The Boy of Clay – Chapter 2, Part 3
In this excerpt, we finally find out why the book is entitled The Boy of Clay. The reason is particularly touching knowing that my great great grandmother, who seems like a lovely, compassionate and angelic woman, had by then already lost a son to innocent play. She might be overprotective, but with good reason…
Mama Mercedes, besides being a wet nurse, was a magnificent cook. There was a bit of rivalry between the official cook and Mama Mercedes. When she cooked, she prepared multiple dishes that flouted, with her judicious flavoring, the thousand secrets that constitute the manual of culinary arts. No matter who cooked, there was always lots of food. My mother never let leftovers go to waste; she would send them, in serving and soup dishes, to the poor of the neighborhood. For her humanitarianism, her friends accused her of throwing money at the street. And I, impressed by what was happening, decided to imitate her generosity.
One day the door to the wardrobe was open; Taking advantage of the opportunity, I took a roll of banknotes, and threw it into the street. When my father demanded the money a few hours later, my mother could not find the roll of bills in the place where she put them. Startled and fearful, she took me into her arms, and kissing me lovingly she whispered into my ear, "Tell me, my child. Where did you put the roll of bills? I know you’ve taken the roll of bills from the wardrobe; but I will not scold you; instead, I will buy you sweets." And I, indicating the street with my index finger, confessed, "There, there!" My mother ordered one of the servants to pick up the banknotes; the pedestrians, somewhat scarce during the day, took no notice. It was a large sum, seven thousand pesos…
It was King’s Eve (The night before Epiphany). The children, taking advantage of the pleasant evening hours, had all gone out to cut fresh grass, with which we filled cardboard boxes to place under our beds. That night, in addition to the grass-filled boxes, we filled our shoes with grass and placed them under the bed as well. As was customary, those who could write wrote letters to the Magi requesting a favorite toy; perhaps a sword or a gun or cornet, maybe a drum, a box of tin soldiers, a porcelain doll or a stuffed horse. I (my mother wrote the letter in which I made my request) asked for a musical top.
That night–an unforgettable night–we all went to bed very early, and fell asleep at once. That morning, when dawn was just beginning to break, we all stood up and hurried towards the place where we put our boxes and shoes; I was amazed: in my box there was the most beautiful musical top.
What boy could ever ignore a musical top? The shape of a musical top is close to that of a wooden top. But the wooden top is smaller, and the larger musical top varies in other ways. The musical top is metal and painted in different colors. Stripes of blue, red, violet, yellow, pink and lilac, crisscross the top, horizontally and in circles. Rings of overlapping colors, the top sparkles, and when, according to its mechanics, it makes itself dance, or spin, its music indulges our ears.
Ah, is not childhood like a musical top, all in colors, spinning, pouring out music like honey? Reader, perhaps you’ll make fun of me, but I want to make a confession: sometimes, in those moments when I feel like a child, I’ll go into a store and I’ll buy a musical top; it pleases me to make it spin and listen to its music. All the memories that manifest! I see myself as I was in those early years of life: thin, pale, with curls falling down on my shoulders; large eyes, sad and amazed; translucent hands in which I could see blue veins. I see my mother, like a shadow of sweetness, leaning over me, and telling me unforgettable words: "The Saint Kings love good children, they know to forgive the wicked if they repent their sins and make amends. You are good, and you have the love of the Kings, and the love of your mother." My poor mother.
The top is enlarged in my memory. No longer is this the top that was offered up by the Kings for my goodness as a child, no; life is now; life that, colored and multicolored, continues to turn in the vertigo of its perpetual drunkenness. No longer is this the top that I enjoyed as a child, no; the world is now; it spins, wild and polychromatic, spilling notes of a song that never ends.
Musical top, a dancer dressed in rainbow, a dancer dancing on the tip of her foot, making sounds from her mechanical heart, music intelligible only to children and to those with the soul of a child!
My mother bought from a Venezuelan potter, who had the face of an Incan idol, a child modeled in clay, and she placed it on the table in the living room. My mother used to tell me that the boy of clay and I were alike; when I asked her what was the resemblance, she responded, "It’s fragile, like you; should it fall to the ground, it would break into pieces. So try not to fall, ever." It was a motherly admonition, since I had a habit of climbing the railings. One day, just as my mother had foreseen, I fell down from on of the rails on the street. Since the house was close to the ground, I only received a blow to the head: for several days, I had a bump on this part of my body. My mother, kissing and consoling me, "I warned you, my son; I knew that you were like the boy of clay." I replied, "But I didn’t break, and you told me that I would fall apart." And my mother, not one to give up, cried, "Because God, who looks after good children, has saved you this time. Take care not to fall; You could break, and your mother would never be happy again if you died in pieces."
Often I approached the table from which the clay child smiled at me, and I scolded him, "Don’t fall. Because if you fall, you’ll turn into pieces." But the boy of clay was silent; the only thing he did was smile.
Years later, when pain had precipitated my maturity, carried about by precocious contemplations–I heard from the lips of a preacher this grave and insightful statement: "We are not to be filled with pride, because we are only figures of clay." So many times throughout my life, I thought about the boy that was modeled from clay by the Venezuelan potter with the face of an Incan idol; the words of my mother, the wisdom of the preacher, I’ve weighed and confirmed the statements of both my mother and preacher! Yes, I was like the boy that was modeled from clay by the Venezuelan potter with the face of an Incan idol; yes, I am the child of clay, which emerges in my memory today with brushwork even more vigorous than in the days of my childhood…
That shadow that comes and goes through the spokes of an imaginary wheel, growing and rising, anxious and yearning–that shadow is my shadow, but it may also be the shadow of the clay boy. The clay, bitten by teeth of pain; that shadow is sometimes haloed in light and other times it releases a rain of tears and dust… Shadow, clay, dust, that’s me! Oh, my poor mother! Oh, my wise preacher!
Trying to connect the threads of my childhood, I take the time to think beyond those first few years, in other lives of impossible remembrance; threads most subtle and worthy, they float in spaces of dazzling clarity. I attempt to connect those broken threads, and some unsuspected threads appear together as one. They are the threads of a mystical entanglement that can only be unravelled at the dawn of the purest age, beautiful and overflowing with eternity, perhaps in a world different from this one where so much is endured, where so many humiliations are suffered.
San Juan had a school for toddlers (párvulos), and they called it such: Kindergarten (Párvulos). It was situated across the street from San Sebastian and was run by the Sisters of Charity. Young children from the most distinguished families went there to learn letters and Christian Doctrine. Me and my sister Mercedes, just a few years old at the time, attended this school.