Pedro Páramo

I’m afraid to offend the people who provide for me. It’s true; I owe them my livelihood. I get nothing from the poor, and God knows prayers don’t fill a stomach. That’s how been up to now.

And we’re seeing the consequences. All my fault. I have betrayed those who love me and who have put their faith in me and come to me to intercede on their behalf of God.

What has their faith won them? Heaven? Or the purification of their souls? And why purify their souls anyway, when at last moment…

“He can afford to buy salvation. Only you know whether this is the price. As for me, Lord, I throw myself at your feet to ask for the justice or injustice that any of us may ask… For my part, I hope you damn him to hell.”

Outside in the patio, the footsteps, like people wandering in circles. Muted sounds. And inside, the woman standing in the doorway, her body impending the arrival of day: through her arms he glimpsed pieces of sky and beneath her feet, trickles of light. A damp light, as if the floor beneath the woman were flooded with tears. And then the sobbing. Again the soft but penetrating weeping, and the grief contorting her body with pain.

“They’ve killed your father.”

And you, Mother? Who killed you?

There wasn’t much point in saying things he couldn’t hear, things that evaporated in the air, things he couldn’t get the taste of.

And though there were no children playing, no doves, no blue-shadowed roof tiles, I felt that the town was alive. And that if I heard only silence, it was because I was not yet accustomed to silence - maybe because my head was still filled with sounds and voices.

Yes, voices. And here, where the air was so rare, I heard them even stronger. They lay heavy inside me. I remembered what my mother had said: “You will hear me better there. I will be closer to you. You will hear the voice of my memories stronger than the voice of my death - that is, if death ever had a voice.” Mother … So alive.

How I wished she were here, so I could say, “You were mistaken about the house. You told me the wrong place. You sent me ‘south of nowhere,’ to an abandoned village. Looking for someone who’s no longer alive.”

There was no air; only the dead, still night fired by the dog days of August.

Not a breath. I had to suck in the same air I exhaled, cupping it in my hands before it escaped. I felt it, in and out, less each time until it was so thin it slipped through my fingers forever.

I mean, forever.

Green pastures. Watching the horizon rise and fall as the wind swirled through the wheat, an afternoon rippling with curling lines of rain. The color of the earth, the smell of alfalfa and bread. A town that smelled like spilled honey…

“This town is filled with echoes. It's like they were trapped behind the walls, or beneath the cobblestones. When you walk you feel like someone's behind you, stepping in your footsteps. You hear rustlings. And people laughing. Laughter that sounds used up.

And voices worn away by the years. Sounds like that. But I think the day will come when those sounds fade away."

"Yes," Damiana Cisneros repeated. "This town is filled with echoes. I'm not afraid anymore. I hear the dogs howling, and I let them howl. And on windy days I see the wind blowing leaves from the trees, when anyone can see that there aren't any trees here. There must have been once. Otherwise, where do the leaves come from?”

Then he heard the weeping. That was what woke him: a soft but penetrating weeping that because it was so delicate was able to slip through the mesh of sleep and reach the place where his fear lived.

The heat woke me just before midnight. And the sweat. The woman's body was made of earth, layered in crusts of earth; it was crumbling, melting into a pool of mud. I felt myself swimming in the sweat streaming from her body, and I couldn't get enough air to breathe. I got out of bed. She was sleeping. From her mouth bubbled a sound very like a death rattle.

"There was a time when night after night I could hear the sounds of a fiesta. I could hear the noise clear out at the Media Luna. I would walk into town to see what the uproar was about, and this is what I would see: just what we're seeing now. Nothing. No one. The streets as empty as they are now.

Then I didn't hear anything anymore. You know, you can get worn out celebrating. That's why I wasn't surprised when it ended.”

I keep my grief hidden in a safe place. Don’t let your heart go out.

I saw that no one was there, even though I could still hear the murmuring of voices, like a crowd on market day. A steady sound with no words to it, like the sound of the wind through the branches of a tree at night when you can't see the tree or the branches but you hear the whispering. Like that. I couldn't take another step. I began to sense that whispering drawing nearer, circling around me, a constant buzzing like a swarm of bees, until finally I could hear the almost soundless words 'Pray tor us.' I could hear that's what they were saying to me. At that moment, my soul turned to ice. That's why you found me dead."

This town is filled with echoes. It's like they were trapped behind the walls, or beneath the cobblestones. When you walk you feel like someone's behind you, stepping in your footsteps. You hear rustlings. And people laughing. Laughter that sounds used up. And voices worn away by the years. Sounds like that. But I think the day will come when those sounds fade away…. And on windy days I see the wind blowing leaves from the trees, where anyone can see that there aren’t any trees here. There must have been once. Otherwise, where do the leaves come from?

Green pastures. Watching the horizon rise and fall as the wind swirled through the wheat, an afternoon rippling with curling lines of rain. The color of the earth, the smell of alfalfa and bread. A town that smelled like spilled honey… Not to know any taste but the savor of orange blossoms in the warmth of summer.