Firefly by Severo Sarduy Read Free Book Online Page A

everything came down to its appearance or its reality.
    So he took up spying, but not like before. He no longer knew what to spy on, or whom. For days on end, throughout the interminable rainy season, in the endless owl-filled nights.
    Until one evening by the fishpond, when the lamps were going out, he saw that one second-floor notary office remained lit. He could make out, yes it was she, Munificence’s silhouette behind a tulle curtain, then Ada’s looking inhibited, timid. And then those of two men, one short and stout, likely in shirt and tie, the other taller and gawky, briefcase in hand.
    No doubt about it: It was them.
    But why were they here?
    As powerfully as he had needed air, he sensed he was about to find out. Up to that moment he had lived in the clouds, without happiness but also without worry. He cared more now about learning the truth than about breathing: What were they doing here, the accusers who had unmasked his make-believe at the hospital?
    Several thoughts battered him, each of them unbearable.
    Isidro and Gator, if indeed it was them, had come for him. They would gag him and haul him off to a dungeon and put him on bread and water for the rest of his life. They would hand him over to the lepers so they could spit on him and rub their purulent stumps in his face. They would auction him off as a child slave, naked in the market, covered in sores; a sugar baron would buy him, just to whip him.
    Maybe the maniacal fat guy was looking for fresh dupes for thependulum demonstrations in the darkness of his amphitheater. He did not really understand what that was all about, but in his heart he knew it was something devious, unspeakable.
    Like a feverish shudder came the thought that they might take Ada’s body away from him, that over it they would dangle the morbid rotations of the copper cone with its mortuary shine and its iridescent gyrating like a sick lightning bug.
    He wondered how they had discovered him, tracked him down, why his parents had not come, and who had brought the redhead into it. Or perhaps – and this possibility rocked him with the violence of vomiting – it was she who had tipped off the inquisitors.
    What was the truth? What was Munificence’s real work? Could it all be a simple coincidence, a joke, an entertainment of gods with nothing to do , something akin to when two children from the same family die at the same moment in different places? The two bigwigs – he continued to feed this fond hope – might have simply dropped by for a visit, or on some complicated secret errand with the notaries. There was nothing to fear. Ada’s presence was just another coincidence. She would soon leave, discreetly. And so would the interlopers. The lamp would go out. He would hear the piercing squeal of the door closing, Munificence’s footsteps heading off to the charity house.
    Everything would return to its stifled monotony, smooth and unbroken, like a flat polished surface; everything would again occur at its predetermined hour: the punctual departure of the pupils, the morning sun on the ceiba tree, the fish darting amid the mossy rocks, the voices of the busy weavers from the basket workshop, the horn of a car in the street, the wind, the wind . . .
    But it was not to be. The lamp remained lit. A few interminable minutes passed. Suddenly the visitors stood up together, seemingly compelled by something. They began to wave their arms about as if they were tossing a rag doll or a stinking stuffed animal that Firefly thought he saw somersaulting in the air. The same thoughts from before came rushing back, now twisted or deformed, in fragments. He sensed they were speaking about him. He had no idea why now again he saw the white wooden house by the sea, abandoned this time, devoured by the salt air, invaded by sand; a door on the left bore a wooden sign with what once must have been gilt letters: THE PAVILION.
    Another thought suddenly accosted him, this one