CHAPTER XXI: THE LUMINOUS BEGGAR

   Our big yellow star must be following its course in the south, at its greatest height. I was not able to feel its light, and would be lying if I said that I could even feel its heat. And although it had been for millions of years doing the same route, I looked at it unable to believe that it wasn’t as disoriented as I was. But in my case it could be that the universe, after diverting my path, made me now wander along I didn’t know which ecliptic. I thought that the great star of day would have had time to at least see how a small star vied with its fire here below. And in my heart, that I had discovered those days well enough, all the furrows were opened to make a place to that little king forever, and separated like the petals of a flower, which after receiving heat from the sun, strongly hurt. So I had come to their outskirt without the ability to see or hear and I was to leave with such great ailment that I could neither feel nor think. Finally I went after John, I don't know whether crying, but with befuddled senses.

   His tent surprised me for big and clean and for its delicious temperature, an oasis of freshness in that scorching stream of August in flames. I don't know how Miguel and he managed to have some space for a splendid library in that misery. In a corner of the tent, I counted at least 30 volumes. John knew what book he was looking for and found it in less than a minute: Introduction to the starry cosmos, it was called.

-"I have five or six books about stars and I no longer look at this one, since I came to the northern hemisphere. Keep it, Nike. It is easy to understand and you'll find drawings of the major constellations and their stars. You will be able to recognize Leo and Zosma, your star. I don't think that you can now be without it."

− "Thank you, John. I will read it with enough pleasure so that I no longer forget the days that I've been here with you −I could not avoid to say those last words crying−. I want to see Leo. Now my interest is not seeing Zosma, but the star Regulus. When can you see it?"

− "It is always difficult to answer that question. If you want to see it, let us say, at dawn, you can observe it well in December. From December to May, I think it's what this book says. But if you wait for 2 in the morning you will also see it in January. Ok?"

− "I will remember. My path will be easier with its light."

− "Nike −I could notice that what he wanted to say was difficult. He swallowed several times, until he defeated his natural distrust to how I would take what he was about to comment−, I'd really like you to read this book. Take it. But in reality rather than bringing you up here... well, I have withdrawn you from there. I don't know how to tell you this. But I have to do it. If I hadn’t, they all could have seen what anyone could read in your face so clearly for a few seconds that... in short, forgive me, Nike; I thought I noticed love..."

− "Thank you, John. But please, don't go on. Let it be me who tells you. After all I would like someone to know: I'm in love with Luke."

− "These days you have become really brave, my friend."

− "Before these days perhaps nobody may have called me my friend. John, life is all ironic. Years ago I insulted you for the same thing that I am now living..."

− "Don't you leave with that doubt. I keep nothing in my memories of that Nicholas that frightens you. I will remember with pleasure only the Nike that has been with us these almost eleven days."− Suddenly he found that he had left a flashlight lit and that the lights were mixing. But John watched smiling; He was withdrawing the ambiguous light; Nostalgic, I waited silently as I avoided meditating; it shone, suddenly restless, the long eye bags of the former insomniac night. But I wanted to say something that I was urged to and I had long been thinking whether I should say.

− "John... I don't know if between us two there is still some unfortunate reminder of the past. But in the days that I have lived here not only I have felt remorse and bitterness. I have learned to love you all. To love you so much that I don't think I can now live without you. This former night I have hardly slept. Look, I am glad that you have brought me here. Someone has to know it. After long reflection, I decided to stay with all of you, to stay forever..."

− "I don't know whether this world is for you, Nike."

− "Neither do I. But I can assure you that I don't know right now what my world is. I have lacked things to know, but I know that with you I have had everything that I never had, and that nothing of what you could call my world right now attracts me at all. I'm only leaving because I have no choice. You'll see: thinking of you one by one I finally got to Luke, and there I had to stop, shaken. But I want to tell you everything from the beginning, if Anne-Marie does not lose patience and comes to pick me up. Everything happened the day I met him −and there I had to smile ironic−, on my birthday. You told me the other night that you had not given me any present. Oh, John, it was not only the Polar Star and Zosma. The day I was 29 years old you also gave me love. I guess that it was what it is usually called love at first sight. But then I realized with pain that he was matched and was going to be a father. Yet I could not help seeing what was evident and in two days, I don't know whether it's a long or a short time, I had to face the truth: I loved him. We spoke of friendship, and this is right now what hurts me most. Because I don't know how to keep it. I can visit you, of course, but I don't know if this so seemingly simple thing I can do it. Due to Luke. Look, what I saw last night is that he doesn't need me. I.e. he doesn’t need a man who loves him. Perhaps what he really needs is a friend..."

− "Someone who listens to him in his small problems and..." − and there I had to stop him. It was more in his eyes than in what little he was saying. But it was clear. And I could not consent to it.

− "Look at me, John. Luke is not a child. And Lucy is not a girl. Both of them know well where they are heading."

   As the fire that burns in the same vertical safely until a gust of wind changes its trajectory and bends it to other directions, his face seemed to have been blowing firmly into a solid opinion for months, when he suddenly hesitated, and finally his face, which did not know what bewilderment to draw, seemed to nod to my words.

− "I think you're quite right, Nike. The early Luke was as you see him, when I could afford to talk to him and know him. Later Miguel felt jealous of our meetings and our talks were waning."

− "I don't know, John. How may I know better than you the way Luke is, if I have only spent a few days here? But this is how I've seen him. Before even being aware of the love I felt. But noticing last night that one day he might even despise me, I just decided then that I was leaving. Because there are also Lucy and Paul. She has been my most pleasant surprise these days. Before I met her, I thought that I would not love her. But she has now become indispensable. I don't know how to explain this. I can only assure you that I have really come to appreciate her, and a lot. So that you understand me better, I'll tell you that for me, Lucy and Luke are sacred, that I do not want to be a shadow on their road. I like the fact that they love each other and I don't want to stain them. And they don't need a lover who sometimes darkens their path of deep love. And let alone now that they have a life to take care of"−and at that point I broke down. It was not only losing the seven. I realized that the little king, who I had only known for ten minutes, would henceforth be my deepest wound. After a while John was trying to reassure me, realizing how much it hurt me to leave. And then he said:

− "Now that you've made me recover the opinion that once I had of Luke, I'll tell you, my friend, I feel your pain and I understand. And I do not think that a man like him will despise you. But, in any case, I will not be unfair with you. You don’t know how to keep your friendship with him nor, I deduce then, you can hardly keep it with us. But a friend I name you, and my dear friend Nike will always be in my thoughts. You know? Years ago I believed to see that my old coworker had some things in his heart that could shape a landscape of beauty, and I am pleased to know that I was right with him. Leave in peace, knowing that at least I don’t have any doubts about you. And certain that I will not betray your secret."

− "Thank you, John. But I go to pain. Without you, without friendship or love, with directions from now on meaningless, I don't know how long I can be without drinking. And I have a real fear of the resurrection of the evil Nicholas Siddeley. But in my future path, what will guide me? Only the memory of the eleven most beautiful days of my existence. But even this memory can fade, when the in the bitterness of departing from you, I cannot resist the temptation and go running for the next cup."

− "Now that I know how you feel, and the courage with which you are telling me everything, let me tell you that a heart like yours cannot be in vain. Nike will survive. And if you can't come near here, there is another solution. I could go to your home. If you really want me to."

− -"Really, John. I would like to see you all there. And you would have another place to sleep. But I don't know if you understand my problem. I don’t know whether you will be received by Nicholas, probably drunk, or by Nike, or how I will receive you. Or whether I can insult you again. I think that I started drinking when I realized that to have insulted you killed me a little. If I do so again, I may lose my life."

− "I will take the risk then. Even if you prefer not to receive me. But if I have read your heart well these days, you'll never again insult me. Let's say that if you don't have confidence in yourself, I now have it and it is already definitive. When would you like me to go?"

− "In these moments I would answer that you can go today. But if I must be alone, I will have to face as soon as possible both my loneliness and my pain. But if you haven't gone there so far, or I have not dared to come before that date, you could come one night when we can already see the star Regulus. I can learn to recognize it due to your book, of which I'm not sure, but I will be happier if I look at it by your side, if you point it out for me. The truth is that I would like to see it. And all your stars. I seemed to understand that the first one that I would see next month would be Aldebaran, Bruce’s star, isn't it?"

− "Aldebaran, yes, and almost at the same time Castor and Pollux, ours. But they will also be visible in mid-September."

− "If I dare not see you in your outskirt in the coming weeks, it will be a pleasure at least to see you in the skies."

− "There you can always find us. And in our hearts too."

− “You know what, John? Till the day I met Luke and he made me look at it otherwise, I thought that I had no heart. It was hidden. That made me for years unable to see what would have been evident for many. But what I'm going to say now I not only prefer not to hide it but I will try to make you see that I have never lied, that I did not know. But the surprise of having fallen in love with Luke made me look at myself again and discover the former bloods that had ever flooded my heart. And that was how I came to a new surprising discovery. Now I am not going to apologize again for having insulted you, I just want to explain why one day I did what I did. I could not bear to see you in love with Miguel. Forgive me, John: I loved you."

    It was right then when I learned to read the language of bodies. From rigid shoulders to the relax of all his muscles, all facial features deriving from a moved peace to the redness of his eyes,  they were only a few seconds that led to a few brief tears and a gruff voice which gave way to another language, the fertile river that goes from your heart to words:

− "Holy heaven, Nike. Give me a few seconds to react. And meanwhile, give me a big hug."

   The man who had been my previous wound and I merged in one minute and peacefully became the first drops of the same river that I didn't know to what sea they were sailing, but which, together or in the distance, would always foam in the same ocean.

− "While I recover my senses, let me tell you that I believe you. I believe you, Nike. These days have been enough to believe in your words as in the scripture. Forgive me, I am numb – at thet moment he made real efforts to find a tiny light at the end of the labyrinth in darkness of his thoughts−. But I'm not going to wait for one single second more, numb or not, to let you know, my friend, that you have my deepest respect. And if ever I say something that hurts your feelings, you have a right to despise me –he breathed and asked−: you no longer love me, do you?"

− "No, John, that time is gone. I hope that you do not mind. So delicate it is for me to confess that I loved you as to say that I no longer love you. Now you will understand that I cannot be here. There are two couples in your outskirt and I've fallen in love with a member of each. My consolation, at least, is that you finally know. If you think Miguel should know, tell him."

− "It is not necessary. He must be sufficiently jealous because you're here. And I will also answer the question that you will not dare to ask me but is in your eyes: Yes, Nike. I am very happy. Yesterday I had a hard day and you saw it. Some days are like that. In those days you get tempted to throw it all away. But the happiness I have here counterweights. It is what I call our trap."

− "Your trap? Explain it to me, John. Perhaps I’ve sensed it. Perhaps I have also fallen in it. But I want you to tell me"

− "I will explain it to you with an example. Start, if you like, at Luke. He may want to leave the street or not, I don't know, but if he wanted to, he would not get out of the street without his wife or his son. Lucy will not leave the street leaving her mother here, and she will not want to go without her mistress. And here all roads finish, because Mistress Oakes desires to die in the street, and would never go away leaving us here Bruce, Miguel or me. And if you start this circle of an impossible way out on a differente name of the seven, you would have the same result."

− "Then it is what I thought and I'm already trapped. I don't want to go, and yet, I have to leave you behind and lose you."

− "I don't know how to relieve you. But I suspect there are more things that are worrying you. Ask me the questions you want."

− "This one is going to be shameful, I'm sure, but I've been all week trying to decide in one way or another without solution. Perhaps you can understand me. John, I have... many things that you might need. Let's see... I will dare to ask you about it. Forgive me if I offend you: do you need money?"

− "I can understand you better than you think, Nike. I was once also there. But if you have not said anything until now it is because none of the seven has asked you for it, nor we will do it. When you see that Nike has been stronger than the Nicholas that you fear, you can give us the same as Anne-Marie. A house for a night of true need, nothing more. Everything related to money, Nike, would only be a way to corrupt us, and we will not do it before a man who, while he has been here, has been rather than a friend, one of us."

− "Anne-Marie... how to explain that for her we have been a couple? Or surely she thinks that we still are. If I get drunk again, I will hurt myself forever. But I am not going to harm her as long as the Nike I've discovered here remains. It has to be this morning. It only comforts me to know that I have not lied to her deliberately, for there are things that I never figured out. But as I can't see myself capable of thinking about it right now, let us return to the conversation to the point we left it: damn money. John, let me ask you a personal question, knowing that I am not guided by morbid curiosity, but interest in knowing about those I love: what did you do with your money?"


 

−Excuse me, Protch, but the surprising answer from John will have to wait until tomorrow. I have to leave.

−Every day you come here I will thank you for having returned. Go in peace, Nike.

  But the next day, before sitting back in his living room sofa, I had to ask him a question:

−See, Protch... I found a familiar face in the garden. He must be now about 60. Quite low; wrinkled and bent. Is that not John Ellis?

−He is. He comes on Wednesday afternoons and Friday mornings. That is why you have not seen him until today. When Maude and I started to own the house... well, we knew immediately that we would not know how to deal with the garden. It wasn't really hard for us to find him and convince him. Has he recognized you?

 −He has been a while staring at me. But I think that it has been the astonishment to see with what familiarity a beggar moved down your garden. He does not know who I am. Now his surprise will be great when he sees that I have entered and I am not going to leave immediately. I have not wanted to introduce myself, Protch. Not until I see what the Lord of the house thinks of all this.

−And I think with that you are referring to me, I guess. And I don't know whether I will be breaking some code to tell you that as long as you want to come here, this will be your home. It seems to me that you prefer it would be me that tells him, but to tell him the truth: this beggar is the former Lord Siddeley. But I don't know if you'll come back next Friday.

−I will return whenever you want, Protch, as long as I can continue on the street. And if it is not a problem for you, I prefer he knows who I am. I have lived surrounded by lies years and years and I do not want to surround myself with more falsehoods.

−I will tell him, whether you see him more or not. Continue with your story, please. I can’t stop thinking that now you are coming as a beggar, but that you were not that August 6.

−I was only in essence. I did not know then that Nike was already a beggar, but that to walk beside them, first I needed a long time of maturing that could bury the horrible Nicholas.


 

   John did not know very well what he could answer. He sweated, he shrank, and he blushed. But finally he was determined:

− "I won't hesitate now. I just need a little bit of the courage I have seen in you. What did I do with my money? That was your question... I've known several things about you that are private. I will do the same now, even though I do not know how you can react. I did not do anything with my money. Let's say that I still have it. But this, Nike, not even Miguel knows −and after promising him that I would not tell him, he added−. I've never had a fortune, like you, I guess –I nodded−, but when I came to the street I was wondering what to do with the money I still had. To have a fortune is difficult, but it is much harder learning to get rid of what has covered you and you no longer need. Nobody will have explained to you what to do when you want to lose something. How to get rid of wealth? And finally you have doubts as for example the doubt that one day you might need it. Especially if you have mates. What if they have a real need one day? Expensive medicines for essential treatment, for example. They are my family, and even if none knows, if one day it is urgent, my old money that I no longer use, will be there. Meanwhile, I live like them, and I feel with them all the same hunger, the same scarcity."

− "You were wondering how I can react. These last few years I've not asked myself many questions about how your life would be. But now I start to ask them to myself and everything you say increases what I love you all and what I respect you. Give me a big hug, John. And now I will ask anotheyr question. I would ask a thousand, but we will not have the time. I will not ask about cold and scarcity, but tell me the truth, John. Are you hungry very often? Can you eat every day?"

− "Before answering, I'd rather ask you a question. You've been here 11 days, what have you seen?"

− "I've seen that you have not allowed my hunger, and that moves me so much that much as I would like to find words of appreciation I would fail to."

− "And what about the others?"

− "As for the others... If you have been able to feed the ungrateful patient that was with you, I would say that if you have been hungry, you have not let me see. But I imagine that not every day will be like this. I've only known a part of your summer. I don't know whether it will be the same in cold winter, windy days, rainy days... And I've also seen how no one returns satisfied if he is not well provisioned... for everyone."

− "Yes, Nike. In the end we always have Bruce. Or any other. Some nights it has also been a great satisfaction for me to see how my mates fed on what Miguel and I have been able to bring. Nobody eats unless they first know that all the seven have something to eat. But you want to know more, don’t you?"

− John, please, tell me the worst. What do you do when you don't have anything to eat?"

− "Those times are very scarce. First I have to make you know this. I don't want you to leave with that doubt. You know that I have been here for more than three years, and you can see me, perhaps, thinner, but I'm not starving. There are nights that really it is no time to eat."

   It is no time to eat. The desk of my lessons began to fill with those six words, a sentence that fell on my thoughts as a bucket of ice water. How would Nicholas Siddeley return, if Nike, the apprentice, had almost finished his instruction? But how not to shudder if in my not appetizing Deanforest they could fill their stomachs every day? What to do in the future? How could I survive the thought of my prosperity with their hunger?

− "I know what you're thinking, Nike. But don't fret: our need is not extreme. I promise that if someday we are desperate, we will go to you, although we also have Anne-Marie or James Prancitt. Anyway, when hunger lasts more than one day, we go in search of food to the RASH. As you can see, we don’t fall in the middle of the streets because of hunger. And an empty stomach increases wit. And there are other resources. But I don't know if you'd want to hear them. In any case, this is my life and I don't want to change it. When darkness bites, there is the light from Miguel and the five."

   John exposed his shade by evoking remote wanderings, cloudy uneasiness, old but forever remembered. Love broke in him proudly drawing roses for him. Excited, he earned a zodiacal place in my heart. But he still had to tell me that which was the wound I was never able to heal. In my moments of greatest distress I always ended up evoking his following words:

− "And you can always try a last plan. I don't know what you will think of me when I tell you. But I have to tell you that any indignity in my life compensates for when in a clear night firewood is stored with them and cold goes swimming from my blood to theirs. Look, Nike, sometimes they may have told you, you may have read it or have watched it on television. Maybe you don't want to remember it. Sometimes, very rarely, when you are already close to home and do not want to take a walk to the RASH, we have sought for food in the garbage. I am sure that the seven of us have done. The first time the mere possibility of rummaging in the stench gives you some nausea that can defeat you and you may prefer not to eat or to walk to the RASH if it still time for its dining room to be open. But ultimately, you do it. Yes, Nike, me too. Not too many times. But I gave up when I found out that the six had been there. Living what they all had lived was essential. And that way I also avoided the last indignity, which I still have not given in to: to run in search of my money. Something you always find in a container: a piece of stale bread, cookies, not always raw meat... and finally what good is it to follow? With some food you can advance to the next day and continue the fight. But hunger is occasional and I don't know whether you'll understand, but it is never enough to change my life. I want to die with them. You know the worst, Nike. Now you can judge me."

    Food in the garbage. I should have thought about it. Infected food, inadequate food crumbs, remains of the prosperity of others, second hand food, dark wastes, indignities. My thoughts could no longer have any peace: I had to lend them my kitchen or search in containers next to them. John took me off my dark thoughts looking at me askance, with some fear.

− "Can I judge you now? First I'd need to have a severe trial, but against me, cause I am, as Luke told me, on the other side. Where have we been when those on this side have needed to resort to garbage in order to eat? –I began to cry a lot−. John, I cannot love you more now, and I cannot judge more severely the man I could once again become. I don't know who I am or who I will be, how I will be, where I will be, but give me a hug now, before my skin is disguised again in ornaments –it was an intense embrace but watery. The two of us cried like maniacs−. And for God’s sake, if you find yourselves in need, come to me, and if the damn Nicholas insults you again, slap him, give him new shocks in his conscience. Insult me, despise me. Perhaps my vital signs make me react. I don't know what time it is. But I have to go. To pain I am going. I might return. And meanwhile I don't think I am able to forget you. But I'll keep the picture of what I have sensed. But just in case I will ask you. I've seen you all free and happy. Are you, John?"

− "We are, Nike, or so we see ourselves. And how can you not be a friend if you have seen us, in everything, the way we see ourselves? Don't you judge yourself so harshly. And don't you be so afraid. The man that you have already begun to be will win the battle."

− "Amen, my friend. Goodbye, John. I have to face a long, slow and painful road, as Mistress Oakes has predicted. But this path is not forward. I don't know whether among its many nooks and crannies, I will be able to find the proper curve that leads to you; or if, a tramp without a Polar Star, I will get lost again."

− "Goodbye, my friend. Go wherever you have to go, but go in peace. If I could master them, I would order the two bears to guide you and accompany you. But stars and memories will show you the right course. You can no longer lose your north."

   Unbalanced by the unbearable weight of pain, I finally came out of his tent. Who could have said that it was still midday and the sky was not, like me, in a mourning colour. To the glints of pure gold of the solemn summer day there came to fly restlessly some graceful butterflies.