ANDRÉ CARNEIRO, translated by Leo L. Barrow
Andre Carneiro is a Brazilian tornado of artistic energy; a poet, film maker, novelist, photographer, critic - and a masterful short story writer as he proves here. Leo L. Barrow has done a crisp translation that retains the aura of the totally different world of Brazilian SF.
Waldas accepted the reality of the phenomenon a little later than the others. Only on the second day, when everybody was commenting on the growing darkness and the dimming of the lights, did he admit it was true. An old lady was shouting that the world was coming to an end. People gathered in little groups, most of them offering metaphysical explanations, mixed with the scientific commentaries from the papers. He went to work as usual. Even the boss, always distant, was at the window, talking intimately. Most of the employees didn’t show up. The huge room full of desks, mostly unmanned, defined the degree of importance of the event.
Those people who always watched the weather were the first to notice. The sunlight seemed a little weaker, houses and objects were surrounded by growing shadows. At first they thought it was an optical illusion, but that night even the electric lights were weaker. Women noticed that liquids didn’t reach the boiling point and food remained hard and uncooked. Authoritative opinions were cited, opinions heard on the radio. They were vague and contradictory. Nervous people were provoking panic and the train and bus stations were filled with those leaving town. No one knew where they were going. The news programs said that the phenomenon was universal, but Waldas doubted this.
The latest telegrams, however, were affirmative; the shadow was growing rapidly. Someone struck a match, and the tests began. Everyone made these tests: they would light a lighter or turn on a flashlight in a dark corner, noticing the weaker illumination. Lights didn’t brighten the room as before. It couldn’t be a universal visual effect, It was possible to run one’s fingers through fire without burning them. Many were frightened, but Waldas wasn’t one of them. He went home at four o’clock; the lights were on. They gave off very little light - seemed like reddish balls, danger signals. At the lunch counter where he always ate, he got them to serve him cold sandwiches. There was only the owner and one waitress, who left afterwards, walking slowly through the shadows.
Waldas got to his apartment without difficulty. He was used to coming home late without turning on the hall lights. The elevator wasn’t working so he walked up the stairs to the third floor. His radio emitted only strange sounds, perhaps voices, perhaps static. Opening the window, he confronted the thousands of reddish glows, lights of the huge buildings whose silhouettes stood out dimly against the starless sky. He went to the refrigerator and drank a glass of milk; the motor wasn’t working. The same thing would happen to the water pump. He put the plug in the bath tub and filled it. Locating his flashlight, he went through his small apartment, anxious to find his belongings with the weak light. He left the cans of powdered milk, cereal, some crackers and a box of chocolates on the kitchen table and closed the window, turned out the lights and lay down on the bed. A cold shiver ran through his body as he realized the reality of the danger.
He slept fitfully, dreamed confused and disagreeable dreams. A child was crying in the next apartment, asking its mother to turn on the lights. He woke up startled. With the flashlight pressed against his watch, he saw that it was eight o’clock in the morning. He opened the windows. The darkness was almost complete. You could see the sun in the east, red and round, as if it were behind a thick smoked glass. In the street dim shapes of people passed by like silhouettes. With great difficulty Waldas managed to wash his face; he went to the kitchen and ate rice crispies with powdered milk. Force of habit made him think about his job. He realized that he didn’t have any place to go, and he remembered the terror he felt as a child when they locked him in a closet. There wasn’t enough air, and the darkness oppressed him. He went to the window and took a deep breath. The red disk of the sun hung in the dark background of the sky. Waldas couldn’t coordinate his thoughts; the darkness kept making him feel like running for help. He clenched his fists, repeated to himself, “I have to keep calm, defend my life until everything returns to normal.”
He had a married sister who lived three blocks away.
The need to communicate with someone made him decide to go there, to help her family in any way he could. In the darkness of the hallway, he used the wall as a guide. On one side of the hall, a man’s anxious voice asked, “Who is it out there?”
“It’s me, Waldas from apartment 312,” he answered.
He knew who it was, a graying man who had a wife and two children.
“Please,” the man asked, “tell my wife that the darkness is going to end; she has been crying since yesterday and the kids are scared.” Waldas approached slowly. The woman must be standing next to her husband, sobbing quietly. He tried to smile even though they couldn’t see him.
“Don’t worry, ma’am, it’s pretty dark but you can still see the sun out there. There is no danger; it won’t last long.”
“Do you hear,” the man seconded, “it’s only the darkness, no one is going to suffer, you need to stay calm for the children’s sake.” By the sounds Waldas sensed that they were all clinging to one another. He remained silent for a few moments and then started to go away. “I have to go now, if you need anything…” The man said goodbye, encouraging his wife. “No, thank you very much. This won’t last long.”
On the steps he couldn’t see a thing. He heard bits of conversation coming from the doors of the different apartment buildings. The lack of light made people speak more loudly, or their voices sounded more clearly against the general silence.
He reached the street. The sun was high, but it hardly gave off any light, perhaps less than that of the waning moon. From time to time men went by, alone or in groups. They spoke in loud voices, some still joked when they stumbled in the depressions in the street. Waldas started to walk slowly, mentally visualizing the road to his sister’s house. The reddish outline that silhouetted the buildings was diminishing. With his arms extended he could hardly see his fingers. He walked slowly, amazed by those who passed him hurriedly. The whining of a small dog came from some balcony. There was crying in the distance, confused shouts, people calling. Someone was walking and praying.
Waldas kept close to the wall so they wouldn’t run into him. He must have been halfway there. He stopped to catch his breath. His chest was heaving, searching for air; his muscles tense and tired. His only point of reference was a blotch of disappearing sun. For a moment he imagined that the others could see more than he. But now shouts and cries were rising everywhere. Waldas turned around. The pulsating red disk had disappeared. The blackness was absolute. Without the silhouette of the building, he felt lost. It was impossible to continue. He would try to return to the apartment. Feeling the wall, identifying some doors and shop windows, he started back, his feet dragging on the pavement. He was sweating and trembling, all his senses concentrating on the way back.
Turning the corner, he heard the unintelligible words of a man coming in his direction. Perhaps drunk, and shouting loudly, he forcibly grabbed Waldas who, trying to pry himself loose, pleaded for calmness. The man shouted all the louder, meaningless things. Desperate, Waldas grabbed him by the throat, pushed him backwards. The man fell and began to moan. His hands extended in front of him in defense, Waldas walked on a bit. Behind him the drunk was crying and moaning in pain. A loose window was rattling, and sounds previously muffled by the noise of radios and cars were coming from the houses and apartments. In the darkness, his hands groping, recognizing different landmarks and doors of iron bars, walls of residences and their big gates, he fell on the first steps of the stairway. Someone shouted:
“Who is it out there?”
“It’s me, Waldas, from the third floor.”
“Were you outside? Can you see anything?”
“No, you can’t see a thing anywhere.”
There was a silence, and he slowly went on up the stairs. Moving carefully he opened the door and lay down on the bed.
It was a short and anxious respite. He couldn’t relax his muscles, couldn’t think calmly. He dragged himself out to the kitchen, managed to open his watch with a knife. He felt the hands. It was 11 o’clock, or noon, more or less. He dissolved powdered milk in a cup of water and drank it. There was a knocking on his door; his heart beat more rapidly. It was his neighbor, asking for some water for the children. Waldas told him about the full bathtub, and went with him to get his wife and children. His prudence had paid off. They held hands and the human chain slid along the hall, the kids calmer, even his wife who, no longer crying, kept repeating, “Thank you, thank you very much.” Waldas took them to the kitchen, made them sit down, the children clinging to their mother. He felt the cupboard, broke a glass, then found an aluminum pan which he filled from the bathtub and took to the table. He surrendered cups of water to the fingers that groped for them. He couldn’t keep them level without seeing and the water spilled onto his hands. As they drank, he wondered if he should offer them something to eat. The boy thanked him and said that he was hungry. Waldas picked up the big can of powdered milk and began to prepare it carefully. While he made the slow gestures of opening the can, counting the spoonfuls and mixing them with water, he spoke in a loud voice. They encouraged him, telling him to be careful and praising his ability. Waldas took more than an hour to make and ration out the milk and the effort, the certainty that he was being useful, did him good.
One of the boys laughed at something funny. For the first time since the darkness had set in, Waldas felt optimistic, that everything would turn out all right. They spent an endless time after that in his apartment, trying to talk. They would lean on the window sill, searching for some distant light, seeing it at times, all enthused, only to discover the deceit that they wouldn’t admit. Waldas had become the leader of that family; he fed them and led them through the small world of four rooms which he knew with his eyes closed. They left at nine or ten that night, holding hands, Waldas accompanied them, helped put the children to bed. In the streets desperate fathers were shouting, asking for food. Waldas had closed the windows so he couldn’t hear them. What he had would be enough to feed the five of them for one or two more days. Waldas stayed with them, next to the children’s room. They lay there talking, their words like links of presence and company. They finally went to sleep, heads under their pillows like shipwrecked sailors clinging to logs, listening to pleas for help that they couldn’t possibly answer. They slept, dreaming about the breaking of a new day, a blue sky, the sun flooding their rooms, their eyes, hungry from fasting, avidly feeding on the colors. It wasn’t that way.
The hands of Waldas’ watch indicated it was more or less eight o’clock. The others began to stir and holding hands they filed back to his kitchen where they ate their frugal meal of cereal and milk. The children bumped into the furniture, got lost in the small living room; their mother scolded them anxiously. Once settled in the armchairs they didn’t know what to do with themselves.
They went back over the causes of the phenomenon, inventing reasons and hypotheses that transcended science. Waldas commented imprudently that the situation could continue forever. The woman began to cry; it was difficult to calm her. The kids asked questions which were impossible to answer. Suddenly Waldas felt anxious to do something; he got up, was going out to investigate. They protested; it would be dangerous and useless. He had to reassure them that he wouldn’t go more than sixty feet from the building, just to the corner, that he wouldn’t cross the street, etc.
Outside, he leaned against the wall, listening. A cold wind whistled through the wires, dragged pieces of paper along with a soft noise. There was howling in the distance, becoming more intense from time to time, and voices, many unintelligible voices. He stood still, tense and waiting, and then walked a few yards. Only his ears could capture the pulsations of the city drowned in darkness. With his eyes opened or closed it was the same black well, without beginning or end. It was terrible to remain there, quietly waiting for nothing.
The ghosts of his youth surrounded Waldas, and he returned to his building almost running, scratching his hands along the wall, stumbling on the stairs, while frightened voices shouted: “Who is it out there? Who is out there?” He answered, out of breath, taking the stairs two at a time until he reached his friends who were bumping into each other trying to find him, afraid that he had been hurt, asking him what had happened. He laughed, confessing that he had become frightened.
Enclosed for the rest of the day they worked and talked a lot, describing what they were doing. The chain of words which linked them together eventually broke. None of them could know, but they all raised their heads at the same time, listening, breathing heavily, waiting for a miracle which wasn’t materializing.
Rationed and divided, the box of chocolates had come to an end. There was still cereal and powdered milk. If the light didn’t return soon it would be cruel to predict the consequences. The hours passed. Lying down again, eyes closed, fighting to go to sleep, they waited for the morning with its beams of light on the window. But they woke as before, their eyes useless, the flames extinguished, the stoves cold and their food running out. Waldas divided the last of the cereal and milk. They became uneasy. The building had ten floors; Waldas thought he ought to go to the top floor to look into the distance.
He went out and started up. Questions came from the apartments. “Who is out there? Who is it going up the stairs?” On the sixth floor one voice assured him, “You can go up there if you like, but you are wasting your time. I was just there with two others. You can’t see a thing, anywhere.” Waldas ventured, “My food has run out, I have a couple and two children with me. Could you help me?” The voices answered, “Our supply will only last until tomorrow. We can’t do a thing…” Waldas decided to go back down. Could he tell his friends the truth?
“I didn’t go all the way up. I found someone who had been there a short time ago. He said you could see something, very distant, he couldn’t explain what it was.” The couple and their children were filled with hope when he suggested the only idea that might work. He would go out again, and break into a grocery store about a hundred yards away.
Armed with a crowbar from his toolbox, he was leaving his shelter to steal food. It was frightening to think what he might encounter. The darkness had erased all distinctions. Waldas walked next to the wall, his mind reconstructing the details of this stretch, his hands investigating every indentation. Inch by inch his fingers followed the outline of the building until they came to the corrugated iron door. He couldn’t be wrong.
It was the only commercial establishment on the block. He bent over to find the lock. His hands didn’t encounter resistance. The door was only half closed. He stooped over and entered without making a sound. The shelves on the right would have food and sweets. He collided with the counter, cursed and remained motionless, muscles tensed, waiting. He climbed over the counter and began to reach out with his hand; it touched the board and he started running it along the shelf. There was nothing; of course, they sold it before the total darkness. He raised his arm, searching more rapidly. Nothing, not a single object. He started climbing without worrying about the noise, his fingers dry from the accumulated dust. He climbed down carelessly, his body bent forward, his hands moving frantically in every direction, foolishly getting scratched and cut against the wall as if they were competing for cans and merchandise that didn’t exist. Many times Waldas returned to the same point where he had begun his search. There was nothing, not in any corner. He stopped, still anxious to begin again but knowing that it wouldn’t do any good. For those with no reserve food it was obvious that the grocery stores had been the only solution.
Waldas sat down on an empty box and tears filled his eyes. What could he do? Return with his failure, renew the search in other more distant stores, whose exact locations he didn’t know?
He took up the crowbar again and with short careful steps he started back home in search of his invisible friends. Suddenly he stopped, his hands searching for a familiar landmark. Step by step he advanced a few more yards, discovering doors and walls until he came to an unknown corner. He had to go back to the store and start again from there. He went back the way he had come, scratching his fingers in the darkness, feeling for a corrugated door which wasn’t appearing. He was lost. He sat down on the sidewalk, his temples throbbing. He struggled up like a drowning man and shouted, “Please, I’m lost, I need to know the name of this street.” He repeated it time after time, each time more loudly, but no one answered him. The more silence he felt around him the more he implored, asking them to help him for pity’s sake. And why should they? He himself, from his own window, had heard the cries of the lost asking for help, their desperate voices causing one to fear the madness of an assault. Waldas started off without any direction, shouting for help, explaining that four persons depended on him. No longer feeling the walls, he walked hurriedly in circles, like a drunk, begging for information and food. “I’m Waldas, I live at number 215, please help me.”
There were noises in the darkness; impossible for them not to hear him. He cried and pleaded without the least shame, the black pall reducing him to a helpless child. The darkness stifled him, entering through his pores, changing his thoughts. Waldas stopped pleading. He bellowed curses at his fellow-men, calling them evil names, asking them why they didn’t answer. His helplessness turned into hate and he grasped the crowbar, ready to obtain food by violence. He came across others begging for food like himself. Waldas advanced, brandishing his crowbar, until he collided with someone, grabbing him and holding him tightly. The man shouted and Waldas, without letting him go, demanded that he tell him where they were and how they could get some food. The other seemed old and broke into fearful sobs. Waldas relaxed the pressure, released him. He threw the weapon into the street, and sat down on the sidewalk listening to the small sounds, the wind rattling windows in the abandoned apartments. Different noises emerged from several directions, deep, rasping and sharp sounds, from animals, men perhaps, trapped or famished. A light rhythmic beating of footsteps was approaching. He yelled for help and remained listening. A man’s voice, some distance away, answered him. “Wait, I’ll come and help you.”
The man carried a heavy sack and was panting from the effort. He asked Waldas to help him by holding one end, he would go in front. Waldas sensed something inexplicable. He could hardly follow the man as he turned the corners with assurance. A doubt passed through his mind. Perhaps his companion could see a little the light was coming back for the others. He asked him, “You walk with such assurance, you can’t by any chance see a little?” The man took a while to answer. “No, I can see absolutely nothing. I am completely blind.” Waldas stammered, “Before this… too?”
“Yes, blind from birth, we are going to the Institute for the Blind, where I live.”
Vasco, the blind man, told him that they had helped lost persons and had taken in a few; but their stock of food was small and they couldn’t take anybody else in. The darkness continued without any sign of ending. Thousands of people might die from starvation and nothing could be done. Waldas felt like a child that adults had saved from danger. At the Institute they gave him a glass of milk and some toast. In his memory, however, the image of his friends was growing, their hearts jumping at every sound, going hungry, waiting for his return. He spoke to Vasco. They deliberated. The apartment building was large, all the others living there also deserved help, something quite impracticable. Waldas remembered the children; he asked them to show him the way or he would go alone. He got up to leave, stumbled over something, falling. Vasco remembered that there was a bathtub full of water, and water was one thing they needed. They brought two big plastic containers and Vasco led Waldas to the street. They tied a little cord around both their waists.
Vasco, who knew the neighborhood, walked as fast as possible, choosing the best route, calling out the name of the streets, changing course when they heard suspicious sounds or mad ravings. Vasco stopped and said softly, “It must be here.” Waldas advanced a few steps, recognized the door latch. Vasco whispered to him to take off his shoes; they would go in without making any noise. After tying their shoes to the cord, they entered with Waldas in front, going up the stairs two at a time. They bumped into things along the way and heard unintelligible voices from behind the doors.
Reaching the third floor they went to his neighbor’s apartment, knocked softly and then more loudly. No one answered. They went to Waldas’ apartment. “It’s me, Waldas, let me in.” His neighbor uttered an exclamation like someone who didn’t believe it and opened the door, extending his arm for his friend to grasp. “It’s me all right, how is everybody? I brought a friend who saved me and knows the way.”
In the bathroom they filled two plastic containers with water and Vasco tied them to the backs of the two men with strips of cloth. He also helped to identify some useful things they could take. They took off their shoes and in single file, holding hands, started for the stairs. They went hurriedly; they would inevitably be heard. On the main floor, next to the door, a voice inquired: “Who are you?” No one answered and Vasco pulled them all out into the street. In single file they gained distance; it would be difficult to follow them.
It took more time to return because of the children, and the stops they made to listen to nearby noises. They arrived at the Institute exhausted, with the temporary feeling of relief of soldiers after winning a battle.
Vasco served them oatmeal and milk and went to talk to his companions about what they would do to survive if the darkness continued. Another blind man fixed them a place to sleep, which came easily since they hadn’t slept for a long time. Hours later Vasco came to awaken them, saying that they had decided to leave the Institute and take refuge on the Model Farm that the Institute owned a few miles outside the city. Their supplies here wouldn’t last long and there was no way to replenish them without danger.
Although the way was longer, they planned to follow the railroad tracks which ran a few blocks from the Institute.
The meeting room was a big place; the murmur of voices forming a steady bubbling. Vasco must have been older or had some authority over the others. He told them that a completely realistic appraisal of their situation was indispensable if they hoped to survive. He spoke to his blind companions first, affirming that the darkness which afflicted the others was nothing new to them. They had taken eleven persons into the Institute. With the twelve blind people who already lived there they were twenty-three in all. The food that could be eaten would last them only six or seven days. It would be risky to wait and hope that everything would return to normal in that time, to say nothing of the chance of being assaulted or robbed by lost and hungry people. Normally there were ten people on the Model Farm. They raised several crops, had food in stock for commerce, and had a great quantity of drinking water; with careful use and rationing, this could guarantee their existence for a long time. Cooperation and obedience to all decisions were imperative. They would leave the Asylum in silence, without answering any call.
The blind men finished distributing the full sacks, suitcases, and boxes for the trip. Waldas, standing still and useless, thought about how many times he had passed these men with their dark glasses, their white canes, their heads fixed, always facing forward. True, he always gave them a brief thought of pity. Ah, if they had only known then how one day they would become the magic protectors, capable of saving other beings, beings made of flesh, muscles, thoughts, and with useless eyes, the same as theirs.
Like mountain climbers, they formed four groups linked by a cord. The most doubtful part would be getting through all the streets until they came to the railroad tracks. They asked for complete silence. The anonymous cries that they heard in the darkness were transformed into small obstacles that had to be avoided. The column, loaded with food, steered clear of those who begged for a piece of bread to sustain their lives. The wind brought all sorts of cries as the file of shipwrecked persons slipped through the darkness in this strangest of flights, with blind men at the helm. When their shoes touched the endless steel of the railroad tracks, the tension eased. Their progress became painful; they had to measure their steps to avoid stumbling on the crossties. Time passed; to Waldas it seemed like many hours. Suddenly they stopped. There was a train or some box cars ahead of them. Vasco went to investigate, alone. A whisper passed from mouth to mouth made them renew their journey. They had to go around the box cars. The sound was coming from one of them. They went by the cars with their hearts pounding, their ears almost touching the wooden doors. A man or an animal, locked in, dying… Everything was being left behind, their tired feet moved on an endless belt. In this nightmarish tunnel, Waldas felt like a condemned man wearing his hood of death. The darkness brought all life-the concentration of all his senses-to his shoes which were trudging along over the crushed rocks, between the parallel limits of the tracks.
Waldas was surprised when the cord tied to his waist pulled him into a dirt road. Without knowing how, he realized that they were in the country. How did the blind men find the exact spot? Perhaps through their sense of smell, the perfume of the trees like ripe limes. He breathed deeply. He knew that odor; it came from eucalyptus trees. He could imagine them in straight lines, on each side of the road. The column stopped; they had arrived at their unseen destination. For the time being the urgent fight to keep from dying of hunger had ended.
The blind men brought them a cold soup that seemed to contain oatmeal and honey. Vasco directed the difficult maneuver to keep them from colliding. They had shelter and food. And the others who remained in the city, the sick in the hospitals, the small children… ? No one could or wanted to know.
While Waldas had been moving about in his own neighborhood and apartment he remembered the form of the buildings, the furniture and objects. In his new surroundings, his inexperienced fingers touching here and there could not give him any base for an idea about their relationships.
There were carrots, tomatoes and greens in the gardens, some ripe fruit in the orchard. They should distribute equal rations, a little more for the children. There was speculation as to whether the green vegetables would wilt after so many days without sunshine. The man in charge of the small hen house told how he had fed the hens every day since the sun stopped shining, but they hadn’t laid since then.
With the tension of immediate danger relaxed, Waldas felt the reactions that the darkness provoked. His words no longer followed a direct line to the eyes of the person he was addressing; there was no lifting of the eyebrows nor nodding of the head to give emphasis to his arguments. To speak without seeing anyone always raised the doubt as to whether the other was paying attention. In the muscles of his face, now more inert, he sensed the lack of expression which characterizes blind persons. Conversations lost their naturalness and when they didn’t respond immediately it seemed like they hadn’t listened.
Waldas was learning. If he had discovered a hole or irregularity the day before, his hands would now recognize the already touched surface. But when his hands and feet groped over a new way, only sounds could guide him, or he had to call for help from the experienced sons of darkness.
They were in their sixth day without light. The temperature had dropped but that was normal for this time of year. Therefore, the sun must be warming the atmosphere, one way or another. The phenomenon could not have been of a cosmic order. Someone quoted prophecies from the Bible, the end of the world. Another suggested a mysterious invasion by another planet. Vasco said that, even without consulting his watch, he could still perceive a subtle difference between night and day. Waldas figured that it was just a habit, the organism was accustomed to the successive periods of work and rest. From time to time someone would climb a ladder placed outside, next to the door, and turn his head in all four directions. Sometimes they would shout enthusiastically as they perceived vague spots of light. Everyone would get all excited, walking towards the door with their arms extended, some of them in the wrong direction, running into walls and asking, “Where are you? Did you see something ? What was it? What was it?” This was repeated so often that the excitement when “someone glimpsed something” wore off. After many tests and discussions, the darkness remained complete.
The rescued persons showed a perceptible note of bitterness in the things they said. When they tried happy phrases, the shadows eliminated the smile from their lips, the vivacity from their eyes. The blind men had a different inflection in their voices. In Vasco you could sense more clearly the manner of one who acts with assurance and moves with ease. Those same men with white canes and dark glasses who used to ask humbly which bus was coming, or who drew away slowly before the pitying eyes of the passersby, now were rapid, efficient, miraculous with their manual ability. They answered questions and led their charges by the arm with the solicitude and satisfaction of the borrowed charity they used to receive. They were patient and tolerant of errors and misconceptions. Their private misfortune had become everyone’s. There was little time for relaxation, but after the last meal the blind people sang, accompanied by two guitars. Waldas noted a natural enthusiasm and even a happiness that the situation did not call for.
Waldas noticed that the children got along better than the adults. His neighbor’s two sons were afraid at first, but the constant proximity of their companions encouraged them to go out on explorations which became difficult to control. They were scolded and even paddled, something which provoked the intervention of conciliatory voices.
Finally, much to Waldas’ surprise, they achieved a routine for the trips to the bathroom, washing up and bathing at the edge of the river, the important hours for the meals which were becoming more and more insipid-wilted greens, cucumbers, tomatoes, papaya, oatmeal, milk, honey, not always identifiable by their sense of taste. No catastrophe, no human event would have been more extraordinary or more dangerous than this one. If the blackness which enveloped them brought physical discomfort and problems, it was nothing compared to the thoughts that the impenetrable wall distilled into their minds. Might it be the end of the world that people had predicted since time immemorial? They had to put aside this sinister prospect and keep on taking care of the common essential things such as feeding and clothing the body. Many prayed aloud, asking for a miracle.
Without sight to distract one’s mind, it was difficult to endure the idle moments. Dedication to work was exaggerated. Would the world return to normal or would they all die slowly? This constituted a crushing dilemma, weightier than the darkness suffocating them. Vasco seemed worried about the future, but much less so than Waldas. Placed in the same experience, they found it impossible to approach it from the same point of view.
They were already in their sixteenth day when Vasco called Waldas aside. He told him that even the reserves of oatmeal, powdered milk, and canned goods that they had saved were almost gone. And their nervous condition was becoming aggravated; it wouldn’t be prudent to warn the others. Arguments came up over the least thing and were prolonged without reason. Most of them were on the edge of nervous collapse.
During the early hours of the eighteenth day they were awakened by shouts of joy and animation. One of the refugees who hadn’t been able to go to sleep had felt a difference in the atmosphere. He climbed the ladder outside the house.
There was a pale red ball on the horizon.
Everyone came out at once, pushing and falling, and remained there in a contagious euphoria waiting for the light to increase. Vasco asked if they really did see something, if it wasn’t just another false alarm. Someone remembered to strike a match and after a few attempts the flame appeared. It was fragile and without heat, but visible to the eyes of those who looked upon it as a rare miracle.
The light increased slowly, in the way that it had disappeared.
This was a perfect day with unexpected and total joys that worked like some powerful stimulant. Their hearts seemed warmed, full of good will. Their eyes were reborn like innocent and blameless children. They wanted their meals outside and Vasco agreed since the normal days seemed about to return. The sun took its expected course across the sky. At four o’clock in the afternoon you could already distinguish a person’s shadow at a distance of four yards. After the sun went down, the complete darkness returned. They built a fire in the yard, but the flames were weak and translucent and consumed very little of the wood. It went out frequently and the refugees would light it again with pieces of paper and blow on it, conserving the pallid fountain of light and warmth, symbol of future life. At midnight it was difficult to convince them that they should go to bed. Only the children slept. Those who had matches struck one from time to time and chuckled to themselves as if they had found the philosopher’s stone of happiness.
At four-thirty in the morning they were up and outside. No dawn in the history of the world was ever awaited like this one. It wasn’t the beauty of the colors, the poetry of the horizon coming into view amid the clouds, the mountains, the trees and the butterflies. As in the age of fire when man shielded his fire and worshiped it, the divinity of light was awaited by the refugees as a condemned man awaits the official with the commutation of his sentence. The sun was brighter; unaccustomed eyes were closed; the blind men extended the palms of their hands towards the rays, turned them over to feel the heat on both sides. Different faces came forth, with voices you could recognize, and they laughed and embraced each other. Their loneliness and their differences disappeared in that boundless dawn. The blind people were kissed and hugged, carried in triumph. Men cried, and this made their eyes, unaccustomed to the light, turn even redder. About noon the flames became normal and for the first time in three weeks they had a hot cooked meal. Little work was done for the rest of the day. Flooded with light, they absorbed the scenes about them, walking through the places where they had dragged themselves in the darkness.
And the city? What had happened to the people there? This was a terribly sobering thought and those who had relatives ceased to smile. How many had died or suffered extreme hardships? Waldas suggested that he should investigate the situation the next day. Others volunteered, and it was decided that three should go.
Waldas spent a bad night. The impact of all those days was beginning to have its effect. His hands trembled, he was afraid, of what he didn’t know. Return to the city, renew his life… go to the office, his friends, women… The values he had once held remained subverted and buried in the darkness. It was a different man who was tossing and squirming in an improvised bed without being able to sleep. A square of light coming from a small lamp in the hallway was flickering through the transom, a sign that all was well. His memory brought him rapid fragments, a dog howling, a man moaning on the sidewalk, his hand brandishing the crowbar, Vasco leading him through the streets, his boss talking in front of the window… Bits of his childhood were mixed in as sleep slowly took over. He tossed and turned, his brow wrinkled in a struggle with his dreams.
The three refugees left as the sun was coming up, walking along the road that would lead them to the railroad tracks. One of them was middle aged, married and without children. His wife had stayed behind in the country house. The other must have been the same age as Waldas. His brothers and sisters lived in another part of the city. He had been saved by a blind man and had not been able to return to his home.
They went around a curve and the city came into view. After the first bridges, the tracks began to cross streets. Waldas and his companions went down one of them. The first two blocks seemed very calm, with a few persons moving about, perhaps a bit more slowly. On the next corner they saw a group of people carrying a dead man, covered with a rough cloth, to a truck. The people were crying. A brown army truck went by, its loudspeaker announcing an official government bulletin. Martial law had been declared. Anyone invading another’s property would be shot. The government had requisitioned all food supplies and was distributing them to the needy. Any vehicle could be commandeered if necessary. It advised that the police be immediately notified of any buildings with bad odors so that they could investigate the existence of corpses. The dead would be buried in common graves.
Waldas didn’t want to return to his own apartment building. He remembered the voices calling through the half opened doors and he, in his stocking feet, slipping away, leaving them to their fate. He would have to telephone the authorities if there was a bad odor. He had already seen enough; he didn’t want to stay there. His young companion had talked to an officer and had decided to look for his family immediately. Waldas asked if the telephones were working and learned that some of the automatic circuits were. He dialed his brother-in-law’s number and after a short while there was an answer. They were weak but alive. There had been four deaths in the apartment house. Waldas told them briefly how he had been saved and asked if they needed anything. No, they didn’t, there was some food, and they were a lot better off than most.
Everyone was talking to strangers, telling all kinds of stories. The children and the sick were the ones who had suffered most. They told of cases of death in heartbreaking circumstances. The public services were reorganizing, with the help of the army, to take care of those in need, bury the dead and get everything going again. Waldas and his middle-aged companion didn’t want to hear any more. They felt weak, weak with a certain mental fatigue from hearing and seeing incredible things in which the absurd wasn’t just a theory but what really had happened, defying all logic and scientific laws.
The two men were returning along the still empty tracks, walking slowly under a pleasantly clouded sky. A gentle breeze rustled the leaves of the green trees and birds flitted among their branches. How had they been able to survive in the darkness? Waldas thought about all this as his aching legs carried him along. His scientific certainties were no longer valid. At that very moment men still shaken by the phenomenon were working electronic computers making precise measurements and observations, religious men in their temples explaining the will of God, politicians dictating decreees, mothers mourning the dead that had remained in the darkness.
Two exhausted men walked along the ties. They brought news, perhaps better than could be expected. Mankind had resisted. By eating anything resembling food, by drinking any kind of liquid, people had lived for three weeks in the world of the blind. Waldas and his companion were returning sad and weakened, but with the secret and muffled joy of being alive. More important than rational speculations was the mysterious miracle of blood running through one’s veins, the pleasure of loving, doing things, moving one’s muscles and smiling. Seen from a distance the two were smaller than the straight tracks that enclosed them. Their bodies were returning to their daily routine, subject to the forces and uncontrollable elements in existence since the beginning of time. But, as their eager eyes took in every color, shade, and movement, they gave little thought to the mysterious magnitude of their universe, and even less to the plight of their brothers, their saviors, who still walked in darkness.
There were planets, solar systems and galaxies. They were only two men, bounded by two impassive rails, returning home with their problems.