people, the lamenting dead and trying to pull their own roots up. That's what Silvestre Vitalício said, shut away in his room and barricaded behind windows and doors, waiting for calmer weather.

—
The wind is full of sickness, the wind is just one big contagious disease.

On those tempestuous days, the old man would not allow anyone to leave the room. He would call me to remain by his side, while I tried in vain to nourish silence. I was never able to calm him down. In the rustling of the leaves, Silvestre heard engines, trains, cities in movement. Everything that he tried so hard to forget was brought to him by the whistling of the wind in the branches.

—
But Father
—I ventured,—
why are you so scared?

—
I'm a tree
—he explained.

A tree, yes, but without its natural roots. He was anchored in alien soil, in that fluid country he had invented for himself. His fear of apparitions worsened as time progressed. From trees, it spread to night's dark corners and to the earth's womb. At one stage, my father ordered the well to be covered over when the sun went down. Fearsome and malevolent creatures might emerge from such a gaping hole. This vision of monsters bursting from the ground filled me with fear.

—
But Father, what things can come out of the well?

There were certain reptiles I didn't know about, that scratch around in tombs and bring back bits of Death itself under their nails and between their teeth. These lizards climb up the dank sides of wells, invade one's sleep and moisten the bed sheets of grown-ups.

—
That's why you can't sleep next to me.

—
But I'm scared, Father. I just wanted you to let me sleep in your room.

My brother never commented on my wish to sleep close to my father. In the dead of night, he would watch me creep furtively along the hall and stake out my place near the forbidden entrance to my father's quarters. Many times Ntunzi came and fetched me, lying like a rag on the floor and fast asleep.

—
Come back to your bed. Father mustn't find you here.

I would follow him, too dazed to be grateful. Ntunzi would lead me back to bed and once, he even took my hand and said:

—
Do you think you're scared? Well you may as well know that Father is much more scared.

—
Father?

—
Do you know why Father doesn't want you there in his room? Because he's scared to death that you'll catch him talking in his sleep.

—
Talking about what?

—
Inadmissible things.

Once again, it was Dona Dordalma, our absent mother, who was the cause of such strange behaviour. Instead of fading away into the distant past, she invaded the fissures of silence within night's recesses. And there was no way of putting the ghost to rest. Her mysterious death, without cause or visibility, had not stolen her from the world of the living.

—
Father, has mother died?

—
Four hundred times.

—
What?

—
I've told you, four hundred times: your mother died, every little bit of her, it's as if she was never alive.

—
So where's she buried?

—
She's buried everywhere, of course.

So maybe that was it: my father had emptied the world so as to be able to fill it with his inventions. At first, we were bewitched by the flighty birds that emerged from his speech and curled upwards like smoke.

—
The world: do you want to know what it's like?

Our eyes answered by themselves. Yes of course, we yearned to know about it, as if the ground on which we stood depended on it.

—
Well, the world, children . . .

And he would pause, his head swaying as if his ideas were being weighed, now this way, now that. Then, he would get to his feet, repeating with a cavernous voice:

—
The world, my children . . .

In the beginning, I was afraid of these ruminations. Maybe my father just didn't know how to answer, and I found such weakness difficult to bear. Silvestre Vitalício knew everything and his absolute knowledge was the home that gave me protection. It was he who conferred names on things, it was he who baptized trees and snakes, it was he who foresaw winds and floods. My father was the only God we'd been given.

—
All right, you deserve to know, I'm going to tell you about the world . . .

He began to sigh, and I began to sigh. Words had returned to him after all, and the light he cast brought me back once more to the firm ground of certainty.

—
Well it's all perfectly simple, children: the world has died, and all that's left is Jezoosalem.

—
Don't you think there might be a woman survivor out there?
—My brother once suggested.

Silvestre raised an eyebrow. Ntunzi backed off, knowing his question was provocative: without women, we would have no seeds left. Father raised his arms and covered his head with them in an almost childlike response. Ntunzi repeated his theme, as if he were scraping a fingernail across glass.

—
Without women, there's no seed left . . .

Silvestre's abruptness re-affirmed the old, but never openly stated prohibition: women were a forbidden subject, more so even than prayer, more sinful than tears or song.

—
I won't have this talk. Women are forbidden to come here, and I don't even want to hear the word spoken . . .

—
Calm down, Father, I just wanted to know . . .

—
We don't talk about these things in Jezoosalem. Women are all . . . they're all whores.

We'd never heard him utter such a word. But it was as if a knot had been untied. From then on, for us, the term “whore” became another word to mean “woman.” And on occasions when Aproximado forgot himself and launched forth on the subject of women, my old man would stumble through the house shouting:

—
They're all whores!

For Ntunzi, such strange behaviour was proof of Silvestre Vitalício's growing insanity. As far as I was concerned, my father was suffering, at the most, from a passing illness. It was this infirmity that had us digging the rock-hard soil to make dry, lifeless wells, right in the middle of winter, precisely when the clouds were at their most barren.

At the end of the day, our father would inspect these skeletal pits, scratched out amid clods of earth and grit. To check the effectiveness of our toil, he would begin his inspection like this: A long rope was attached to Ntunzi's feet and he was lowered down into the rocky opening. We watched apprehensively, as he was gobbled up by the depths, barely connected to the world of the living. In Silvestre's hands, the taut rope was the opposite of an umbilical cord. My brother was hoisted back up to the surface, only for us to then go and open up another hole. We would end the day exhausted, covered in sand, our hair matted with dust. Occasionally, I would venture to ask:

—
Why are we digging, Father?

—
It's just for God to see. Just for Him to see.

God never did see, for where we were was too remote. Heavenly manna was never going to be poured into the
burning pan of those holes. Silvestre wanted to render the Creator's work ugly, like that jealous husband who deformed his wife's face so that no one else could enjoy her beauty. His explanation, however, was completely different: the wells were nothing less than traps.

—
Traps? To catch which animals?

—
They're other animals, ones that have come from afar. I can already hear them on the prowl near here.

No matter how doubtful we were, we knew we wouldn't get any further explanations. A vague feeling that something inevitable was imminent came to dominate old Vitalício. The orders we began to get became more and more erratic. For example, under orders from Silvestre, I, my brother and Zachary Kalash began to sweep the footpaths. The verb “to sweep” was only correct in our father's language. For it was a kind of reverse sweeping: instead of clearing the paths, we spread dirt, twigs, stones and seeds over them. What, in fact, were we doing? In those nascent paths, we were killing any propensity they might have to grow and become roads. And in this way, we stifled any possible destination at birth.

—
Why are we wiping out the road, Father?

—
I've never seen a road that wasn't sad
—he answered without taking his eyes from the wicker that he was plaiting to make a basket.

And as my brother wouldn't give up, so demonstrating his dissatisfaction with the answer, my father elaborated his argument. We could see very well what the road brought with it.

—
It brings Uncle Aproximado and our provisions.

Silvestre pretended not to hear and continued impassively:

—
Waiting. That's what the road brings. And it's waiting that makes us grow old.

So we went back to being imprisoned under barren clouds and aged skies. In spite of our solitude, we couldn't complain
of having nothing to do. Our daily lives were regulated from sunrise to sunset.

The cycles of light and of the day were a serious matter in a world where the idea of a calendar had been lost. Every morning, our old man would inspect our eyes, peering closely into our pupils. He wanted to make sure we had witnessed the sunrise. This was the first duty of living creatures: to watch the creator's star emerge. By the light preserved in our eyes, Silvestre Vitalício knew when we were lying and when we had allowed ourselves too much time between the sheets.

—
That pupil's full of night.

At the end of the day, we had other obligations that were equally inviolate. When we came to say good night, Silvestre would ask:

—
Have you hugged the earth, son?

—
Yes, Father.

—
Both arms open on the earth?

—
A hug like the one Father taught us to give.

—
Well, go to bed then.

As a rule, he retired early, and didn't stay up after sunset. We would accompany him to his room and line up while he settled himself in his bed. Then, with a vague gesture, he would say in a husky voice:

—
You can go now. I've already started to leave my body.

The next moment, he was asleep. That was when our home-made miracle would occur: candles would light up all by themselves in every corner of the house. Later, when I was already in bed, I would hear Ntunzi blowing firmly, ushering in the kingdom of the owls and of nightmares. From time to time, I would see my brother sleepwalking, exclaiming in a voice that wasn't his own:

—
Mateus Ventura, you're going to burn in the depths of hell!

Even when he was asleep, my elder brother had to contest paternal authority. The name, Mateus Ventura, was one
of the unmentionable secrets of Jezoosalem. In fact, Silvestre Vitalício had once had another name. Before, he had been called Ventura. When we moved to Jezoosalem, my father bestowed new names on us. Having been re-baptized, we were born anew. And we became even more deprived of a past.

The change in names was not a decision that was taken lightly. Silvestre prepared a ritual with due pomp and circumstance. As soon as the sun set, Zachary started to beat a drum and to recite, at the top of his voice, some impenetrable litany. Uncle, my brother and I gathered in the little square. There we stood, in silence, awaiting an explanation for why we had been summoned. That was when Silvestre Vitalício entered the square, wrapped in a sheet. He carried a piece of wood, and advanced towards the crucifix with the air of a prophet. He stuck the wood in the soil, and we could then see that it was a sign, upon which a name had been carved in bas-relief. Spreading his arms wide, my father proclaimed:

—
This is the last surviving country and it's going to be called Jezoosalem.

Thereupon, he asked Zachary to bring him a can of water. He sprinkled a few drops on the ground, but then thought better of it. He didn't want to give the dead anything to drink. He scratched the earth with his foot until all vestiges had been erased. Having remedied his lapse, he announced in a solemn voice:

—
Let us now proceed to the de-baptism ceremony.

And so we were each called forward in turn as follows: Orlando Macara (our dear Uncle Godmother) became Uncle Aproximado. My elder brother, Olindo Ventura, was transformed into Ntunzi. The assistant, Ernie Scrap, was renamed Zachary Kalash. And Mateus Ventura, my tormented progenitor, transformed himself into Silvestre Vitalício. I was the only one who kept the same name: Mwanito.