An unpredictable cloud of smoke forced him to move around constantly. He had nowhere to stand to avoid it. That day, grandpa mentioned how every January 1st, the wind blew in all four directions. The rest of the family watched him start the fire for the barbecue and his theory, once again, was proven.
It was a thick and humid beginning of the year. After eating, the family rested under the ombu tree like animals waiting for the storm. When the sky turned black, the women hurried to take everything inside: cups, chairs and the clothes hanging on the line. Then it began to rain, just like that, a curtain of water, hard and even.
Back inside the house, the grown-ups started to drink and play cards. The cousins played two full rounds of Estanciero and when the grown-ups, drowsy from the alcohol and the sound of the rain, fell asleep, the kids gathered in Luci’s room.
They turned off the lights and Paulo, the eldest of all five cousins, grabbed a flashlight and turned it on right under his chin. Every now and then a lightning bolt would startle them, but they knew that if any of them screamed, the grown-ups would come in to say it was late and time for bed. So they kept quiet or covered their mouths when they screamed.
Paulo started the first round with the story of three boys who went to bed one night, and when they became frightened, held hands from their beds. The next day, they realized the distance between their beds was too great for their own hands to have been the ones that grasped one another. The disturbing image in the book freaked them all out. Camila was the first to snatch the flashlight from Paulo. «Now me», she said.
She told the story of a woman got sick and spent days in bed, languishing and withering away. After her death the mystery was unveiled: a hideous bloodsucking creature living inside her pillow had been eating at her little by little. Paulo affirmed it was true, that there were bugs that sucked blood, like lice or mosquitoes, but bigger.
The aunt walked in the room to tell them it was time to go to bed. The cousins asked to sleep in the same room together. The aunt asked the other aunt and eventually they agreed. They laid four mattresses on the floor, one next to the other, and the five cousins lay down at tangents to one another to have more room.
As soon as the lights went out in the house, Luci turned the flashlight on again. They giggled at the sight of all of their pillows pushed away from them. They told a few jokes to distract themselves. Boredom took over, so they slowly began to fall asleep. Luci and Andrea were the last two awake. Their eyes wide open in the dark, they could see each other’s faces with every flash of lightning. The tree outside the window shook furiously. The girls squeezed each other’s hands without saying a word until it cleared up outside.
An hour later the noises began. The doors opened and closed, there were footsteps in the dark, the grown-ups tried to whisper. But nothing that happened in that house during the night, surrounded by the calm black field, went without notice.
The five cousins opened their eyes and began to wonder what was going on. Luci stood up in her pajamas and cracked the door. The uncle saw her and headed towards her right away. At the bedroom door, he told them to be quiet and stay in the room, that grandpa wasn’t feeling well, and then he closed the door. None of the cousins opened their mouths or closed their eyes again. Alert to everything that was going on outside, they only managed to overhear the uncles for a brief moment when they stood in front of the bedroom door. «I’ll take him in the car», said the first one. «No, the road is too muddy, you won’t make it to town. Let the two of us take him in the truck instead.»
They heard the uncle start the engine, creaking doors and hasty footsteps. The truck took off, and the cousins heard the women weep in the living room.
***
Mariana Graciano (Rosario 1982) studied literature at the Universidad de Buenos Aires. In 2010, she moved to New York to pursue an MFA in Creative Writing in Spanish at New York University. She is currently a Ph.D. student at the City University of New York. She has published plays, poems, and stories in anthologies and magazines in Argentina, Spain, and the United States. Her first book of stories, La visita (Demipage, 2013), earned the recognition of Talento FNAC (2013).
Kadiri J. Vaquer Fernández (1987, Puerto Rico) holds a BA from the University of Puerto Rico (2010) and an MFA from NYU (2012), both in creative writing. She is the author of the collection of poetry Andamiaje (San Juan: Ediciones Callejón, 2013). She has published Spanish translations of various poems by Charles Simic. Currently, Kadiri is a Ph.D. student in the Spanish and Portuguese department at Vanderbilt University.
***
Original: “El primero,” La visita. Mariana Graciano, Demipage, 2013.
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