CHAPTER XIV: HUNGER

   It could not be otherwise. Every day I woke up earlier and the frightened light of the last dawn of July already penetrated through the southeastern crack, stroking my right eye as an amnesty. I began to balance the past. My fear was different now. The belief already helped me that Nicholas Siddeley was mortally wounded; but from then on I had panic that he was resurrected. I had woken up with time enough to reflect, this day 31 at my usual time, more or less 7 o’clock. I sensed that John was late to get up and if there was a coffee that day, −every day, but the first, there was, but I never took it for granted- his arrival would delay. But dawn was not the only light. Even powerful and luminous, I still thought I would have to decide whether I had fallen in love with Luke. Curiously I had already decided that before him it had been John. I never rejected what my heart was telling me; it never shocked me. But I thought it was better to be sure before making similar mistakes in life again. I decided with no apparent reason to stand up and get out of the tent. Everything was dark and there was no one still up. I pretended I didn't want to see Luke in the vicinity, Protch. I chose to lie to myself and I thought all I needed was to stretch my legs.

   After three endless hours alone with my ungrateful company, John finally came with the daily coffee. But at least I can tell you that I never betrayed myself with him. When a star explodes and fades forever, we still perceive its light for centuries, and John had still light enough for his clarity to shine in my memories, even though in my heart his flame was already off.  But he noticed me different:

− "There is a new luminescence in your face; I could not say –and apparently not related, he added−, what did you think of Luke?"

− "A man I would really like to be a friend of –I said not knowing very well what to say, but going to the essential−.  I think he has liked me."

− "'He has really liked you, Nike –he confirmed−, he has only had sweet words about you."

   Luke. Now forever radiant in my heart. But not having been able to accept anything yet, how to help falling from his heart?

− "I'm leaving, Nike. But today you will not be alone, if you want to get to know us. A friend wants to see you. Shall I let her in?"

   I nodded and I didn't wait much, because she only awaited a signal from John.

   With sure steps a lady came into the tent who, recalling Miguel’s words, was 73 years old. Bright her face with the smile she was drawing, it seemed a steppe landscape just crossed by the casual hills of some wrinkles. With the gray hair well ordered almost to the shoulders, ashen also her eyes, a black denime skirt that reached her ankles and a red shirt, I was surprised with a floral perfume as of violets. The three women bought their clothes at the Salvation Army charity shops. Not having seen her there, it wouldn’t seem likely to me that she had been 50 years on the street. Her radiant expression only spoke to me of patiently accepted happiness.

   After timidly asking me whether I wanted her to come in and after assuring her that indeed so it was, she was going to introduce herself. But I went ahead and this time I was right:

− "Mistress Oakes?" –I asked.

− "Madeleine Oakes, certainly. Everybody calls me this way here, all but my girl, who at times dares to tenderly call me by my name. You can use it, if you like."

   Too much boldness. I had not needed many minutes to love her and she already evoked the image of someone I knew, but I wasn't able to know whom. But I preferred to call her mistress, respecting what they all did. After the usual question for my health and the usual answer, I was surprised with the following statement:

− "You are Leo –she said to me with conviction−. Strong and vital"

− "Rather weak and pessimistic. But yes, I'm a Leo"

− "You don't trust in your own strength yet. But you'll find it. I think that you've already begun"

   A certainty was followed by a gust of apprehension: it didn't matter that this woman could be reading me. Perhaps her mind and mine tuned on the same frequency. But she not only always believed that my thought was a mirror but also that it was connected with hers

− "I am a Scorpio −she informed me, answering me to the question which could be read in my eyes−, but I don’t believe I am either powerful or passionate, as they often describe us. Nike −she said determined, as if continuing a conversation that we had never started but telepathically we were having− it is highly recommendable to stop and reflect, but it is not always to set goals that are beyond our strength. Take your time."

   I knew whom she resembled. Her similar way of taking the pain out from all that could hurt, but not hesitating to pronounce it; the same intuition of what was making me suffer and identical desire to calm me down with words, apparently, enigmatic. I couldn't help it. Not even ten minutes had passed since I had met her but I asked permission to give her a kiss and a hug.

− "You resemble my grandmother Deborah −and that almost made me cry−. She passed away on year 22, if I have learned your chronology correctly."

   Suddenly I heard her murmur a few words, something like “Yes, before I die I had to meet you. I have always been waiting for you. We miss nobody now. We are eight at last. " That I thought I understood, and I felt that Nicholas Siddeley was dying then, in that shiver.

-"Thank you for this kiss, you handsome boy. –she said, and she startled me again: only grandmother Deborah had called me thus.

− "Have you really looked at me well, Mistress Oakes? They usually do not say that to me, and I certainly have nothing remarkable."

− "Now some temptations cannot reach me. But you're really a very attractive guy. And you have this suggestive look of a tormented man who regrets his life and stops in the middle of a cyclone determined to change it. One day, for your peace of mind, I could read the Tarot cards to you. And you'd be surprised to see that you are treading on a very clean path."

   She used to read the cards and the others heard her serenely in a mound between the smokes of the bonfires or in the full light of day, and the reading was always reassuring.

− "Maybe you think I'm crazy –but seeing my rebellion at the idea, she added−. It could be, Nike. My mother was."

   She spoke then of Estella, her mother, who died shortly after John's arrival; of her frequent visits to the sanatorium of neighbouring Basin Hall, which resulted in that Mistress Oakes moved to Hazington; of how the glow of her reason was fading from pretty young in some sort of catatonic syndrome or schizophrenia. What started as obvious manifestations of aggressiveness had been turned into the helplessness of not even recognizing the venerable face of her who was her only daughter. And she had gone from tears to the bewilderment of the dry eyes and weeping reason, seeing her day by day and fearing to have the same fate, while at the same time she discovered startled that as long as she had kept the glass of her sanity clean, she had been, in fact, very happy and wondered whether her mother ever was. She told me they were very few years that she had known her lucid.

   That's how I came to know a small part of each story, but only Luke had told me his. And as I was getting to know them I had the security that I loved them all, and the disconcerting thought that everybody loved me. In Mistress Oakes I was recovering the nature bathed in sunshine of my childhood at Siddeley Priory, and that haven was softening me. Hail, Mistress Oakes, my mate, daughter of Adam and the star, pristine light of silver that let me perceive the edges of my new universe, first root of the primeval shining rose of the garden of my future! I never doubted her reason. It would be like questioning the clarity of every happy man. And so I told her. And then it was the echo of my tormented thought which gave shape to the question of a shipwreck survivor:

− "What can I do?" –I asked her desperately, seeking her solace.

− "Change the question, Nike –she seemed to understand perfectly the reason of my gloomy search−. You must not wonder what you will do when you are already carving a new path; you must only wonder what scents will have the flowers you are planting nearby. Many of the ones you believed to be monsters are already fading in your sunrise, and what in the distance seems to you as bizarre scarecrows, you will turn into fertile sculptures that do not terrify. One day I will speak to you of rectification, but it is true that your path bifurcates and unexpected landscapes are awaiting you."

   I remember that when I met her I wondered whether she could see too much, but later I realized that for the others it was more difficult to open our eyes after blindness and we were afraid to look.

− "And when you perceive their fragrance with no fears, no sidewalk will frighten you. Mine, in a mockery of time, has already rectified and perhaps now you question my state of mind when I tell you that I want to die in the street."

   Those days of long reflections I was already thinking seriously that I could help them with my money or even get them out of the street, all of them, little by little. Her last sentence was my first doubt. It was something as simple as that I believed in her word and then, taking her out of there, she would die for not being able to expire where she had chosen; or that away, perhaps, from her mates, she would die of loneliness. Those eleven days made me see that none would wither as long as they remained in the happiness of the seven, embraced in the same misery, in the same fruitful friendship that kept them going. With her words and her silence I was learning what books do not teach you.

− "But I often speak too much. During the day I read minds uncovering arcana and at night I have visions being asleep. Now I will leave you another enigma, and I apologize, but it may relieve you to unravel it, if you get it, instead of clarifying the impossible skein of many of your thoughts: they will tell you my delirium of four nights ago. At that time think that the images came from the names that you will give us."

   I didn’t know then her vision. No one had mentioned it to me. But as I was getting to know this wonderful woman, she said sentences like that, and I was not always the one who solved her mysteries. Sometimes another person unveiled it. But she always believed that my mind and hers had the same alley where sometimes they met. How not to love them? John had saved my life; Miguel always talked to me about impossible things that became challenges; Luke had given me his friendship and Mistress Oakes had given me her unshakeable faith in me. Even when the previous day I had met my twin, ashamed of his past, I needed to know someone like me, grim and suspicious about what time provided.

− "I go now, you handsome boy −her following words were paradoxical in a farewell−. Welcome. Welcome to the peace that you are looking for. My girl and I will have to leave soon but there is still more than half an hour and she could enter a while if you want."

   I nodded and in less than ten seconds I said hello to Olivia, and I had the delirious impression that she had brought the twilight with her: her red hair, instead of turning grey, was becoming dark; a long dress red, smooth and filmy, with a point of dawn in the still glowing hands and a gem, Venus perhaps, in her prominent bust. She was plump if compared with her mates' delicate bodies, but sinuous, feminine and full of bends, and my mind evoked the nude naiads of your mahogany lounge, Protch, and she seemed newly emerged from the waters, as if she had just had a bath of purification alone. But she was also a painful picture of cross and tears, full of hues. She was the best dressed beggar, always elegant despite her miserable wardrobe.

− "My mistress has told me you wanted me to come in" –she said. And I thought that there had been no time so that they could speak, but maybe they understood each other with a look, with a heartbeat. She brought me something to eat, a brioche which I found rather tasteless. I had never been a great admirer of pastry, but from that time on there were no meals I didn’t like. Hunger modified my tastes because it is one of its effects that any mouthful is exquisite; but I was savouring a different hunger, because this is not always a dagger in your stomach; it may be a hole in your soul that needs love to fill.

   My mistress. My girl. My mate. They probably fed on vocatives. Each short name had the length of a river, pronounced with so much flow, with so much dragged sand from its riverbed that perhaps with that love they were building a stream. It was inevitable that one day this poor swimmer was dragged by its current.

   I didn't see her really happy and I asked her whether something was wrong.

− "It is the damn southwest wind. Now it is blowing hard, Nike –she cleared up−. The easterly wind affects many people. I'm lucky that I cant feel it, because we have a mountain range on the east and I would be crazy every day. But it is only the southwest wind. It tends to cause me strong headaches. But worse for me is the north wind. Its damn breath makes me spend all day in distress. Luckily it attacks me since I'm on the street, and not before. I was born in the north of this city, Nike."

   Always watching the wind. Every day when she got up she looked for it and I think that her happy dawn turned into bitterness when she smelled it. After that day, and because of her, I did bother to learn where it was blowing from.


 

   Olivia of peaceful light shaded by grey, if grey are winds, whose open ends froze Nike’s new heart, which so unexpected it was that he had not had the opportunity to think about closing the doors, and all of them were entering sibilant and sharp, seven more snakes that slithered on the river. I remember her every day raising her hands to notice where the wind was coming from, usually the first one in the morning bonfire. And other days reading a passage of some warm novel on the threshold of her tent and suddenly we had to run to take refuge inside if the southwest wind or the north disrupted our haven. All the beggars who she called her family knew about their changes of mood. And when Nike linked with her landscape, he offered to predict its course like a wind rose.


 

− "I was born in the north of this city, Nike, in Downhills. There my parents lived. Forgive me if I speak too much −she looked at me unsure, but I felt I was portrayed in her troubles, and wanted to hear her. I knew Downhills. The Heatherling there became green crystal; it began to grow and was full of murmurs. Olivia, finally, just the same as me, only changed river−. I was born in a beautiful house called Hunter’s Arrows. My father made a fortune in what he earned in the bank and the Hamilton's inheritance, my mother's family, and bought it. My childhood was a sweet time of oranges."

   She had read it in a book and repeated it in a moment of evocations of the time that she still was not submissive to the winds. But about her parents she only spoke with some resistance, so that it was possible to draw me her first landscapes, and make them understandable. There also entered and came out another character barely sketched: Gerald Rivers II, who I supposed it was her brother. Of her scarce explanations I presumed that after her parents' death, they had not spoken on the rare occasions they had crossed, not too many because I also seemed to understand that he had spent some time in jail. But a glimmer sweetened her face when she spoke of her sister Kirsten, before her premature death. She had the beauty of an empress. Thus she described her to me. And her wonderful heart she represented with carved tropes of altars and diamonds. Always both sisters close to each other in confidences, opinions and early romanticism. Today it was 29 years after her death, she said. From that day she had hated horses; and Lucy and she never came to know each other.

   But she was hoping to soon meet Kirsten reborn. She would be a grandmother very soon, she said. Doctors had expected birth for August 10, but there were enough signs to believe that she would be born earlier. And she had almost the complete security that it would be a girl and that somehow she would give her love again to her beloved Kirsten. Of course, as her daughter before, she would also be born in the street. It was not the time to speak of this with Lucy, but there had to be a serious mother and daughter conversation where many things were cleared up. It was evident that Lucy’s situation had been mortification to her mother, and not because Olivia could not have been happy on the street, but because she had always blamed herself of not being able to find to her child whatever she needed to grow. Only at times during her childhood, she had had some good times in which she had been able to offer her good food and a roof. And Lucy was not exactly docile or passive. But from her words I also deduced that even if she could not be sure, she suspected that her daughter accepted her situation very well. In the last year she seemed, how to say it, more influenced by her husband.

   I pricked up my ears when I realized that now it was the turn to speak about Luke, her son-in-law. That day I had the hope, every time the door of my tent opened, that it would be him, but I was always wrong. Luke, in Olivia’s words, was a day-dreamer, too fanciful and perhaps not very willing to take his wife away from the street. But forgive me, I had been thinking out loud, she said. Her son-in-law was, in fact, charming, and she felt really flattered with his high esteem. And he could not be blamed of anything because Luke is adorable.

   Luke is adorable. It was the second time I heard this phrase. First John and later Olivia had repeated the same leitmotiv. And I, who perceived his rays detached from the sun through my clouds, suddenly was restless. I didn't know very well why, since the phrase seemed a flattery, but it didn't seem to do him justice.

   But Olivia was a torrent and gave me no time to adapt my thought with the change of characters. Now she began to tell me about her mistress. All her previous gloomy curtains draw back with her. They had met when Lucy was 6 years old and they had been together for 23 years. Mistress Oakes had always understood her daughter, had always given her a lot of affection and even flattered her daughter when she said that she had often been guided by her. Next to that woman winds didn’t matter or the street or alms were unworthy.

The street and alms. Olivia was being an open book and with her I knew what perhaps the others did not say. I had perhaps not wanted to think about it before, but her words were presenting me misery in all its harshness. It was not easy to hear her words having a lot of money, and once again I had the temptation to help them. Perhaps, at least, I suddenly thought, I could support or help educate he who would soon be her grandson, or as she thought, her granddaughter. But I forgot that stinger again with her following words:

− "But do not pay me much attention. If it were not for the uneasiness that my daughter is still here and that I will have my granddaughter on the street, I'm not very sure that I'd like to go."

   With Olivia, I had an image of the puzzle of the Torn Hand quite truthful and touching. In this microcosm indignities disappeared and mutual affection procreated. So I asked:

− "And what about Bruce? Miguel? John?"

   She spoke very little of Bruce, and I figured that even though she had only good words about him, and even if she appreciated him much, before him she was somewhat embarrassed. That day I understood why. By contrast, she talked a lot about Miguel and his virtues, and talked to me about a time when she herself had not felt comfortable before John, although now she liked him so much. My mind began to have its orientation, because I had the certainty, which later I confirmed, that she had been in love with Miguel, or that surely she still was. But the idea puzzled me that she seemed to think that Miguel had also loved her. Some time later I knew that she was not wrong.

   Loves that never crossed. The Torn Hand was a speculum mundi where the image sticking on the mirror was not the same that it showed later. Only some loves gave fruits, like Lucy and Luke, but the winged child of arrows fired arrows which were lost. And you see that it was enough to spend a season with them, because I had also been reached by his errant weapons.

   But she wanted to continue talking to me of her mistress:

− "My dear Madeleine and I leave very early, and are normally absent all day, but this week is different, because I dare not leave my daughter many hours alone."

   She was going, therefore, virtually to say goodbye, but when she told me that John would now be on the threshold of my tent, I asked her about everybody's schedule.

− "Ok, Nike. But I will be brief. I hope I've not bothered you too much −Olivia had provided me an atlas to learn more about the geography of the Torn Hand, with its winds and its compasses, and I was not bothered. So I made her know. But I have the fear, Protch, that my words may have told you she is a gossiper. And it was not the case. She had only had good messages about everybody, except perhaps, to refer to her own path. Perhaps, to paraphrase what John had told me, she had been a breeze with the others and a hurricane with herself−. My daughter and Luke used to go, like us, throughout the day. It is still so, but these weeks he's the only one going to the street. Bruce usually is so successful that here, in jokes, we speak of him as "the rich beggar", and he often has enough with mornings. Miguel and John tend to be the last ones to get up, and you can only see them on the streets at noon and in the evening."

   Hail, Olivia, sliver light flying in the wind, prayer to the God Sun of every morning, a creative promise, mother fertile Venus. When at last she left, I realized that also her fires had burnt me, and with her rays I spent the next four hours. Rays also had that summer day which, dressed in torches, promoted. That day its bonfire melted your sight, announcing that August, stalking on the threshold, would be overwhelming and torrid. I had been there for five days and I had not been able to wash myself. I was worried about my looks and I was considering what to do. I could get out and try to go to the river, but that day, perhaps for the unsuspected oven of the end of July, I found myself, between nausea, delicate; and I didn't have the courage yet to inspire the outdoor air.

  Two beggars I still had to meet. I suspected that I would end up liking Bruce, or at least I would have much to thank him for. But started thinking about Lucy. They all had virtually named her. Miguel had referred to her first saying that in her crystals you could see the world clearer and more fragrant, and I began to see that for everybody she was more than just windows. It could be something like the energy of their matter, the yeast without which the cake of their outskirt would not have been able to ferment. And of that energy I was not unscathed. She had handed the torch to Luke, who had burned me when he handed it to me. And in that fire, I didn't know whether I wanted to receive the hot breeze that would come out of her windows. I thought maybe, her alone, I would not love. I wasn't sure not to betray myself when I looked at her, or if I really wished to meet her. I was afraid of her light, but she was going to be air, water, fire and earth.

   It was about three in the afternoon when I felt someone emtering the tent. My heart gave me another fright, but it was not Luke, who I was still waiting, but another man, now I know that 44-year-old. It could only be Bruce; and indeed, I greeted him by his name. There was "the rich beggar", the owner of the tent. If I would have liked to find someone who was the representation of what my mind could have understood as a ragged person, there he was, saying good afternoon to me. Even if you already know him, Protch, let me explain how I first saw him. With a complexion maybe browner or dirtier, the tallest and the filthiest. I could not be deceived when seeing him because he had the same smell of the tent. When you know him, one of his oddities is that he often forgets to wash, and that summer is a good time to take a dip in the river. Under a cream-coloured shirt, he wore rather frayed brown corduroy pants, but it seemed that the clothing had taken his body by chance, blithely. Few things suited him well. And his black shoes had already walked many puddles. His apparent shyness was also another piece of clothing that did not suit him. He spent some time watching me not daring to speak. I then watched him better and I realized an incongruous detail. First I found him wearing something like a neck scarf, illogical for the day that was. But it was so small that I thought later that it was a choker, strangely gray, and suddenly it became alive. Unexpectedly it jumped to the floor of the tent and it then took a feline form, and I came out of my error:

− "Terence" –I said.

   And instantly he smiled.

− "It seems that now you can guess everybody and everything, also our animals. Yes, this is Terence. It is very fond of me and usually looks for me in the tent −the cat came to purr in the pillow. You can see that it was its custom. I myself began to stroke it, and it was evident that he did not find me a stranger. We made friends instantly. Bruce looked at me with some prevention, as someone who after having heard some things about me, see that I was a friend of his friends and however has many doubts. Now I know that he had already liked me, but he felt some fear to thaw, in case my apparent heat turned into an iceberg. I sensed that now he was very careful when he met someone, as if his heart had bled so many times that it hurt him to have it full of blood−. Yes, our grey cat is Terence. It is at the end of its life now, I'm afraid, and it always looks tired and lazy. If you don't mind, let it have a nap here as we speak. Sorry, I was almost forgetting, I had brought you tobacco."

  He had brought me three packs and he still took one from his shirt pocket, and offered me a cigarette. He lit another one. In the next few days I never feared that I lacked them, because "the rich beggar" every day renewed my supply. We smoke placidly while he looked at me not knowing very well what to say, apart from the two questions which everybody asked me: how I was and how I preferred to be called. But, after answering, it was me who wanted to talk to him:

− "Bruce, I had a real desire to meet you, and thank you for so many things..."

− "Do you really think that you have something to thank me for –he watched me thoughtfully, as if he would like to make a decision and was not able to solve in one or other direction−? Look around. I don't think that you could be somewhere more miserable, or dirtier."

− "This is your home. And I am sure that here you've created your house -in that moment he looked at me with his eyes covered with a rain now ready to fall−. And these days you have allowed this stranger to be placidly accommodated here. Thank you very much."

− "Then, the days that you're here, this is your home -as a curtain of clouds that is suddenly drawn back, as a frightened sun that woke up again after the eclipse, his face changed from doubts to an open smile, in less than ten seconds. He had just decided that he would allow himself to like me. And if I had a problem with loving, I had none with liking, and appreciated him then definitively. That was my misfortune, if you prefer to call it thus. My heart was soft and appetizing and everybody bit it a little. I let them bite me, but I could not know then that their fangs would stay forever inside and that in the future I would never want to extract them−. Nike −he said to me shyly, but sure of what he wanted to tell me−, in this place there have been many people and you're the only one who not only has not spoken of getting me out of here, but the only one who has admitted to feel comfortable in my house and has called it thus. Because indeed it is, but the simplest things not everybody sees them."

 − 'Then I’m sorry for the discomfort that you have lived these days for not having been here” −I said no more, thinking that I'd better add nothing else, because I had spent four days looking forward to thank him for so many things that I could be an hour doing it.

   From that moment, we talked as good friends that had known each other for years. But then I followed the direction of his clean grey eyes, pointing another restless gray object. Terence had woken up and perhaps in a bad sleep had left the photograph exposed of the woman I have already mentioned. In a mechanical gesture, Bruce moved his hands his on hair. Long, curled and messed up, it was the only time I saw it like that. He would have to wait, he said, for his hairdresser to recover. These days, he said looking at the picture and following my eyes wondering whether he could tell me about her, she could not trim it or do his hair. But once again he considered me worthy to hear his troubles.

− "She is Miranda Sullivan, my first love −it touched me his still loving and sorrowful gaze−. It's been many years, but I will never forget her. She died in my arms, Nike −I looked at him tenderly and I hope that respectfully as I encouraged him to tell me what he wished to, for I was willing to listen to him with warm interest−. She was only 20 years old and I loved her dearly, but she never loved me. It is my fate to never have been reciprocated –now I know that he was wrong, because there was a woman who loved him a lot−. She always knew, and allowed me to join her in her last hours. You can see that she was very pretty, but on her last trip she looked like a chocolate melting. She was dissolving sweetly in my chest. I will never forget her −his tender eyes became water, and he didn't mind crying in my presence. I suddenly had an impulse and hugged him, and I started, unaware of it, to weep with him. But he saw me and thanked me−. I am sure I can tell you. I still remember her with love, but there was a time after her death when, not meaning to, I fell in love with another woman. And she has been my passion. You know her, Nike. I know that she has come to this tent a few hours ago."

− "Olivia?" –I asked. Suddenly I saw clearly. It seemed that everyone, and I already included myself, was loving in impossible directions which never found the right target.

− "Olivia –he confirmed−. She does not love me, but she also knows. I have never told her, but I don't think that's necessary. Maybe she has named me a little, if she has done, because she may have felt embarrassed, but I'm sure that she not has been able to talk evil of me. She sometimes dodges me, but she loves me very much. And nothing can I expect. I know that I am not a very attractive man."

   All he needed was a good wash and a haircut, but I've always thought that Bruce is handsome enough. But he had a poor impression of himself, and his mates, who really appreciated him, were unsure of how to categorize him. I don't know whether he is shy or taciturn, John had said. And I, who had not been educated in any opinion, got my own inferences. He needed to love someone, and in this I know now that I was lucky, and then he was not laconic or shy. Perhaps somewhat unsure. And it was not his mates, but maybe other beggars, who had seen him not very intelligent. And yet, he has always seemed to me a smart man. After humbly asking me to stop him if he tired me, he was for half an hour speaking to me of his favorite topic: his great love. He had decided that he could trust me, and I was really moved.

− "So many times she gives me her usual generosity or a new unexpected warmth. And I'm content to be by her side my whole life, and if I had faith, I would say a prayer of gratitude for her friendship −you usually have at times the thought that beggars are illiterate. Bruce didn't like reading, and I didn’t blame him: neither did I. But now that I had met almost everyone, I wondered much about them and I admired their wisdom. And his last words that afternoon were a great lesson that I was slowly assimilating. I had then the absurd idea that the next time I saw Luke, just then, in his presence, I would decide whether I had fallen in love. But I could no longer forget Bruce's last statement and said his words for my own self: “I'm content to be by his side my whole life, and if I had faith, I would say a prayer of gratitude for his friendship." −But thank heaven I will first to die. It took a few days to see that it is actually a gift."

   Now his words made me sail in puzzlement. He looked at me for a few seconds doubting himself for wanting to tell me the vision of his mate, as if it were something quite private, as if I could draw erroneous inferences about her or about her mental health. And something of this he told me in a long preface, but I encouraged him. He didn't have to tell me anything, but if he did, I promised I would listen to him with respect.

   So it was like this that I knew of that vision of wandering black birds, trunks deformed but clearly selected and shadows that God broke suddenly. Bruce knew how to tell me almost with a photographic memory and suddenly I felt shivers when I linked two things. Mistress Oakes had said these words in her vision: “some things I have seen looking in another mirror, in another thought, in what someone still has not thought”. And that very morning she had said: "the images came from the names that you will give us." My veins frosted. I knew that this woman had not failed because when I met her I had felt intuitively that her knowledge of what was to come was not trickery. The names that you will give us. Finally, Protch, so that you do not believe her a lunatic, I will tell you that she was right. The names were given by somebody else but inspired by my words, the words of more than one day. First it will be Bruce, next Luke, and then I... It was a terrible sentence, although I hardly knew them. What with like and love my heart sailed happily on those three names. It was hard to think that I would not see them again and I was looking for a crack, a truce with the impassive Nicholas Siddeley to continue getting to know them, respecting them and loving them.

− "It is actually a gift –Bruce continued, abruptly interrupting my shivers−. It is not pleasant to think of a more or less near death. But it is to know that I will not have to mourn for them, that as long as I live, and she has not put a date on what she saw, I will share with them the trees and the bread, the river, the bonfires and the fog."

   Bruce did not speak in a literary manner, but holy heaven, that day he taught me so many lessons that they do not have enough room in the store of my memories.

− "The universe is a woman−he said suddenly, as if talking from the flow of his memories-, and death in these conditions must be the bed and the girlfriend. To move quietly holding her arms and disappear hardly making any noise, such as dead leaves underfoot. But I'm tiring you. I could leave right now, if you need to be alone."

− "Bruce –I said sobbing−, let me remind you that I am in your home. If someone should go away, it would be me. Please stay as much as you want. Your company soothes me."

  He probably wasn’t used to such requirements. And I saw him suddenly nod as if saying ok to some idea that he was chewing. Now I can say that his heart was ready to jump any cliff by my side, and it thrills me to know that he always stayed with me in the future. He was for a few seconds doubting what he could say, and I went ahead:

− "Tell me, please how "the house" is, and if you feel comfortable there."

− "Well. Imagine it with a huge room and what perhaps were the bathroom and the kitchen. It is an ideal place for the winter. It is quite warm and you are always accompanied by people you know. It hardly has any furniture, but it was Henry Shaw's home and when he was a widower he came to the street and gave it to us beggars. Almost everyone in the city had been here, but now in summer you can never see more than five or six people every night. Henry already died, but previously he allowed us to make a copy of his keys, of which we all have one. It is always a solution if you want to sleep in the RASH but find that there are no more rooms available. What else would you like to know? Ask me without fear."

− "I don't know... tell me a little about who you are."

   They certainly were a swarm where all the bees without hierarchies were necessary and lovingly flew together around the same honey. His beloved Olivia was frequently in and out of their hive. But I knew much more. Bruce and Miguel had rivaled a month for her, until the latter fell in love with another woman. Still John had not come. And there was something new: for ten years, Bruce had been the only drone of his three queens, and Miguel came suddenly, in a shivery bonhomie, somewhat cluttering his chaste harem. But all that time was past now. He was still the shy shepherd of his mistress, his beloved Olivia and the fresh renewal of the latter. Thus he referred to Lucy, whom everybody named. When I asked him about Luke he told me that they got along very well, even if they did not often talk because they shared very few things, but referred to him as a man already made and right far now from the son of a bitch, and a great friend. I nodded to his description with fervor. And about him, what did I want to know? And when I asked him why he was called "the rich beggar", he gave me a sardonic grin and said:

− "We have different methods of moving thereabouts, Nike −he answered unsure that I wanted to hear about the street−. They seek a place where they can rest while they do their work –he modulated his language, but I was able to see through his euphemisms−. I usually go from one house to another. And the wise thing is not to repeat route and return to every house not more than once a month. Being kind and polite you become well known and respectable. And the same people give you again the same amount. Thirty houses are sometimes enough to be able to eat that night, or some more if you want to bring something for your mates, for those who have possibly had a bad day. This city has many neighborhoods with luxury homes, or not as opulent, but one-storey. They can be divided in more or less 30 days."

   I knew that morning he had been in Riverside, his most visited neighborhood. But he also named me Heathwood, Northchapel and Newchapel. I wondered whether he had been to Deanforest or whether my servants would have given him some alms.


 

−You have been wanting to talk for a good long while, Protch. Now you can say anything you want.

−I don’t know what could have happened in those days, Nike. But in recent years I assure you that he has received them.

-In fact I know. And you also gave him tobacco and conversations.

−Always polite and respectful, and interested in what little Maude or I would like to tell him. But I don't know whether you feel happy that my wife and I gave him alms.

−He came here for that, Protch, and he was not a friend. In the future he may be, it depends on your wishes. He knows that I am here and will be pleased to know that we are talking with affectionate words.

−Then please let him know that he may come here whenever he wants.

 −I’ll let him know Protch, but something will have changed. He may desire your friendship, and in any case, if you and I got to be friends you will be for him since the friend of a friend. I know that it is all somewhat confusing, but take your time: it is better as it is now. He meanwhile would be delighted to come here and greet you, but right now he will not accept alms.

−I will be guided by you. I am not going to mention them. But I ask you sincerely to tell him that I'd like to see him and to invite him to coffee, if he wants.

−To beer, Protch. If you want to make him happy, it will be beer. I know that out of respect for me you no longer keep alcohol at home, but you can buy some bottles for when he comes.


 

   There was a great place in Millers' Lane to have a beer and read the newspaper. Bruce told me that he was going awhile there to spend the afternoon. So he didn't read books but was always informed, and could equally lecture you on sports results as he could tell you what the weather would be like tomorrow in Nepal. I even thought that I might ask, if I would have been interested, about the stock market values. I never ended discovering him. So he finally left, taking Terence with him back on his neck, but reappeared after five minutes with a few blankets.

− "You will need them tonight. Mistress Oakes and Olivia are infallible in predicting the weather and say for sure that you will get very cold. Here I leave them"−and he went out.

   That morning was just as changeable as my July and despite the blankets I could hardly sleep. The cold came in waves as sudden and inflexible as my thought. Not even tonight bordering in August the weather behaved logically. And I thought whether they could get to sleep. They will be used, I said, and more prepared. The temptation to take them away from the street was very strong, but the idea was turning into crazy charity, or as now I would say, aid, no more. I could give them blankets, new and adequate clothing, food and education for the child who would be born. But those ideas were a blind alley. Besides the blankets were a necessary fire, a roof, a good job, and always, always money, dirty money. And yet there was something of me that I could give them which did not cost anything: my friendship. I hadn’t thought of it earlier because before I met them I really had not lived it.

  But the infamous cold made me love them more. Despicable hard frost which made of their feet the room. Despicable petty fog that swallowed the tapestry of their stars and froze their universe. Despicable the weekly defeat that didn't supply any bread next to the fire. But most blessed be their so-called mistress, who in her goodwill softened the stones for the streets of her mates. Blessed be her girl, who in a grinder next to her crushed the hurricane and sweetened it in burning aura. Blessed be her shy lover, generous in tears reading in a heart whether one person was a candidate for rich beggar. Blessed be the seven and their fire capable of building. August came finally with a hairband of tenacious fire, and I woke up bathed in sweat not knowing what new burns awaited me in its relentless rays.