Algernon Blackwood: Secret Worship

Harris, the silk merchant, was in South Germany on his way home from a business trip when the idea came to him suddenly that he would take the mountain railway from Strassbourg and run down to revisit his old school after an interval of something more than thirty years. And it was to this chance impulse of the junior partner in Harris Brothers of St. Paul's Churchyard that John Silence owed one of the most curious cases of his whole experience, for at that very moment he happened to be tramping these same mountains with a holiday knapsack, and from different points of the compass the two men were actually converging towards the same inn.

Now, deep down in the heart that for thirty years had been concerned chiefly with the profitable buying and selling of silk, this school had left the imprint of its peculiar influence, and, though perhaps unknown to Harris, had strongly coloured the whole of his subsequent existence. It belonged to the deeply religious life of a small Protestant community (which it is unnecessary to specify), and his father had sent him there at the age of fifteen, partly because he would learn the German requisite for the conduct of the silk business, and partly because the discipline was strict, and discipline was what his soul and body needed just then more than anything else.

The life, indeed, had proved exceedingly severe, and young Harris benefited accordingly; for though corporal punishment was unknown, there was a system of mental and spiritual correction which somehow made the soul stand proudly erect to receive it, while it struck at the very root of the fault and taught the boy that his character was being cleaned and strengthened, and that he was not merely being tortured in a kind of personal revenge.

That was over thirty years ago, when he was a dreamy and impressionable youth of fifteen; and now, as the train climbed slowly up the winding mountain gorges, his mind travelled back somewhat lovingly over the intervening period, and forgotten details rose vividly again before him out of the shadows. The life there had been very wonderful, it seemed to him, in that remote mountain village, protected from the tumults of the world by the love and worship of the devout Brotherhood that ministered to the needs of some hundred boys from every country in Europe. Sharply the scenes came back to him. He smelt again the long stone corridors, the hot pinewood rooms, where the sultry hours of summer study were passed with bees droning through open windows in the sunshine, and German characters struggling in the mind with dreams of English lawns--and then the sudden awful cry of the master in German--

"Harris, stand up! You sleep!"

Guillermo Samperio: La Señorita Green

Esta era una mujer, una mujer verde, verde de pies a cabeza. No siempre fue verde, pero algún día comenzó a serlo. No se crea que siempre fue verde por fuera, pero algún día comenzó a serlo, hasta que algún día fue verde por dentro y verde también por fuera. Tremenda calamidad para una mujer que en un tiempo lejano no fue verde.

Desde ese tiempo lejano hablaremos aquí. La mujer verde vivió en una región donde abundaba la verde flora; pero la verde flora no tuvo relación con lo verde de la mujer. Tenía muchos familiares; en ninguno de ellos había una gota de verde. Su padre, y sobre todo su madre, tenían unos grandes ojos cafés. Ojos cafés que siempre vigilaron a la niña que algún día sería verde por fuera y por dentro verde. Ojos cafés cuando ella iba al baño, ojos cafés en su dormitorio, ojos cafés en la escuela, ojos cafés en el parque y los paseos, y ojos cafés, en especial, cuando la niña hurgaba debajo de sus calzoncitos blancos de organdí. Ojos, ojos, ojos cafés y ojos cafés en cualquier sitio.

Una tarde, mientras imaginaba que unos ojos cafés la perseguían, la niña se cayó del columpio y se raspó la rodilla. Se miró la herida y, entre escasas gotas de sangre, descubrió lo verde. No podía creerlo; así qué, a propósito, se raspó la otra rodilla y de nueva cuenta lo verde. Se talló un cachete y verde. Se llenó de raspones y verde y verde y nada más que verde por dentro. Desde luego que, una vez en su casa, los ojos cafés, verdes de ira, la nalguearon sobre la piel que escondía lo verde.

Más que asustarse, la niña verde entristeció. Y, años después, se puso aún más triste cuando se percató del primer lunar verde sobre uno de sus muslos. El lunar comenzó a crecer hasta que fue un lunar del tamaño de la jovencita. Muchos dermatólogos lucharon contra lo verde y todos fracasaron. Lo verde venía de otro lado. Verde se quedaría y verde se quedó. Verde asistió a la preparatoria, verde a la universidad, verde iba al cine y a los restoranes, y verde lloraba todas las noches.

Una semana antes de su graduación, se puso a reflexionar: "Los muchachos no me quieren porque temen que les pegue mi verdosidad; además dicen que nuestros hijos podrían salir de un verde muy sucio, o verdes del todo. Me saludan de lejos y me gritan 'Adios, Señorita Green', y me provocan las más tristes verdes lágrimas. Pero desde este día usaré sandalias azul cielo, aunque se enojen los ojos cafés. Y no me importará que me digan Señorita Green, porque llevaré en los pies un color muy bonito."

James Alan Gardner: Three Damnations: A Fugue

I. Danny

I won’t go to the house again.
I won’t go to the house again.
I won’t go to the house again.
I went to the haunted house.


I woke naked in the garden. Nothing grew there—not even weeds. Just withered stalks that looked ages old. Maybe dating back to when things were still okay.

The darkness was beginning to brighten. I always came to, just before dawn.

As usual, my mouth tasted of blood. The first few times, I’d thought the blood was mine. Eventually, it occurred to me the blood might come from someone else. That made me swear I’d never go back to the house.

But I did.

I got up and limped around to the front door. It took me a while—plants grew thick everywhere except the garden, and most had thorns or nettles.

Beyond the briars, trees crowded up close to the house. The forest ran for miles in every direction, full of whispery sounds and shifty movements. I stayed away from the woods, even in daytime. Animals hated the place too; I never saw a single bird or squirrel among those trees. I don’t know if the house had infected the woods or the other way around, but they were both no-man’s-lands. Maybe like Mandy and me, the house and the forest went bad together.

The inside of the house was always cold and silent. That hadn’t seemed strange the first time Mandy and I broke in. It was November, with an inch of snow on the ground, so we weren’t surprised to see frost on the mirrors and icicles on the ceiling lamps.

Francisco Tario: La noche del féretro

Entró un señor enlutado, con los zapatos muy limpios y los ojos enrojecidos por el

llanto. Se aproximó al empleado y dijo:

—Necesito un féretro.

Oí distintamente su voz ronca y amarga, seguida por una tos irritante que, de estar yo

dormido, me hubiera hecho despertar. Oí también, en aquel preciso momento, el timbre

de la puerta en la casa contigua y el ladrido del perro, quien anunciaba así su alegría.

El empleado dijo:

—Pase usted.

Y pasó el hombre sigilosamente, con un poco de asco, mirando a diestra y siniestra,

como una reina anciana que visita un hospital. Parecía un tanto avergonzado del

espectáculo: de aquellos cajones grises, blancos o negros, que tanto asustan a los

hombres, y de aquella luz amarilla y sucia que daba al local cierto aspecto de taberna.

Mi compañero de abajo se enderezó cuanto pudo para explicarme:

—El cliente es rico, conque tú serás el elegido.

La noche era fría, lluviosa, y soplaba un viento de nieve. No apetecía yo, pues,

moverme de aquel escondrijo tan tibio, cubiertos mis largos miembros con una suave

capita de polvo, y mucho menos aventurarme —Dios sabe con qué rumbo— por esas

calles tan húmedas y resbaladizas.

El enlutado seguía tosiendo y examinando uno a uno los féretros. Nos miraba

curiosamente, sin aproximarse demasiado, cual si temiera que uno de nosotros, en un

momento dado, pudiera abrir la boca y tragarlo. En voz baja, respetando fingidamente el

dolor del cliente, iba el empleado elogiando su mercancía, haciendo notar entre otras

cosas su sobriedad, duración y comodidad.

De súbito, advertí sobre mi espina un cosquilleo bien conocido: el empleado me quitaba

el polvo ceremoniosamente con un cepillo de gruesas cerdas que me produjo risa.

Procuré estrecharme contra el muro, observando de soslayo al enlutado. Vi sus ojos

tristes, abultados —verdaderos ojos de rana— que repasaban mi cuerpo de arriba

abajo. Escuché de nuevo su voz cavernosa:

—El finado es robusto, ¿sabe?

Fue entonces cuando pensé:

"Me llevará sin duda."

En efecto, prorrumpió:

—Creo que me convenga éste.

Howard Phillips Lovecraft: The beast in the cave

The horrible conclusion which had been gradually intruding itself upon my confused and reluctant mind was now an awful certainty. I was lost, completely, hopelessly lost in the vast and labyrinthine recess of the Mammoth Cave. Turn as I might, in no direction could my straining vision seize on any object capable of serving as a guidepost to set me on the outward path. That nevermore should I behold the blessed light of day, or scan the pleasant hills and dales of the beautiful world outside, my reason could no longer entertain the slightest unbelief. Hope had departed. Yet, indoctrinated as I was by a life of philosophical study, I derived no small measure of satisfaction from my unimpassioned demeanour; for although I had frequently read of the wild frenzies into which were thrown the victims of similar situations, I experienced none of these, but stood quiet as soon as I clearly realised the loss of my bearings.

Nor did the thought that I had probably wandered beyond the utmost limits of an ordinary search cause me to abandon my composure even for a moment. If I must die, I reflected, then was this terrible yet majestic cavern as welcome a sepulchre as that which any churchyard might afford, a conception which carried with it more of tranquillity than of despair.

Starving would prove my ultimate fate; of this I was certain. Some, I knew, had gone mad under circumstances such as these, but I felt that this end would not be mine. My disaster was the result of no fault save my own, since unknown to the guide I had separated myself from the regular party of sightseers; and, wandering for over an hour in forbidden avenues of the cave, had found myself unable to retrace the devious windings which I had pursued since forsaking my companions.

Already my torch had begun to expire; soon I would be enveloped by the total and almost palpable blackness of the bowels of the earth. As I stood in the waning, unsteady light, I idly wondered over the exact circumstances of my coming end. I remembered the accounts which I had heard of the colony of consumptives, who, taking their residence in this gigantic grotto to find health from the apparently salubrious air of the underground world, with its steady, uniform temperature, pure air, and peaceful quiet, had found, instead, death in strange and ghastly form. I had seen the sad remains of their ill-made cottages as I passed them by with the party, and had wondered what unnatural influence a long sojourn in this immense and silent cavern would exert upon one as healthy and vigorous as I. Now, I grimly told myself, my opportunity for settling this point had arrived, provided that want of food should not bring me too speedy a departure from this life.

Salomé Guadalupe Ingelmo: Imago Dei

A Isaac Asimov

Ninguna sociedad acepta a sus escritores
hasta que ha asimilado lo que dijeron. (Octavio Paz)

Recuerda la promesa arrancada a Janet: cuando no quedase vida en él, cuando el corazón dejase de latir, esa prisión deteriorada sería cenizas al viento. El escéptico humanista deseaba volver al polvo. Él, aquejado de pteromeranofobia, añoraba el aire. Un hombre es sólo una azarosa combinación de casualidades y contradicciones.

Le costó mucho comprender. Le ha costado aún más aceptar. Tras el apagón, la nada. Sólo una neblina reconfortante, un sopor acogedor: la ausencia de los sentidos, el reposo del intelecto, la codiciada inconsciencia… El fin de la angustia. Todo cuanto había esperado tal y como lo había supuesto: el Paraíso. Por un tiempo. Hasta que un día, como Lázaro, escuchó la llamada.

―Padre, ¿qué debemos hacer? Tú lo habías previsto. Líbranos de todo mal ahora ―la voz suplicante le saca de su ensimismamiento.

Ha pasado muchos años en esa pequeña caja de metacrilato que preside la Sala de los Destinos. No se queja; aun sin cuerpo, sigue sintiéndose cómodo en los espacios reducidos ―ha descubierto otra clase de memoria que trasciende la memoria de la carne―. Algunos días el viejo racionalista aprecia la ironía. Naturalmente podrían haber escogido a cualquier otro científico eminente, uno más brillante que él. O quizá no: sólo un maestro de la ciencia-ficción se habría enfrentado a la realidad, a las profecías que antaño creyó inocentes frutos de su ingenio. Sólo un escritor se creería aún capaz de ofrecerle un final alternativo ―uno incluso feliz― a la humanidad.

Los Jueces, todos por debajo de los cincuenta, dan muestras de impaciencia. Demasiado jóvenes para entender que el tiempo es tan relativo como irrelevante es su respuesta. Poco importa ya el hongo que crece por momentos, oscuro y amenazante. Mientras las calles, ignaras, preparan los festejos por el bicentenario de su advenimiento, el descomunal guijarro surca los cielos resuelto, como lanzado por una mano gigante de puntería divina.

Roald Dahl: The landlady

BILLY WEAVER had travelled down from London on the slow afternoon train, with a change at Swindon on the way, and by the time he got to Bath it was about nine o'clock in the evening and the moon was coming up out of a clear starry sky over the houses opposite the station entrance. But the air was deadly cold and the wind was like a flat blade of ice on his cheeks.

"Excuse me" he said "but is there a fairly cheap hotel not too far away from here?"

"Try The Bell and Dragon" the porter answered pointing down the road. "They might take you in. It's about a quarter of a mile along on the other side."

Billy thanked him and picked up his suitcase and set out to walk the quarter‑mile to The Bell and Dragon. He had never been to Bath before. He didn't know anyone who lived there. But Mr Greenslade at the Head Office in London had told him it was a splendid city.

"Find your own lodgings," he had said "and then go along and report to the Branch Manager as soon as you've got yourself settled".

Billy was seventeen years old. He was wearing a new navy‑blue overcoat, a new brown trilby hat, and a new brown suit, and he was feeling fine. He walked briskly down the street. He was trying to do everything briskly these days. Briskness, he had decided was the one common characteristic of all successful businessmen. The big shots up at Head Office were absolutely fantastically brisk all the time. They were amazing.

There were no shops on this wide street that he was walking along, only a line of tall houses on each side, all of them identical. They had porches and pillars and four or five steps going up to their front doors, and it was obvious that once upon a time they had been very swanky residence. But now, even in the darkness, he could see that the paint was peeling from the woodwork on their doors and windows, and that the handsome white facades were cracked and blotchy from neglect.

Inés Arredondo: La Sunamita

Y buscaron una moza hermosa por todo el término de Israel,
y hallaron a Abisag Sunamita, y trajéron la al rey.
Y la moza era hermosa, la cual calentaba al rey, y le servía:
mas el rey nunca la conoció.
Reyes I, 3-4

Aquél fue un verano abrasador. El último de mi juventud.

Tensa, concentrada en el desafío que precede a la combustión, la ciudad ardía en una sola llama reseca y deslumbrante. En el centro de la llama estaba yo, vestida de negro, orgullosa, alimentando el fuego con mis cabellos rubios, sola. Las miradas de los hombres resbalaban por mi cuerpo sin mancharlo y mi altivo recato obligaba al saludo deferente. Estaba segura de tener el poder de domeñar las pasiones, de purificarlo todo en el aire encendido que me cercaba y no me consumía.

Nada cambió cuando recibí el telegrama; la tristeza que me trajo no afectaba en absoluto la manera de sentirme en el mundo: mi tío Apolonio se moría a los setenta y tantos años de edad; quería verme por última vez puesto que yo había vivido en su casa como una hija durante mucho tiempo, y yo sentía un sincero dolor ante aquella muerte inevitable. Todo eso era perfectamente normal, y ningún estremecimiento, ningún augurio me hizo sospechar nada. Hice los rápidos preparativos para el viaje en aquel mismo centro intocable en que me envolvía el verano estático.

Llegué al pueblo a la hora de la siesta.

Caminando por las calles solitarias con mi pequeño veliz en la mano, fui cayendo en el entresueño privado de la realidad y de tiempo que da el calor excesivo. No, no recordaba, vivía a medias, como entonces. “Mira, Licha, están floreciendo las amapas”. La voz clara, casi infantil. “Para el dieciséis quiero que te hagas un vestido como el de Margarita Ibarra.” La oía, la sentía caminar a mi lado, un poco encorvada, ligera a pesar de su gordura, alegre y vieja; yo seguía adelante con los ojos entrecerrados, atesorando mi vaga, tierna angustia, dulcemente sometida a la compañía de mi tía Panchita, la hermana de mi madre. –“Bueno, hija, si Pepe no te gusta… pero no es un mal muchacho.” –Sí, había dicho eso justamente aquí, frente a la ventana de la Tichi Valenzuela, con aquel gozo suyo, inocente y maligno. Caminé un poco más, nublados ya los ladrillos de la acera, y cuando las campanadas resonaron pesadas y reales, dando por terminada la siesta y llamando al rosario, abrí los ojos y miré verdaderamente el pueblo: era otro, las amapas no habían florecido y yo estaba llorando, con mi vestido de luto, delante de la casa de mi tío.

El zagúan se encontraba abierto, como siempre, y en el fondo del patio estaba la bugambilia. Como siempre. Pero no igual. Me sequé las lágrimas y no sentí que llegaba, sino que me despedía. Las cosas aparecían inmóviles, como en el recuerdo, y el calor y el silencio lo marchitaban todo. Mis pasos resonaron desconocidos, y María salió a mi encuentro.

- ¿Por qué no avisaste? Hubiéramos mandado…

Fuimos directamente a la habitación del enfermo. Al entrar casi sentí frío. El silencio y la penumbra precedían a la muerte…

Nathaniel Hawthorne: Solomon

Solomon dies during the building of the temple, but his body remains leaning on a staff, and overlooking the workmen, as if it were alive.

Wilfredo Machado: Mago

El niño con el pote de pega cruzaba la calle, somnoliento, cuando un autobús lo embistió con violencia, dejándolo muerto sobre la acera. Todos quedaron conmovidos frente al cadáver del infante. Nadie supo de dónde salió el mago, quien cubrió el cuerpecito con una sábana blanca. El mago comenzó a realizar una serie de pases mágicos sobre la sábana que brillaba bajo el sol. Un grupo enfurecido de los que allí estaba se acercó al mago e, insultándolo, lo golpeó con violencia. “Qué te has creído” ¡Cabrón! “¿No respetas el dolor de la gente?” El mago desapareció del lugar antes de ser linchado. Cuando al fin llegaron los paramédicos en una ambulancia, levantaron la sábana con cuidado. Algunos curiosos que llegaron tarde sólo vieron la bandada de palomas que elevaba su vuelo desde la sábana manchada de sangre hacia los edificios grises. Todos aplaudían con lágrimas en los ojos. 

Michael Marshall Smith: The Dark Land

For want of anything better to do, and in the spirit that keeps my room austerely tidy when there are other things I should be doing, I decided to move my bed. After returning from college I’d redecorated my room, as it had been the same since I’d been about ten, and I’d moved just about everything round except for the bed. I knew it was largely an excuse for not doing anything more constructive but pulled it away from the wall and tried it in another couple of positions.

    It was hard work, as one of the legs is rather fragile and the thing had to be virtually lifted off the floor, and after half an hour I was hot and irritated and becoming more and more convinced that its original position had been the optimal, and indeed the only, place to put it. And it was as I struggled to shove it back up against the wall that I began to feel a bit strange. When it was finally back in place I sat down on it, feeling light-headed and a bit ill and I suppose basically I just drifted off to sleep.

    I don’t know if the bed is part of it in some way. I only mention it because it seems important, and I guess that it was while I was asleep on it that it all began. After a while I woke up, half-remembering a dream in which I had been doing nothing more than lying on my bed remembering that my parents had said that they were going to extend the wood panelling on the downstairs hall walls. For a few moments I was disorientated, confused by being in the same place in reality as I had been in the dream, and then I drifted off again.

    Some time later I awoke again, feeling very sluggish and slightly nauseous. I found it very difficult to haul my mind up from sleep, but eventually stood up and lurched across the room to the sink to get a glass of water, rubbing my eyes and feeling very rough. Maybe I was going down with something. I decided that a cup of tea would be a good idea, and headed out of the bedroom to go downstairs to the kitchen to make one.

    As I reached the top of the stairs I remembered the dream about the panelling and wondered vaguely where a strange idea like that could have come from. I’d worked hard for my psychology paper at college, and was fairly confident that Freud hadn’t felt that wood panelling was even worth a mention. I trudged downstairs, still feeling a bit strange, my thoughts dislocated and confused.

    Then I stopped, open-mouthed, and stared around me. They really had extended the panelling. It used to only go about eight feet up the wall, but it now soared right up to the front hall ceiling, which is two floors high. And they’d done it in exactly the same wood as the original panelling: there wasn’t a join to be seen. How the hell had they managed that? Come to that, when had they managed that? It hadn’t been there that morning, both my parents were at work and would be for hours and … well, it was just impossible, wasn’t it? I reached out and touched the wood, marvelling at how even the grain was the same, and that the new wood looked just as aged as the original, which had been there fifty years.

Angelina Muñiz-Huberman: La ofrenda más grata

¿Soy yo guarda de mi hermano?
Génesis 4:9

En algún libro estaba escrito, en algún libro grande y denso que tuviera toda la historia del hombre, un libro que marcara cada destino, que enseñara todos los caminos a elegir, un libro que a fuerza de gritar la palabra de Dios cantara al hombre pleno y débil, poderoso e impotente, amante y asesino. En algún libro, en ese tal vez, estaba también escrito mi acto. Así como la mayoría se preocupa por dejar su huidiza sombra en el curso deleznable de la historia, yo, en cambio, sabía que mi vida ya había sido vivida y que sólo repetía un relato antiguo e injusto. Pero saberlo no me evitaba el sufrimiento. Por eso, desde niña, desde el día en que naciste empezó mi odio por ti.

¿Por qué tenía que ser alabado tu nacimiento? ¿Por qué los regalos y las predicciones, las palabras, los deseos y la felicidad? Yo no sentía nada y tu presencia me desagradaba: ahí estabas, pequeño, indefenso, amoratado. Imposible amarte. Mi lugar me lo habías quitado sin ningún esfuerzo, sin siquiera dejarme luchar, mi lugar que había ido ganando con dolor y lentamente, pero que me pertenecía y que todos respetaban hasta que tú llegaste.

¿De dónde venías y por qué me alejabas tan fácil y cruelmente? Nuestras sangres no eran las mismas: la mía hervía en odio y en pasión; la tuya, dulce y apacible, creaba el amor.

Caí en la soledad y en el olvido. Nadie preguntaba por mí, nadie recordaba que yo era la primogénita. Y lo peor, oír las palabras que antes eran para mí sola, repetidas para ti solo. ¿Qué tenías tú, acabado de nacer, indefenso, amoratado, que hacías recaer la maldición sobre mí?

Porque yo había sido maldecida. Por alguna razón, para mí oculta, había caído del favor de los demás. Lo mío no valía: mi llanto, mis gritos y mis juegos eran desagradables. Para mí era la orden del silencio y el hastío constante.

No, nunca pude quererte, y aún se atrevían a preguntármelo. ¿Cómo quererte si me lo prohibieron? ¿Cómo jugar contigo si me lo negaban?

Rudyard Kipling: The Bisara of Pooree

Little Blind Fish, thou art marvellous wise,
Little Blind Fish, who put out thy eyes?
Open thy ears while I whisper my wish—
Bring me a lover, thou little Blind Fish.
The Charm of the Bisara

SOME natives say that it came from the other side of Kulu, where the eleven-inch Temple Sapphire is. Others that it was made at the Devil-Shrine of Ao-Chung in Thibet, was stolen by a Kafir, from him by a Gurkha, from him again by a Lahouli, from him by a khitmatgar, and by this latter sold to an Englishman, so all its virtue was lost; because, to work properly, the Bisara of Pooree must be stolen—with bloodshed if possible, but, at any rate, stolen.

These stories of the coming into India are all false. It was made at Pooree ages since—the manner of its making would fill a small book—was stolen by one of the Temple dancing-girls there, for her own purposes, and then passed on from hand to hand, steadily northward, till it reached Hanlé: always bearing the same name—the Bisara of Pooree. In shape it is a tiny square box of silver, studded outside with eight small balas-rubies. Inside the box, which opens with a spring, is a little eyeless fish, carved from some sort of dark, shiny nut and wrapped in a shred of faded gold cloth. That is the Bisara of Pooree, and it were better for a man to take a king-cobra in his hand than to touch the Bisara of Pooree.

All kinds of magic are out of date and done away with, except in India, where nothing changes in spite of the shiny, top-scum stuff that people call ‘civilisation.’ Any man who knows about the Bisara of Pooree will tell you what its powers are—always supposing that it has been honestly stolen. It is the only regularly working, trustworthy love-charm in the country, with one exception. [The other charm is in the hands of a trooper of the Nizam’s Horse, at a place called Tuprani, due north of Hyderabad.] This can be depended upon for a fact. Some one else may explain it.

If the Bisara be not stolen, but given or bought or found, it turns against its owner in three years, and leads to ruin or death. This is another fact which you may explain when you have time. Meanwhile, you can laugh at it. At present the Bisara is safe on a hack-pony’s neck, inside the blue bead-necklace that keeps off the Evil Eye. If the pony-driver ever finds it, and wears it, or gives it to his wife, I am sorry for him.

Valerio Evangelisti: RACHID

Io, Rachid, nato in Palestina e vissuto in Siria, giuro che mai e poi mai rinnegherò il santo nome di Allah. Sono venuto in Afghanistan come ero stato in Cecenia, per difendere l’Islam dai nuovi crociati che cercano di distruggerlo. Mi sono battuto con onore e mi sono arreso solo quando il nostro comandante mi ha detto di farlo. Gli americani potranno cercare di umiliarmi, ma io conserverò fino all’ultimo la mia dignità.

E’ inutile che adesso, col sacchetto ridicolo che mi hanno messo in testa e con le strisce di plastica che mi feriscono i polsi, tentino di piegare la mia volontà. Un soldato di Allah non si lascia spaventare dal buio, né dall’obbligo di tenere corpo e testa piegati in avanti, né dalle percosse. Resisterò, perché così comanda il Misericordioso. Resisterò anche sull’aereo che mi sta per portare nella terra di Satana.

Sono ormai due ore che siamo decollati. Fatico molto a respirare. Ma cosa conta la mia sofferenza? Brucia ancora nella mia mente il ricordo dei fratelli sepolti vivi, a… Laggiù, dietro il carcere.

Quanti erano? Cento? Duecento? Alcuni imploravano pietà, ma la maggior parte di loro erano dignitosi. Molti perdevano sangue dalle ferite, e sapevano che comunque non sarebbero sopravvissuti a lungo. I vecchi sembravano rassegnati, però erano pochi. L’età dei più era all’incirca la mia: vent’anni. Gridavano ancora le loro maledizioni, mentre i camion coprivano con la sabbia la fossa in cui erano distesi. A tanti erano state serrate le labbra con un cerotto, ma non a tutti. Chi non poteva pregare o gridare lo faceva con gli occhi. Non credo che i soldati americani capissero parole o sguardi. Osservavano indifferenti, e lasciavano fare ai loro servi afgani.

E’ in nome di quei martiri che io, Rachid, terrò duro.

In fondo, la ridicola tuta arancione che mi hanno fatto indossare prima di salire in aereo mi torna comoda. Mi ripara dal freddo. Mi dispiace solo di non vedere i miei fratelli in Allah, a causa del cappuccio. Ce n’è uno che urla, forse per una ferita. Alcuni piangono, tuttavia sono pochi. Io li comprendo, è per via dell’età. Sono poco più che bambini.