The Boy of Clay – Chapter 2, Part 5
The world of children is like the world of dreams, as well as the world of art. Everything is possible in the world of children, since everything is possible in the world of dreams and art… Outside of his magical world, the child gets bored. His passion for the heroic, the fearless, the boundless, the unpredictable, leads him to admire what exists beyond the limits of reason. So, a child is hurt by the mockery and contempt of those that try to expel him from the world of fantasy…
Childhood! Rich or poor, happy or miserable, childhood will always be a queen illuminated by the tiara of fables…
Childhood! Is childhood not a sister fountain of that other fountain sought by the romantic Ponce de León, to recover, by bathing in its waters, lost youth and the lost verve for life.
I’m like a diver that dives into the infinite sea of memories; a sea in which, long ago, the boat of my childhood had been sunk, with it’s cargo of laughter and toys, concerns and tears… I dive into this sea of colored light, and every time I return to the surface, my hands are filled with kaleidoscopic splendor. And there’s the boat of my childhood, which may be of wood, cardboard or tin, but is surrounded by wonderful things, by music never heard, by unknown mystery… I’m well compensated for the pains of diving into the infinite sea of memories… What i’ve suffered, I’ve suffered for good; what I’ve bled, I’ve bled for good, since my diver’s heart finds in these mystical waters, and the shimmer of divine delight, the holy drunkenness alive again in the purest part of a man’s life: childhood…
The more I survey this great and multifaceted sea, the more riches that are discovered before my eyes, which become the eyes of a child… Sometimes, when I’m tired of surveying that sea, it’s like I’m sleeping; and then I look at those haunted shores, where seaweed and snails, mussels and surf whisper to me an old song that failed to extinguish oblivion:
A la víbora, a la víbora de la mar,
Por aquí podrás pasar.
La de alante corre mucho,
La de atrás se quedará.
To the serpent, serpent of the sea,
You can pass through here.
Those up front run fast,
Those at back are left behind.
I still see myself as a shadow that runs up and down the spokes of a wheel. The shadow departs from the center and extends through spreading, circular lines, towards the edge of the circumference. Within that circle, my life is fulfilled. Constrained by the circumference, my shadow returns to the center: it begins its return to the point from which it departed. Thus it embarks on a journey by itself, the inner journey, the journey that has no end…
The people and places that emerge from the bottom of my toy box, always provide me with geometric figures: parading in my memory, in a disordered mob, are triangles, squares, octagons, pentagons, cubes, cylinders, polyhedrons… The prestigious corner of that eminent mansion looks to me like a triangle.
Sometimes I see the corner of the city. I miss those blue and chalky afternoons, and the contrast of light and shadow on the walls and on the murals, on the streets and in the courtyards. I look flimsy and faded on the balcony of my house. From that balcony I contemplated everything that fell under the dominion of my eyes. On the right, the high walls of Casa Blanca; on the left, a row of humble houses; and beyond the rough street, the military hospital, the nunnery. From my balcony–my infantile watchtower–I observe the sea; when the hot sun climbed to its peak, that slice of ocean was like a silver mirror.
Rare smells, odors from homes and people, stung my nose. Such odors haunt me still. The odors were not pleasant, they were repugnant; they scared me, suffocated me, saddened me. They were accompanied by air currents and clouds of white dust. Air and dust are mixed in my memory. The air hit my face and shook my curls; the dust transformed into a silver flower. I also remember the old melodies and the announcements, living in the picturesque dissonance of that time. The hours passed; uniform, monotonous, with the heavy sluggishness so common to provincial life. My ears could not escape from the intolerable tic-tocking of the household’s antiquated, aristocratic clock. That clock had belonged to my mother’s grandparents; it matched an armchair whose back revealed, half worn away, the Bizet family crest.
I remember I’d talk to myself, and this worried my mother. I wasn’t abnormal, however; I was overflowing so much with imagination and sensitivity, I had to hold dialogues with alleged speakers. Sometimes I held a conversation with one of these invisible personages; suddenly another character would mediate. The third character identified with me, supported my assertions. At other times, without any endorsement whatsoever, I’d rail against two or more companions. On many occasions, it went from words to actions. Then I’d see myself fighting with valor. The walls were forced to contend with a tiny Quixote; they received a shower of punches and kicks. In the end, my adversaries–the walls–remained cold and impassive, while I was at the apex of my rage, panting and sweating. For my feats, I chose the farthest corners of my house.
I loathed everything that was against me; I was attracted to everything I found favorable, a very natural thing amongst human beings. My mind gravitated more towards the disruptive than the harmonic, but thanks to my passion for the fantastic, I often traveled to wonderful lands and interviewed geniuses and gods, princes and kings. But I wasn’t always walking the hills of Úbeda. I intervened in the affairs of ordinary people, and solved their problems, from the simple to the most important, for God had granted me power and wisdom.
On my street there was a flute player. When the flute began to sound, it seemed like a silence was created in my spirit to gather the sweetness of its notes…. I stood at attention, my ear alert, eyes fixed in space, as if I intended, and it was possible, to see and touch the music from that primitive instrument… Nobody could speak or make noise when the flute player performed. Nobody could laugh or talk nonsense when the flute dripped honey from the honeycomb of its cadence. My mother, who knew how much the flute thrilled me, took care to extinguish or attenuate the house gossip. Sometimes she stood beside me, friendly and smiling, as I watched. Other times, closing her eyes peacefully, she seemed to listen, like me, to the flute. Yes, without a doubt, my mother estimated, with a knowledge I did not possess, the merits of the flutist, for in her own way, she had studied music and mastered the piano. She had lent the piano to my cousin Luisa so that she could study under the guidance of a teacher. So though it had been a long time since her hands had exercised its use upon the keys, she had the reputation of a fine pianist.
<p class="p2″>What an effect that flute had on my sensibilities! Everything close to his music was transformed. The light intensified; things became more colorful. The air grew lighter; and the sky, covered in part, with those brilliant clouds that I admired, seemed to quiver. Jubilation rang its bell in my heart. However, when the flute was at its most lucid tone, when it vibrated all the more tenderly, I would feel a rush of melancholia.