Findesferas Part 8
Juan
Shaking rows of weary heads, Juan felt the blood pool in his lower limbs and crouched down amongst the other soldiers, hugging his knees, so glad to feel the soft stream of cool night air on the back of his neck. Every grainy little bump was agony in his swollen feet, hammering on his bones, torn between wanting to run off into the woods or ride it out in the hopes of safety. He thought, not worried, about his brother, who would be striding somewhere towards his eventual escape, Brazilians behind him on an invisible leash, but well aware of its presence. It pained Juan to be apart from Matías, beyond the day-to-day comfort blanket that his brother was to that indescribable level of complex need, that he no longer recognised the world, nor the world Juan, without his brother confidently somewhere, whether a location, a space, pinpointed somehow, and Juan wondered the last time he had been in this predicament, and came up short. Juan was without a reference, lead down a dead end in the dark, flame snuffed out and endeavouring to return to his reality.
Quite a sight was the rickety train and it made an epic humphing sound with violet plumes of smoke billowing sigmoidally up and backwards. Yellow flames pulsed in crackling chambers through the grill, the train like a perforated gas pipe flaring shooting through the darkness.
They passed over dirt, dust, asphalt, concrete, on roads, off roads, a disconnect from the ground beneath them, on some definite path cut through the country as if the convoy was stationary, wheels rolling on a moving globe, rotating tortuously, never to perturb the tenacious route of this strange train. Small cities ran past them left and right, and there was no curious glance from a single soldier, not at the cities or the swaying trees, not a guess at what cawing wildlife joined the singular crackle of the fires.
No, not until they reached that shadowy village because they passed through that too, slicing across the earth straw broken underwheel cattle wailing caterwauling blazing fire, villagers screaming, one man left his hut at the wrong time, witnessing the snapshot of the marshal’s face mapped by fire on the night and in that flickering face he swore- no, please no- it was him, the spirit of López had returned! That same inflated flesh shining skin and wretched dark teeth, determination, how could… then he was back. Yes, somehow here he was again, glaze of twisted monomania in the eyes. He will not let Paraguay meet that fate again oh no he was back like a malevolent spirit dancing across the wasteland of that old failure of his, saw the villager, to change the course of history, or- who could say!- play out a foolish play on the grandest stage, a parody of that great loss.
In the morning there was heat from the men crowded onto the wooden carts, heat from the burning furnaces, from the sun beating down upon their weary heads. There was no way of knowing how long they had been travelling for, the poor men having to stand the whole way, feeling every bump through the rickety wooden wheels. It took Juan some getting used to the way the men shuffled around the cart to stand in the middle to protect themselves from the sun, taking turns standing by the furnaces and they spent the first few miles clinging on to the other men so as not to fall off the side of the cart. Eventually he picked up the rhythm though, he had to. Juan was the only one present who could not tell his face how to act, and was a red hot sweaty vision of the unbearable conditions they had been enduring all this time. While the other soldiers did not speak, their feverish shuffling had started to slow down. Everyone was in desperate need of a rest.
The marshal yelled out ‘Stop!’ and the carts slowly trundled to a halt, men swaying to and fro with the change in acceleration before snapping back upright when everything was stationary. There was almost absolute silence, only the furnaces chuntering out their remaining puffs of energy, then the silence started blaring as the furnaces stopped as well, silence and dusty nothing everywhere. It stayed like this for a while, and Juan was so far from the captain that he couldn’t see him and had no idea what he was doing.
A flitting sound like birdsong stretched out and played in reverse. Another. Another. Bullets, πBullets flying through the air, the men readied themselves and hopped off the cart, forming a three-sixty degree battle stance they had obviously spent a lot of time preparing in Atyrá. Matías would have joined in seamlessly, finding a small gap between the other soldiers and forcing his way in. Instead Juan clutched his rifle, jumped off the cart and peered out aimlessly through the spaces between the soldier’s heads.
‘Me cago en diez!’ shouted the marshal, ‘They said the route was clear!’ Where these bullets were coming from, no one could see. That meant that snipers had dipped below the horizon peeking their cruel heads out every now and then to fire off rounds. Juan listened carefully to the shots. Wheow, wheow, wheow. Several shots occurring every five seconds, with a reloading time of ten seconds, maybe two teams of ten men firing at two distinct times? Outnumbered, then. A climactic sound rung out like a wet fleshy punch as one of the soldiers dropped and the wind of bullets stopped at the same time. Then tension in the men’s shoulders suddenly relaxed and they released the dead man from the wall of soldier, and he slid face first to the ground in front of Juan. Juan sighed in disbelief, and knelt down by the man, placing a hand on his back in an act of comforting but drew it back to his face sticky with bright red arterial blood.
The marshal stamped his feet from the opposite side of the train of carts, and his angry march could be seen through the gaps in the wheels as he stormed round to the location of the man.
'Well, what was all that about?' He said, like a confused friend and not a leader.
'Who's this on the ground?'
'It's… it's one of your men? I don't know his name, I wish I did', said Juan.
'Not me, son. Better that way. Men! Put him to good use.'
The other soldiers swarmed around the fallen man, pushing Juan out of the way, forcing him to climb back on to the cart. Through the mass of soldiers, Juan didn’t know what was going on, not even a suspicion. There were tearing noises, then the men stood back from the soldier, who was now naked, and stood all around him, lifting him up on their soldiers. Juan looked away out of respect and confusion as the soldiers marched the man alongside the train and flung him onto the first cart. They clambered up beside him and one soldier opened the furnace door. The men lifted the fallen soldier like a battering ram, and shoved him head first into the furnace, packing in his splayed arms and legs and forcing the furnace door shut again with their backs.
'Oh yes lads, that's right!' The marshal cried out, standing on the front of the train again, looking forward but calling back, 'Nothing to go to waste anymore, oh no, don't want that at all! Onwards and upwards, got to keep moving, and our man here's going to help us do that.' The furnace was kicking out fat plumes of acrid smoke, and the soldiers were quickly resuming their original formation on each of the carts, not a single one looking disgusted at the heavy smell that filled the air.
Juan covered his mouth and turned away from the dark smoke, and looked up at a road sign that one of the bullets had cut through: Concepción 200 km.
'Sir, we're heading to Argentina, right?'
'What's that, Juan? Of course we're heading to Argentina, didn't you hear me? We're going to Argentina, Argentina! Rio del Plata!'
There was silence, and all the men had turned to look at Juan. His heart slowed down. He had known it was a mistake before he spoke, Concepción was north of Atyrá, and the mouth of the Rio del Plata was south.
Juan looked back at the marshal’s family, huddled in a corner of the cage in flimsy rags, trying their best to stay out of the sun. The marshal’s mother looked back at him with a stern face, unflinching, and Juan knew then that this was all a mistake, the body, the cruelty, the misdirection. Something bad was happening, and Juan knew the only way out was to kill the marshal.
Findesferas
It was during the recommended hours for sleep that Juan went for a wander through the ship’s long branching corridors. He had many things on his mind, but he had gotten out of bed because he knew that if he did, he would find the woman from the graveyard.
Juan wore soft slippers and slid gently along the metal panels on the floor. There was almost no lighting of which to speak, all shut off for the artificial night, some ineffectual strips of LEDs underfoot. He had to be careful: his bearings weren’t the best, and he soon realised how impractical his footwear was when the floor gently inclined, and he found himself slipping back down, sometimes on all fours using the friction of his hands to climb up. There was a gentle hum from the engines that always seemed of uniform volume in all directions, which was surely not possible. Juan followed the branching network of cylinders, some smaller, some bigger, progressively darker, never looking out through the thick portholes to marvel at the purple darkness, on a mission to find the woman.
It was two hours and seventeen minutes before she appeared, walking away at the end of a corridor, disappearing round the bend and heading off a branching path unseen to Juan, hypnotised in a sleepy stupor, not surprised to see her, but more determined to speak with her. He picked up the pace, balancing himself against the curving wall, cursing his slippers as he slid on the floor, almost falling, so desperate to catch up.
It was another very long half an hour before he saw her again, and could not help but shout out, knowing fine well he would wake some of the other passengers.
'Hey!'
She turned around, a dark silhouette, but he knew it was she. He stopped, waving his arms, and she moved her head closer to see who it was. She moved in his direction, getting nearer, still a shadow but as she passed a porthole a fortunate nebula cast a red light on her and he saw her face, but it wasn’t the woman who stole his swimming pools. She stopped in the light, confused, but still something familiar… She called back.
‘Juan?’
'How do you…?'
At that moment, a booming voice joined in, this time from behind: ‘Juan!’
He was desperate not to turn around, but someone was definitely approaching at a quick pace. The woman also didn’t know what to do, but she looked sorry, sorry for making Juan chase her for so long, looking around for a way to help him, for them to speak, the two of them, panicked, she shouted ‘My name is Lalia.’
Lalia. But she looked nothing like his wife, her hair was longer, shoulders broader, still he knew that… That was it!
'You need to remember me, Juan, that's the trick', before she sped off again on her long journey through the ship, up and over and around and out of sight again.
‘Juan, what are you doing, boy?’
The voice got nearer, and Juan recognised the captain speaking. His fear started to dissipate, he felt a bit more satisfied. Remember her. Remember Lalia. That’s the trick.
Juan turned around to see the captain approaching. ‘A fellow night owl, what a pleasure to meet you at this hour. Come with me though, can’t have you noising up your neighbours like that, you gave everyone a bit of a fright. Thought it might have been you, you have that nervous sleeper look about you, son.’
'Sorry captain, I don't know what I'm doing here.'
'Don't know what I'm doing here either, son. Tell you what, let's have a little chat for a while, get your head settled then you can head back to your room.'
'Here?'
'Here? Spheres no, son, my quarters are a few branches away.'
Only the captain could use a word like “quarters” thought Juan as he was guided in Lalia’s direction to a large circular door, much like that of the captain’s study.
As the two men entered, Juan couldn’t help his curiosity, and made no attempt to hide how he peered around the captain’s room. It was much bigger than his own room, with a large four poster bed with a steel frame right in the centre, and the biggest porthole yet cut out of one of the walls above a metal desk, colouring the room like a kaleidoscope in the wild colours of the galaxies outside. There were two chairs bolted to the floor beside a small drinking cabinet. Juan imagined that through the other circular door was the captain’s personal bathroom and felt a pang of jealousy thinking about all the eyes he had to meet in the suggested morning hours while waiting for an unsatisfactory chemical shower.
'Sit down, my lad.'
'Really I'll be fine, I can go back to my room.'
'Do you remember how you got here?'
Juan smiled.
'I'll have a seat, then.'
'I'm glad it was you shouting out there. I did mean to have a chat with you.'
'We always have a chat though, I come by your study when I can.'
'I know you do son, but it's not always the right moment for us to discuss certain things.'
‘What did you want to talk about?’
The captain squeezed himself into the chair, and it soon became apparent that this was some initial design of the sitting area for this room during the first conception of The Findesferas. The chairs were positioned at an awkward angle so that neither man was directly looking at the other. The burly captain’s fat thighs extended a little too far in Juan’s direction and pressed into his knees. It would have been nice to shift the chair on the floor, except it was bolted down.
'It's Juliana. I'm starting to think she might be lost. I can't find her or her boyfriend, but I can't imagine they've run off together.'
'What can I do?'
'My men have started a search so there's nothing to worry about, but you? You're my little adventurer. In case you spot her on one of your night time explorations, you know where I'll be.'
'Right you are. Um… you know young women, they've got plans we don't understand.'
'Hm?'
'I only mean… nothing. Well, thanks for keeping me out of trouble. Could you direct me back to my room?'
'Ah yes of course lad! Out of here, left, left again, follow the path along and you can't miss your corridor from there.'
‘Um, thanks’, said Juan, not understanding the instructions but too embarrassed to clarify. He wandered down the corridor, head filled with thoughts of elusive women.
Matías
- Is this him? You said there were two of them! What was it then, a trick of the light? Did they merge?
- How should I know? Be happy I found him. Will we take him back to the cave, or do you want to eat him here?
- We can’t risk being seen, and I want both of them. It took us long enough to find one, now do you swear he was two people before?
- I’d bet your life on it.
- Then… leave him here.
- What? Why?
- Because he’ll return to the other one
- But you don’t know when that will be or if it will even happen. You were complaining of your hunger and that’s why I brought you here. If you’re saying that you can last longer then I don’t want to give you either of them.
- Tell me why not!
- Their family has been loyal to me, for a long time. The traditions are fading, few families still show their gratitude but still they give me gifts. If I don’t need to, don’t make me do this, please.
When the warbling red sun spun over the sand and poured through the weave of the basket, Matías awoke with a start and a wicked hunger. He stood up and, pushed the cloth away, hopping to remove a string wound round his leg.
Looking at his torn strip of the map, Cerro Corá was north, north and… he pointed above his piece of map to where he thought it would appear on Juan’s section, then yawn-sighed exasperatedly. So, sort of north-ish? To the dangerous place? Yeah.
He had plenty of time to ruminate on the stupidity of his plan while the Brazilian blouses were inflating, resting in the basket.
There was a fierce acrid smell that pinched at the back of Matías’ throat and made him shudder like a noseful of mustard, like dirt in an open wound, like the creeping runoff of a bag of garbage coming in a warm breath in his direction that heated his cheek with a sickly humidity, and he turned to see a black dog-like creature peeking over the brim of the basket. He gagged at the stench given off by the dog and jumped back falling out the basket on the other side and stepping away. The dog had a melted face and no ears and every breath was a staggered wheeze, thick black pelt coated with old oil, it started to shy away and turn around. Another creature emerged from beside the basket, a little pygmy sheep with mould-infested fur and sharp red horns walking on hind hooves towards him, curious, before trotting up to him on all fours, Matías backing away, it would have reached the height of his knee if it had gotten any closer. And then, for the first time he saw the creature that was with his grandmother all those years ago as it stepped out from behind the dog, unmistakeable, thick dark skin like paper creased and calloused with wrinkles that filled with dust, he looked like a little shrunken man, hundreds of years old but had a thick mane of tangled straw-like hair, black. Matías pressed his hand to his mouth in horror.
- What do we do?
- Pant, pant.
There they stood, looking at one another in silence, spirit met man and man spirit in the middle of the day. Matías was looking at his childhood fears, the beasts he swore as a kid to keep his brother away from. He had slowly begun to forget about them, even explaining away his run-in with Kurupi to a chance falling coconut, but here they were now.
- Pant, pant.
Matías edged his way back to the basket.
The creatures did not move.
- Pant, pant.
He nodded to them. Only the Pombero returned the gesture, and Luison removed his foetid forepaws from the basket.
Matías dragged the basket in his direction.
The soft winds lifted the balloon’s envelope and billowed a shadow over the creatures, and where it touched them they were invisible, and as the balloon waved back and forth they came in and out of view. Matías no longer feared them, and seeing the trickery in front of them was permeated with an odd sadness for the beings, dissolving from their own land.
The balloon waved and waved and like a negative flashlight took the spirits out of sight. Matías held the balloon and directed it to cast a shadow on all three at once, holding it in place for the wind to catch it, and as he moved it again, he saw nothing.
He steadied himself. As he lit the large colander of coal again and waited for the balloon to fill, suddenly he dropped into a heap in the basket and let out a hideous wail.
He dried his face with his sleeve, and standing up to take in Paraguay at daytime, the large verdant patches of green and epic grey ribbons of roads, the distant flapping birds as if in slow motion, clouds breaking in the distance and releasing their weight of rain, the mottled sky of graphite greys and burning red, and with these things that were Paraguay, he wanted to protect all that he could see.
Octavia
To look up, up at that peachy sky! A blanket of clouds, milk with sweeps of blood, then one at first in the distance… It was a dot. The soldiers rubbed their eyes, it wasn’t something to see, a speck of dust on the eyeball, but it didn’t go away if they looked up, down, blinked really hard, then there were two or three, getting bigger, then somehow like two adjacent slides on a projector it went from these dots in the distance to a skyful of hot air balloons, fluttering blouses, gunshots, flickering flames of the burners, that’s how they got here over the border, undetected, to the capital! Crammed in the sky like bubbles in a glass of stale water.
Ana was sitting in the living room in her favourite seat, green velvet eroded through years of sitting where the light poured in from the garden and illuminated her attempted reading, thumbing through a cookbook trying to get a high when she fingered a familiar stain of flour from when she had resources to cook for herself, when the house was hers, before the spirits started making deals. It was a recent favourite hobby of hers that was interrupted by the low moaning of Octavia upstairs in her study, where she’d been hiding of late and wailing too, but never like this. Ana closed her book with care, as if it was much newer than it was, and decided she’d better go investigate, preparing her best sympathetic mum face as mums probably do before their peace is unwillingly broken by household life faults.
'Octavia dear… what's happened?'
Sunlight gleamed two mirrored streaks of streaming tears on Octavia’s- much older looking- face, cranked back in her office chair and swinging idly from side to side, using the momentum to rock her child who slept in her lap.
'I cut his hair yesterday, and when I kneeled down to look at him I saw-'
'Matías?'
What a dear was poor little Octavia. The weight of the burden of her lament for her husband seemed to grow and press on her as the child did.
'No, I didn't. I couldn't think of anything but myself. All this time I've been acting like I'm not a mother at all.'
'You wanted to be strong for me, for your husband. I saw that in you.'
Octavia shook her head again. Ana was at a loss, and showed it with an exaggerated shrug, ‘Well?’
'I did it because I wanted to deny it, that he's been here.'
‘Why?’
Octavia’s eyes glared fiercely.
'This child’, her voice graver, 'He's Juan's.'
Ana scoffed in exasperation.
'When?'
'Soon after Lalia passed. I haven't learned how to comfort people in other ways, it was the only thing I thought I could do to help. I think that… Without my looks, what do I have? Dusty old books, stupid little anecdotes, I don't know how to be kind. All these airs of culture, style, nothing. If I can't get the basic stuff right, then who cares!'
Through years of her son’s silly pranks, brutally injured knees, almost deliberately hideous teenage years, Ana’s mothering skills were honed.
'Stop all of this. Nobody's punishing you, you've been up here doing that to yourself, and no one's better than punishing you but you. Whatever heartache you think you deserve, you've already had. Let that weight off, will you?'
Octavia’s sobs stopped, and filled the room with silence. Then, they came back louder and harder, tears of pure happiness in celebration of forgiveness. She lifted her son and placed him down on her bed, and flew over to Ana, giving her so tight a hug a vertebra popped back into place.
'What about Matías? What do I tell him?'
'You tell him the truth, when he comes back. You tell him the truth.'
'I don't know if I-'
'You think you know my son better than me because you fell in love with him and lived happily for a while, but querida, I’m his mother. I know him better than you do, okay? In Matías is more forgiveness than you’ve ever seen.’
'You mean it?'
'Try him, dear.'
Octavia pushed Ana back by the shoulders so she could get a good look at the eyes of the woman who made her float inside herself, losing all the weight, until she was not a mother but a little girl again, in awe.
'Thank you so much. Thank you so much!'
Ana heard whooping coming from down the street and peered out in horror to see a group of looters on horseback riding down the street. They were dressed as soldiers, their horses tired and emaciated. How did they get past the wall? How far had they come to get there, how many had they killed? Ana drew the curtains and walked briskly over to Octavia.
'Hide yourself in the shed. There are men outside and they will enter our house.'
Octavia asked no questions, and raised herself quickly, clutching her son and gently jogging towards the back door. Ana put her hands over her face and inhaled deeply, then confidently strode out the front door.
'Gentlemen!' she called.
The men looked at her in surprise. The leader of the four men trotted his horse over to her.
'Do you know who we are?'
'I know enough. Please take what you need and be on your way. In return you will not disturb my neighbours.'
The man lowered his head and peered at Ana with dull grey eyes pausing for a moment before turning to his men who had stoic faces.
'Okay then.'
With no further words exchanged, they dismounted and were led by Ana into the house. The leader clicked the safety of his πPistol and pressed it to her head. Ana stopped for a moment, then carried on walking in the same direction into the house. The man directed Ana to the couch by forcing her head with the gun, before pushing her on the shoulder to get her to sit down. The soldiers were walking around her house, heading upstairs, poking boxes and opening cupboards. Octavia heard nothing, crouched down in the shed, whisper-singing little songs she knew to her child.
'Tell me then what you have that is worth me sparing your neighbours.'
'Supplies. I have much more rations than the others.' It was a painful bluff.
'What else?'
'I have some jewellery in my bedroom upstairs. You can take it all. The only thing I ask is that you do not touch the rum or cigars in the cupboards.'
There was a fire in the man’s eyes, and Ana was getting a little too nervous. The soldiers could tell. They stopped what they were doing and turned to her.
'Rum and cigars, for us. How nice.'
'No, please don't-'
He placed the πPistol to her temple, and fired a πBullet into her head, and when she fell she landed on grass and looked up to see a wall of soldiers, all crying for her. ‘So sorry,’ said Gustavo and ‘I’m really sorry’, said Cesar, and as she rose to her feet on the grass the soldiers swarmed around her and gave her the best and most enveloping hug from all angles, and she felt comfortable enough then to let out an enormous wail. When the hug was over an eternity later, Marco emerged from behind the huddle with a kettle and a cup of yerba mate with the special straw. She had so many questions, but as she opened her mouth to speak, Marco, who was pouring water from the kettle into the cup said ‘Shh, take a big drink of this first, then you can ask’, and he had the kindest look on his face, one of pure sympathy. She took the steaming cup of leaves from his hand and took a warm, familiar sip.
'Where are my friends?' she asked.
'Well, Lalia is here, you can see her soon enough.'
'I did always like that girl. She really should have settled down properly though… I feel like there should be someone else.'
'Who else do you know that died?'
'Well, what about your sons?' said one of the soldiers, and the rest of them gave him a stern look, but it was too late.
'My poor sons! Are they dead?'
'No, not yet, but…'
'The Pombero.'
Ana took a deep breath, closed her eyes and straightened her shoulders.
'I think I always knew.'
That was okay, though. No hug, not from a thousand soldiers, was worth the hug of one son.
Let’s take two twins, and call them Juan and Matías. Both of them start off on earth, in Paraguay, then Juan gets on a spaceship which travels close to the speed of light (three-fifths the speed gives a nice round calculation later), leaving Matías behind. Even although the two twins were born at almost exactly the same time in the same location, it can now be said that they are no longer in similar frames of reference with respect to space-time, and will experience time differently. Since Juan, relative to Matías, is accelerating away at a speed close to light, he will experience time slower, and Matías will experience time faster. So, should Juan’s spaceship turn around and head back to earth, accelerating at a similar speed, when Juan and Matías meet each other again, Matías will be much older.
Now, we have called this a paradox, but it does follow directly from Einstein’s Theory of Special Relativity.
If Juan’s acceleration is treated as constant across the whole period of interest (such that we eliminate the time it takes for Juan’s ship to reach its acceleration, the time taken for the ship to turn around again and slow down upon approaching earth). At his acceleration of three-fifths the speed of light, it can be calculated from Einstein’s theory and simple Pythagoras that for every 4 years of Juan’s life, Matías will age 5 years.
So the question remains: if Juan should return to Earth, what age will Matías be?
