CHAPTER LIX: TO OVERWHELM SO AS NOT TO BREAK

Requiem for the flowers and the trees that had dressed the outskirt and now left it bare, lifeless, leaving a trail of dim light in the vicinity of the fire. January of that year 59 wasn't quite cold, but a year began which was frosted on the inside, a withered year, where my brother and I started to find ourselves and as so many times the threshold was an uninhabited and inhospitable clearing.

   That fire at the end of January was poor, dim and weak. There was my uncle Jairo commenting on a project that he had for the coming year.

─ "My sister, James and I have finished a school two kilometers away from San Luis Talpa and we only need to find a teacher. We still need a teacher of language and one of maths - my brother Paul looked at him then reflexively-. James will teach geography and next year he will ask for a leave of absence to be there the whole course, and also Rosa will teach history. In your year 59 and 60 – he told his nephew and niece - you will not see your uncle and aunt."

   I noticed my brother was self-absorbed, pondering the information from uncle Jairo, wanting to find in it something he still lacked. We were going to stand up to go to our houses of Washington Street to sleep when Anne-Marie came. We stayed one little longer. These days the demolition of Rage Bridge was a common topic. The North Road had been projected again and would not now go though the bridge. Famous throughout its useful life because of suicides, now with no road and its tragic history, they had thought of leaving only the viewpoint of the west to watch the Wrathfall waterfalls and blow up everything else. Everybody was talking about that when Anne-Marie came.

─ "I have to tell you something that I just heard in the square of the Basilica – she looked at Olivia somewhat uncertain-. Well, it is no longer any secret and you’ll end up hearing it. Tomorrow all the city will speak about this. It seems that he has chosen the last days of its useful life so that the bridge of suicides dies with one more. And he's chosen to die there, in his surname. It all shows it has been a suicide. They said that he was very old and very dejected with his son in jail. And he could not stand so many things - Lucy, my brother and I pricked up our ears, as well as my grandmother-. They say that William Rage has died."

   The news did not leave his family indifferent, even though they had never met him. Lucy, Paul and I stayed silent. Bruce, Miguel, John, Luke, Nike and Richard were waiting for Olivia to say something.

─ "After all I was expecting that news – it was difficult to know if she felt some sorrow-. At least now I can say that I have survived the “wolf”. Now I have lived one more year than those my mistress lived. I should not be here much longer."

    Everyone was quick to tell her that she should not say that, but understood what she felt. My brother and I left as every night to our houses, and we accompanied Armand and Crystelle down Temple Road. We said goodbye when we reached the crossing with Washington Street and they continued to Deanforest. Three years it was now since Armand had decided to leave the house to his sister, now Mrs. Grover, and her husband, and he, who constantly came and went to El Salvador stayed with the palace, now named Deanforest Palace.

   To the funeral of William Rage didn't want to attend my grandmother and nobody said anything. Nor were there her mates, dad Luke or dad Nike. His grandchildren didn’t go either. But my mother did go. Lucy was out of her element saying goodbye to a father she had never met and was face to face with his second wife. Mary Falk, the widow, probably guessed that the redhead girl who cried alone somewhat away from the grave of her husband, must have been his first daughter. It was there too, with exceptional prison permission due to circumstances, his son Bart. His eyes crossed with his sister’s but they said nothing.

   Spring continued as a young dancer alternating jumps and unexpected spins, changing and crazy and I noticed my brother taciturn and meditative. He often went for a walk and conversed with Uncle Jairo, who that year was here until May. He spoke to him of Asunción and Amparo, his two loves that were finally nothing and the scarce hope he had of having a partner one day. But they had to talk about other things. One day unexpectedly Paul spoke to me. We were reaching our neighbouring houses on Washington Street. It was a night of May and my uncle Jairo had just returned to his country.

─ "Elased – he used to call me so with a smile when he was going to make me any confidence- this morning I asked of the University one-year leave of absence. The next course I will not be here. I don't know if I'm doing what my heart is asking me, but staying in Hazington I think is like withering. I want to go with Aunt Rosa and Uncle James to El Salvador to be the teacher of mathematics of San Luis Talpa next year. I had to tell you first. And some fear I have of what might tell me mom, dad, dad and grandmother."

─ "I’ll really miss you, Regulus. But it is your decision and I can only support you. I tell you what one day Uncle James told dad Luke: go on with your life, that which you have chosen."

   On September 1 I said goodbye to my brother, James, Rosa de Lima and Armand, who along with my uncle Jairo made that which we call El Salvador quintet. My grandmother said goodbye to him with a kiss of fire saying:

─ "Good-bye, sweetheart. Never forget me. Someday we shall see each other again."

    I kept writing the prehistory of the inhabitants of the Torn Hand. My grandmother read her story, having previously encouraged me to tell it all and be sincere and courageous. She had time to read her part and accept it. She encouraged me to not falter and tell all roads and how my parents had met and loved one another and my brother and I came to the world. They were now the days of Internet and fortunately I had a computer where I was writing everything slowly at home, where it was easier to familiarize with something that I didn’t know, generally mythology or stars, and although I had Nigel's advice, everything was more secure with global information within my reach. It is also simple to correct. If you write something wrong, you press the correct key and there you are. You can reread yourself constantly in search of mistakes and if any mistakes there are in those chapters already written, you change it as soon as possible and no more problem. But what is not simple is narrating something autobiographical. The more you know and love someone, the more fears appear to tell feelings, descriptions, or dialogues that do not do them justice. But as I was writing all of them encouraged me to tell it with my poor art, reminding me that I had inherited the ability of my aunt Kirsten to do portraits and also with words I could frame them in their landscape and surround them with perspective and horizons.

   But October came and with it an autumn and a winter that would be of crying. On October 12 almost everyone was already at the bonfire. Only Olivia had not yet returned and there her brother was waiting for her that night. Lucy stood up a moment to wash some dishes in the river. All the others were talking animatedly around the fire when they heard something which gave them goosebumps. It was a horrifying scream. They knew that it was Lucy. Bruce, Miguel, John, dad Luke, dad Nike, Richard, my uncle Gerald and I went quickly to the Kilmourne.

   Soon we saw her crying torrents overlooking the river. The brightness was enough for everyone to notice. Her lifeless body had been hooked to some rushes near Menhir Bridge. It was clear that she had drowned. His brother yelled a second heartbreaking cry.

─ "Olivia, sweetheart. Why? Why do I have to be the last of the Rivers? You were worthier than me."

─ "There are still some more Rivers, uncle. -I was able to say in my heartbreaking tears. I had never cried like that.

   We all stayed like shocked statues not knowing what to do or what to say. We only heard my father Nike's voice, who said something simple, but of its same simplicity, creepy.

─ "The southwestern wind is blowing. But now it won't bother you anymore, my dear Olivia. Now every time it blows we will remember you."

   My father Luke was completely silent also embracing my mother with his tears and a waterfall of memories, he confessed to me days later, which had come to his mind. But he broke the silence to suddenly tell Nike.

─ "Let’s take her out of the water, my love. She cannot stay there."

   With difficulties they brought her to the shore and seeing her on the ground everybody seemed to agree and crossed themselves. Her brother was frozen, unable to feel, but everything was dying on the inside. Anyway, he was able to say.

─ "I am very old now to take care of everything. But very close from here, in Alder Street, corner of Temple Road, my friend Harry lives. He works in a funeral home. He will help me with everything. My God - he said when he was already leaving-, why, why, you had more value than me, sweetheart. Death has not been fair."

   Perhaps the short walk helped him to stand up a little, but soon he came back crying, and sat for a while at the bonfire with everyone but Lucy, who remained in the river next to her mother’s body. Shortly after came an ambulance which carried her mortal remains to a brand new funeral home south of St Alban's Road. And we all went there.

   That bitter night it was all tears and Luke and Nike did not know how to comfort Lucy. I remembered my brother, who was not living it. And my grandmother Maudie, my only Grandma now, I had to remember to write to her and tell her. She’s loved her so much and my two grandmothers had been like sisters. There were also Nigel and Peter; Sarah Protch with her daughter Crystelle and his son-in-law Tristan; Anne-Marie Jones and her husband. My father Nike broke the tearful silence to say:

─ "I am now the sixth. But I refuse to not count anymore Mistress Oakes and Olivia, and all my life I will be the eighth."

─ "And I fear that I am now the first - said my mother. Bitter number 1. I'd rather stay always with number 3. It was beautiful your number 2, mom. What will I do now without you?"

  The funeral was in the North Cemetery. She was already resting next to her sister. Both of them were now together and in peace. Gerald was still regretting being the last, but he rested in the thought that they had had each other for almost 20 years. Lucy recalled her mother’s words when her mistress' funeral, but also remembered that Olivia had always preferred the word hi:

─ "Hi, mom. Always flying in peace at the mercy of the winds, until the last blow has come to you. But winds spread the seeds and those of us who are your offspring will have to follow you. We have already lost your mistress and you, but I have to live, because I have my fruits and the cycle of the Rivers should continue."

   To those bitter words everyone followed in a cascade. Bruce, Miguel, John, Luke, Nike and Richard said their words as an eternal tribute and her brother Gerald and I closed the procession. Then we went back to the Torn Hand to continue crying. My parents thought that we had to tell my brother, who, in his last letter told us that he was still in El Salvador working and feeling fulfilled. So we decided to write to him and he answered with a heartfelt letter that my grandmother would have read with pleasure. But he told us he had just married. He had met the substitute teacher of mathematics, Ermelinda Andrea Cálix, and he had married on October 15. The letter came at the beginning of November. My mother seemed to be somewhat more serene and was glad that his son already had a wife. Our little king told us that he would continue in El Salvador, crying for Olivia but happy to have found happiness in his wife. Richard decided to spend that night in the Torn Hand along with his mates.

   It was not easy to comfort Gerald, but great support was for him, who could have thought about it, Richard Protch and his wife. They were every day with him in the hard winter of the year 59. But Richard said:

─ "For years we have been friends, Gerald. Who would have told us in the hard years of jail? But then your sister has been my mate. She could have hated me and however she has always liked me as a mate and brother. And she has been very close to me at the end; as if she knew that in these bitter moments Lucy and you were going to need me."

   And now the former foes hugged each other and knew that they would be friends till the end of their days. It was not so easy to console my mother. One day she was talking to my father Nike and I heard their conversation. They were talking about that which for years was named Olivia’s mound.

─ "I will never know what happened. They saw her walking across Knights Bridge, as if she was going to the Arcade neighborhood. But there she didn't know anyone."

─ "She could have gone to the north of Umbra Terrae Boulevard or have gone to Knights Hill. What are you worried about, my heart?"

─ "Now Rage Bridge does no longer exist. But there are still bridges for... do you think, Nike, she killed herself as my father did?"

─ "We have no reason to think that it was suicide, like your father. Or like my father, my heart. She couldn’t swim. She never wanted me to teach her. She could have been watching Knights Bridge and have fallen. Whatever it is, death is just a second and however we have to die, all of us have to live it. She is gone forever, but the last few years, talking to her, she did recognize herself occasionally a happy woman. Now I want to see you coming out of this crisis, Lucy, my life."

─ "These days I live as best I can, my heart. It occurs to me that it is difficult to move forward without a faith, and I only believe in Luke, you and our two children. It is impossible to understand God sometimes."

─ “It is impossible. God is ineffable. But after so many years of walking the streets, I see Him as its representation: God is like the street."

   In December you could finally see her calmer. But the year had to finish with a new pain. My mother had a more serene face, but inside her there was a fear that one day she dared to express to Luke.

─ "It seems, my love, we're going in chronological order, and it should be my turn now. It is an interior wind which burns me, as if we now had to face a new prophecy."

   And before ending, the year 59 came with a new blow. But my mother was wrong and death jumped two positions. It ignored her and it also respected Bruce, but it stopped in the fifth motif by Verôme. The year was close to hand over the baton to year 60, but before being sexagesimal, it was going to end as it had begun, in tears. The morning of December 28 Miguel when waking up told John to leave him there a little longer, for he was not quite right. And they kissed. That would be their last kiss. An hour and a half later John went in order to wake him up and found him lifeless. He seemed to look at him with love, as if apologizing for having chosen Castor, the mortal twin.

   John was all day lost, walking and crying. He could hardly stand at the funeral, also in St. Alban, since in Miguel's country almost everyone was Catholic. He was buried very close to Mistress Oakes. Back to the Torn Hand there the Outcasts were all the afternoon, those who were now. Vincent McFarlane had made peace with his brother Kenneth, who had just been widowed, and picked him up in his house with his wife, because finally he had married Katie, now Katie McFarlane, and had gone to live in Evendale. They often came to see the Outcasts who were now and their neighbors in the Torn Hand. Enoch Reed had had some partners, but none turned out well, and was satisfied with his life as the receptionist at Earthkings. However Evelyn Mills and Loraine Sparrow had spent their lives together and they would have even married if they had been able. That they commented on the bonfire of that bitter night.

─ "Miguel and I thought about it. He had dual nationality and in his country it is already legal that two men can marry. Sometimes we thought about it. But we never did. Now I must meditate in nothing more than him and it is not fair to think of Mthandeni, my first love, but he continues to write. It seems that he has spent his life beside one man called Daniel Berasaluce, and finally, when the law allowing marriage between two men appeared, they got married."

   But the Outcasts had changed. In Blood Cattle Route, after Sheila’s death, a diaspora had begun. Myra, Sue and Elliott went away, leaving the Spence brothers alone. Nathan and Joey never left the street and as long as they had each other they would still be there. But they had joined their neighbors, the Outcasts, and they were now Enoch, Evelyn, Loraine, Nathan and Joey. When Vince left, Nike remained as the only owner of the "house" of Henry Shaw, until he decided to put it also in the name of Evelyn Mills and Nathan Spence, who agreed with him.

  Finally the Outcasts left and the Torn Hands remained all awhile more with John, who had decided to stay until he could see Castor in the skies. And when at last he saw it, he cried really downcast.

─ "I would like to go and make you come back, Miguel, and if I could go to hell and rescue you, there I would go to bring you back or stay there with you."

    My father Nike remembered a few words from Luke’s tale and then he would tell me: with Pollux, son of Zeus, keeping his willingness to enter Hades to rescue Castor, his twin, and return him to life. In the end he stayed alone with Bruce, and still was unable to retire to bed, now never more with his partner. His old mate spoke to him.

─ "I was recalling a few words – he said as he embraced him strongly - that Luke likes to repeat. This hard winter has been good to overwhelm our hearts so as not to break them."

─ "Mine is almost broken, Bruce. I didn't sleep last night and tonight I don't know whether I'll be able to. If I don't get it, I will write to Brenda Dolores. She had no children and after her there are no more McDawn. But what cold, what loneliness, what pain."

─ "I was thinking, John, that I can sleep with you. I am already too old to learn certain things. My four fellow men have matched with men, although two of them also with a woman. I've always lived alone. My two loves already went away. Maybe my life would have been different with a man. But now I cannot do anything."

─ "You are wise, Bruce. But do not speak nonsense. Everyone is the way he is and that’s all. I hope you don’t apologize now because you like women - and that was the first time that John was able to smile.

─ "I can do something, however. All my life alone in the street is also tiring. Well, I'm not Miguel or can I replace him. But we could go together through the city, John. We could be mates. And the time we still have to live we would live it together. Not as a couple, but at least as mates on the street. And we would talk about Miguel at all hours. I am also going to miss him a lot."

   It was not easy to convince him, but he accepted. They even spent the night chastely together. Days of cold in his heart when John had lost his partner, but had gained a mate.

   And with difficulty he was quietening by his side. He could not have stood solitude, but he went to the street, just to the street, with a friend. He was already nearly toothless, because he never wanted to get dentures. After a week, he was already able to sleep alone, although he needed an hour at least of reading. He read again the last book that Miguel had finished, The Lord of the Rings. He remembered how his partner preferred the character of Aragorn and he preferred that of Sam. But in the end they had come together to Mount Doom and Frodo had thrown the ring into the volcano.

   This year 60 all of them read it and became true Tolkienans. They even read The Silmarillion and The Hobbit, eager to devour more of this world that J.R.R. Tolkien had created. With the dignity of his entire life he had managed to create a fantastic orb with the ability to make it plausible and it was even credible that now we were in the Fourth Age and we had lived a prehistory shared with Elfs, Dwarves and Hobbits and one read it and was easy to believe that the fate of mankind depended on the fact that a ring was thrown into a volcano. Masterful Tolkien. His fantasy world illuminated the 20th century and will continue to illuminate for centuries.

   The year 60 however brought new lives. Nigel came to the outskirt with two cats, female and male, which he had found malnourished and withered close to the mountains one day. He spoke with Nike.

─ "I will stay with them, Nike. Now the important thing is to seek a name for them. But I cannot think of more names beginning with te-"

─ "Neither can I, Nigel. But I could think of other names, one female and one male, very close to us, if we skip a consonant of the alphabet and we maintain the vowel, that is Ve-"

─ "Tell me what you think."

─ "The female cat could be called Vera and the male cat Verôme."

─ "It would be perfect to see your neighbor the Outcast again and also that way I can do what you have all done: look at Verôme in the face. Those names I like."

   And everyone knew that night Vera and Verôme, which as all previous cats had done soon preferred Bruce and Nike.

   The summer of the year 60 was already close to the autumn equinox when a dawn of fire they saw Paul climbing the slope. He didn't come alone from El Salvador. A beautiful young woman he brought with him. She was brunette and voluptuous, with enough energy to accompany the little king in life with optimism. Although perhaps now he shouldn't be called little king. With them came also in his father's arms his continuation on Earth.

─ "This is my son, Regulus he is called. We registered him with that name. He was born on July 31, between you and us. And he is also a Leo. His mother and I have been getting information about the stars of Leo and we have given him dseta leonis, Adhafera."

   Adhafera, dseta leonis, a white yellow giant star located in the lion's mane. It seems that its name means curl and now some could be seen in little Regulus, the new sap of my family. The jungle continued with new lions and I trembled when I was aware that I already had a nephew.

    Paul stayed a while looking with watery eyes that which had been his grandmother’s tent and he calmed thinking she will be happy he had not known her death. Then he embraced John tightly and words were not necessary.

─ "Now it is the turn of your generation, Paul." - said John.

   Ermelinda Andrea Cálix was combative and it thrilled us to have this tireless woman as a part of the family. It was obvious that she would have a comfortable relationship with her in-laws. Regulus was asleep happily in the beginning of his journey through life and the family looked at him captivated. Nike said suddenly what probably my three parents were feeling.

─ "We’re grandparents now."

   The three of them embraced. The three of them had enjoyed years of happiness together and their blood was renewed. Paul spoke again.

─ "We have been for a longer time in El Salvador so that Ermelinda’s family could know him for at least one month. And in order to register him properly. We have been able to give him my three surnames and his mother's surname too. So your grandson is called Regulus Prancitt-Rivers-Siddeley Calix. This year at least we will spend in this country. And I think now we will definitely live in Washington Street, 21."

   Days of new life began, of brooks of renewed blood, hope and happiness. The Outskirt of the Torn Hand was still sprouting some fertile new seeds and it seemed to laugh loud new fog-free, pure and warmer days.