I grew wings, very white ones, my dress grew. I began to fly. I didn’t want to go back, ever. I reached a roof; they thought I was a stork, a great angel; the women screamed; the men prowled with occulted desires.
I couldn’t go back, ever.
I drift, I drift.
The crowds come back from the parties, they stay up late;
And I fly by again.
*
We resolved to continue stealing. But separately. Estrella, for her side; me, for mine. There’re auspicious nights. The sky turns orange, rose cyclamen. The orange trees, wholly black. The birds come back; it’s important to be careful because they whistle, circle above. I know which branch to take. I don’t know where Estrella will wander. The landowners of the orchards pass by. With their bags and serving trays. They carry a lamb, recently born or recently slaughtered. Pears and apples, clusters of lilacs. Will there be a wedding? At midnight, everything falls motionless. I go down. I search for a little path, looking to see if, by the next, Estrella comes. I pass by the thick leaves of the tartar tree and the round leaves of violet. I enter the house; there’s no time to hesitate. I continue to go lightly around the cupboards and dressers, I steal from the boxes. Someone gives a scream; others scream. I flee. I don’t know if, over there, they wait with hatchets, or if it was only a scream.
The moon leaves everything white, and the hiding places, blacker.
Estrella comes, swiftly, with her haul.
And we disappear into the land.
*
. . . Her mother came, María-Ana, Ana-María, she came from Lusana, from the native forest. With a blue cloak and a little basket of strawberries. Since she died at the age of forty, she’s a girl, a girl came to see her. And she recounted, how over there, long ago, the army of wolves was formed—this, I already knew—and it commanded all of the land, how it had lieutenants, soldiers, and colonels; and the cousin Ugo who declared war and won. And the snow, from which the sweetest lilies appeared, which they called “birds” or “handkerchiefs.”
I looked at her further and strawberries sprang up from her hand; she, too, was miraculous.
She said: — I’m going to take it.
I said: — How?
She said:
— Flying . . .
And she disappeared.
She looked like him and like me.
Only that time (when he died) did I see her.
*
When I was born, there were many figs. That can’t be, they’ll say, if it was winter and it was cold.
Nonetheless it happened; they were in all the trees, even the ones that weren’t fig trees, and in the midst of the flowers. Dark, light-blue, or pink; some originally came with a violet or a coin. Or with a pearl embedded in the center (they never gave it all away). Or they detached turning like stars contained in colored rings, until almost lifeless they returned to their place.
There was a scent of syrup and lilies.
In the middle of my first cry, as it was a few minutes after my birth, I said to my mother: There are figs.
And my mother smiling, looked at my grandmother Rosa, and said: Look how she speaks.
And my grandmother came close, too close, with eyes lowered, a fixed smile, and a tremendous crown of black figs, thick and tormented.
*
Last night, the bats arrived.
If I don’t call them, they, still, arrive.
They arrived in a cluster of black wings.
They fell inside my white dress. By all the roses and camellias that I’ve picked over the years. And in the basket of carnations and freesias. The Virgin María gave a scream and ran through all the rooms; her hair touched the ground and the dahlias.
The pearls, the almonds, and the pastilles, the fruits of syrup and crystal, which lived in the fruit bowls and porcelain boxes, turned black, and turned light again, but like the dead.
I rose up. My white handkerchief and my throat dripped blood.
*
I, as a girl, —not now—could see in the dark. At night my eyes were two turquoises, two brilliant grapes, and I’d get out of bed. Mama, already sleeping, from her deep sleep, said out loud: “Don’t go out, hunter.” But, I went out about the balls of wool, the trees, and nests. With fine little teeth, I bit into a small egg, yellow like a candy, and other trees and nests. Really, I never caused much harm. By the cupboard, a little snack, light-blue or pink, returning to bed. And at dawn, Mama, already standing next to me, or the dishes, said: I don’t know . . . Last night, I dreamed that . . .
*
I have a fever, Papa, I am hot, cold; take care of the house chores, the little animals, the rats (black ones, white ones, brown ones, gray ones); leave them something, bread, syrup, confetti.
. . . But, you continue digging in the orchard of orange trees.
I see you behind the wide window.
You go on and on in the immense orchard of oranges.
You don’t come to check if I sleep, get better, marry, die, fall from the bed.
Days go by, months, years.
Kites hang from the ceiling, sheer and celestial, tails of chiffon, gold eyes.
And there’re jasmines on the altar. (A little basket.) Mama is saying really strange things about them.
And you don’t say anything,
won’t you come listen?
*
I sat down among the pansies. The black masks, color of grape; black, white, pink, and yellow, overlapping.
It was night, and I stayed sitting among the pansies. I couldn’t leave. My hair began to grow, across the entire garden, the field, it went very far, as far as the forest, from which it sent cryptic messages, which sounded in my ear like if they were talking to me on the telephone.
And around the devil-like masks, the masked flowers, black, color of grape . . . I almost levitated; I left. I don’t know how I gathered up the little skirt and the fantastic hair.
*
Dahlias traipsing through all of existence. Red, black, round like plates. Thick-blooded, perfumed. Fruitcake wine.
They can be white or yellow. But, the real ones are red, they were black.
One day someone passed by with a blue dahlia. And held it between two hands.
Dahlias in the center of the table and at the bedside. They spied on the marriage of my parents, the birth basket; the women, when they marry, they dress in dahlias, and when they die, they wear dahlias.
There were bells, clocks: the twisted right hands hit twelve every night and every day.
The voice of the wind says: Dahlias . . . Delias.
And the masked ones go down the last hills.
*
They tell me that mama gave birth below a jasmine, which had its little ivory roses open. (In my district this bush is sacred, and everyone born there, secretly were also jasmines), and this marked me forever. And, nearby, they made appear children, foxes, a bicolored weasel, other vermin.
And a crown of canaries, gilded like gold, circled around my mother’s head, disturbing and haloing her, while she gave birth.
And that the sky caused dread with all of its candles low and flickering, the afternoon that followed my birth.
