All journeys are a return. Any traveller returns home the moment he sets foot outside the house. He has to come back in order to say what has happened, to turn the journey into a story.

For this reason, the paths the Traveller undertakes are tracks that lead to the knowledge and apprehension of beauty, which has so often to be rescued from the midst of misery and evil. Travelling means going to meet something the contemplation of which moves us, and before which we abandon all desire for possession, because the enjoyment resides in receiving that something for free.

That is why, before what the journey gives us, in front of the lesson it provides, what we are really getting is a moment, a chunk of time in which we have the privilege of taking something we will soon relinquish.

But it is in that moment, that tiny breadth of time when the contemplation of beauty or human misery appears to abandon us, that it installs itself in our memory and turns into knowledge, which is not built to the exclusion of others, but through them and in them turns into learning, experience… making us who we are.

OMEN THE TRAVELLER RECEIVED

FROM A WITCH BEFORE LEAVING,

WHICH HE HAD TO RECITE IN A LOUD VOICE

OPPOSITE THE WESTERN SEA,

WHILE THE WOMAN PLACED FLOWERS

ALL AROUND, FORMING A PATH

Before leaving,

before placing on the path

the foot that inaugurates the journey,

turn, traveller, to face the sea

and await the arrival

of white birds that strew on the road

freshness of water,

which on the sides that contain you

gives rise to

white groundsel and crowberry,

purple columbine and foxglove,

sweet honeywort,

daffodils and plantain,

blue violets and hyacinths,

to guide your feet

until, on the threshold of your home,

the dog recognizes your presence,

as did the hound of that Odysseus

who showed all travellers

the way.

I

The gates the Traveller has to pass through when he reaches the foot of that kingdom are not especially grand; it is true, they are beautiful and their arches have a noble aspect, but neither their height nor any particular form of art in the way they have been built affords them greater magnificence than one has seen in other fortifications paths lead to.

There is a haughtiness in the inhabitants’ bearing, especially if one pays attention to the gaze they bestow on the stranger as he walks along their streets of solid, ancient paving.

In Arimoi, the Traveller can tarry for only three days. At sunset on the third day, the visitor must be outside the walls. There are times when the Primate has granted important personages a special permit, but these have always been extensions for the space of three days.

A man of influence in those lands welcomed the Traveller into his house. The inhabitants of Arimoi are obliged to show hospitality, although this is limited to three days, after which they hand their visitors over to the Primate’s soldiers, without the slightest compunction on their part, however much, during the period of hospitality, they have become friends and grown close to the extent of sharing secrets.

The man’s name was Quinto, and his wife was Liceria. They told the Traveller the history of those remote, select lands and even revealed to the Traveller the largest, deepest secret hidden therein.

Quinto took the Traveller to the crypt of the temple of his faith, leading him down a long staircase that descended more than a hundred steps. In this manner, he was able to show him the kingdom’s very foundations, which are all of gold.

The Traveller and Quinto walked under the whole kingdom until reaching the place where a single pillar of gold, supported on the fine point of a diamond cut in the shape of an octagonal pyramid, holds up the territory. Everything in astonishing balance.

When they came back to the house, the beautiful Liceria gazed at the Traveller and told him such a miracle was possible because Arimoi had been built by the hand of God himself and, by means of that column poised on such a sparkling fulcrum, he had put his wisdom to the test by building an entire kingdom on top thereof.

The Traveller would have to pass through the gates before sunset that day, so Quinto and Liceria prepared him an early dinner.

A servant placed a large plate containing tiny grain mixed with abundant portions of poultry and fish in the middle of the table; there were also small fruits such as blackberries, sorbs and Roman laurel berries. The Traveller had no difficulty identifying the poultry, which was quail, but couldn’t work out what the grain was. The fish was trout.

After dinner, the hosts accompanied their guest to the gates of Arimoi and turned around, without waiting to see how he left that kingdom of uncertain balance behind.

MILLET WITH QUAIL AND PAINTED TROUT

(according to a recipe by the nuns of the

Convent of Our Lady of Avío)

Two days earlier, the quails are plucked and have their entrails removed. They are opened up along the spine. They are marinated in a sauce made of unrefined olive oil in which rosemary flowers have sat for more than six months, and the whole is left in the night air, in a place sheltered from the south wind.

On the day the dish is to be prepared, the quails are sautéed in a clay pot for the space of twelve Our Fathers. By the end of the prayer, the quails will be starting to turn golden; then three leeks, a few strips of curly cabbage and some grated turnip tops are added.

Meanwhile, two medium-sized trout, cut into slices, are boiled in white wine and thrown into the clay pot, so that the whole can cook over a low heat for the space of seven Credos, seven Salves and three Gloria Patri.

When the sauce has acquired the usual brown colour that comes from cooking quail and fish, on a lively fire, the millet is poured into the pot, and the whole is stirred well, using a boxwood spoon.

Now a dozen sorbs, seven or eight ripe blackberries and the same number of Roman laurel berries are added, all of which should have been soaked in home-made brandy at least two years old.

This is allowed to cook over a slow heat for the space of a third of a rosary and then allowed to sit, without fire, for as long as the Litany of Our Lady lasts*.

* Editor’s note: anyone who is less keen on prayer may replace each Our Father with the recitation of a fashionable song without repeating stanzas; the Credo and the Salve with the same song including all repetitions; the Gloria Patri with the refrain. A third of a rosary is equal to the reading of between ten and fifteen pages of a book, and the Litany would be matched by a poem of 100 or 150 verses.

II

Arama is not surrounded or delimited by any rivers or mountains. It is not on a shore that will add the murmur of water to the dry, tepid air that overwhelms it from morning to night.

Arama is a place in the middle of nowhere that calls to the Traveller with the constant grating of cicadas and the sandy dryness of streets covered in fine white dust. Walking down them, the pedestrian is afraid of a wind that will whip that whiteness into a cloud that will surround him, penetrating all his orifices and smothering him.

That may be why Arama is always deserted, like an abandoned town; like a town that is dead or in agony.

But it is enough to enter this place and knock at a door, hammer with a door knocker that looks like a hand grasping a metal sphere or a medallion with a metal ring that bangs against its middle; there are also some that show a dog rapping with its front paws; others are simple iron rings that beat against a nail with a rounded head. Whatever they may be, when the Traveller knocked, all the doors of Arama opened and, at each house, someone enquired as to the motive for his call.

The air of all the city’s voices sounding at once gently moved, like a threat, the white dust in the streets, which didn’t lift off the ground.

When the Traveller replied he was searching for a place to spend the night, the doors all closed, one by one, and the woman who had opened the door where he had knocked showed him where the inn was. She said he would recognize it because it was the only one whose door would remain ajar after his call.

He headed in that direction and found that, in effect, its door was not closed, but slightly ajar. Seeing no one, however, he banged with his fist on the wood. Immediately, all the doors of Arama opened together because, in Arama, if you knock at a door, your call echoes on them all, they all open, and every doorway contains a person asking the Traveller what it is he wants. This is followed by another gust of wind that unsettles the dust on the ground.

FOLKS

Fortina

Elderly by now, she retains the limpid presence of a beauty that adorned a youth made up of study and devotion to her passion: a wish to find a path her soul could travel along in search of other souls drove her to devote her whole life to unveiling the secrets of music.

Fortina writes charming pieces of choral music.

‘There is nothing more beautiful than constructing something expressed by contributions from the variants of different voices in a choir.’

‘But in Arama it seems everything is in unison.’

‘Don’t be so sure,’ protests Fortina, ‘opening all the doors together has to do with musical time, but then each one provides his own voice. And that is music; each voice, each instrument fulfils its function so the work may be heard just as the composer conceived it. Arama is a musical city as well.’

Fortina is happy with her music, with her belief in great works sung by well-tuned choirs or played by ideal orchestras.

But this has never happened; no one sings, no one plays Fortina’s music.

It is not uncommon to see her through the windows of her house conducting imaginary choirs and orchestras playing music only she can hear.

III

The road is hidden between forests that border and conceal it. The ground preserves the humidity of successive winters and turns green all over its surface with moss and low grasses.

For the Traveller, it is a rest after the distance he has walked, all of it under the sun. The freshness alleviates past sweat and invites delay so it can be prolonged and savoured. The terrain slopes downwards, and smell suggests the proximity of water, which hearing soon confirms, specifying a river, somewhat fast, but none too boisterous.

When the Traveller sets eyes on the water, he contemplates, where the river grows wider, a narrow wall all made of wood, defending a city built on the water.

He continues along the riverbank until reaching a point where, he doesn’t know how, from the city a bridge will be lowered that is currently raised and stored against the wall. He waits to see if he can glimpse some human movement and so discover the procedure and conditions for entering. It doesn’t take long for the bridge to move. With enormous lentitude, it comes to rest at the Traveller’s feet, and he starts walking across it, approaching a door that is the smallest he has ever observed in a wall, being more diminished than that of a house or room. This sensation is accentuated by the fact the wall itself easily surpasses the height of four men.

Once the Traveller was under the rampart, he discovered it was entirely covered in sticky moss, the touch of which caused him disgust. This impregnation must have been the result of an attempt, of doubtful efficacy, to prevent the wall being scaled.

The Traveller knocked at the door three times until it opened, apparently by itself, since he could see nobody. What he could discern, a foot or two away, was another door similar to the one he had just passed through. This precaution did not surprise him since he had seen it elsewhere, so he carried on, knowing he would be confined between both doors until he had been identified as a man of peace. That is what happened; a little window opened in the middle of the door, and a voice required him to stand against the wall on the right, where there was a numerical scale. Once his stature had been ascertained, two soldiers let him in. One appeared to be in command of the other and spoke to him:

‘Forgive me, your excellency, but no one can enter Arodisi without having their height checked first.’

‘And am I the right height?’

‘Yes, sir, by two fingers. Had you measured this much more,’ the soldier held out his index and middle fingers together, ‘you would have remained between the two doors.’

A shiver ran down the Traveller’s spine on learning how close he had been to death.

The conversation occurred on a long balcony that ran along the inside of the high wall, occasionally opening on to a wharf where there were boats, the biggest of which could take four people, but most only two. At a sign from the soldiers, the Traveller boarded one of them and started rowing between the houses, which were palafittes on thick stakes made mostly of oak. He steered the boat towards a building where he had the feeling he might find shelter – and so it turned out, although it wasn’t exactly an inn, rather a tavern where they agreed to give him lodgings for the night.

Having settled into a room facing east, the side of the river, which he soon learned was called Tovalisen, meaning ‘river that rises in the sun’s cradle’ in the local language, he descended the steep, narrow stairs that led down to the tavern, at dusk full of customers drinking beer out of wooden jugs.

They can’t have been very used to visits in Arodisi because, when the Traveller came in, they seemed to have been waiting for him and quickly formed a circle around him. Evening turned into night, and it was very late by the time the Traveller assayed the hard bed he had been offered.

Arodisi is a city created in the middle of a river to defend itself from giants living up in the mountains that form the deep valley the water runs along, who for centuries have been in the habit of razing cities on the riverbank. Those who, whenever there was an assault, managed to escape death or imprisonment at the hands of the giants, at a time nobody can remember or even remember someone who remembers, founded the city they now inhabit on top of the river’s surface.

According to them, the giants are still there but, for some reason, have never dared to approach the city on stilts.

However hard the Traveller searched among those present for someone who had seen the giants, he never found anyone who could reply, ‘I have seen them.’ Word had it the giants would eat their victims by grabbing them by the waist with one hand and lifting them to their mighty mouths as you might do a piece of bread or an apple; they chomped off the heads with a single bite and chewed with many a guffaw, while onlookers observed the devoured person’s face turning round in the giant’s mouth.

None of the people that night or those he spoke to the next day expressed even the slightest doubt about the giants’ existence and presence nearby.

‘But if nobody has seen them, if your parents and grandparents have never seen them, why do you say they’re there, waiting to raze Arodisi to the ground?’

‘The Governor knows of their existence and the intention they harbour in their hearts, if they have one, of entering Arodisi,’ exclaimed one, at which the others all nodded, doffing their caps in respect.

‘And has he seen them?’ enquired the Traveller with a hint of impertinence.

‘It’s not a question of whether he’s seen them or not, he belongs to the race of those who know everything about the giants. It’s not necessary to see them to know they’re there.’

The following day, the Traveller crossed the bridge and took the path leading up the northern mountain, which is where, according to the inhabitants of Arodisi, most famished giants lived.

FOLKS

Tigrio

Firm and dry as one of the poles he is carving into oars to direct and impel the boats, Tigrio is a little over fifty. His eyes are green like fresh alder leaves, his hands long, their fingers like shapely boxwood sprigs.

His whole life has involved shuttling up and down the hills that surround Arodisi to cut the wood he needs, without, he claims, having ever seen a giant. However much he affirms there are only trees, wild boars, roe deer and badgers in the mountains… nobody believes him and they all declare Tigrio has a special quality that derives from a red mark on the back of his neck, which means the giants despise him.

Tigrio is a shipwright and makes the boats in which the people of Arodisi sail along the river, in between the buildings that make up the city.

But he is always gazing towards the west, where the river runs away from Arodisi, the path the Tovalisen takes in search of the sea. He is making a boat to sail right down the river and reach the sea.

‘And then?’

‘Then – ever onwards! I shall sail right across the sea!’

IV

The Traveller knew that going to Aruasi meant deviating from the road and putting his travel plans on hold. But he remembered having heard from another traveller who recalled a place on the coast a deceased friend of his used to visit and, although going there would delay his return another day, he chose to do so because his friend had talked to him about the beauty of the dunes and sunsets therein.

He had also been told that this city of Aruasi was the kingdom of the just. And so, without further ado, he turned down the path on the left, the one that led to a place that, if what people said was true, would be paradise.

What would you think of someone who passed next to paradise, found the entrance open, but didn’t go in?

Aruasi is at the bottom of a long, narrow valley, it looks more like a mountain pass than a city. It has a single street that runs through it longitudinally and is flanked by houses on either side. There are no buildings that are not on one side or the other. Even if the valley didn’t trace the outline of the mountains and the street didn’t twist and turn along their base to follow the curve they make, from one end of the street you would not be able to make out the other, it is so distant.

The Traveller entered Aruasi from the east and started walking along the middle of the street. He looked this way and that, and everyone walking on this or that pavement greeted his presence with slight bows of the head or broad smiles, as if they recognized him or knew he had come to visit them on account of their fame as just people, and wanted to show that a little kindness sits well with justice.

Since it was only a question of confirming whether what was said about the city’s inhabitants was true and of discovering what it meant to be a just person through and through, the Traveller picked out an aged man watching people pass by from an armchair in front of the door of a house.

They greeted each other politely, and the Traveller asked the man for an explanation as to why the peoples of Aruasi were considered a model of good behaviour in all their actions.

‘The best way for me to explain it to you is with an example.’

‘I shall happily hear what you have to say,’ replied the Traveller, sitting down on a stool the man pulled over with the hook of his staff.

‘The inhabitants of Aruasi are so just that, when a child commits an act deserving of punishment, it is the parents themselves who hand him over to the judge to receive an adequate sentence, however harsh or serious that might be. For them, the first thing is to see that justice is done. Without justice, there is no civilization.’

The Traveller continued walking along the city’s only street and, a little further on, heard someone calling to him from the pavement opposite. It was an elderly woman sitting in a wicker chair, knitting a green stocking. The Traveller went over, and the woman looked at him, placing a hand in front of her eyes to shield herself against the sun, which was now low in the sky.

‘You came to Aruasi because you were told it was the kingdom of the just, didn’t you?’

‘That is why I came,’ replied the Traveller. ‘You’re not going to tell me it isn’t?’

‘No, no, not at all. This is the land of just people, all right. Listen, I’ll give you an example.’

‘Please do…’

‘The inhabitants of Aruasi are just but, imagine this, if a child commits an act deserving of punishment, the parents will cover up for him as much as they can to stop him receiving a sentence that will cause all of them, parents and child, great pain. They are the ones who, in the lee of their home and family, will give the child the reproof his action deserves. For them, the first thing is love; where parents do not love their children, and children do not love their parents, there is no life.’

The Traveller abandoned Aruasi in the west, convinced that justice dwelled in that land.

FOLKS

Agricio

He lives on the road and does what he does as if it were a trade, an art with no explicit manifestation of its need, but which he feels is essential to human life.

Agricio is very old. Nobody knows how old, not even him. His body is squat and dry like vine shoots in winter, his skin blackened by the airs of the whole year. He covers himself in an old, dirty robe that stretches down to his feet, which are small, weather-beaten and immune to bumps on the road. He has a slight limp because of a dog’s bite on the back of his left knee, which damaged his hamstring. But the strangest thing about Agricio is the fact he is a prodigy of the road, a being with the gift of ubiquity. There are statements by various walkers who claim to have seen him in far-off places, although it is always to say the same thing, to issue the same warning, which turns whatever he says into an accurate prediction of what will happen. Agricio recommends shortcuts, relates events along the way, warns of the dangers of visiting certain places or the wrong time to visit this or that destination, of not having certain things with you in this or that kingdom, of the weather here or there on such-and-such a day…

That is why Agricio is so highly respected by all us travellers along the way, who consider him a protected being, someone sent by heaven to guard walkers against the vagaries they may encounter.

That is also why he never lacks a hot plate of food or a bed on which to rest the bones of his meagre body.

V

Travellers love the road in the same way and with the same intensity as they love the freedom that allows them at any time to change route, destination, even direction, albeit their journey is always one of return.

The kingdom of Arode lies in the far west of the lands the Traveller is visiting; should he manage to reach it, then all his walking will be to the south. It is a kingdom by the sea, perched on rough, impregnable cliffs that have never been conquered by a ship, but that left the kingdom without access to the sea because of the necessary lack of harbours, which makes Arode a kingdom closed to trade, unless you consider the trade that can be carried out on carts crossing the mountain ridges from dawn to dusk.

What the kingdom of Arode does have is two capitals: the present capital, Ailito, and the ancient one, Ailute. The latter is inhabited only by those who lived in the kingdom in times past, those who feature in its history books as deserving of glory or ignominy.

Thanks to a special permit, the Traveller succeeded in entering the city of Ailute, which is one large mausoleum. Each house, be it a humble dwelling or a royal or bishop’s palace, and each room therein are now occupied by duly mummified bodies surrounded by all the attributes that made the lives of their owners glorious or shameful. Kings and governors, priests and abbots rest next to crowns and mitres, sashes and robes that set them apart in life; there are also lecterns with history books open at pages that sing of their deeds and merits. There are laudatory, hyperbolical exegeses that offer a wonderful, exaggerated portrait of the deceased, although none of what is said there is any help to present and future generations.

Others sleep until eternity, still wearing the noose of dry rope they were hanged with. Books tell of the miseries that sentenced them to an unworthy death, that turned them into examples and objects of ridicule for the living, judging by the information signs at the foot of each corpse.

But there was nothing the Traveller saw there, on either side, that made him think the inhabitants of Ailito, even having a knowledge of their past, could build a happy present and a hope-filled future.

Ailito, although its inhabitants call it ‘the city of the living’, which is what its name appears to mean in the language of Arode, is simply a prior state to Ailute; everything there is waiting to turn into another city of the dead. The inhabitants of Ailito, determined to obtain an honourable place in history (although those who despair of ever achieving this seek refuge in the greatest infamy that will make them unforgettable), live in a state of permanent competition, of glancing over their shoulders and lording it over others’ lives.

SIGN AT THE FOOT

OF AN EMBALMED MAN IN ARODE

Quinidius II was a king who will be remembered for his love of animals. In his palace, he had more than a hundred dogs of many different breeds, with a preference for those breeds used in hunting, a sport he was very fond of, rare was the day when he would not go to the mountain to practise his hobby.

But that is not to say he neglected affairs of government. Ever victorious in war, his mere presence was enough to root his enemies, and any who thought to do him harm, to the spot. For this reason, he is known to history as Quinidius II the Feared. He was so feared that, when he died, there having been an attempt at the invasion of Arode on the part of his foes, his eldest son, who reigned in Arode under the name of Epitatius IV, had his corpse set over the gates of the city of Ailito. He was placed on his feet, in the act of brandishing his sword at the head of his armies. As soon as they saw him, the invaders fell into such a panic that they dropped their weapons and ran away without approaching the city.

VI

He followed the instructions he was given along the way for reaching Amri to the letter; he was quite sure he hadn’t missed any crossroads or turning; even when he left the road to follow the riverbank, he came across the seven mills he had been told he would see before encountering the narrow path that would take him up the mountain to Amri.

There it was, under a huge, dry cherry tree. It may be said this was the largest, oldest tree he had ever set eyes on in all the lands he had walked through before now. Its height and the circumference of its branches were enormous, even disproportionate to the girth of its trunk, although this was also so vast it would have taken many men holding hands to encompass it.

Yes, that was where Amri, the city the Traveller was seeking, had once been. He could see the remains of its houses, with only the foundations left, marking out the space they had occupied previously.

The Traveller sat down at the foot of the dead tree to reflect on his destiny as a walker, a man of the road, a seeker of kingdoms and cities, a function he performed for no other reason than that of providing his kith and kin with news of the world, of all that was going on there, with which to enrich their lives with stories and knowledge and to place on their horizons clarities and suns that would guide them.

Sleep overtook him in these thoughts, and he dozed. He awoke because he felt some taps on the sole of his left foot. He opened his eyes and saw an old man dealing him light blows with his stick in an effort to arouse him.

The Traveller stretched lazily, without saying a word, waiting for the old man to speak first.

‘Good day to you,’ said the old man finally.

‘Good day to you too,’ replied the Traveller.

‘What is it brings you to Amri?’

‘Ah, so this is Amri,’ said the Traveller, casting his gaze around in case he should now observe something he hadn’t noticed earlier.

‘It is indeed. This is Amri, and that there is my house,’ affirmed the old man, pointing with his stick at a place where, needless to say, no house was visible. ‘This is Amri, a city the whole of which was built in the shade of a single tree.’

‘Well, there’s not much left of it, is there?’

‘Nothing at all. Except for me.’

‘That’s a shame. I’d heard tell it was a beautiful city.’

‘It was indeed. Small – a city that fits entirely under a cherry tree, however extensive that cherry tree may be, cannot be big. The houses were of stone white as cherry blossom; the streets were narrow and clean, paved with glistening, streaked stone. From every façade hung a small, oaken balcony, while behind there was a white gallery with stained glass. From the balcony, you could watch people pass or chat to pedestrians and neighbours opposite. In the gallery, the women would sew in the late afternoon, and elders doze in their laurel rocking chairs. Everything here was tranquillity and harmony.

‘Each April, we would begin our ritual,’ continued the old man, ‘and the first thing we would do as soon as we woke in the morning was check the branches of the cherry tree to see if it had blossomed. The neighbour who spotted the first flower knew he would enjoy good luck the entire year; there would be no deaths in his family, he would easily earn enough to sustain his family, a child or grandchild would be born to console him in his old age…

‘Not long afterwards, over our heads, a snowfall would spread, announcing the redness of cherries that would sprinkle us with their good fortune.’

The old man fell quiet and lowered his head while writing illegible letters on the ground with his stick. The Traveller respected his afflicted silence and waited until he should choose to take up his story.

‘Those cherries that rained down on us like manna from heaven were our nourishment and life. At fairs and markets, we would exchange the tasty, esteemed cherries of Amri for anything we might need the following year.’

‘And so how did the cherry tree wither?’

‘It was greed, sir, the greed that kills everything.’

A veil of nostalgia again clouded the old man’s eyes and sank him into a silence the Traveller respected by also lowering his eyes, in order not to add insolence to the ancient, unforgettable pain the old man felt.

‘Blackbirds, starlings, all kinds of birds, came to gorge themselves on our cherry tree, but there was enough for all, men and birds. Until somebody came up with the idea of scaring the birds away so they wouldn’t share in our abundance.

‘People started coming up with all kinds of inventions to frighten the birds: scarecrows hanging in the branches; devices the wind would move, making them sound like birds of prey; enormous rattles that jangled all day and night; coloured beads and marbles that glinted as the sun passed through the branches… One year, the entire cherry tree was covered in a net that was a mortal trap for the birds. Hundreds got caught in it and died that first spring.

‘Their success was so complete that, in a couple of years, not a single bird was left in the vicinity of Amri to come and eat from our cherries. But, from this point on, the cherries grew fewer; each year, the first flower took longer to come and no longer guaranteed the privileged person who’d spotted it his ration of good luck. There was one year when the cherry tree hardly blossomed at all and gave only one basket of fruit. Somehow or other, people put up with it and soon realized this must have something to do with the disappearance of the birds. They removed the nets and scarecrows from the tree, but still there were no flowers or cherries or birds… That was terrible, but I bet you can’t guess the worst of it.’

The Traveller gazed at the old man without saying he couldn’t, he didn’t know what the worst of it had been, and waited for the old man to continue with his story.

‘The worst of it was the silence. Amri was immersed in a deep, long, vast silence. A silence that became unbearable. It was the silence of death, and that was what it brought: the death of our city, which, with the flight of the birds, had lost all chance of waking each morning in the hope of white cherry flowers.

‘Little by little, everybody left, only a few elders like me remained, nostalgically waiting to see if the cherry tree would blossom. One today, another tomorrow, the old people died, having contemplated no other cherries than the ones etched in their memories. I also left for the house of a daughter who had married in the valley. And in a couple of years – it wasn’t long ago this all happened – the city fell into ruin and disappeared. Each winter’s rheumatism is like a warning there will be a spring when I won’t be able to go up and check whether the old cherry tree that covered Amri has one tiny flower that presages a new future of birds and cherries, because only a future that bears a clear mark of the past on its face is worth desiring.’

Since there was no white flower of hope on Amri’s cherry tree that April either, the old man and the Traveller headed down to the valley, one in search of shelter, the other in search of the road.

VOICES ALONG THE WAY

Sometimes the road is an uproar of voices confused with other sounds, songs, shouts, whistles… All of this gives the air a thickness, a sonorous awning that clouds thoughts.

Voices that repeat things heard and considered despicable, that sound for no other reason than to confront the silence, a void the voices consider fearful. They are incapable of welcoming it as a companion of thought, as a friend of the walker.

That is why you sometimes have to leave the most trodden path, the one that bears the mark of close time, recent past and present moment, to take the one that is overgrown with bushes and weeds, that fills the spirit with the uncertainty of whether or not this will be the road that leads you to your chosen destination, and, guided by ancient footprints almost erased by time, to follow the muffled sound of your own voice, like a whisper of self-doubt.

VII

Aware from the reports of one who had directed him to the limits of Aibone of the difficulties he would have to locate this kingdom of tree-dwellers, the Traveller rested for three days before entering Aibone’s marshes.

He approached from the north, where mostly there were wild, low-lying willows and alders, and sailed in the direction of the first trees that showed a desire to reach the sky with ambition. The boat, one of those straight-prowed, flat-bottomed river vessels called batuxos, wasn’t easy to steer as one penetrated the darkness thick, tall crowns projected beneath them.

In a short while, the Traveller could see only shadows he kept bumping into. Avoiding them so he could proceed became a hard, laborious task. He frequently had to lay the long pole down in the boat in order to push with his hands and distance himself from the trees.

The stench of stagnant water and rotten pondweed filled the air to the extent that the Traveller had to tie a scarf around his mouth and nose to stop the retching that continually overwhelmed him. He imagined he had to be in the middle of the kingdom called Aibone because it had been some time since he had heard the chirping of birds and the croaking of frogs and toads that previously filled the marshes.

The Traveller looked up and scanned the crowns in search of any sign of life that might point to the existence of the tree-dwellers that lived in this kingdom. Creatures he had been told so much about, although no one had been able to declare having seen them.

The trees were so tall they became lost in the clouds – it wasn’t clear whether this was due to a natural striving for light in a race for life that forced them to grow or, as the Traveller believed, to a wish to escape the rotten stench that inundated the marshes.

Tired of standing with his head thrown back so he could examine the heights, he first sat and then lay in the bottom of the boat, prepared to wait as long as necessary for a sign of life from these xylophagous people, since it was said of the tree-dwellers that they fed not only on fruit, but also on the leaves and even the wood of the branches.

He stayed like this for such a long time that he eventually fell asleep, and didn’t wake until he heard a ringing noise coming from above. He pricked up his ears and made out the sound of a ballad, which was nothing other than a children’s choir chanting a refrain that enabled them to learn things by constant repetition, as the Traveller himself had done in his childhood with multiplication tables.

He stood up, grabbed the pole and tried to identify where the scholastic song was coming from, but a new song arrived that drowned out that of the children. It was now a composition being intoned in the beautiful voices of a choir of women. He deduced there were four or five singing one verse, while the same number followed with a second. If he strained his ears, he could just distinguish the words of the ditty, a love song he hastened to record in a notebook he always kept with him. He was able to take notes that would permit him later to transcribe the words he had heard. He was convinced they would serve as proof that he had entered into auditory contact with the creatures that inhabited Aibone.

The women’s song was gradually muffled by a knocking accompanied by sounds forced out of multiple human throats, serving as a reference point for a rhythm that maintained a perfect coordination between blows and shouts.

This sound was replaced by the murmur of unidentifiable voices, which other sounds drowned out until creating a hubbub that descended from the tops of the trees, all of which confirmed the existence of this invisible community the Traveller had heard so much about.

He had long since learned about the kingdom of Aibone and its peoples. It was said that they lived in a perfect society organized over the putrefaction that spread around the foot of their arboreal platform. Also, that there were only women who gave birth only to other women, no one quite knew how. In the treetops reigned harmony. They had no property, and every woman was equal in all respects to her peers. They lacked the instincts that might have impelled them towards violence, and their feelings of solidarity suppressed any wish on the part of one to impose herself on her neighbours. That said, the Traveller could affirm only that he had heard them and they were there, not that their social system was as people said it was.

TRANSCRIPTION OF THE SONG

OF THE ARBOREAL WOMEN OF AIBONE

Wind that comes from the east,

wind that memories brings,

carry hope-filled songs

from my love in the west.

Breeze that charming words

pours into my ears,

carry at dawn that song

which unravels my senses.

Gust that comes to place

red rose petals on my face,

bestow on these ruddy cheeks

the freshness of sunset.

Let me lie in the wind,

let it ruffle my hair,

I know full well whose breath

will endow it with peace.

VIII

Each kingdom and city the Traveller visits in this long return to his Ithaca is always a foreboding. Each is a piece of the distant homeland that places in the Traveller’s heart a heap of memories and promises of what awaits him at the end of the road. That is why he walks quickly and determinedly, although it doesn’t bother him in the slightest to leave the straight path and visit the places he hears about.

Of Adiebo, all he knows is the name, he has no idea what might be there. Somebody at the Traveller’s feet, at a stop in the road to eat and have a wash, mentioned the name of the place.

‘What place is that?’ enquired the Traveller.

‘I don’t know,’ replied his table companion. ‘I know nothing about it, except that today I met a man who was from Adiebo and told me in what direction it lies.’

‘Is it very far?’ asked the Traveller again.

‘About two days’ walking south. Apparently you can’t miss it. If you follow the coast, there’s nothing until you reach it.’

The houses of Adiebo are all the same, set out in parallel and perpendicular streets with an exactness worthy of the most scrupulous, well-measured drawings. Once you have entered the city, it is impossible to recognize anything; when you look back, you lose all concept of the path you have taken and do not know which way to go.

However hard you search for a way to distinguish one house from another, there is nothing that performs such a purpose; the houses have no number or other indication to differentiate them, no adornment or colour to make them stand out.

You see very few people in the streets, which meant the Traveller had been walking for quite a while when he finally met someone he could ask. From them, he discovered there was no place where the people met to discuss things, that point the Traveller always sought out to obtain information. There was no such place in Adiebo. The inhabitants, his informer told him, had nothing to discuss.

‘How come?’ said the Traveller. ‘There’s always something to tell your neighbour, there’s always some advice to solicit or some hope to express.’

‘Not in Adiebo. There’s none of that here. You see, in Adiebo we all have the same projects and the same desires.’

The Traveller was surprised and didn’t know how to react, so the man continued:

‘When we found this out, it struck us as nothing more than a curiosity, but we soon discovered it was a great misfortune. We couldn’t share our dreams because our neighbours already knew them. It wasn’t possible to ask for advice because our neighbours harboured the same doubts as we did.’

‘Listen,’ the Traveller spoke again, ‘how can you all have the same desire at one and the same time? Surely somebody has to be first, provoking that desire in others.’

‘Our desires are not born in us. They come from above, from those in authority, although nobody has ever seen them. We have desires without knowing why. And we live to fulfil them as if they were our own. We’re not allowed to say this, however, because it’s far too dangerous. That said, nobody would believe you even if you did, since everybody is convinced he himself is the source of all desires.’

Text © Xabier P. DoCampo

Translation © Jonathan Dunne

This title is available to read in English – see the page “Novels”.