THE DANCE OF THE BUFFALOES

 

It was a sunny afternoon, but of sad color. It was the summer of the twenty-two, the one she had shared with him. Watch it pass, which was also the last day of his time. They were also the last flocks of birds, in the gardens the flowers withered and the leaves spilled over the ground forming a thick leaf litter; above them I watched the children running happily and happily.

The old town square, in its anguished agony, changed color; it was grayer and grayer, more and more deserted and sunk in the snub of solitude. Perhaps as I watched the anguish blossom, my soul was clothed with nostalgia.

But there are also times when I look at the small center of my town. So, the four palm trees that by chance of fate had to be born there, are silent; They seem to tell me all the secrets, and then I realize that in me, only memories live. There are not the same things left, there are not the same people left, and so, for a long time, no woman gives birth to a calf, and the spinster girls, as if they were summer birds, went away in search of warmth to another village.

The last caravans of carts departed, driven away by new illusions, and on the muddy road they left only deep and parallel traces, which could never be erased as long as there was someone to remember them. And it is in this orphanhood that I refuse to believe that I am alone. Although I feel that my eyes are closing and my body is falling apart, but I don't want to die, because I'm afraid of death. Then I walk to mislead her, and I sing so as not to cry, and I laugh in pain; I play with the day even though he is sadder than I am, and then I look at the river and head towards it, then I sit on its bank to remember things as a child, and to watch it drag its passive perennial and silent current as always, dragging the secrets of time mutely, and it is at that moment that I ask for silence from pain,  while the last rays of the sun fall on the water. I look everywhere, but around me there is no one. The old places where we played, with Juan, Luis, Geraldito, Manolito and Carlitos are so silent, demanding our return to an age of innocence. But from those times only I remain, also waiting for the inevitable departure.

The water looks at me without stopping and I look at myself in it, unaware of my appearance, but at that moment, before me, clear images of Juana, María, Pascuala, Carlota and others appear floating on the surface of the water, how joyful and happy!, when the sun gave the day its splendor in other past times. They, fine and sensual, walked in type and color, loose and relaxed, and then arrived and submerged up to their waists in the water.

It was then that I longed to be a river to bathe the skin of her sculpted legs and hips, and wet the long braids of her hair. But, I can see them as before!, sitting as always, drawing on their dark faces a wide smile in the heat of the events of the past nights, under the comments of old and new loves, while they washed their clothes with bleach soap. Their bodies shook at the impulse of desire, but the most striking thing was when they thought they were alone and as if to say goodbye to the afternoon they took off their garments, and as if it were a rite to divine nature they immersed themselves. The water formed imaginary lines on their bodies, then they came out with wet hair and squeezed it from one side.

The afternoon was already dying, and I, talking to myself, promised to meet again the next day as soon as the afternoon died, while I watched how they dressed and then placed the coffin of freshly washed clothes on their heads. Then they returned to the village, absorbed by the narrow gap in the darkness of almost night, and in the distance only the last happy laugh could be heard. Surely it was some everyday joke or the memory of some stolen romance.

Those were other times, they were our golden years! But this gray afternoon, far from those days of cloudless sky, of moonlit nights, I can see them the same, and I don't know whether to laugh or cry, but I contemplate them as before and I raise my arms to call them with the emotion reflected in my face; I see that they are all as pretty and beautiful as they were in their twenties.

Yes! They are: Juana, María, Pascuala, Carlota and others. But no matter how hard I try, I realize that they move away from me and dive back into the crystal clear waters, which come together again where their bodies disappear, and I see them disappearing, and anxiously I look for them with my eyes, calculating in time what they will carry inside without being able to breathe.

And seeing them, over and over again, come out again, I am happy. So they come and go playing, they jump and jump along the riverbank, ignoring my presence, but suddenly... I move and see that their brown eyes are startled, and I notice that they are frightened when they realize my strange presence. They look at me and then look at each other, as if wondering.

"And who is this intruder?" They don't seem to recognize me, and I, sad and old, begin to think.

-How strange did the years leave me, and what did they take from me?

And these, as if guessing my thoughts, look at me again and cautiously approach me, and although they cannot speak to me, they manage to emit a few squeaks, to swim again later, and I wonder again if they remembered me, if in those days I had been eight springs and they twenty-three.

But for friendship there is no reason of age. I remember Juana, María, Pascuala, Carlota and others very well, but I also remember seeing their names deciphered in scarlet letters, painted on crossed wood and buried on their tombstones, and below an old portrait of their youth, a relic of a past in life, where their last smile was drawn. Thus it remains somewhat blurred and somewhat damaged by the inclemency of the weather, and the oblivion of that gloomy place where more dead than living live. And they yearn from their dark room to feel the first rays of the sun and see the afternoon die.

It is then that I look again at Juana, María, Pascuala, Carlota and others, who continue swimming. Then intrigued I ask myself:

-And who are they?

And without further controversy, ordering my thoughts, I contemplate them in silence for a moment, and, as if not to forget this unexpected event, I record it in my memoirs, giving it a pseudonym, with the name of The Dance of the Buffaloes.

 

END