Obabakoak Read online

  Summing up, one of them said: “We always arrive after the film’s started, and it seems stupid to me to cycle three miles only to miss half the plot. It would make much better sense to stick together.”

  Their arguments were, as I said, rather clumsy; in fact the service tended to finish later rather than earlier. I said nothing to contradict them, though. Deep down I wanted to go to church. Not just because it was forbidden territory, and therefore desirable, but also because of the need I felt to be a normal child, to be one of the boys. Apart from my father, I was the only person in Obaba who had never set foot in that building and, naturally—I was after all only fourteen—I didn’t like being marked out as different.

  Their proposal was in line with my own desires, therefore, and I didn’t argue with what they said. I simply indicated the door of the library, where my father was working. It was his permission they required. No, I didn’t dare to ask him, it was best that they should do so. Not that I thought he would agree. I expected my father to dismiss them in a loud voice, declaring that he had no intention of going against the principles of a lifetime on that or any other Sunday.

  Instead I heard him say: “If he wants to go, let him.” I felt first surprised, then frightened; it was as if every pane of glass in the window had suddenly shattered. Why did he say yes? I couldn’t even begin to imagine why.

  A swan stood at the door of its house making loud honking noises, as if to reproach the continuing rain. It rained on and on, flattening the grass and forming puddles that grew ever deeper. Soon the whole park would be awash.

  Esteban Werfell clasped his hands and rested them on the notebook. No, at fourteen he couldn’t possibly have understood his father, because at that age, he saw him not with his own eyes, but through the eyes of others, through the eyes of those who, he later realized, were his father’s declared enemies. In Obaba it was said that Engineer Werfell was a proud, intractable man and that’s what he thought too. It was said—a little girl who played with him in the square told him this—that he was so cruel he beat the mine workers; and Esteban would simply smile and nod. Indeed he accepted that image because he had no other. What was his father? Just that, his father. And beyond that? Beyond that, nothing. Well, apart from being a mining engineer.

  But that time had passed. He was a grown man, not a rather unsympathetic adolescent. He thought now that he understood why his father had accepted his school friends’ proposal.

  “Sheer weariness,” he sighed. He was beginning to enjoy the rain. It was helping him to remember.

  Engineer Werfell had indeed grown weary, he regretted having left his native city of Hamburg to move to a place where all his ideas seemed ridiculous. At first, he dreamed of returning. “We’ll go back, Esteban, and you can study at the same university I went to.” Those words ran like a refrain throughout his childhood.

  But then the bad news began to arrive. One day it was the mine closing down; the next it was the failure of the bonds he’d bought on the Stock Exchange, leaving him almost penniless; then came the letter from his best friend, Theodor Steiner, telling him that the association to which they both belonged—the Eichendorff Club—had been banned in Germany and that his ideas were now outlawed even in the country of his birth.

  By the time Esteban was fourteen, his father had given up hope. He would die in Obaba, he would never return to Germany. His son would never study at a German university. It was logical then, given the circumstances, that he no longer had the strength to fight for his son’s education. What did it matter? “If he wants to go, let him.” The battle was lost anyway.

  The swan standing at the door of his house honked again, this time managing to get all the other swans inside to join him. The din distracted him from his memories.

  “Be quiet!” he shouted, and went on to wonder: Why was he so proud? He didn’t want to cut the thread at that moment joining him and his father.

  If he’d been more humble, Engineer Werfell would have been better able to accept life in Obaba. If he’d been more intelligent too. Yes, that was what real intelligence was, the ability to adapt to any situation. A man able to adapt would never know that descent into hell. On the contrary, he would achieve happiness. What use had all his books, reading, and ideas been to his father? In the end he’d been defeated. “Only the mean of spirit adapt to life,” his father used to say. But he didn’t agree with him anymore. Nor did he agree with the old maxim coupling knowledge and suffering, or with the one that says the more a man knows, the more he suffers. As he used to say to his students, that unfortunate consequence came only after climbing the first rungs up the ladder of knowledge. As a man climbed higher, he had to learn to triumph over suffering.

  The swans seemed to have quieted down. Esteban Werfell dipped his pen in the inkwell and covered the first lines of a new page with his neat writing. He was determined to note down these reflections in his journal.

  Even in the most difficult situations there comes a moment when giving up the struggle becomes something desirable, even pleasant. Thus, for example, the victim of a shipwreck ultimately becomes reconciled to the sea, even someone who has sweated blood trying to save his ship and has spent the whole night beneath the stars, encircled by fishes, in the most utter solitude, defying the waves. It doesn’t matter what he’s done, or how dearly he clings to life, the end is always sweet. He sees that he can do no more, that no one is coming to his rescue, that no coast is in sight, and then he accepts the situation, he rests, he gives himself up to the sea like a child wanting only to sleep.

  But my father was too proud. True his ship had foundered and he had no option but to submit, but he wouldn’t accept that, he didn’t want the final pleasure of defeat. He replied brusquely: “If he wants to go, let him,” and shut himself up in his library, the “only place in Obaba that he liked.” When I knocked to ask him for money to go to the cinema, he didn’t answer. He simply slipped a coin under the door. Now, I think, I regret the joy I showed then.

  For as soon as I had the money, we all rushed off, pushing and shoving, the way we did when the teacher let us out at break time. Then we wheeled our bikes up the hill known in Obaba as Canons’ Hill.

  It was a spring day of unsettled weather, with almost continual showers and squally winds, and the ditches by the roadside were full of water. Where they’d overflowed, the fallen apple blossom carried along by the current almost covered the ground. We trod on it as we passed, and it was like treading on carpets of white.

  We walked briskly along, pushing the bikes, which, as Andrés, one of my friends, quite rightly remarked, seemed much heavier going uphill. At the end of the road, on the brow of the hill, stood the imposing spire of the church.

  We all felt really cheerful. We laughed for no reason and rang our bicycle bells to compare the different sounds they made. “Are you happy, Esteban?” I told them I was, that it was an event of real importance for me, that I was bursting with curiosity. “Aren’t you a bit nervous too?” I told them I wasn’t. But I was and my nervousness was growing minute by minute. The time was approaching. As my father would have put it, I would soon be on the Other Side.

  A moment later I was entering the church for the first time.

  The massive door was extremely heavy. I had to lean the whole weight of my body against it before it yielded.

  Andrés said to me: “Before going in you have to make the sign of the cross.”

  I told him I didn’t know how to. So he wetted my fingers with his and guided my hand in its movements.

  “It’s so dark!” I exclaimed as soon as I went in. I was blinded by the contrast between the brightness outside and the shadowy depths inside. I couldn’t see a thing, not even the central aisle immediately in front. “Don’t talk so loud,” said my companions going in ahead of me.

  Far away, where I imagined the end of the aisle to be, a large candle was burning. It was the only point of light in the whole building. I took a few steps in that direction, only to stop again. I d
idn’t know which way to go and my friends seemed to have disappeared.

  My eyes remained fixed on the flame at the other end of the aisle but gradually I began to make out a few other things. I noticed the stained-glass windows, which were blue, and the golden reflections on a column near the candle. But still I didn’t dare to move. Then I heard a voice behind me say: “Don’t be frightened, Esteban. It’s only me,” and, despite the warning, I jumped.

  Before I had time to recover, a long, bony arm had encircled my neck. It was the canon. Bringing his face closer to mine, he said:

  “Come now, Esteban. Don’t be frightened.”

  His clothes smelled very strange to me.

  “The flame of that candle never goes out, Esteban,” he whispered, pointing ahead with his free hand. “When we have to light a new candle, we always light it from the dying flame of the old one. Just think what that means, Esteban. What do you think it means?”

  I was so scared I was incapable of thought and I felt ashamed every time the canon said my name. I kept silent.

  “It means,” he began, “that the light we see today is the same light seen by our grandparents and our great-grandparents; it’s the same light our ancestors gazed upon. For hundreds of years, this house has united us all, those alive now and those who lived before us. That’s what the church is, Esteban, a community that transcends time.”

  This argument clearly took no account of the circumstances of my own life. The Church not only united, it also divided; the fact of my being there was but one example of that. I said nothing, however, to contradict the canon. In fact, I felt humbled, as if my exclusion from that community were a personal defect or stain. I broke out in a cold sweat.

  Smiling, the canon remarked that since there were still some minutes before the service was due to begin, I should take the opportunity to have a look at the altar and to visit other parts of the building. And, leaving me alone, he moved off toward a side door that led to the choir loft. I heard the rustle of his clothes even after he was out of sight.

  We tend to think that things are in themselves either big or small, failing to realize that what we call size is in fact always relative. They are only big or small in relation to other things and that is why I can still say now, in all honesty, that I have never again seen anyplace as big as the church at Obaba. It was a hundred times the size of the school, a thousand times bigger than my bedroom. What’s more, the shadows blurred the edges of walls and columns and made the bosses and the ribs of the vault seem even more remote. Everything seemed larger than it really was.

  One of the picture books I used to read at the time recounted the adventures of an expedition that had become trapped inside a hollow mountain and I associated the pictures in that book with the place I saw before me. Not only because of the obvious physical resemblance but also because of the asphyxia that was beginning to afflict me as it had the characters in the story. I continued on up the aisle but with the growing conviction that I would surely suffocate before I reached the flame burning on the altar. Then I noticed an old lady dressed in black approach the foot of the altar and lift a lever. Immediately the whole church was filled with light.

  That change from darkness to light made me feel better and I began to breathe more easily. With some relief I thought: It isn’t a hollow mountain, it’s more like a theater, like the ones my father used to go to in Hamburg, like the places where they put on operas.

  Most of my father’s memories revolved around the theater and I knew by heart the plots and choreography of everything he had seen at the opera house on Buschstrasse or at the Schauspielhaus, as well as many stories about the actors and actresses of the time. Comparisons between what I’d imagined in those conversations with my father and what I saw then seemed unavoidable. Yes, the church was a theater with a large central stage, images of bearded men, and seats and benches for the audience. And everything was golden, everything shone.

  A deep, almost tremulous sound ran through the whole church and when I turned my head toward the choir loft, I noticed some twenty women kneeling at their pews. They were moving their lips and staring at me.

  Oppressed by so many eyes, I ran toward the door the canon had entered and a moment later I was taking the stairs two by two up to where my companions would be waiting.

  Esteban Werfell laid his pen down wearily on the table and raised his eyes to the window, though without seeing anything in particular, without even noticing the din the swans by the lake were making. One of his “batty ideas” had just flitted across his mind, interrupting him, obliging him to consider the meaning of that twelfth notebook. What point was there in remembering? Wouldn’t it be better to leave the past well alone, rather than stir it all up?

  “Only the young really enjoy looking back,” he thought. But when they talked about the past, they were really talking about the future, about the fears and desires they had about that future, about what they wanted from life. Moreover, they never did so alone, as he did. He didn’t really understand his urge to remember. Perhaps it was a bad sign, a sign that everything was over once and for all, that he was tired of life.

  He shook his head to drive away such thoughts and finally noticed what was going on outside. By the side of the swans’ house someone had stopped to shelter from the rain and to throw pieces of bread into the lake. The swans were swimming back and forth, honking like mad things. “Their first visitor of the day,” he thought, “they must be hungry.” Then to himself he said: “Back to the choir loft.”

  The moment I entered the choir loft, the canon got up from his seat at the organ and stretched out his arms. Almost sweetly, he said:

  “Young Werfell is finally among us. Let us all rejoice and give thanks.”

  Putting his hands together he began to pray out loud and all my companions followed suit.

  “Welcome, Esteban,” he said afterward, assuring me that: “From now on you will belong to our community, you will be one of the chosen.” My companions stared at me as if they were seeing me for the first time. Andrés was in charge of distributing the books of psalms. The copy he handed me was almost brand new.

  “Don’t worry, Esteban. A few more Sundays and you’ll be as good as us. You’ll probably end up being the best of all,” he whispered.

  The pages of the book were very thin and had gilded edges. A red ribbon marked the psalms for that day.

  When the canon asked me to sit at his side, the gaze of my companions became even more fixed. I hung back. I realized that it was an honor to be asked, but feared the physical proximity of the canon. The disagreeable smell emanating from his clothes was still fresh in my memory.

  “Don’t be frightened, Esteban. Come and sit up here with me,” said the canon, as he began to play. The floorboards of the choir loft vibrated.

  I was puzzled to see that the organ had two keyboards and that in order to play it, one had to move one’s feet. Sometimes the melody grew unpredictable with abrupt highs and lows and the canon seemed to be dancing sitting down, rocking back and forth on the bench and bumping up against me. I found it difficult to follow the melody of the psalms we sang; I couldn’t concentrate.

  By the third psalm, I had closed the book and simply sat looking at the scene before me. There were my companions opening and closing their mouths and down below were the kneeling women; a little farther off, the candle flame burned, giving off orange lights.

  Suddenly the flame began to rise into the air. At first it seemed to be moving of its own accord, as if propelled forward by something at its base. But then, when it was already hovering above the altar steps, I saw that this was not the case, that the flame was not traveling forward on its own but was held in the hand of a young girl with fair hair. She was the one hovering there, gently, unhesitatingly.

  “She’s coming toward me,” I thought. The light from the flame was blinding me now.

  The young girl flew across the whole length of the church and came to a halt in front of me. She hovered in th
e air, about a yard above the floor of the choir loft. The organ had fallen silent.

  “Do you know what love is, Esteban?” she asked sweetly.

  I replied with a nod and tried to get up from the bench in order to see her face. But the candle flame kept me riveted to the spot.

  “Could you love me?” she asked and for a moment I glimpsed her nose, her half-open lips.

  “Yes,” I said. It seemed the only possible answer.

  “Then come and find me, Esteban. Come to Hamburg,” she said. “My address is Maria Vockel, 2 Johamesholfstrasse, Hamburg.”

  Having said that, she turned and began to move off toward the altar. I cried out that yes, I would come to Hamburg and find her, but asked her not to go just yet, to stay a little longer. Then I heard someone say: “It’s all right, Esteban, it’s all right. Calm down.” I was lying on the floor of the choir loft with the canon bending over me. Andrés was fanning me with the pages of a score.

  “Maria Vockel!” I exclaimed.

  “Calm down, Esteban. You must have fainted.”

  There was a gentle edge to the canon’s voice. He helped me to my feet and asked Andrés to take me outside to get some air.

  “You’d best not go to the cinema, Esteban. Better safe than sorry,” the canon advised me as we said good-bye. “You won’t go now, will you?”

  But the image of the fair-haired young girl still filled my mind and I did not feel strong enough to reply.

  Andrés answered for me, reassuring the canon: “Don’t worry, Father, he won’t go and neither will I. I’ll stay with him, just in case.”