Viejo Antonio gnaws on his pipe. He gnaws on
the words and gives them form and meaning. Viejo Antonio talks, the rain stops
to listen and the water and the darkness take a rest.
“Our greatest grandparents had to confront
the foreigner who came to conquer these lands. The foreigner came to put another
way on us, another word, another belief, another god, and another justice. It
was his justice only to have it and plunder us.
Gold was his god. His
superiority was his belief. The lie was his word. Cruelty was his way. Ours,
the greatest warriors confronted them, great fights there were among the
natives of these lands to defend the land from the foreigner’s hand. But great
also was the force that the unfamiliar hand brought. Great and fine warriors
fell fighting and died. The battles continued, few already were the warriors
and the women and the children took the arms of those who fell.
The wisest of the grandparents then got
together and told each other the story of the sword, of the tree, of the rock,
and the water. They told that in the oldest times and there in the mountains
the things which men had to work and defend themselves got together.
The gods went about as was their way per se,
in other words asleep they were because idlers then were the gods who were not
the greatest gods, those who birthed the world, the first ones. The man and the
woman were wearing out in the body and growing in the heart in a corner of the
pre-dawn. In silence was the night. Quiet it was because it already knew that
it had very little left. So the sword spoke.”
“A sword like this,” Viejo Antonio pauses and
grasps a large double-edged machete. The light of the fire pulls out a few
glimmers, just an instant, from the darkness then. Viejo Antonio continues:
“So the sword spoke and said:
‘I am the
strongest and can destroy all of you. My blade cuts and I give power to the one
who takes me and death to the one who confronts me.’
‘Lies!’ said the tree. ‘I am the strongest, I
have resisted the wind and the fiercest storm.’
The sword and the tree fought. The tree made
itself strong and hard and confronted the sword.
The sword struck and struck until it went
cutting the trunk and knocked down the tree.
‘I am the strongest,’ the sword said again.
‘Lies!’ said the rock. ‘I am the strongest
because I am hard and old, I am heavy and full.’
And the sword and the rock fought. The rock
made itself hard and firm and confronted the sword.
The sword struck and struck and could not
destroy the rock but split it into many pieces. The sword remained bladeless
and the rock very shattered.
‘It’s a tie!’ said the sword and the rock and
both cried from the uselessness of their fight.
Meanwhile, the water of the stream was just
watching the fight and said nothing. It looked at the sword and said:
‘You are the weakest of all! You can’t do
anything to anyone. I am stronger than you!’ and the sword launched itself with
great force against the water of the stream. A great commotion and racket was
made, the fish were frightened and the water did not resist the sword’s blow.
Little by little, without saying anything,
the water retook its form, to envelop the sword, and to continue its path to
the river which would take it to the great water that the gods made to cure the
thirst that they had.
Time passed and the sword in the water began
to get old and rusty, it lost its blade and the fish approached it without fear
and made fun of it. With shame the sword withdrew from the water of the stream.
Now bladeless and defeated it complained: ‘I am stronger than it, but I cannot
do it harm and it, without fighting, has defeated me!’
The pre-dawn hours passed and the sun came to
rouse the man and the woman who had become tired together to be made anew. The
man and the woman found the sword in a dark corner, the rock made bits, the
fallen tree, and the water of the stream singing…” The grandparents finished
telling each other the story of the sword, the tree, the rock, and the water,
and they said to each other:
“There are times that we must fight as if we
were a sword facing the animal, there are times that we have to fight like a
tree facing the storm, there are times that we have to fight like rocks facing
time. But there are times that we have to fight like the water facing the
sword, the tree, and the rock. This is the time to make ourselves water and
follow our path to the river which takes us to the great water where the great
gods cure their thirst, those who birthed the world, the first ones.”
“That’s what our grandparents did,” says
Viejo Antonio.
They resisted like the water resists the most
ferocious blows.
The foreigner arrived with his force,
frightened the weak, believed that he had won and with time went along becoming
old and rusty. The stranger ended up in a corner full of sorrow and not
understanding why, if he had won, he was lost.
Viejo Antonio relights his pipe and the
firewood and adds:
“That was how our greatest and wisest
grandparents won the great war against the foreigner.
The stranger left. We are here, like the
water of the stream we keep walking to the river that is to carry us to the
great water where the greatest gods cure their thirst, those who birthed the
world, the first ones…”
The pre-dawn left and with it Viejo Antonio.
I followed the path of the sun, westward, skirting a stream which wound toward
the river. Facing the mirror, between the sun of daybreak and the sun of
evening twilight is the tender stroke of the midnight sun. A relief which is a
wound. A water which is thirst. An encounter which continues to be a search…
Like the sword from Viejo Antonio’s tale, the
February governmental offensive entered with no difficulty into Zapatista
lands. Powerful, dazzling, with a gorgeous hilt Power’s sword struck Zapatista
territory.
Like the sword from Viejo Antonio’s tale, it
made a great noise and commotion, like it, frightened some fish. Like in Viejo
Antonio’s tale, its blow was great, strong… and useless.
Like the sword from Viejo
Antonio’s tale, it continues in the water, it rusts and ages. The water? It
follows its path, envelops the sword and, without paying attention to it,
arrives to the river which is to take it to the great water where the greatest
gods cure their thirst, those who birthed the world, the first ones…
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Originally
published on September 29th, 1995.
English translation copyright © 2014 by Henry Gales. All rights reserved.
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