The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror. Sixth Annual Collection

THE ANNUNCIATION Cristina Peri Rossi

The Virgin Mary appeared while I was collecting stones from the water. I collect the big stones, not the little ones. She seemed to come from the sea, although I’m not really sure because the water is everywhere you look, and I was stooped over, my head down, collecting stones. I lift them out of the water, pick out the best, carry them in my arms and take them up to shore. At first I didn’t think it was the Virgin.

That morning it was gray and lead-colored like the sea.

I had seen her only once before, in church, when we took her out for a procession. I never thought I’d see her walking down the beach with those special colored eyes and that sadness over the death of her son. I couldn’t imagine it because I’m always alone and because she didn’t have her crown, that Virgin’s crown, but there she was, softly stamping down the sand under her feet. But then, I didn’t doubt it for an instant. There’s never anyone on this beach, hidden away as it is and somewhat far from the rest of the land. It’s so remote, isolated, and only has the sea for company. I’m always alone, collecting stones. At first my hands freeze and my fingers slip; my fingers that want to grab onto the stones and hunt them as if they were sea animals. Whale stones, mountains from the sea. Straight ahead, down below, and to both sides, all you see is water, green and blue water, yellowish water, and enormous rocks stuck there like boats run aground. I plunge my hands in, and my fingers slip from the wet surfaces of the stones. The color of the stones changes when you take them out of the water. Sometimes they are full of moss and lichens, full of seaweed tangled up with sea urchins. But when your hands get used to it, they move through the water like fish. Then I rest them on the dark surface of a stone, take it between my fingers, and bring it up. Once the stones are hoisted up, I carry them to shore.

We got here ten days ago, and since then we haven't seen anyone. Nobody has seen us.

The fishermen’s boats are tossed on the sand, abandoned. There are wildflowers growing up around the spongy boards of one of them, green stems and a white crown among the damp and splintered planks. It’s dying slowly. It’s dying, falling apart, lying there on the sand. A seagull flies overhead, its wings forming a cross, its chest dark, and it comes down lightly. It perches on the boat’s useless oar, which is stuck, shaft first, into the sand. It used to be that when the fishermen went out to sea, in each boat there was a big lamp up front like an eye that lit up underwater secrets, the private life of the water and its fish, a round eye without lids, with a powerful and serene gaze. The fishermen used to clean it, scrub it, adjust its light, watch over it. Now their lamps rest caked with rust and drip their menstrual blood on to the sand.

Just a little boy who plays in the water and collects stones.

Sometimes a ship goes by in the distance. The sand invades the shore and climbs over the empty boats. I collect stones and carry them away from the water so that when the waves lick up the shore they don’t find them. I work like this all morning. I often get tired of carting stones. My fingers are cold and cramping, the air is green, the trees roar with the wind, the waves howl, and I can tell there is some disturbance; the atmosphere, the elements are preparing something, something is developing in the sea’s womb. But when I look at the water and see so many stones beneath, I go back to my work right away without getting distracted, without stopping because there are so many more at the bottom. The water goes through my legs when I squat down, the water and some small fish, silvery, agile and uneasy. I don’t know if they see me. I’ve never known what or how fish see, nor where they are looking, with those big, staring eyes. I don’t know if they look through the water, if their glances are scattered among the stones and the seaweed at the bottom. I was never a fish. I didn’t have fins on my side, I wasn’t born in the sea, I didn’t eat seaweed.

In such a lonely place.

There are stones of many colors, I’d say of all the known colors and of some others that only come from the sea and from living in the sea among lichens and plants. She didn’t wear a crown; she was walking slowly, floating over the sand.

As if he weren't alone, as if the water, the stones, and the sound of the wind were his companions. Totally absorbed in his work and somehow understanding the harmony of the universe. He found his role, his function in this routine task, and he took it on with dignity and respect, with conviction. Only the gulls have been able to see us.

I collect stones every day, even if it rains or is windy. Sometimes the sea is calm when I go in, calm and still like an elephant lying on its side sleeping. The boats don’t move, and their masts look like crosses. The water then is very heavy, as if it were made of stone. It’s solid water, water made of cement. Nothing moves on its surface, nothing moves below. The sea’s activity stops; it becomes dense and all water looks the same: heavy. Motionless, it marks everything with its peace; even the birds seem to fly more slowly so as not to disturb it. Other times, the wind blows hard and the gulls can’t fly. They stay a long time hanging in the air, their wings tensed and open, unfolded, but unable to go forward. They cry and don’t move, as if a string kept them prisoners. And the sea is full of waves, waves that disappear in the misty atmosphere. Then the boats get nervous and try to flee from the storm and find refuge in the beach huts; there are some that are so eager to get away that they pull on their ropes until they cut loose, and once freed, get silly, like wanton and wild girls, going this way and that, losing their way, bumping up against each other and against the rocks, hitting their hips on the stones. The wind roars, the waves splash over the wall, the red buoys sink in this turbulent sea, and after an instant pop up again, keeping their heads up as if they were shipwrecked and trying with all their might to keep afloat until someone rescues them. The sea roars and everything seems like it’s just about to break: the gray and mauve sky into thunder and lightning, the gulls’ tense wings, the little stone and wooden pier, the boats’ ropes, the lanterns and masts that list from one side to another.

How has he ended up here? Who could have brought him?

There are white statues under the sea. I’ve seen them: sculptured images of women, sometimes missing an arm, sometimes a leg, others an entire head. They are not always there; they aren’t always visible. Sometimes the colors of the sea cover them up totally; at other times its the long string of seaweed and its inhabitants, the sea urchins, that hide their presence. Driven so deeply into the bottom of the sea, they could be mistaken for it, if the bottom were white, if it had a woman’s hips. They never come to the surface. No current lifts them up, places them on a water pedestal. No force from the bottom of the sea hoists them, raises them like a banner. They don’t come up to look at the sky or to lie down in the sand like bathers. There is nothing that makes them want to leave the water. They don’t dream about the air or touching land. Sunk into the bottom of the sea, sometimes they let a leg or white arm be seen, and they hide their figures, their delicate hands, their tilted necks. They hide their secrets, aloof, among the folds of their gowns, and the oblivious fish pass by, touching them lightly, nibbling their breasts, licking their white necks. They are totally different from the mutilated bodies that the sea sometimes brings up from the depths of war and throws on to shore, with their panic-stricken eyes and hair streaked with seaweed. Decent people, silently and without getting involved, gather them up—they don’t have teeth, ears, fingers, hands—and bury them up in the mountain. Unhappy people hide them in silence, studding the forest and fouling the land with their bodies.

How has he ended up here? Who could have brought him?

I was picking up a stone when I saw her coming from far away. Then I didn’t know who was coming. The morning was green and the sea was murky. I only saw a gray figure that was coming with the wind. The stone was heavy, and I had to hold it with both hands. I stole it from the bottom of the sea when it was still golden; the air immediately darkened it and the water had taken little bites out of its surface, like so many eyes that now looked at me. I put it on the sand, far away from the sea’s incessant drilling and layering, and I went back to shore, not without first looking at the gray figure that was coming with the wind and slowly getting closer.

“Who is the boy?”

“He comes and goes from the water as if the sea were his domain. As if only he reigned over the entire area. But humbly. Like a worker. Concentrating hard on his tasks. Without stopping, I think he never rests.

That morning everything was green, gray and green like under the water, like the color of the fish parading among the stones.

I couldn’t turn back then because he had seen me. Anyway he was very caught up in his work of carrying stones.

I went back and forth. Back and forth. There were a lot of stones on the bottom; the bottom is always full of stones and seaweed. She was slowly coming closer. Like the waves, like the wind, she was coming closer, crunching the sand under her feet. She walked slowly without moving her arms, and it seemed that her legs were barely moving. I don’t know if she came out of the water or where she came from because I was very busy with the stones, which were giving me a lot to do. I didn’t look anywhere but straight ahead. I didn’t look back or off to one side.

I was going to keep on my way, happy that I had not done anything to arouse his interest, when suddenly he looked straight at me, as if he recognized me, as if he had seen me before. He drove his eyes right into me and slowly, very slowly, as if he were identifying me feature by feature, as if his memory were bringing back marks, fingerprints, he straightened up right in front of me, now completely sure.

I was going to keep at my work; I was going to go back to the water and bend down to get another stone when I saw her. I looked at her from up close and I recognized her. I was fixed to the spot.

I hesitated a second.

He was in front of me.

I thought about running away. Fleeing.

It’s not every day you see the Virgin coming out of the water. It’s not every day she comes walking down the beach. She didn’t seem to be wet, and her clothes were completely dry. She had eyes the color of the sea just like I’d seen at church one time when they put her out in public and took her on a procession through the town. We children and the old people carried her around like a trophy from the sea, as if she were a gigantic exotic fish that was going to feed us all year long. We took her out of church and carried her through the town’s cobbled streets, and everyone came out to look at her. The windows were opened and women and children threw flowers at her, old people left their beds to see her, and men who were standing at the bar turned around, put their drinks aside, and respectfully doffed their hats to greet her. Throughout the entire procession, I was afraid that she’d fall off her pedestal—the streets were cobbled after all—and roll on the ground, and that her black mourning cape would get all dirty and she’d lose the beautiful handkerchief that she held in her hands for drying her eyes at the death of her son. I was on the edge the whole time, watching her step by step, out of fear that she’d stumble and fall and that her delicate porcelain hands would get broken and that she’d lose her crown, and that tears would flood her eyes.

One time when we caught a very big fish, there was a holiday and procession and everybody came out to look at it. At night they put candles all around it, and some people made bonfires on the beach. All night the whales snored on the high seas.

And instead of running away, I ran toward her and once I was close, I bowed. I bowed formally for a moment. She looked at me calmly; then I raised my head and saw that her eyes were the color of water. I remembered those eyes well from the day of the procession, sad and undefinably tender eyes, the eyes of a woman whose son has been killed and who feels so much pain that she doesn’t think about vengeance because her sadness is so great that it brings out more love than anger. That woman’s son had been killed—his body was probably still floating in the water and one of these days would appear on shore, his throat cut and an eye gouged out, full of seaweed and lichens, full of mud—and now she was walking down the beach. You could tell she was suffering from her eyes although she looked serene enough. I handed her a fishbone cup to hold the water from her eyes, in case she wanted to cry. It was really a bowl made from a very big fish, just the right size to hold sea water, fruit juices, women’s tears. It’s also useful to dig in the sand, to make holes. She looked at the cup and took it into her hands. Bone gets white with time, white and dry, with little black holes. She seemed to like her present, but she didn’t cry right away. She held it in her hands a long time, and she looked at herself in it as if it were a mirror. Right away, I set out to clean the sand so she could sit down. I picked a square space, sheltered from the sea and the wind, protected by some wild rush. The dunes there are as high as mountains, and they almost hide the woods. The mounds are so hard and compact that nothing can sweep them away, not a whipping wind, not even a drifting sea. I cleaned the space with wicker rods, taking off the ants, insects, pieces of wood, shells, and all the other things the sea had left behind. I swept the surface with great care and, stooped over, I smoothed it with my hands in order to have it flat and smooth, comfortable to sit on.

I was surprised and didn’t know what to do. He didn’t ask any questions. He didn’t say a word. Right away he brought me a bone cup, and he started to clean the sand behind a dune, taking off all its dirt and impurities. I looked right and left, looking for a way to disappear.

Then I invited her to sit down. I invited her to sit down with a gesture; I put out my right arm so she could hold on to it and slowly bend over, taking a seat on the throne of clean sand that was nearby. She looked tired and who knows where she came from, following the shoreline, suffering, suffering, following the shore. Along the way, she had lost her crown or they had taken it from her, just like they killed her son. She had also lost that handkerchief that she always used to have in her hands to dry her tears, and the little light dress that covered her body was clearly not enough to keep out the cold. I invited her to sit down because she seemed tired, and the wind was blowing. At any moment, the tide would begin to come in, but she would be protected there.

The enormous beach that we had all thought deserted lay as far as the eye could see. I wasn’t familiar with this mountain; I didn’t know where the sea ended. I could only turn back, exhausted and cold, turn back, but he would have seen me again in this vast empty space if I had decided to turn back. Then he probably would have asked me questions. I was vaguely unsettled as if waiting for a premonition. The gray and mauve sky suddenly opened up, making way for a round sun, the color of death and shining like metal. The outline of a distant forest, completely enveloped in mist, seemed to be suspended between the sea and the sky, as if it were ascending into the heavens. The air was damp, palpable, full of the tension of an upcoming storm. The sound of the water breaking and the wind blowing seemed to me like the death throes of some gigantic marine animal hidden among the waves. Everywhere there seemed to be a revelation in the making.

Once she sat down, I gestured for her to wait and I ran off to the mountain to look for pine boughs, wild flowers and poppies. I know the mountain well, but I was so nervous and excited that I lost time going around in circles, dead ends that didn’t take me anywhere. Like puppies that jump up into the air, turn about, and go back and forth like crazy when they see their master, I got lost among paths full of plants. I hurt my hands, grabbed flowers and boughs without thinking, pulled up roots, crushed stalks on account of my nerves, and squashed the ivy as I walked. My ears were attuned to the sound of the tide as it came in, they heard its ascent, its growth; I couldn’t see it, but I could hear it. Like two enemies that know each other well, I lay in wait, and it was ready to take advantage of my smallest slip.

I ran down the mountain with my arms full of pine boughs and wild flowers, so fast that I lost some on the way. She was there, sitting in the square of sand I made for her, protected from the sea, the wind, and from the ants, melancholy, looking without seeing, and the breeze shook her fragile dress as if it were a sail. One by one, I placed the aromatic boughs at her feet, in a circle, taking care that they didn’t touch her dress. There were gray boughs partly covered with lichen and with lighter covered bark; if you scratch them a little, right away the pine’s true skin would appear, green and resinous. There were dry sticks, crackling with pointed ends, that are used to build a fire in winter. I thought that this smell would maybe help her bear her sadness. She didn’t look at me; she looked far away, and the water in her eyes was as deep as a day of fog and storms. There were some little pine nuts, just come out, very tight on the bough, with a hard shell and bright color. And there were white starling nests among the pine boughs, soft and silky like cotton balls. They were lightly woven nests that the birds embroidered with care; I thought that their softness and smooth surface would provide her with some nice sensations, welcoming and warm. Surrounded by boughs and plants, wild flowers and rush, she looked like a mountain virgin who had come down to the beach to look at the sea for a moment.

Right away I went to look for the piece of wood in the shape of a wolf that the water had dragged up the day before. Sometimes the water does this: brings things then leaves them on the shore and goes away as if it had traveled so far, as if it had walked days and nights just to bring that one thing, just to nudge up onto the sand those things it has collected on its journey. They are the sea’s humble gifts; after thinking for hours and hours, after going back and forth from the depths to the surface, it hurls up a dead fish, a rotted piece of wood, a handful of seaweed or an open and empty shell. They are its wet, humble tributes. It had brought the piece of wood the day before; I found it not far from there, on the shore, wet from the waves, and I took it out of the water. That was hard because it had absorbed a lot of water and had become heavy. It was the shape and color of a sea wolf, so I grabbed it again by the head and dragged it over the beach to place it beside the Virgin. I left it next to her, but facing the sea so it wouldn’t miss the world from which it came, in which it had been born and lived. He lay down to rest, tame, but he kept his head erect, overseeing the coast and its dangers. Watched over by the sea wolf like this, her throne seemed less forsaken, her realm more guarded.

Surrounded by pine boughs, reeds, and flowers, having the stately figure of the wolf in front of her, she seemed more like the Virgin that I had seen that time in church, dressed in a black robe and carried around on a moveable pedestal. As I did then, I gave her lots of white flowers, yellow flowers, lilac and celestial blue flowers picked on the mountain. I hurried down the mountain and placed them, one by one, on her dress. Sometimes she looked back—her dead son—and her eyes were infinitely sad. With a gesture, I showed her that the mountain was full of flowers, that there were many more, but that I couldn’t bring them all; I had other things to do for her. The tide advanced, serious, step by step, and each time it got closer to us. It left its damp stain on the ground, a little bit of foam floated by and later left, innocently, as if it hadn’t moved forward, as if it wanted to hide its progress. I looked at the sea and then looked at her. There was considerable distance separating them, but I started to build a small sand wall anyway, to keep the odd stream of water from wetting her feet. I am very fast when I work, and I’m used to fighting the sea.

I quickly built a sand barrier, a moist sea wall a few centimeters high that would act as a fortress against the water’s penetration. I made it this size so she could look over it at the sea without having to get up or even raise her head.

On the other hand, the sea could see her only with great difficulty.

He brought me small gifts. Things from the sea and forest. I don’t know why he did it, but I thought I couldn’t stop him. Whatever it was that he imagined, I didn’t understand. His gestures were full of kindness and appreciation, and I was too tired to reject these gifts no matter how crazy they were. Although numb with cold, tired and without energy, I thought that I couldn’t spend much more time there. Clearly it was dangerous to stay out in the open, defenseless on the enormous beach, exposed. As dangerous was it to turn back, have the boy look for me and go around shouting to find me, alerting everyone to my presence. I stayed still, without knowing what to do, without deciding, letting myself be more tired than cautious. Meanwhile, he kept coming and going, bringing little presents with each trip.

I went to look for an old oar half buried in the sand. It had stayed sunken there, part of the remains of a fishing boat—eaten by the salt, dampness, and water— whose broken skeleton served some birds as a stronghold. I had sometimes played inside the boat, full of stagnant water. I had touched its wooden planks, its crossed masts, felt its surfaces, skimmed its hollows. And the oar was hidden in the sand, sticking out its widest end, useless and full of holes. I brandished it in the air like a sword, shaking off all the sand that had stuck on it and, whirling it above my head, I ran along the deserted beach until I came to the dune where the Virgin was resting. I was very happy when I offered it to her, showing her what to do with it. First, I made all the gestures necessary to row. Then with rapid movements, I showed her how it could be used, if necessary, as a defensive weapon. She didn’t pay much attention to my lessons. She was worried and looked behind her constantly. I left the oar at her side, like a queen’s sceptre. I remembered the hole in the rock where I was saving things that I rescued from the sea. I was happy to have been collecting things every day so that I could now go find them and give them to her. She didn’t say anything, but she waited. Just like a sailor who returns from each one of his trips loaded with presents and happy to be home; just as he affectionately and smugly displays his cloth from China, textiles from Holland, and jewels from Egypt; I too came and went, fervently, happy to go, happy to return. But her sad eyes looked backward, without seeing. The whole time I was afraid she would fall. They picked us, the old and the children, to carry her, to bring her through the crowds, to guide her through the town. It was my job to push the pedestal from one side. We left the church enveloped in a majestic silence, fitting for a procession. The old men and women went up ahead; we children followed.

We were hidden for ten days without anyone seeing us, without one of us being recognized. Only a little boy found one of us walking on the beach.

Stumbling, we pushed the cart, which was hitting against the cobbled street and shaking. She was in mourning, wearing a long black velvet robe that hung from her head to her feet because they had killed her son. And she was very sad, a great sorrow came through her wet eyes, the color of water. The robe was black and soft, a very deep black, very moving. I touched just the edge of her robe and trembled. Now she wasn’t dressed in mourning, surely because a lot of time had passed since her son’s death, but the sorrow didn’t change. Now she wasn’t dressed in black, but she suffered just the same. And her hands—the hands that showed were very slender and very white—under the black velvet robe held a lace handkerchief, surely to dry the tears when all the water she carried in her eyes overflowed at her son’s death. The robe had a golden border, a small design in thread that I couldn’t bring myself to touch. She still hadn’t cried because the handkerchief was dry, but her expression was that of someone who would start crying at any moment, not screaming like the women of the town when they cry, but sadly and gently because the weeping from discovering that they’ve killed her only son is not one of shouting; it’s one of deep sorrow. All the torches were lit when we set off from the church. And the old people’s faces were full of wrinkles that got deeper in the candlelight. I was afraid that she would fall walking through the cobbled streets.

“She can fall,” I said to one of the townsmen who was pushing along with me.

“If we walk carefully, she won’t fall,” he replied, but I didn’t feel reassured.

If one of the others, for instance, were just a little less careful, she could fall to the ground instantly and hurt herself and dirty her robe and lose her beautiful handkerchief and scratch her hands. It was easier for us to protect her from the soldiers (from those soldiers who had killed her son) than to keep her from falling.

“Someone might be careless,” I told him, nervously.

“She won’t fall,” he answered. “All of us together will support her.”

I had saved many things in the hole: old rusty fish hooks that still kept their sharp points, menacing creatures; parts of line that had fallen off fishing rods; pieces of net that used to trap fishes and had become moldy; huge shells to hear the sea when you’re far away and can’t see it; a gigantic fishbone whitened by the sun; a burro’s jaw; many pieces of sea glass, multicolored and polished by the water; tree bark with lichens still clinging to them; ropes from the boats; sailor’s knots; big twisted nails; and a dark wooden box that floated in from a sunken ship. I stuck my hand into the hole and took out everything, one by one. I ran with my hands full to where she was—looking backwards—and I kept putting things in her lap. The tide kept coming in, each time a little bit closer, licking the edge of the sand wall. I drove the fishbone into the top of the wall-like watch tower, a silent warning beacon, a light in the night that tells the traveller of a nearby danger: a sandbank or a sunken ship. I spread the piece of net at her feet, a majestic carpet for her to walk on; it was a smooth and delicate net, and with it, I outlined a map of the country where we would have liked to live, before the war. I planted the sea glass all around her like towers, like so many bishops and pawns, a purple horse head, a steel sword, a golden lantern, a mistletoe cathedral, an emerald fish eye. I placed the knots next to her hair so that it would not blow away, to fasten it to the sand if it wanted to run, if it wanted to go away to cry out its grief somewhere else. And I fastened the ropes around her waist, to tie her up like the boats are tied to the pier against the wind and the swaying tide. Surrounded by so many trophies, she seemed to be a water virgin, a marine statue, the figurehead of a ship I had seen once in a Maritime Museum. I had made a crown out of a long tendril of vines and placed it on her head; it was dark with very green leaves growing out of each side of a supple stem. Slowly, ceremoniously, I put it on her head. Now she seemed just right, finished and perfect, like the Virgin in church. Some bright wet seaweed on her dress became her robe.

He came and went, from the sea to shore, from shore to me, but always distant, never coming too close to me. A bird flew over, and he threw a stone at it. Harsh, he frightened away the ants and the mollusks. Cautious, he watched over the advancing tide and was always moving, very busy, bringing things.

Then I heard a noise. A different noise that didn't come from the sea or the sand.

I know beach noises well, the noises of the birds, of rough sea, of underground currents. I know the noise of the faraway wind and of clouds charged with electricity.

I heard a noise, and I got up immediately. I looked from one side of the beach to the other. The tide, coming up, was licking the edge of the sand wall that I had made. The fishbone, erect as a lighthouse, was aiming at the gruff sky. The tide, going back, was leaving seaweed on the shore. And the sea wolf, lying down with its head raised, was watching, expectantly, close to us.

I had to make a decision. Speak to him or flee, return to the place I had come from, even at the risk of his following me, even at the risk of his starting out on my same path.

The noise came from the mountain, and neither the trees nor the wind made it, neither the birds nor the branches caused it; it was much more muffled and metallic sounding, it was a human noise. I got to my feet and on guard; she kept sitting, looking backward.

“Where are the men who killed her son?” I had asked when we took the Virgin from the church.

“I don’t know,” my friend answered. “Pay attention to pushing the cart.”

Most likely now they are looking for her. All this time I had been playing without realizing that they were probably closing in. I know the sounds of the sea and the mountain well. I know when it sounds like a storm is brewing, when the wind is coming up and when the fish are snoring. They crucified him, after making him drag a heavy cross for the entire way, they made fun of his pain. And they wouldn’t hesitate to do it again if they found her. And now the tide was climbing up the wall, licking the fishbone.

Then I heard a noise: Not just one, but one that lasted a long time and was followed by others. A noise that filled me with fear and anxiety. I am not familiar with the noises of the mountain or of the sea. I always lived in the city.

They were advancing, without doubt. They were advancing through the mountain, and they had the resolute steps of men who are armed and ready for anything.

The steps of Roman soldiers, with their heavy swords, and their crowns of thorns and their summary judgments, and their slow crucifixions.

The gulls were crying, and the sea was getting higher. So too the wind blowing among the pines was making the branches rattle and I heard sounds of something breaking. I heard wood groaning and stones hammering.

I ran to the top of the mountain and saw them coming. They had pistols and guns.

Then I decided and started to run back in the direction I came from. I started to run, and I stepped on the flowers. I heard the crackling of the shells, and a piece of glass stuck into my foot. I started to run without looking behind me, suspicious of the sound of the sea, the sound of the wind, and the shrieking of the birds.

They had pistols and guns, dogs, knives, and lanterns. From the top of the mountain, I saw them coming. There were many Roman soldiers and their officials, their hirelings, their vassels and servants.

I ran without thinking, I ran without knowing, I ran between the water, the birds, and the wind. Then I saw him. He was holding some big wooden oars which he spun around his head to frighten the soldiers. He probably took them by surprise, protected by the afternoon shadows. He knocked down two or three in this way, running with the oars in his hands and spinning them around in a circle, like a windmill’s vanes. At first he probably caused confusion. It was dark, and he was very agile; he moved around very quickly from one place to another, without letting go of the oars.

I ran without thinking, I ran without knowing, I ran between the water, the birds, and the wind to stop them.

But then I didn’t see anything more. I had to turn around to keep running. Until I recognized the sound of shots. The only sound you hear in the city.