Suddenly, the rain stopped. They were getting ready to leave when the boy halted, turning towards the door behind them; he turned the knob, and entered. The Master followed him, silently observing the youth, who seemed absent. In front of them, the large room lined with white tiles with maritime motifs highlighted in blue was all wet; it smelled of fish and salt. Through the various windows entered the first rays, announcing the return of the Sun, which made way like a king reclaiming his kingdom. On the long benches of marble stone rested the sharpened knives and the scales; the light filtered by partially tinted panes and by the water that outside still dripped from the eaves immersed the dormant space in an unreal dimension. This spell was broken by Mentesúfis, who said softly:
‘Vésper; are you listening? This is the litany that I heard from you today, while you slept… Where could it be coming from?’
The youth, without answering, sought with his senses, halting at the large wooden box where the raw salt was stored, with the two enormous lids on top, and round ceramic handles. He perceived that behind the box another panel could be made out, unlike all the others in the large room, which fully displayed themselves with similar motifs: the sea and the toil. Curious, and with the help of Mentesúfis, they moved it away from the wall, from which it seemed it had never been removed. The fishermen, the day before, had used up all of the salt in the salting vessels, hence the ease with which the two of them could remove it. Vésper released the panel from the smooth mantle of minuscule seaweed with a thin piece of mesh, finishing up by throwing a bucket of water, and, while it ran down the wall, the designs, not just blue, were highlighted in tones of green, brown, yellow and rose, in a brief aqueous motion. Crouching, they both gazed at it in silence, but each in a different way.
‘It is amazing!…’, began Mentesúfis. ‘It has been so long since the first and only time I saw this design along with so many others; it was then a simple outline on paper drawn in charcoal by Master Vaz, the architect, Sal’s father. Also him, author of this factory and the house where I live. I no longer remembered this, and how beautiful it is… And it comes with a little story, you know?’
Vésper, while listening to him, studied all of the details closely; curiously, it was the only illustration in which the interior of the island was depicted, that is, with one’s back to the sea. In it could be seen the clear daytime sky, and cutting it the ancient bell tower in ruins, around it the centenarian cypresses, the olive trees, and the orchard, and in a close-up the strange depiction of a pair of scales: on one of the dishes a perfect pile of salt, and on the other a lap child asleep, sucking her thumb; the pointer, balanced, showed an almost imperceptible insignia: it consisted of a ruler, a set square and a compass, which, forming a ‘V’, served as a monogram. However, what impressed Vésper the most were the little unnoticed figures on the skirting board of the panel, akin to a legend. He immediately recognised them. Surprised, he stood up abruptly, and almost staggered. The older man caught him, advising him not to stand up so quickly. The youth, somewhat puzzled, wanted to know this story about that peculiar design.
‘Vaz was a man of few words…’, said Mentesúfis pulling up a rough wooden bench, sitting noisily, while Vésper, focused on the Master, hoisted himself up with his hands to the top of the salt box, and remained seated with legs crossed. ‘… Although correct and well-mannered, he did not display any special patience or flair for trivial quotidian matters; that, and the fact that he had no wife, earned him a rather careless appearance; he was, nevertheless, personable and did not smile much, which gave him a certain mysterious look. All of these attributes translated into some years of coveting on the part of the available women… Well, most of the women! Onwards. When he arrived on the island, he was still a young boy, he held in his arms his little Sal, his daughter, a fact which had most likely immediately moved and attracted the feminine gender, of course. However, he opted to lead a celibate life, totally dedicated to the little one. It is said that he spent a lot of time in the bell tower, trying to restore it, almost in a penitent way… Refusing any help, he only hired a wet nurse, charging her not only with the respective nourishment of the child as well as with her transportation, since wherever he went he always made himself accompanied by his daughter. In the Warm Lands of the interior, whenever he went to the bell tower, the two would remain in the shade of the fruit orchard, safe from the heat and the irritating dust of the ruins; indeed, it was there that years later Sal and I would end up meeting, always under the conspicuous gaze of the nurse.
Vaz conceived this factory, personally supervising all of the work, he even got his hands dirty, and finally, when the fishermen wanted to remunerate him, the good architect would not accept payment. Therefore, they decided to gift him the bell tower and the surrounding land, the Warm Lands, as it came to be known. In an act of gratitude and homage to the arduous and courageous life of those men, he created all these panels telling their story, reserving the last one, this very one, to narrate, briefly, I reckon, his own, and at the same time leaving his signature.’
‘And the child, who is she? What is the meaning…? And the scales with the salt?’, insisted the youth.
‘I assume all of that symbolises Vaz’ past, before he arrived at Nana.’ Mentesúfis had stood up with a serious and tired expression, not looking away from the design, followed attentively by the boy. ‘Sal was more than his daughter. She was his redemption!…’
And now, with vacant eyes, he wandered through the memories of some and others, which had been entrusted to him, and had become absent. After such a long time, he had the feeling that the time had come to uncloud the mind. And thus he narrated the story of Vaz.
‘Originally from the Northern Cliffs, he travelled a lot. He navigated to where the great ships took him. Upon reaching a strange region, called Old Orient, he came ashore and headed for the interior, where he met the Collective, which, according to him, was nothing but a practically mindless organisation, calling to mind an immense anthill, outdated and callous. They lived frenetically, simply withheld from their own lives, without a life of their own. Perversely, that was all they had ever known, and, therefore, without being right or wrong, that was life.
Vaz, then idealistic and very young, after a while ends up starting an attempted revolutionary action, getting the sympathy of several young men who timidly joined him in his ideas. They never even took to the streets. The Armed Force broke into the room where they were sleeping, pulled Vaz without violence, immobilising him in a corner of the austere place. At a signal from one of them, they brought in a few little boys, each armed with a sort of machete, and, without a word, without a sound, they awaited the dry movement from the head of the guard who stood motionless in the doorway. Vaz was forced to witness the slaughter of young men like himself at the hands of children trained to kill. Their messy gestures due to the lack of strength in their skinny arms, as they wielded the heavy weapons with both hands, translated every stroke of the machete into grotesque mutilations, leaving the victims in atrocious agonies, before some hesitations by the aggressors, who due to inexperience did not hit vital points, thus not being able to put an end to the inhuman suffering. The killing lasted what seemed to him eternity in hell.
Later, he was taken into the presence of the representatives of the Collective, and he was told very succinctly that, being a ‘disruptor of the process’, he was from that moment on expelled from the territory. However, and since he was the one responsible for the deaths, he could formulate a request, aiming for some balance. The young Vaz, in shock, filthy from his own vomit and the blood of the innocents, glimpsed in that scenario of horror a grain of soul. Timorously, he requested that they hand over to him one of the newborns, whose parents had the custom of delivering to the guardianship of the Collective — so that in the future they would be proud members of the Armed Force. They granted him the request, in exchange for the weight of the child in salt…’
Vesper’s eyes were bulging. Astonished, he looked at the old man. The latter in turn, downcast, picked up a small portion of salt that was scattered on the ground, and added plangently:
‘These minuscule crystals, abundant in the seas of the world, were once as precious as though they were rare diamonds, to the point that they have served as trade currency… Hard lives, those of the salt workers, whole families, men, women, children, old people, all of their stories, all of their fugacious existences imprinted in sweat and blood on the soluble crystals. Perhaps it is their very tears that preserve and season our pieces of meat and fish.’
The boy stirred a monticule of salt with his forefinger, with a distant gaze. Mentesúfis, lifting his head, added:
‘All of this reminds me of the words of a Lusitanian poet…’
Vésper, in an assertive tone, poured out:
‘Perhaps the seas are really made up of the tears of all the peoples.’
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Coming soon…
The Story of the Orb | Episode 14
Girls and Whims — ‘Ancestral funeral’
Trying to understand what occurred in the village, Vésper and Mentesúfis enter the bell tower. A surprise awaits them.
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