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Belas e bestas / Beauties and Beasts
Claudio Rodríguez Fer é un escritor e académico de dilatada traxectoria tanto na investigación como na creación literaria. Nacido en Lugo en 1956, a obra de Rodríguez Fer, de profundo alento contemporáneo e transdisciplinar, ten sido traducida a numerosos idiomas Preséntase unha selección de dous relatos do libro inédito Belas e bestas.
Claudio Rodríguez Fer is a writer and university professor with an extensive career in both literary criticism and creative writing. Born in Lugo, Rodríguez Fer’s work has a strong contemporary and cross-disciplinary nature, and has been translated to numerous languages. Presented here are two stories taken from the unedited book, Beauties and Beasts.
Todos sabemos que en Galicia houbo sempre lendas sobre lobos, lobishomes e alobados, pero tamén as houbo sobre mulleres lobas. A min mesmo, por exemplo, contáronme a historia dunha da que, maldicida no momento de nacer por motivos de envexa, se dicía que andara de moza libre cunha grea de lobos polo monte e que, nas noites de lúa chea, se volvía loba e se apareaba con aqueles. Chegou a ter sete fillos, dos que só a sobreviviron dous, pero nunca casou nin viviu con ningún home.
Dende moi novos, os seus fillos puxéronse a traballar nunha canteira non moi alongada do lugar, aínda que o maior marchou axiña para América. O máis pequeno casou, estableceuse no pobo máis próximo e tivo unha nena, Ruth, á que lle aprendeu a falar no verbo dos arginas, a xiria que utilizaban entre eles os do gremio. Pero un accidente deixouno sepultado baixo pedras e a muller mandou a nena para a casa da avoa mentres buscaba como gañarse a vida. Andando o tempo, a viúva volveu casar con outro canteiro, que bebía moito e que dende o principio se dedicou a facer comentarios sobre o corpo da súa fillastra, a cal viñera vivir co matrimonio. Cando chegaba borracho a casa adoitaba apalpala e, moitas veces, tiña que intervir a nai para que a deixase en paz.
Un día no que a rapaza estaba soa, o padrasto pechou as portas da cociña e reduciuna contra un recanto, mais cando xa lle estaba esgazando a roupa polo peito, ela mordeuno con tal fereza no pescozo que tivo que soltala cun berro de dor e de rabia, mentres buscaba un pano para deter o sangue que manaba abondosamente da ferida. Ruth fuxiu case sen alento, escoitando como o padrasto lle berraba e a maldicía:
- Loba te volvas!, loba te volvas, fera furiosa!, loba te volvas coma túa avoa!, loba te volvas!
Correu presa de axitados saloucos, aspirando con fruición liberadora o recendo a romeu das beiras do camiño e desfacéndose do sabor a pólvora con que a impregnara o padrasto. Pensou en refuxiarse na casa da súa avoa e xurouse non volver nunca á da nai, por consentir aquel suplicio infernal no que as dúas vivían. Como xa era moi tarde, aquela noite durmiu debaixo dun magnolio que había no adro da casa abandonada dun indiano, toda arrodeada de estalotes. Era a primeira noite que pasaba á intemperie e sorprendeuna o feito de non divisar a lúa. Espertouna un estoupido de dinamita da canteira, tras o que se puxo a andar cara ao monte, en busca do vello lar.
Andou todo o día e xa, co crepúsculo, case sen forzas, divisou dende un alto a aldea orixinaria. Entón notou unha presenza que a deixou paralizada. Sentiu como se lle cravaran na caluga uns ollos de lume e como se un bafo cálido e poderoso a envolvese por completo. E caeu desmaiada no chan, xusto encima dunhas silvas nas que se lle enredaría o seu cabelo crencho formando unha engrela de dédalos trenzados que para sempre asociaría á súa soidade.
Recobrou a consciencia pouco a pouco, tratando de fixar a vista sobre un obxecto alongado que non podía identificar. Lentamente conseguiu apreciar a súa forma cónica, a súa cor indescifrable, o seu aspecto óseo, ata que comprendeu, con arrepío, que era un cairo de lobo. Pero a súa avoa, que o levaba colgado do pescozo e que se encontraba diante dela, tranquilizou axiña o seu desacougo, e xuntas marcharon para casa.
Tres días e tres noites tivo que recibir coidados da súa avoa mentres lle ía baixando a febre e mentres lle curaban as feridas das silvas e dos toxos. Pero, en realidade, o que máis a consumían eran as lembranzas e o que máis lle doía era o maltrato padecido na súa propia casa. Para darlle ánimos, a avoa regaloulle o cairo mentres lle dicía:
- Con esta defensa vas ter máis forza que sete lobas.
Cando se repuxo, a vella levouna polo monte na dirección contraria á que viñera e, ao chegaren ao alto no que perdera o coñecemento, a moza notou unha intensidade extraordinaria, case sobrenatural, no alento e na mirada da súa avoa. Lembrou a refulxencia e o embazamento que sentira a noite da fuxida, pero agora non tivo medo. A vella remexeu nas silvas e dou co burato dunha cova, por onde penetrou áxil e decididamente. Ela seguiuna entre as paredes estreitas e pulidas da caverna, cubertas por completo de pelellos de lobo.
Finalmente, o vieiro ensanchouse e chegaron a un relanzo onde a auga fluía sen marchar para ningures. Acumulados polas rochas do entorno, viu obxectos indicibles, sobre os que non se atreveu a preguntar, pero comprendeu as súas orixes e o seu fado. Fóra da cova, no alto das silveiras, podía escoitarse o ouveo longo e antigo, telúrico e feraz, como se viñera do mesmo centro da terra. E todo o monte ficou cuberto por unha negrura loba.
Tratando de fuxir das súas lembranzas e segura de si mesma, non tardou moito en decidir a súa marcha para América, unha vez que a avoa lle asegurou o custo da viaxe con aquilo que collera na cova. O seu tío, que traballaba limpando cristais nos rañaceos de Nova York, ofrecérase moitas veces para buscarlle traballo ao seu irmán, de modo que seguramente tamén podería buscarllo a ela, que era a súa filla.
Ruth emprendeu a viaxe tan só cunha mochila, pero levaba un entusiasmo sen límites. No avión foi conversando cos viaxeiros que puido, interesada por todo, e non adormeceu nin por un momento. A elevación parecía sobreexcitala. Sentía que se lle desorbitaban os ollos e que se lle inchaba o corazón. Por iso todos os pasaxeiros quedaron sobrecollidos cando, xogando cunha nena que levaba un can lobo de peluche, púxose a ouvear cada vez máis aguda e intensamente, como fora de si.
Chegou a Nova York cun visado de turista, válido só para unha curta estancia, mais, como tantos outros emigrantes, levaba a intención de quedar e tratar logo de conseguir o permiso de residencia. O seu tío só puido conseguir que durmise na cociña, chea de telarañas, dun pequeno piso alugado que compartía con outros emigrantes no Wolfside de Queens e que traballase ilegalmente limpando cristais con el. Pero, malia a tan precaria situación, a Ruth pareceulle fabuloso poder dispoñer polo menos dun leito e traballar empoleirada nas fachadas dos rañaceos.
Aínda que todos os compañeiros temeron que tivese medo ou sentise vertixe o primeiro día de traballo, a moza parecía máis segura e decidida ca eles mesmos. De feito, mirando dende a estada o impresionante panorama de Manhathan, a altura púxoa tan eufórica que volveu ouvear cunha forza sobrecolledora, tras encher de ar o seu peito e abrir os brazos liberada. Entre os seos un pouco descubertos á poalla puido verse unha araña impulsada a saír pola súpeta tersura do seu recinto nocturno.
Ademais do tío, no piso moraban dous portorriqueños e tres galegos, un deles novo como Ruth. Con este foi co que máis intimou e todas as noites ía recollelo ao restaurante arxentino no que traballaba. Fose polos seus gustos gastronómicos ou fose pola súa relación con aquel mozo, a voracidade carnívora da rapaza incrementouse desmesuradamente durante as longas esperas, nas que consumía, prato tras prato, toda clase de carnes á grella: chuletóns con chimichurri, moegas con chinchulines, matambre, chourizos crioulos, leitón ou cabrito. Apenas comía nada polo día agardando aquel momento, que gozaba con gruñidos de satisfacción e acenos de ferocidade, e que logo parecía ter continuación nas constantes mordeduras con que trababa o pescozo e a lingua do seu acompañante.
Foi nunha excursión polos montes de Catskills cando o mozo propúxolle casar e Ruth, que sentiu unha tromba de víboras descendendo en fervenza polo peito, non quixo. Pararon nun alto da serra onde había cervos e ao saír ela do auto botáronse a fuxir espavorecidos monte abaixo, cunha sensación de perigo semellante á de Ruth diante das propostas matrimoniais do pretendente, que non comprendeu o seu desexo de preservar a independencia e que non puido evitar dicirlle con raiba contida:
- Has morrer soa como unha loba.
Dende entón, el volveuse agresivo e sarcástico, mentres Ruth trataba de eludilo. Esquiva como unha esquío, agora resultáballe agobiante a insistencia daquel mozo que recorría a todo subterfuxio para presionala, dende convencer ao tío para que mediase entre eles a, finalmente, ameazala con toda clase de violencias. A situación resultou tan intolerable que Ruth decidiu mudar de casa e ir vivir soa a Brooklyn, no outro extremo da cidade, aínda a custa de empeñar no aluguer practicamente todas as súas ganancias. Pero xusto alí foi onde apareceu o cadáver do seu perseguidor.
Efectivamente, unha noite, suponse que axexando pola zona onde ela moraba, encontrou unha morte estraña e nunca esclarecida, pois, sen outros sinais de violencia, o seu corpo presentaba tan só dúas incisivas punzadas no corazón. Unha testemuña asegurou que antes de bater co corpo escoitara unha especie de berro animal que proviña dun alto, pero que non reparara de onde procedía exactamente, porque en Nova York ninguén mira nunca para arriba.
Tras aquela morte, Ruth conseguiu por fin a independencia que buscaba e prometeuse non volver manter relacións tan perigosas. Cando chegaba do traballo, aprovisionábase de libras e libras de carne, da que seguía ateigándose, ata o punto de ser xa famosa polo seu gasto na carnicería. As noites de lúa chea saía a pasear polos Altos de Brooklyn, abrindo os brazos ao bris e, cando non había xente preto, ouveando orgullosamente cara ás vidreiras translúcidas dos rañaceos de Manhattan, limpadas coas súas propias mans.
Aínda que axiña se fixou nela o propietario da carnicería, Ruth tardou moito en admitir relacións. Finalmente, el foi quen garantiu a súa supervivencia na cidade cando por causa dunha remodelación laboral quedara sen traballo e sen posibilidade de regulamentar a súa permanencia no país. Foi el quen conseguiu que obtivese o dereito de residencia e tamén quen a alimentou durante meses, sobre todo de carne. Encantáballe vela comer como unha fera e a ela que lle dixera, cando chegaba a casa, despois do traballo, cargado de viandas:
- Máis carne para a miña loba.
Logo dos interminables festíns, e para tranquilidade e satisfacción de Ruth, el marchaba para a súa casa, onde moraba coa súa esposa vexetariana e cunha numerosa prole de fillos e fillas malabocas. Moitas veces, Ruth viaxaba a Queens para levarlle carne sobrante ao seu tío, que tamén ficara no paro, ata que, sen posibilidade de atopar traballo e sen querer aceptar axudas de ninguén, o vello solitario de Wolfside abandonou o modesto piso de aluguer e perdeuse sen fogar polos labirintos do metro.
Grazas ao carniceiro, Ruth comezou a traballar nun servizo de distribución cárnica aos restaurantes de Manhattan, pero neste momento reapareceron na súa vida problemas coñecidos. Fose pola independencia económica acabada de recuperar ou polo absorbente do novo labor, o carniceiro aseguraba que cambiara e que apenas tiña tempo para el. Faloulle por iso da súa pretensión de deixar a familia e propúxolle viviren xuntos, incitándoa a abandonar o traballo e dedicarse tan só a el.
Ruth entendeu a proposta como unha nova trampa. Figurouse ao carniceiro como un cazador experto que só pode ser vencido coa súa propia intriga. Por iso, cando ao día seguinte da súa proposición compareceu na casa cun cabrito como quen leva un cebo, disposto a cebar a presa antes de engulila, ela relambeu o seu carnoso fociño, chasqueou coa longa lingua dende o máis escuro da boca e, arregañando os beizos, amosou a súa dentamia incisiva e enorme. Entón lanzouse literalmente sobre a carne crúa, despezándoa coas mans ao tempo que devoraba as súas entrañas. O carniceiro fuxiu arrepiado escaleiras abaixo, sentindo sobre a caluga unha tensión imantada aos sanguinolentos cairos de loba que parecían perseguilo de preto. Ao chegar ao portal titubeou entre o freo e a escorrentada, pero algo máis terrible debeu sentir tras de si que preferiu arriscarse a esquivar unha motocicleta de pizzas a domicilio que pasaba a grande velocidade e que o atropelou de cheo.
Tras esta morte, volveu decidir non ter máis relacións, sobre todo sabendo que, chegada a hora da verdade, practicamente ningún home acepta a independencia dunha femia. Paseando pola praia de Brighton, onde a súa incontible peluxe púbica abraiaba aos rusos da zona estendéndose pelve arriba e coxas abaixo por fóra do traxe de baño, pensaba que só podería entenderse cunha especie de lobo solitario, pero tamén que sería difícil atopalo dentro daquela manda de cans domésticos. Agora era cando comprendía o sentido represivo do seu vello temor a encontrarse na noite da cidade coa inquedante presenza do lobo traído dos terrores da súa infancia.
- O lobo é a miña sombra se estou soa, murmurou.
Ruth deixou o posto de distribuidora porque non quería volver traballar en nada que tivese que ver coa carne e agora ocúpase do xardín cuberto da Fundación Ford, no centro de Manhattan. Así se explica que entre a coidada vexetación do pequeno parque escalonado poida verse unha silveira, acaso procedente da súa aldea, tratando de aclimatarse a tan estraño ambiente de natureza urbana. Quen a coñece di que baixo a silveira hai unha cova e que nela agacha Ruth os seus secretos, pero os pobres sen fogar da rúa 42 pensan que nela mora un animal estraño que alguén viu de noite lambendo as enormes vidreiras acoutadoras do lugar.
Preto de alí, en medio da inmensa Estación Central, pide esmola un mendigo tolo rosmando inintelixiblemente no verbo dos arginas que, baixo a silveira plantada no xardín dun rañaceos de Nova York hai unha cova tan profunda que atravesa o Océano Atlántico e ten saída baixo doutra silveira no alto dunha montaña de Galicia. Ruth cruza a antesala diariamente e parece querer transmitirlle co fulgor cómplice da súa profunda ollada que, en realidade, as dúas silveiras son a mesma.
Logo alóngase, sinuosa como unha góndola e seguida da súa longa cabeleira, cuns zapatos de boneca iguais aos que nas noites de lúa chea soen aparecer abandonados nalgún alto da cidade. Tras eles, queda sempre a vaga e misteriosa resonancia dese ouveo que todo transeúnte nocturno escoitou algunha vez por Nova York.
A osa que chove
A OSA QUE CHOVE
Baixa a osa do monte serra abaixo, chovendo como chove entre rocas impasibles, entre árbores da vida e árbores da morte, como quen danza a danza de toda a natureza, tambores de trebón, alustros por trompetas, ouveos que son cantos polos cantos que son cantos, estalidos dunha orquestra de ramallos, descendendo inmersa na sinfonía da cordilleira libertaria. Coñécena os carballos seculares, os teixos do tempo, abrazándose os castiñeiros das mazás e as maceiras das castañas, o primeiro bidueiro cheo de liques milenarios como a pedra de gran e as lousas de xisto por onde foxen e foxen os lagartos ao seu paso. As aves que lle enchen a cabeza escarvan baixo a terra na procura das covas de miñocas mineiras, que fozan incesantes baixo o chan atravesado polas mandas de touros e de vacas anteriores ao concepto de rabaño e á existencia dos bois.
Era o tempo das osas aprendendo a ladrar cos lobos e dos osos apacentando vacas coas raposas. Os úrsidos vagaban maxestosos, como deuses prehistóricos, polas fragas nutricias nas que había sitio e alimento para todos. A gran osa era entón respectada pola súa forza e coraxe de mito antigo e ancestro venerado. Quizais dela aprenderon os humanos a copular deitados e abrazados, precisamente como osos e osas. Os seus irrefreables impulsos sexuais levábana a gozar dos entón abondosos machos noite e día e a non interromper con pretexto ningún os incesantes apareamentos baixo aquela chuvia chuviosa cando tiña orgasmos como dioivos.
Daquela foi a boca do bosque mordendo froita, inxerindo verdes fervenzas de zume extraídas das follas que regalan árbores e arbustos, arboredo onde curou feridas e rascou as costas. Logo fíxose abelleira enxameando polos eidos ata enzoufarse no mel gozosamente tras derrubar alvarizas, deslousar cortizos e desfacer colmeas. Mais sempre que baixou pola gradaría asolagou veigas, lameiros, soutos, carballeiras, sempre choveu de arriba a abaixo a osa que chove. E cando hibernaba tras a esgrevia ramallada na arredada oseira da montaña soñaba que se tiraba a rebolos por cavorcos, que corría libre pola chaira dende a loaira ao luar, que collía troitas coas mans fervenza arriba, que danzaba polos tellados unidos e nevados cara ao abismo montés, que chovía a cachón desfacendo a nevarada.
Mais mentres a osa soñaba paraísos vividos, os humanos dispuñan pesadelos inventados: os teóricos do inferno aseguraron que os osos podían procrear persoas coas mulleres, pero que as osas só procreaban monstros cos homes, quizais porque consideraban demoníaco o furor vaxinal que as posuía, un instinto natural que xulgaban improcedente mesmo para as bestas. E comezou a persecución, para matar a cifra do desexo, do lume contra o ardor, da lanza contra a vulva, da frecha de ferro envelenada contra o fervor que ferve no corazón.
Así deron en dicir que ela era unha bruxa fuxida ao monte de nova, como unha poldra brava, e que vivía nunha caverna cubríndose cunha pel de oso. Afirmábase que comía herbas, ovos de aves silvestres e ata animais crus, sobre todo anguías e lebres. E latricaban e laretaban e leriaban baduando que atraía os homes cunha danza louca e que logo os paralizaba con ruxidos e cuspe. –Foise da aldea ruxindo e botando escuma pola boca, contaban os vellos, insistindo en que unha vez na cova cuspíalles e mexáballes aos homes na cara e nas súas partes co fin de que fixesen todo o que ela quería.
Para a xente que a vía aparearse sen fin durante o outono era a osa que chove enchendo de lama e de bulleiro a corredoira; para quen a imaxinaba hibernando, era a meiga da cova, que chova, que chova, acaso co fin de acumular enerxía erótica para a primavera; para as persoas que padecían de desespero, era a sabia das herbas de curar e de namorar sobre o penedo da oseira a cambio dunha xerra de viño, se o mal era da cabeza; dun teteiro de leite, se o mal era do peito; dunha castañeira furada e chea de castañas, se o mal era do abdome; dunha ola de chourizos, se o mal era da entreperna; dunha ámboa con aceite ou con vinagre, se o mal era dos brazos ou das pernas; dunha meleira con mel cristalizado, se o mal era de amores.
Unha noite na que a aldea quedou desfeita e chea de bugalla por unha gran treboada que derrubou a capela, arrastrou o muíño e incendiou casas e palleiros, moitos veciños culparon á meiga da cova e fórona buscar ao monte con paus, con aguilladas e con sachos. –Foi cousa da meiga, porque o monte ruxía, o río corría e as nubes cuspían coma ela, escoitábase dicir en medio da desfeita. Algúns lembraban antigas maldicións imprecisas de mal raio vos parta cando fuxiu case espida con sangue entre as pernas despois de que a violasen detrás do muíño. –Era como loba no inverno e como cobra no verán, berraban aínda os vellos violadores pasados os anos ante o silencio dos sempre cómplices cos pés fundidos no tremedal. Volveron bébedos, dicindo que non deran con ela porque desaparecera nun illó como unha meiga, pero traían unha gran pel de oso manchada de sangue.
Antes de que o outono tivese ningún nome, a fraga estaba chea de osos engulindo víveres no período do engorde para resistir o inverno. A osa, a gran osa, baixaba chovendo sobre as brañas coas nubes dos cumes redondeadas e rebordantes ata rebentar. Tras ela pasaban outros úrsidos, quizais descendentes daquela proteica matriz de matrices, cimbrando como varas verdes mentres seguían o seu rastro polos vales libres de valados. Despois, cando houbo casas e aldea, cando todo tivo atranco, muro, cancela e porta, e a xente se xuntaba para cazar osos e osas, só baixaba como sarabia ou chuvia, por comer e beber, pero evitando ser vista por humanos, pois dende que os coñeceu disparando pedras, logo frechas, logo balas, soubo sempre que unha persoa era o peor que se podía atopar.
E iso que nunca soubo que os seus fillos arrebatados sendo osiños acabaron facendo o humano tras ser adestrados como torpes danzantes ou tristes pallasos nos humillantes espectáculos que o poder relixioso fomentaba para desacralizar, ridiculizar e desprestixiar definitivamente a besta antigamente venerada pola súa salvaxe potencia física e pola súa lúbrica sexualidade exacerbada. E polo mundo foron atados, arrastrados, vareados e embozados con bozos de vimbio, corda ou arame no fociño e buceiras de verga de caxigo no instinto, para sempre preso nun vetillo.
Tampouco imaxinou nunca a osa que unha vez ía ser a última, que o oso que penetrou nela entre as uvas no outeiro que había sobre a ribeira ía ser a derradeira ocasión que a penetrase para penetrar el mesmo nunha noite vermella polo sangue ou polo viño no altiplano das adegas. El baixara feliz e satisfeito, sen decatarse de que se poñía ao alcance dos homes que fixeran a vendima e se introduciu ebrio de osa nunha adega aberta. Alí mesmo morreu cun acio de saloucos vermellos polo peito, pois saíalle do corazón para fóra a vida que levaba, mentres ela quedaba soa polos outeiros sen o derradeiro úrsido macho das montañas.
Mais pasou algo que os que matan chaman tempo e a osa volveu sentir o instinto do alarido seminal e da vertixe extática. Era como a fame e a sede, insoportable. Buscou e cheirou e avistou e lambeu, pero nunca máis atopou. Soamente descubriu a relambida metáfora da verga, por exemplo a punta do estadullo sobre o carro de bois á beira dun muíño que daba voltas na auga como o sangue na cabeza cando se apareaba cos da súa especie. E tamén a carne dos chourizos que atopou no esgrevio e tupido cesto de ameneiro sen pelar que deixara un camiñante nun carreiro tras avistala e botarse a correr pola congostra abaixo. Era unha carne outra, de pel tersa e salobre sabor a sangue seminal e sementeira, embutida de vida para ter dentro de si por todo o inverno, agora que o seu ventre non podía quedar preñado máis que da memoria espermática duns praceres compartidos dende o principio dos tempos. Por aqueles pagos ela era a última practicante da linguaxe de namorar dos osos e con ela extinguíase todo un mundo de instintos e praceres belos e bestiais
Aceptando o distinto, pouco a pouco reparou nos lobos que antano evitaba e cos que agora coincidía de noite nos outeiros cada vez máis ermos polos incendios provocados. Lúbrica e soa, aproximouse a eles sen máis horror á diferente especie que temor a compartir fatal destino, pois vira mortos moitos lobos polo monte, algúns rematados nos trollos onde quedaran entalados ao seren feridos. Ás veces ela mesma fora atacada por lobos tras ficar entullada nun groto en medio dos lamazais.
Os antigos adversarios fórona admitindo con curiosidade e con cautela, e xuntos comezaron a baixar cara ás aldeas en busca de alimento, xuntos libráronse de cans e de escopetas, xuntos lambéronse feridas, xuntos lambéronse. O falo dos lobos, que a cheiraban e que ás veces a mordían achegándose e alongándose de súpeto e con medo, foise facendo habitual e necesario na súa vida, porque o instinto e o pracer dos seres vivos mudan cando muda o seu mundo.
A parella de lobos cos que espantou a partida de cazadores que subira de batida copulaba ás veces diante dela, e a osa sentía os peludos rabos longos fretar baixo o seu ventre mentres chovía ata alcanzar un apoteótico éxtase inaugural na especie. Moito choveron xuntos, ouveando e ruxindo ata enrouquecer, mollando e licuando ata secar. E foi a loba louca libre que chovía solidaria coa súa chuvia, a loba tremente e temerosa que se ía abandonando e deixándose levar, a loba que ollaba ao lonxe mollada pola chuvia do desexo sen sabelo. Nunca máis se sentiu soa e volveu devorar voraz os froitos da vida que a propia vida saciaba nela: cereixas nas cerdeiras do val, moras nas paradas dos montes, uvas nas ribeiras dos ríos, mazás nos prados do pasto.
Mais os lobos foron tamén desaparecendo como sombras negras perseguidas por siluetas verdes, aquelas que a imaxinaban a ela como unha Lupa Partisana, puta do monte e compañeira dunha banda de fuxidos tras ser raptada polos bandoleiros co seu consentimento. –Aceptou o rapto e vive como a puta de todos nas oseiras, aseguraban. Outros dicían que fora unha moza libre a quen lle mataran a familia ao comezo da guerra e que se tirara ao monte seguindo ao seu compañeiro, loitador na guerrilla resistente.
Aínda así, moitos crían que os torrenciais berros de pracer bestial que escoitaban polas noites en medio do trebón proviñan das oseiras vermellas, como entón chamaban ás irredutibles cavernas onde se refuxiaban aqueles irredentos: -Chove a osa, dicían. E tamén relataban que ela sempre se poñía encima, a chover sobre os combatentes, porque aquel fluxo lles infundía o valor e o vigor necesarios na desigualísima loita pola liberación. Por iso cando as nubes negras anunciaban chuvia, preparábanse os de abaixo para inminentes incursións ou movementos.
Cercados e famentos, os guerrilleiros resistiron protexidos polo rochedo e polo mato na montaña, pero foron caendo un por un cando, acosados, trataron de fuxir polas gándaras dos ermos. Dela nunca máis se soubo, pois os perseguidores contaron que ao prenderen lume na mesta matogueira que pechaba a entrada da cafurna, non escoitaron nada nin nada viron logo. –Desapareceu na espenuca como unha meiga, relataban ocultando as caras de raposos en celo sucadas por grandes rabuñadas.
Non obstante, a osa chovía por aquelas devesas moito antes que a súa suposta encarnación humana: chovera cando os osos eran moitos polos montes e choveu cos lobos cando era a única habitante da gruta. De feito, co tempo acabou a resistencia, pero ela seguiu aparecendo polo monte, a súa pegada plantígrada seguiu sendo vista sobre a lama, o rastro da súa pelaxe seguiu atopándose polas silvas garduñeiras e seguiu percibíndose o paso do seu lombo sobre o tronco pelado das árbores rexas.
Debeu desesperar de non volver ter par dende moi nova, algo como non saber onde saciar fame e sede. Un día baixou seguindo o rastro do fume dun pendello onde o lume manso afumaba chourizos, nun casopo ergueito á outra beira do río que pasaba pola aldea. Chegou paseniño, con cautela, e comezou a fisgar co seu longo fociño a través dos buratos fumegantes e recendentes a carne adobada de porco que alí se curaba. Finalmente, derrubou dun golpe parte da entrada daquel pardiñeiro e, mentres varias lousas do teito lle caían na testa, viuse debruzada entre decenas de restras vermellas de chourizos enfundados en tripa graxenta e pendurados sobre o fogo que afogaba no chan. Instintivamente, ergueuse e inclinouse para atrás, mentres, de súpeto, viuse cunhas restras de chourizos cal colar arredor do pescozo e con outras serpeando onduladas entre as súas patas abertas.
Naquel momento de visións confusas sentiu que todo daba voltas e outra vez percibiu o falo erecto dos osos da súa tribo penetrando pola vulva, o teso fungueiro que lambeu como un órgano totémico, o rabo ergueito dos lobos rozando a súa pelaxe, e sentiuse ebria de ledicia e de desesperación entre a vertixe das vergas vermellas.
Foi entón cando se lanzou voraz sobre os chourizos, mordendo con furia os que alcanzaba, derrubando as restras ensartadas, abaneando a ringleira de ganchos onde penduraban as pezas maiores, tratando de inxerir os enormes abrindo moito a boca, mentres o picante sabor do pemento e da ruca aínda a excitaba máis e máis nas súas asociacións caníbales, pois tiña a vaga impresión de que todo canto compartiu, desexou, amou na vida quedara reducido a aquela carne magra e vermella que alimentaba toda a paixón que aínda existía no mundo e coa que quería fundirse furiosa e freneticamente para sempre, como quen se devora a si mesma.
We all know that in Galicia there have always been legends about wolves, werewolves and people under the spell of a wolf, but there were also some about she-wolves. For example, they told me the story of the one, cursed at birth by an envious individual, who was said to run about the hillside with a pack of wolves and who, on nights when there was a full moon, was transformed into a she-wolf and mated with them. She had seven children, only two of whom survived her, but she never married nor lived with any man.
From a young age her children went to work in a quarry not far from home, although the youngest emigrated to America at a young age. The youngest one got married, settled in the closest village and had a daughter, Ruth, whom he taught to speak the Latin of the stonecutters, the argot used among themselves by all the members of the trade. But an accident left him buried underneath some stones and his wife sent their daughter to her grandmother’s house while she looked for a way to earn a living. Time went by and the widow got married again, to another stonecutter, who drank a lot and from the beginning was fond of making remarks about the figure of his stepdaughter, who had returned to live with the couple. When he came home drunk he liked to rub his hands over her and often her mother had to make him leave her daughter alone.
One day when the girl was alone, her stepfather locked the kitchen doors and forced her into a corner, but when he was tearing her clothing from her breast, she bit him on the neck so fiercely that he had to let go of her, shouting from pain and fury, while he looked for a rag to staunch the blood gushing from the wound. Ruth fled from the house, breathless, listening to her stepfather screaming at her and cursing:
Be a wolf! Be a wolf, you savage beast! Be a she-wolf just like your grandmother! Be a wolf!
She ran, shaking and sobbing, breathing in the liberating fragrance of rosemary that grew along the path and cleansing herself of the taste of filth with which her stepfather had sullied her. She was going to take shelter in her grandmother’s house and swore never to return to her mother’s because her mother had allowed the two of them to live under that torture. Because it was already very late, that night she slept beneath a magnolia tree in the patio of the house belonging to an indiano (an emigrant who had returned from America), completely surrounded by foxgloves. It was the first night she’d ever spent without a roof over her head and it surprised her that she couldn’t see the moon. An explosion of dynamite in the quarry awakened her, so she set out for the hills, looking for her former home.
She walked all day and finally, as the sun was setting, almost exhausted, she spotted her village from a high rise. Then she noticed something that left her unable to move. She felt as if there were eyes of fire searing the back of her neck and it felt as if a warm, strong vapor were enveloping her completely. Then she fainted and fell to the ground, right onto some brambles where her curly hair got entangled, forming a mass of entwined labyrinths that she would forever associate with her loneliness.
Gradually she regained consciousness, trying to settle her gaze on a long object she couldn’t identify. Slowly she managed to make out its cone-shaped form, its indistinct color, its resemblance to bone, until to her horror she realized it was the fang of a wolf. But her grandmother, who was wearing it around her neck and was standing in front of the girl, quickly calmed her down and they both headed to the house.
Her grandmother had to care for her for three days and three nights until the wounds from the brambles and gorse were healed. But in truth she was consumed by her memories and the most painful part was the abuse she’d suffered in her own home. To raise the girl’s spirits, her grandmother gave her the fang while she told her:
“With this for protection, you’ll have more strength than seven she-wolves.”
When she had recovered, the old woman took her up into the hills in the opposite direction she’d come from, and when they reached the high area where she had fainted, the girl felt something extraordinary, intense, almost supernatural, in her grandmother’s strength and in her gaze. She remembered the shiny light and the haziness she’d felt the night of her escape, but she was not afraid now. The old woman searched around in the brambles and found the opening to a cave, which she entered, agile and determined. The girl followed her between the smooth, narrow stones of the cavern, completely covered by wolf pelts.
Finally the path widened and they reached a clearing where water was flowing without going anywhere. She saw blurry objects around the nearby rocks, and she didn’t dare ask about them, but she knew where they had come from and their destiny. Outside the cave, in the high part with brambles, the long, ancient howl, telluric and wild, could be heard as if it came from the very center of the earth. Then the whole mountain was covered by a wolfish blackness.
Trying to escape her memories and feeling confident, it didn't take her long to decide she would go to America, as soon as her grandmother promised to pay her way with what she'd taken from the cave. Her uncle, who worked washing the windows of skyscrapers in New York, had offered to find work for his brother many times, so certainly he could find a job for her, since she was his daughter.
Ruth began the trip with just a backpack, but her enthusiasm was boundless. In the plane she talked with all the travelers she could, was interested in everything, and didn't sleep a wink. The elevation seemed to really excite her. She felt like her eyes were going to pop out of their sockets and her heart was swelling. It shocked all the passengers when, while playing with a girl who had a stuffed wolfdog, she began to howl more and more loudly and intensely, as if she were crazy.
She arrived in New York with a tourist visa, valid only for a short visit, but like many other emigrants, she planned to stay and then try to get a resident card. Her uncle could only arrange a place for her to sleep in the cobwebby kitchen of the small rented flat he shared with other emigrants in Wolfside, Queens, and for her to work illegally washing windows with him. Yet, despite this precarious situation, Ruth thought it was fabulous just to have a bed and work all covered with dust on the façades of the skyscrapers.
Even though all her coworkers feared she'd be scared or get dizzy the first day of work, the girl seemed more sure of herself and determined than they were. The truth was, looking out from the scaffold over the impressive panorama of Manhattan, the height made her feel so euphoric that she howled again with a frightful force, after filling her lungs with air and opening her arms wide. From between her breasts, slightly open in the drizzle, a spider appeared, forced by their sudden tensing to come out of its nocturnal haunt.
Besides her uncle, two Puerto Ricans and three Galicians lived in the flat, one of them Ruth's age. He was the one she got to know best and every night she went to pick him up in the Argentinian restaurant where he worked. Whether it was because of her taste in food or because of her relationship with the fellow, the girl's enormous appetite for meat grew drastically during the long waits, during which she consumed dish after dish of grilled meat: thick pork chops with chimichurri sauce, gizzards with gut cuts called chinchulines, stuffed pork loin, creole sausage, suckling pig or kid. She hardly ate a thing during the day, waiting for the moment, which she enjoyed with growls of satisfaction and ferocious gestures, and which then seemed to continue with the constant nips she gave her companion on his neck and tongue.
When they were on an excursion to the Catskills, the young man asked her to marry him and Ruth, feeling a horde of vipers slithering down her chest, refused. They stopped at a high point on the mountain ridge where there were deer and when she got out of the car they ran off down the slope, terrified, their sense of danger similar to what Ruth felt when her suitor proposed to her. He didn't understand her need to preserve her independence and couldn't help telling her with teeth gritted in fury:
"You're going to die alone, like a she-wolf."
From then on he became aggressive and sarcastic, while Ruth tried to avoid him. Skittish as a squirrel, the lad's insistence aggravated her as he tried every trick to pressure her, from trying to convince her uncle to act as a go-between to, finally, threatening her with all sorts of violence. The situation became so intolerable that Ruth decided to love and went to live by herself in Brooklyn, on the other side of the city, even though she had to put almost all her earnings into paying the rent. But that was exactly where her pursuer's corpse appeared.
The fact is that one night, probably sneaking around the area where she lived, he met a strange, never resolved death, because there were no other signs of violence except for the needle marks of two incisors in his heart. One witness testified that before finding the body, there had been a kind of animal roar coming from high up, but it hadn’t been clear exactly where it was coming from, because in New York nobody ever looks up.
After that death, Ruth finally achieved the independence she was looking for and told herself she'd never again have such dangerous relationships. When she came home from work, she always bought pounds and pounds of meat, stuffing herself, until she became famous for her purchases in the butcher shop. On the nights when there was a full moon she would go out to walk through Brooklyn Heights, her arms open to the breeze and, when there were no people nearby, howling proudly at the shiny windows of the skyscrapers in Manhattan, washed by her very hands.
Although the owner of the butcher shop quickly noticed her, Ruth wouldn't allow him to get close for quite a while. Finally, he was the one who guaranteed her survival in the city when she lost her job due to downsizing and with that the ability to achieve residency in the country. He was the one who got her the resident's visa and also fed her for months, especially meat. He loved watching her eat like a wild animal and she loved it when he arrived home after work, laden with food, saying:
"More meat for my she-wolf."
After their lengthy banquets, and to the tranquility and satisfaction of Ruth, he left to go home, where he lived with his wife, who was a vegetarian, and a *passle of foul-mouthed kids. Many times Ruth would walk to Queens to take leftover meat to her uncle, who was also unemployed, until with no chance of finding work and refusing to accept handouts from anybody, the lonely old man in Wolfside left the modest rented flat and disappeared, homeless, in the labyrinth of the subway.
Thanks to the butcher, Ruth began to work at a meat distribution service for Manhattan restaurants, but at that moment familiar problems reappeared in her life. Whether it was because she had recovered her financial independence or because her new employment took up all her time, the butcher knew she had changed and barely had time for him. For that reason he told her about his plan to leave his wife and children and proposed that they live together. At the same time he urged her to leave her job and devote herself entirely to him.
Ruth saw the proposal as a new trap. She saw the butcher as a skilled hunter who could only be beaten with his own methods. Thus, when the day after his proposal, he appeared at her house with a roast kid like a person carrying bait, ready to fatten her up before devouring her, she licked her fleshy muzzle, clicked her tongue way back in her mouth and, curling her lips back, showed him her sharp, enormous teeth. Then she literally threw herself on the raw meat, tearing it apart with her hands while she devoured the innards. Terrified, the butcher fled down the stairs. Along the back of his neck he felt a pull toward the bloody fangs of a wolf that seemed to be at his heels. When he reached the front door he wasn't sure if he should stop it or try to drive it away, but he must have felt something more terrible pursuing him because he preferred to risk running in front of a pizza delivery scooter that was zipping by and hit him full on.
After his death, she again decided not to have any more relationships, especially knowing that the truth was, practically no man accepts a woman’s independence. Walking along Brighton Beach, where her wild public hair caught the attention of the Russians in the area because it extended from her pelvis upward and downward from her thighs beyond her bathing suit, she felt she could only get along with the lone wolf type, but that it would also be difficult to find one in that pack of pet dogs. Now she understood the repressive effect of her old fear of running into the unsettling presence of the wolf from her old childhood fears in the city at night.
“The wolf is my shadow when I’m alone,” she murmured.
Ruth left her job as a distributor because she didn’t want to work anymore in anything that had to do with meat and now she’s working in the covered garden of the Ford Foundation in the center of Manhattan. That explains why, among the carefully tended-to vegetation growing in tiers, there’s a thorny plant, perhaps brought from her village, trying to acclimate to such a strange environment, urban nature. Those who know about it say that beneath the brambles is a cave and Ruth hides her secrets in it, but the poor folks along 42nd Street think a strange animal lives there - someone saw it at night, licking the enormous glass panes that line the place.
Nearby, in the middle of the huge Central Station, a crazy beggar is asking for handouts, growling unintelligibly in stonecutters’ Latin that beneath the thorny bush planted in the garden of a New York skyscraper there is a cave so deep that it crosses the Atlantic Ocean and comes out beneath another bramble high up on a mountain in Galicia. Ruth crosses the entryway every day and seems to want to say with the conspiratorial glow of her deep gaze that in fact both brambles are one and the same.
Then she moves off, slinking like a gondola and trailing her long hair, with doll shoes just like the ones that, on nights with a full moon, often turn up tossed away in some high part of the city. Behind them, there’s always the vague, mysterious echo of the howl that every passerby at night has heard at some time in New York.
The rain bear
The she bear comes down the sierra from the mountain, raining like it rains on taciturn stones, among trees of life and trees of death, as if she were dancing the dance of all of nature, with drums of thunder, lightning bolt trumpets, a howling like a song over the stones that are so many, explosions of an orchestra of branches, descending and immersed in the symphony of the libertarian mountain ridge. The centuries-old oaks know her, as do the yew trees in season, the chestnut trees embracing the apples and the apple trees the chestnuts, the first birch full of thousand-year-old lichens like the granite and the slabs of slate where the lizards skitter about as she goes by. The birds that fill her head dig in the dirt looking for the holes of the miner worms, constantly rooting beneath the surface inhabited by the herds of bulls and cows from before the concept of a herd existed and before there were oxen.
It was the time when she bears were learning to bark like wolves and when bears grazed alongside foxes. The ursids wandered about in grand form, like prehistoric deities, through the nutritious forests where there was space and food for all. The great she bear was respected then for her strength and courage like those from ancient myth, with honorable ancestry. Perhaps humans learned from her to copulate lying down and in an embrace, just as female and male bears do. Her irrepressible sexual impulse led her to enjoy the many males there were then, night and day, not interrupting any of the endless couplings for any pretext beneath the incessant rain when she had orgasms like carrousels.
Then she was the forest’s mouth devouring fruit, swallowing green fountains of juice extracted from the leaves offered by trees and bushes, a grove where she healed her wounds and scratched her back. Then she became bees swarming about the fields until she could joyfully sink her muzzle into the honey after overturning hives, knocking down shed walls, breaking apiaries apart. But whenever she came down the terraces she flooded meadows, marshes, forests, oak groves, always raining from above to below. And when she hibernated beyond the rough branches in the far-off den of the mountain she dreamed about rolling around, frolicking, running freely across the plain from the sunup to sundown, catching trout swimming upstream in her hands, dancing on the rooftops that were joined and covered by snow in the direction of the mountain abyss, where it was pouring and the fallen snow was melting.
But while the she bear dreamed of paradises she knew, humans were inventing nightmares: the theorists of hell were certain bears could recreate humans with women, but she bears could only beget monsters with men, perhaps because they believed the vaginal fury that overtook them was demonic, a natural instinct they felt was improper even in wild animals. And so the persecution began, in an effort to kill the flame of desire, fire against ardor, the spear against the vulva, the arrow of poisoned iron against the burning that burns in the heart.
Then they said she was a witch who’d fled the mountain when she was young, like a wild foal, and she lived in a cave, covering herself with a bearskin. They said she ate grass, eggs from wild birds, and even raw animals, especially eels and hares. And they howled and gossiped and had a good time making a lot of noise, saying she attracted men with a mad dance and then paralyzed them with bellows and spit. - She left the village roaring and spitting foam from her mouth, the old folks said, insisting that once back in her cave she spit on men and peed on their faces and genitals so they would do whatever she wanted.
To the people who watched her coupling endlessly in the fall she was the bear who rained, filling the country lanes with mud and quagmires. For those who imagined her hibernating, she was the witch in the cave, let it rain, let it rain, perhaps in order to gather up erotic energy for spring. For those who were desperate she was the wise one who knew the herbs for healing and love growing above the boulder of her den in exchange for a jug of wine, if it was an illness of the head, or a jug of milk, if it was a chest malady; for a chestnut roaster full of chestnuts if it was a stomach problem; for a string of chourizos, if it were a sexual problem; for a flask with oil or vinegar, if it was a problem with the arms or legs; or a pot of honey for a love problem.
One night when the village had been battered and covered with chestnuts by a bad storm that knocked over the chapel, destroyed the mill and set fire to houses and haystacks, many villagers blamed the witch in the cave and went up the hill to look for her, taking sticks, cattle prods, and hoes. - It was the meiga, the witch, who did it, because the hills were roaring, the river ran fast, and the clouds were spitting like she did, they were saying as they watched amid the destruction. Some recalled hearing vague, ancient curses of damn you all to hell when she fled, nearly naked, bleeding between her legs after they raped her behind a grist mill. - She was like a she wolf in winter and like a snake in the summer, the old rapists still proclaimed years later with the silence of the eternal accomplices, their feet mired in the marsh. They came back drunk, saying they couldn’t find her because she’d disappeared in a fountain like a meiga, yet they came back with a great bear pelt covered with blood.
Before autumn had a name, the forest was full of bears eating all they could to get fattened up enough for winter. The she bear, the great bear, came raining down over the marshes with clouds on the peaks that were rounded and bursting. Behind her came other ursids, perhaps descendants of that protean womb of all wombs, swaying like green twigs while following her trail through the valleys not divided by property walls. Later on, when there were houses and a village, when everything had a lock, wall, gate and door, and people got together to hunt bears both male and female, she only came down in the form of hail or rain, to eat and drink, but staying out of sight of humans, because since she’d encountered them throwing stones, later arrows, then bullets, she knew for sure that a human was the worst thing she could encounter.
That was because she never knew that the cubs taken from her when they were small ended up like humans after being trained as clumsy dancers or pitiful clowns in the humiliating spectacles promoted by religious leaders in order to desacralize, ridicule, and completely discredit the beast who had once been venerated for its savage physical strength and its excessive lustful sexuality. And around the world they were tied up, dragged, beaten, and muzzled with muzzles of wicker, rope or wire on their snouts and mouth guards made of Portuguese oak rods restraining their instinct, forever imprisoned in a muzzle.
The she bear also never imagined she would end up being the last one, that the bear who entered her among the grapes on the hill above the riverbank would do so for the last time and would himself enter a night that was red from the blood or the wine on the high plain where the wine cellars were. He had come back down happy and satisfied, without noticing he was coming near the men who’d done the grape harvesting and, drunk on the she bear, had entered an open wine cellar. He died on the spot with a cluster of red sobs on his chest, because life had gone out of his heart, while she remained alone in the hills without the last male ursid of the mountains.
But something happened that those who kill call time and the she bear once again felt the call of the seminal drive and pure ecstasy. Like hunger and thirst, it was unbearable. She looked and sniffed and saw things and licked, but never found him again. She only discovered the fancy metaphor of the rod, for example the point of the *estadullo over the oxcart beside a mill that whirled in the water like the blood in her head when she mated with those of her kind. And also the meat of the chourizos that she found in the rough, tightly-woven basket of unscraped black alder that a hiker had left on a path after seeing her, running away down the rough path. It was a different flesh, with tight skin and the salty taste of seminal and sowing blood, stuffed full of life, enough to store inside herself for the entire winter, now that her womb could not be impregnated except by the spermatic memory of pleasures shared from the beginning of time. In that region she was the last practitioner of the language of love of bears and with her a whole world of instincts and pleasures, beautiful and beastly, was extinguished.
Accepting the change, little by little she noticed the wolves that she’d avoided in the past and with whom she now coincided at night on the hills that were increasingly barren due to the fires being set. Lusty and alone, she drew near them with less horror of a different species than fear at sharing a fatal destiny, for she’d seen many deadwolves around the hills, some of them dying in quagmires where they’d gotten stuck when they were wounded. Sometimes she herself was attacked by wolves after she got stuck in a grotto in the middle of the swamps.
Her old adversaries began to accept her with curiosity and caution, and together they began to go down to the villages in search of food, together they escaped from dogs and rifles, they licked their wounds together, they licked one another. The phallus of the wolves, who smelled her and sometimes bit her, coming close then scampering off in fear, gradually became habitual and necessary in her life, because the instinct and pleasure of living beings change when their world changes.
The pair of wolves that frightened the group of hunters that had come up beating the brush copulated sometimes in front of them, and the she bear felt the long hairy tails rubbing beneath her belly while it rained until reaching an apotheotic extasy new to the species. They rained a lot together, howling and roaring until they were hoarse, growing damp and melting until they were dry. And it was the mad free wolf who rained in solidarity with their rain, was the trembling, fearful wolf who began to give in and be controlled, the she wolf who looked at the horizon dampened by the rain of desire without her knowing. She never felt alone again and once more began to voraciously devour the fruits of life that life itself satisfied in her: cherries on the cherry trees of the valley, blackberries near the clearings, apples on the grassy meadows.
But the wolves were also disappearing like black shadows being chased by green silhouettes, ones that saw her as a Lupa Partisana or whore of the hills and companion to a band of fugitives after being kidnapped by the bandoleers with her consent. - She allowed the kidnapping and lives like everybody’s whore in all the bear dens, they all said. Others said she was a free young woman whose family had been killed at the start of the war and who had fled to the hills following her partner, who belonged to the guerrilla fighting there.
Even so, many believed that the torrential shouts of animal pleasure they could hear on nights in the middle of the downpour came from the red bear dens, as they called the implacable caverns where those irredeemable ones took refuge. - It’s raining like a bear, they said. And they also talked about how she mounted the man, raining on the combatants, because that flow gave them the valor and vigor they needed in a very uneven battle for freedom. For that reason when the black clouds signalled rain, those below would prepare for imminent raids or movements.
Fenced in and starving, the guerrilla fighters were able to resist because of the crags and underbrush of the mountain, but they fell one by one when being chased, trying to flee along the wetlands of the wilderness. Nothing more was heard of her, because the pursuers said that when they set fire to the thick growth that surrounded the entrance to the grotto, they didn’t hear or see a thing. - She disappeared inside the cavern like a witch, like a meiga, they’d say, hiding their faces like those of foxes in heat, raked by huge scratches.
Nevertheless, the she bear had rained over those woodlands long before her supposed human incarnation: she had rained when there were many bears in the hills and rained with the wolves when she was the only inhabitant of the grotto. In fact, in time the resistance faded, but she kept appearing in the hills, her flat footprint was still visible in the mud, the remnants of her fur continued to be seen among the treacherous brambles and places she rubbed her back could still be spotted on the bare trunks of strong trees.
She must have been desperate at not having another partner like her since she was young, like not knowing where to slake her hunger and thirst. One day she came down following the plume of smoke from a shed where a low fire was smoking chourizos, in a hut sitting on the other shore of the river that tan through the village. She slowly, cautiously, drew near, and began to sniff with her long nose through the smoke-filled holes that smelled like the seasoned pork meat curing there. Finally she knocked part of the entrance to the ruined building down and when several slabs of slate fell from the roof onto her head, she ended up sprawled on the floor wearing dozens of red strings of chourizos stuffed into greasy casings and with others hanging over the fire that was going out. Instinctively, she got up and leaned backward, then suddenly saw some strings of chourizos around her neck like a necklace and others slithering between her open legs.
At that moment of confusion she felt that everything was spinning and once more felt the erect phallus of the bears of her tribe entering her, the stiff rod that she licked like a totemic organ, the erect tails of the wolves rubbing her fur, and she felt drunk with joy and desperation amid the vertigo of the red sticks.
It was then that she threw herself voraciously over the chourizos, furiously gnawing on all she could reach, pulling down the strings, clawing at the row of hooks where the best sausages were, trying to eat the enormous things with her mouth open wide, while the hot taste of the paprika and arugula excited her even more with their cannibalistic associations, because she had the vague impression that everything she’d shared, desired, and loved in her life had been reduced to that lean red meat that fed all the passion that existed in the world, and she wanted to enter that passion forever, furiously, frenetically, as if she were devouring herself.
Non abonda a palabra recitada / The spoken word isn’t enough
