Autor: Tassilon-Stavros
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Un
puesto militar en tiempo de paz es un lugar monótono. Pueden ocurrir
algunas cosas, pero se repiten una y otra vez [Carson Mc Cullers]... Me hablaron de un fuerte en el Noroeste de Estados Unidos donde, hace pocos
años, 1949 para ser más exactos, tuvo lugar un suicidio y un asesinato.
Los participantes en esta fatalidad fueron: un sacerdote militar, un
soldado, un capitán, una mujer y un perro.
A
military post in peacetime is a monotonous place. Some things may
happen, but they are repeated again and again [Carson MC Cullers]... "They told me about a fort in the Northwest United States where, a few years ago, 1949
to be more exact, suicide and murder took place. The
participants in this fatality were: a military priest, a soldier, a captain, a
woman and a dog.
El enemigo más letal del ejército de EEUU: el suicidio. Un
estudio analiza datos de 200 años. Tradicionalmente las tasas de
suicidio entre los militares descienden en periodos de guerra, y la
tendencia comienza a cambiar en tiempos de paz. [JAMA Network Open]
The deadliest enemy of the US army: suicide. A study analyzes
data of 200 years. Traditionally, suicide
rates among the military drop in periods of war, and the trend begins to change in peacetime. [JAMA Network Open]
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Se
suele decir que un alma goza de un estado de gracia
cuando vive de beneficios del cielo, de una naturaleza humana y espiritual en dulce equilibrio. Pero no es
así, porque resulta absurdo pensar que se pueda vivir tan gratuitamente a costa de Dios. Además, ese Dios en el que
Russell Merryck se vio forzado a creer, ese Dios del que tantos devotos y místicos se
aprovechan, permite la tentativa carnal, y no siempre la anímica, de sus escogidas
criaturas. No son suposiciones. Porque Russell Merryck jamás escondió lo que más le
valiera no haber poseído con tanta abundancia. Cierto que lo mejor de la
vida
se queda solo tantas veces detrás de nosotros. Y para seguir adelante esa quietud devota
vive en
realidad con sintaxis de lápida. Rostro, porte, mirada, jerarquía eran
en
Merryck de militar. No se advertía en su compostura ni el menor asomo de
sonrisa benévola, únicamente un sutil misterio, una fría afectación que
se apoyaba
sin lugar a dudas en su sacerdotal milicia indeseada. En Merryick Dios
había
acertado en su designio carnal. Su herida de niñez y adolescencia,
demasiado
súbita, era una lesión exigente en la que ahora, como sacerdote, todos
debían
sentirse heridos. Era el castigado que arranca culpabilidades de los
demás en su
celda silenciosa y cerrada, y por inhabilitación ante las pompas
sagradas de su
ministerio. Un vengador replegado en una sombría indiferencia,
forzadamente
endurecida por encubiertas licencias y escándalos, por las ocultas perversidades del clérigo
capaz de
amancebarse con muchos de sus penitentes, e incluso por las cobardías y
terrores vividos bajo los bombardeos japoneses en Corregidor
durante la pasada guerra. Aborrecía el campamento militar, y su iglesia, con los
oficios
acuartelados con que le extenuaba la liturgia, le quemaba entre una
ráfaga de
ropas, miradas, rezos y lumbres odiadas. En su ahogo blandía
vengadoramente su
espada profana porque, volviéndole la espalda con desdén, la iglesia de
Jesús
le rebajaba desde su abyección como la única medida de lo que en
realidad era
su desencantada calidad humana. Era el suyo un ateísmo precoz, perverso y
decrépito, carente de inocencia y mortificación, porque la siembra de
sus
posibles remordimientos se dejaban enterrar fácilmente, incluso los que
pudieron no sentirse,
Aunque el páter guardaba entre las experiencias juveniles de los sentidos extenuaciones tan irremisiblemente convulsas, tan aptas para llegar a alcanzar un aborrecimiento vergonzante, en su predominante voluntad sin penitencias el Dios del perdón también le confería una jerarquía disculpable que muchos años atrás nunca obtuvo de la vida. Era todavía aquel muchacho en el que bullía una sangre de huída; aquel adolescente entregado a otras voluntades, pero perdido a la vez en el cruel maltrato del mundo en el que había nacido.Y ahora su aparente resignación clerical poseía en realidad pulsaciones de una arritmia tan vibrante como recóndita, un áspero y fuerte resuello de renovado deseo que le perseguía como un insatisfecho antojo de niño, como un sollozo de retorcida aflicción adulta, y hasta como una de esas agonías que no mueren porque así parecía haberlo dispuesto otro dios al que no conocía. Merryck solía abandonar su iglesia como un monje que después de tediosas evocaciones devoradoras huyera de un frío claustro olvidado de la vida exterior, y en el que se viese sometído a una odiosa resignación de pesadumbres litúrgicas. Entre aquel vaho de piedras, de altar decrépito y de retablos enjutos, se maldecía de tanto oírse siempre a sí mismo. Fuera de allí, la umbría arboleda del fuerte, calentada por las mañanas o por las insaciables siestas de la recién llegada primavera le eximía de la sensación pausada de aquel pequeño templo que tanto le abrumaba, y donde Dios, con sus reverentes y curiosos menajes de sencillez cristiana, se convertía en una sensación precisa de espectro, lóbrega, invisible pero demasiado exigente, tentándole una y otra vez a que se convirtiese definitivamente en hombre de altar y no de amoríos vergonzosos. Dejaba su iglesia apagada, oliendo a sahumerio, que no era más que un humo inmóvil en el cerrado aire que le asfixiaba.
El crucifijo del fondo, de
una talla alta, flaca y grisácea, colgada de un quebrado arco del techo,
se vislumbraba gelatinoso y frío como un gran lagarto. Mirarlo le
consternaba, como si le recriminase tanta depravación, como si le
escarbara el diseño deforme de las circunvoluciones del cerebro para
rellenárselo con escrúpulos de los cuales tanto carecía. Aquel Dios
podía respirar compadeciéndose de este mundo. Pero esa conmiseración no
curaba la conciencia del mal sacerdote. Y Merryck seguía por tanto
agitándose en un desorden de despecho porque una insoportable desazón
sensual se había apoderando de su cuerpo. El deseo innoble se exaltaba
de nuevo en sus sentidos como una antorcha oculta en su interior, que lo
dejaba abrasado por los avisos dañinos que ahora le provocaba el
espiado cuerpo del inaccesible soldado Tracy.
Durante
aquellas pasadas tardes de invierno y en la exultante primavera del
recién llegado mes de mayo, a la hora en que el soldado solía abandonar
las caballerizas, Merryck acostumbraba a rondar las cuadras. Las mañanas
traían un olor a forraje caliente entre aquella intimidad complaciente
de los pesebres, y el pisar sumiso de los caballos a los que Tracy acariciaba y cepillaba
los dorsos brillantes y aterciopelados mientras tan hermosas
criaturas le observaban con satisfecha obediencia. Merryck esperaba
luego la aparición del joven disimuladamente, fingiéndose abstraido en la lectura de un
devocionario. Y cuando se cruzaba con Tracy, de súbito se detenía. Todo
resultaba muy rápido como la impronta de una luz. Y por los mismos
conceptos que lo llevaban hasta allí como si lo esperase para verle e
incluso poder besarle, le miraba los ojos y después la boca, descansando
por fin en la nerviosa e inconcebible contemplación de aquel hombre al
que deseaba. Algunas de aquellas tardes Merryck trató también de
esconder su inquietud. Sentía vergüenza y hasta odio, porque la mente
del soldado Tracy nunca parecía mostrar cierto asombrado malestar cuando
se encontraba con el clérigo rondando por allí tan a menudo,
algunas veces incluso yendo hacia el rancho de la tarde sobre las siete, aproximándose ya la hora del crepúsculo.
-Páter... - le saludaba a menudo con una mirada tan indiferente como distante, y como si los pensamientos en la mente del joven permanecieran vacíos, sin alcanzar configuración alguna.
Y Merryck odiaba entonces al soldado Tracy con un disimulado sollozo interior, porque su herida volvía a ser aquella laceración exigente en la que ahora deseaba que el joven también se sintiera herido.
-"Eres tú, maldito seas, el que me envuelve en este solitario pecado" - se decía para sí el enfebrecido clérigo, deseando gritarle- "Hay otros, sí, mucho peores, como el tuyo, cuando me abandonas con tu indiferencia, con tu indolente crueldad haciéndome sufrir..."
Aquellos pensamientos se repetían una y otra vez en la mente rectora del sacerdote con el orgullo y la dureza de quien se siente menospreciado. Pero eran absurdas reflexiones repetidas hasta la saciedad, y en seguida reiterativamente rechazadas. Aunque, padeciendo y cavilando, su secreto seguía fraguándose. Un secreto suyo, y, ¿por qué no?, un secreto que también probablemente podría bullir en la mente del soldado Tracy, como así quería imaginarlo. Merryck entonces una de aquellas tardes vacías no quiso ya contenerse, fingió tropezar con el joven descuidadamente, sentir su contacto aunque tan sólo fuese por un segundo, y luego exclamó con una sonrisa esperanzada:
-¿Por qué me mira usted así, soldado? ¿Le he asustado?
-¿Yo, páter?
¿Cómo le estoy mirando?... Si tengo la culpa, perdóneme-
respondió el joven. Y en aquella respuesta el sacerdote percibió un primer tono de desconfianza por parte de Tracy.
Y Merryck al reparar en que estaba avergonzando al soldado, que se estaba ridiculizando a sí mismo, se corrigió atropelladamente:
-Tengo yo la culpa... Sí yo tengo la culpa. ¡Qué habrá usted pensado de mí, soldado!
Para Merryck aquel extravío fue como un tremendo esfuerzo para disuadirse interiormente de su otro delirio, tratando de alentar una avenencia sensual humillante con aquel extraño joven que al parecer formaba parte de la milicia del fuerte sin llevar a cabo el menor esquema mental de sus acciones en el mismo. Y Merryck lo acabó aceptando así: el soldado cerebralmente carecía de un sólido rigor racional, y por eso no le acusaba de nada mirándole. Era Merryck el único que podía defenderse en su interior de la intransigencia de su conciencia, aunque al hacerlo se viese obligado a disculpar al odioso y deseado joven que nunca sonreía. Los días siguientes Merryck dejó de contentarse en su delito persecutorio, pero no se atrevió a librarse de él. Y hasta llegó a imaginar que el soldado Tracy probablemente estaría complaciéndose en aquella ausencia.
-"Quizás me desprecia lo mismo que ahora me desprecio yo" - discurría Merryck.- "Feliz de haberse librado de mi presencia porque seguramente me aborrece... o quizás me odia... porque mi secreto lo ha estado persiguiento con la mirada de un gato extraviado... He coqueteado vergonzosamente con él... como un invertido. Y lo ha comprendido todo"
Durante varios
domingos, después de la obligada celebración de las misas, (que siempre
eran o muy de mañana, y a las que tan sólo acudían los oficiales y sus
esposas, entre ellos el
capitán Thomas Huntington, siempre solo, y varios soldados entre los
que nunca se hallaba Tracy; o ya cerca del anochecer, como última
audiencia religiosa), Merryck aceptaba con su fingida estima
sacerdotal la sumisa turbación de algunos pobres reclutas rezagados, los más
creyentes e incautos, acogiéndolos en confesión de retorno al campamento tras sus
escapadas de bebedores incorregibles y a los que resultaba fácil
devolver, tras la absolución del confesionario, el hilo sutil del perdón
cuando les pesaba cierta responsabilidad oculta del remordimiento. Y
Merryck los congraciaba con su Dios agradeciendo aquella pequeña
simiente de fámulos del cristianismo más trasnochado, con sus arrebatos
culpabilizadores, y a los que todavía erizaba el miedo del pecado cuando
buscaban en la virtud hermética del clérigo la mejor medida del perdón,
que en realidad no era más que la medida imperfecta de la maldad del
hombre santo al que nada de aquello le importaba.
Mayo tocaba a su fin, y ahora los días de calor, hasta la llegada del verano, se acentuaban de forma casi insoportable aun antes de la entrada del mes de junio. Las mañanas se hallaban ya cuajadas de los verdosos y grandes racimos de florecidos ramajes en los arces, robles y olmos que recorrían los paseos del campamento a través de los cuales se filtraban las finas hebras brillantes y doradas de la ardiente luz solar. Pero el verano, incluso antes de que se presente en la vida humana como hoguera insoportable, posee a no dudarlo una especie de goce dolorido del propio contorno en la inmensidad, tan agitado como una evanescente fiebre, porque dentro de su calina todo tiene una frenética vibración de ilimitada llama opresiva. Y la atmósfera parece convertirse en un gigantesco cristal arcaíco, irrespirable entre el cielo y la tierra, para fijar su linaje climático, remontándose sobre un mundo cerrado ahora a la búsqueda de sombras reconfortantes. El deseo de volar de las aves se multiplica, las bandadas se retuercen y desmenuzan exhalando sus sonidos en el espacio que colonizan y en los olores de los suelos como si ansiasen comunicarse del tacto de la tierra. Y por las tardes son las golondrinas y los vencejos los que más ponen su acento a la soledad del bosque y al sosiego adormilado del campamento. Incluso pasan algunos cuervos, cuyas negruras juegan a trasponer aquellas lindes privativas del dibujo de las aves más menudas. Y en el fuerte, tan leve de dinamismo a causa del tremendo calor desde la mañana hasta la anochecida, parece que se han juntado así el fuego del amanecer y el del crepúsculo como dos Prometeos sin forma que obedecieran al unísono los preceptos crueles de su Zeus todopoderoso. El dios invisible que evidenciando un prodigio ardiente y unas despedidas muy largas, ahora invadiera aquellos parajes castrenses. Los guiños espasmódicos del calor también dotaban a los habitantes del fuerte de singulares expresiones entumecidas tras las cuales se gestaban conjuntamente tan constantes desasosiegos como reprimidas apatías que, por supuesto, no podían tener cabida entre el supremo entramado del ejército, obligado en todo momento a un preceptivo reconocimiento de agitada valía militar.
Russell Merryck desde el tornado invernal en que el enorme olmo se desplomara sobre una parte de la iglesia del cuartel y el esfuerzo desmedido con que el soldado Tracy trató, sin conseguirlo, de apartarlo de la cristalera hecha añicos, había vivido entre pesadillas e inquietudes sensuales con la imagen del joven siempre ante sí. Y fueron constantes sus mudos sollozos intentando calmar los clamores de la carne. Todo ello era como un vivir a muchas leguas alrededor del deseo, caminando como en un sueño prohibido entre un inesperado vacío que finalmente le impelía a abrir las puertas a su opresora virtud, de hermética exclusividad clerical, para seguir rebajándole desde la más baja abyección onanista de la sexualidad. Y porque tampoco podía resistirse a meditar que los deseos que más participan de nuestra vida hay que concedernoslos también a nosotros mismos hasta incluso con una insaciable saturación. Y suponiendo dolorosamente que los ojos del atractivo soldado se reían de su incapacidad para rechazar su imagen que era para el sacerdote como una encarnación del mal, o como un irreversible cáncer cuyas células malignas se instalasen en su cerebro destruyendo todos los tejidos del raciocinio, su presunta índole eclesiástica se pudría así para aceptar que hasta el más rígido y casto servidor de Dios puede también llegar a convertir en estiercol su forzada e hipotética pureza.
Pero las tribulaciones acongojadoras pueden convertirse de la misma forma en una especie de ansiedad devota que no se pierde ni se pudre entre el retorcimiento insaciable y duro de una mente atormentada. Y únicamente dejarían de hallarse guardadas en las sinuosidades del cerebro cediéndoles una apertura liberadora aunque se acercaran con el disfraz del peligro hasta cualquier recato perseguido por el gimiente escándalo de la desesperación. Todo ello es cierto que posee los visos de una temeridad de las muchas que llegan hasta este mundo para hincarse en la vida humana como un dardo impregnado de veneno. Y en el puesto militar de este lance, que ahora vive en la monotonía que le concede la paz, y tan minúsculo como un punto geométrico de la superficie curva del planeta que habitamos, la piel de los hombres no dejará de seguir esforzándose en dar la espalda al obscurior que de continuo amenaza nuestra carne, persuadida tan sólo de que no ha de existir más temor que el que conllevan las enfermedades leves. Y así vive, sin querer sentir la presencia del médico. Pero como una guarnición castrense no tiene nada de gruta artificial de santificadas apariciones marianas, entre la profusión de dormitorios donde descansan los soldados y los edificios donde ostenta su jerarquía regentadora la oficialidad de mayor rango no existe siempre un subordinado paso de hombres gobernados por la obediencia. No hay en estos campamentos tampoco ni un silencio de esos cielos desnudos y ligeros de la tierra sobre la que caen las horas glaciales o ardorosas, íntimas y largas del tiempo, y tan asustadas por no poder entender la queja del hombre sobre su superficie esférica, de globo, que, impetuosa o leve, se apodera de la vida. Por eso mismo, también en un campamento militar, en tiempo de paz, suceden cosas que nunca deberían volver a ocurrir.
En el soldado Jason Tracy imperiosamente sigue manifestándose una extraña oposición entre cierta austeridad ascética y los placeres sensuales que la vida cotidiana de los hombres muestran con toda naturalidad. Esta oposición distingue a Tracy entre dos grupos: los de la vida y los de la antivida, y así se aleja de los más positivos que son los seres amantes del sexo, y comienzan a gozarlo hasta de forma individual desde su propio cuerpo. El soldado Tracy, misteriosamente, no parece gozar así de todos los sentidos, aparte del paladar, del tacto, y en especial de los efluvios que le concede la Naturaleza que le rodea a las afueras del fuerte. Se diría de él que no conoce bien el mundo que habita, y rehuye con su limitado mutismo los agobios que sufren, por poner un ejemplo, los lenguaraces y hedonistas compañeros del campamento que sueñan con las mujeres. Y por eso mismo es un ser que no sabe acercarse al dolor o al placer ajeno, que no se preocupa en absoluto por los que sufren o se divierten, aunque sí pertenece al grupo de los personajes sensibles que aman a los animales, en especial los caballos, y no al hombre, como si alguna vez le hubiesen susurrado al oído que siendo el hombre el más cruel de los animales, como producto de la evolución en este planeta, es el único que se cree que no lo es. En consecuencia, no es llano en el trato con el resto de camaradas que viven y duermen a su alrededor, amantes de la vida, del sexo femenino, y dotados de una imperiosa sensualidad sin reparo. Tampoco posee un necesario ideal de comportamiento porque con su aire enigmático, insondable, vive muy alejado de las conciencias de los tradicionalistas, especialmente presentes en el mundo militar. No es grosero porque prefiere el silencio a las palabras tan necesarias para ver el mundo según es, y amarlo u odiarlo. Su estructura corporal tiene una disposición más compleja, porque es un joven atractivo, empastado macizamente en una viril belleza, de rostro curtido y pardos ojos flameantes de los que siempre parten cierta mirada extraviada. Y sus labios bien desplegados y rojos irradian sugerencias o insinuaciones de mieles voluptuosas como ahogos apasionados de irredento pecador. Y sus cabellos, lacios y castaños, aparecen muy recortados como obligatoria imposición fisonómica de cumplidor soldado en un puesto militar. Pero al soldado nada parece importarle su imagen. Y es tan esquivo y descuidado como si, probablemente sin pretenderlo, su figura poética de inédito y crecido efebo renacentista no fuese más que un ente incorpóreo. Quizás por eso se le ve tan a menudo, por las mañanas, después del desayuno, trasladándose solitariamente desde los dormitorios hasta las caballerizas para cuidar a corceles y yeguas, y de las cuadras al rancho del mediodía, y después hacia la zona del bosque donde desaparece hasta el avance de la atardecida como un cauteloso pero inocente felino. Bebe cuando frecuenta la cantina, y allí, inexplicablemente, se obceca a menudo en una densa atmósfera de inesperadas pendencias con algunos de sus compañeros de cuartel y muchas veces incluso en los mismos dormitorios, como si para él no existiese el más mínimo patrón de camaredería. Como si su rigor en estos roces pendencieros con otros soldados encubriera un enigmático odio hacia su propia especie. Y en ese microcosmos de densa atmósfera de indolencia que entre la vida y la muerte el soldado muestra no es de extrañar que sea detestado por el resto de reclutas. Y es que en realidad no existe la más mínima y satisfactoria precisión de comportamiento por su parte que el de tener que admitir que Jason Tracy vive en la funesta complejidad de cierto atraso mental, ya que no en una frustración desesperanzada con que tantas veces nos acomete la tragedia de la existencia. Y que pese a vivir en un mundo en el que los hombres y mujeres aman y odian sometidos en todo momento a la voracidad incontenible del tiempo y su transcurso, el irónico paralelismo que en efecto parece inmutable en la rígida esencia de la vida de Tracy es que, sin tener amigos y quizás ni enemigos que pudieran desear su muerte, aunque así alimente rencores incesantes, no puede tampoco escapar a la fuerza que imponen los hechos de su acuartelamineto, dado que, consciente o no de los mismos, habrá de vivir necesariamente entre la desigualdad y su tedio de soldado aislado en el fuerte militar al que está destinado.
-¿Por qué no cerráis las ventanas? -gritó agitadamente con bullentes deseos de abofetearlas- ¡No sé si es que estáis borrachas o es que simplemente sois un par de idiotas! ¡Cuánta tontería por cuatro malditas moscas!
-Es posible que con esas dotes de mando de las que tanto presumes, hasta las moscas te obedezcan- exclamó Margaret con su habitual ironía, pero sin dejar de reír- ¡Está bien, mi capitán! -le lanzó luego un saludó militar burlonamente- En todo caso, llamanos si nos necesitas, lo cual es más que probable. Prissy y yo, y hasta Lissy... -siguió riendo sin cesar Margaret- respetaremos por una vez tu insoportable militarismo, y nos mostraremos como obedientes ovejitas para librarte del enemigo,... perdón, mi capitán, quería decir del agobiante peligro de tantas moscas cojoneras...
Y con Prissy, seguidas de Lissy, que contiuaba ladrando, las dos mujeres se dirigieron a la cocina entre carcajadas, y manoteando a las pegajosas moscardas. Huntington no quería aparentar sentirse mortificado por aquellas miradas burlonas, pero en realidad era lo que sentía. Las voces, los gritos y las risas continuaron en la cocina, y entonces el capitán, sin esperar la bandeja del desayuno, no pudo por menos que admitir que sería un tanto muy a su favor no mostrar de nuevo irritación alguna ante las acometidas sarcásticas de Margaret, que aún le herían más si las llevaba a cabo delante de la bobalicona Prissy. Y de nuevo las despellejó como a dos auténticas insensatas. Una vez fuera de la casa, engalló la cabeza, y dio unos cuantos manotazos, porque cuatro o cinco moscas anduvieron persiguiéndolo pegajosamente. Y mientras se dirigía a los comedores del cuartel para desayunar allí, su mente no cesaba de repetir que Dios debía estar en la luna cuando cometió el error de crear al sexo femenino, aunque hubiese sido de una costilla de Adán. Lo más probable y sensato, siendo como eran,. es que las hubiese concebido de una quijada de asno como la que había usado Sansón, el héroe danita de la Biblia contra las acometidas furibundas de sus enemigos filisteos. (Huntington era también un dogmático, conspícuo e insistente lector del antiguo Testamento) Tal idea, de pronto, le había hecho sentirse muy sagaz y viril, y le alegró las pajarillas mientras descendía hasta los acuartelamientos.
Todas esas acepciones pueden ser, como se ha dicho, más o menos falsas o ciertas, porque en aquel acuertelamiento militar como en cualquier hogar desconocido, por las noches, entre los insoslayables ronquidos humanos, los hombres a veces gritan ahogados por lo siniestro de las pesadillas, lanzan blasfemias que durante el día se olvidan, vomitan sin que el vómito deje de poseer el regusto amargo de la hiel, lloran por su falta de reconciliación con el mundo en que les toca vivir, y se sumen en un reposo de severidad hasta para maquinar venganzas, o como se dijo, sensaciones placenteras. Y liberan también sus clamores de envidias, rencores y odios. Hasta sus remordimientos pueden convertirse para muchos en serpientes venenosas que durante el sueño se enroscan en sus dormidos cuerpos impotentes para inocularles el veneno de la muerte. El sueño puede así convertirse en la medida justa del más pavoroso de los miedos. Y al no ser ni ciego ni callado es como una venganza de la noche, una señal siniestra e impenetrable que aborrece nuestra sangre y nuestra piel. Un engaño de la vida del que, opinara lo que opinara Sigmund Freud de los deseos e impulsos reprimidos del inconsciente, cuando por fin despertamos, nadie tiene la culpa.
Al soldado que su mujer engañaba le siguieron atormentando toda clase de pensamientos incluso los del suicidio. En los corrillos de la cantina algunos de sus compañeros que entre lingotazos de bourbon o cerveza lograban no entristecerse por las adversidades del prójimo, trataron repetidamente de aliviar las negras ideas del desdichado joven insistiendo entre risas y palmadas en la espalda en que de lo que verdaderamente se hallaba muy necesitado era de aquellos tragos de alcohol, sedantes y reparadores, para rehuir cualquier pesadumbre, en especial las del amor. Algunos de ellos se valian de un tono de voz exagerado, mimoso y acarameladamente femenino como ofrecían los encuentros amorosos de las parejas cinematográficas que, entre risotadas, obligaban al traicionado soldado a levantarse de la mesa donde tenían lugar los corrillos y salir achantado de la cantina donde se sentía tratado como un perfecto idiota. Y es que para colmo el muchacho era un ser frágil, beato, preso de una ternura casi infantil, y que se dejaba atrapar con toda facilidad por sentimientos de amargura y desamparo.Y cuando le llegó un último escrito de su mujer despidiéndose definitivamente de él, el dolor que la carta le produjo le hirió hasta tal punto que en los dos días siguientes sus miradas y actitudes permanecieron rígidas, con un latido tartamudeante en la lengua, en el reseco paladar, en la boca toda, y como si en cada poro de su cuerpo le naciera una aspereza de frialdad que le llevaran casi al borde de la locura. De nada sirvió que su oficial de mando tratara de insistirle que su cometido en el fuerte debía seguir rigiéndose por aquellas definiciones apologéticas de las virtudes del militarismo más acendrado: "Un buen soldado ha de conservar en todo momennto un espíritu bélico, marcial, que lo aleje en la medida de lo posible de las pasiones mundanas que no son más que pura neurastenia" Pero la enfermedad del joven no era sólo física, sino arremolinada y plañidera por entre ese resabio depresivo que escudriña el fondo más lejano de la conciencia donde fermentan las hieles amargas de los hombres. Y las pasiones, por culpa de los actos malintencionados, no viven siempre de milagros, ni de regocijos, ni de pláticas lisonjeras o sermones militaristas. Son como aprendizajes históricos que han de repetirse una y otra vez para que lo sean.
Y una noche, el soldado se levantó de su litera con el paso silencioso de un gato, sintiéndose vencido por una de las más insoportables sensaciones de desvalimiento. No había podido conciliar el sueño ni por los ronquidos ni por los misteriosos vagidos de muchos de sus compañeros de dormitorio, sino porque se había acostado con un sentimiento obsesivo, con los nervios destrozados, y porque había tenido que seguir dependiendo aquellos últimos días de las atenciones exageradas y hasta burlonas de los otros soldados, sintiendo en su interior hasta vergüenza y asco. Sabía muy bien que aquel insistente apego de camaradería no era más que esa amistad peculiar que se da entre los acuartelados de un fuerte, mezcla de charlas negligentes, de morbo y aburrimiento, que se desvanecen pronto tras un trago de bourbon, de cerveza, o incluso del prohibitivo whisky. Y porque el soldado nunca tiende a explicarse la indudable tristeza de un posible compañero, y ha de beber para animarse. Además, es que, irónicamente, no hay otra cosa que hacer. Pero ahora al doliente soldado, que ya ocultaba una silenciosa concentración de atribulado pesimismo en lo más hondo de su ser, aunque mantuvo en la oscuridad del dormitorio una disimulada actitud como de dilación o trance, la decisión del suicidio se había suscitado en él como una germinación lenta y tenebrosa. Un adormilado compañero de la litera que se hallaba enfrente despabiló un instante y observó a su vecino de pie, en calzoncillos, junto al catre con la mirada perdida de quien no acaba de despertarse del todo: "¿Qué haces?", preguntó. Entonces se miraron los dos, el soldado, solo, agónico y frío, respondió con un leve susurro: "Nada"... "¡Los malditos mosquitos!", exclamó el otro, golpeándose el cogote. Luego dió media vuelta y siguió durmiendo. El calor había apretado aquella noche, y una parte de la luz plateada de la luna menguante se colaba por el ventanal abierto. Pero el fondo del dormitorio donde el centinela nocturno también dormitaba, estaba casi a oscuras porque por allí tan sólo asomaba una parte más alejada de la negrura del firmamento, aunque Orión y hasta la Osa Mayor, como habría descrito pretenciosamente el capitán Thomas Huntington, experto en astronomía, agasajaban el cortinaje azulado de la noche entre una gigantesca estampa multiforme de estrellas. El lamentable hecho que estaba a punto de ocurrir iba a terminar tan repentinamente como empezara. El soldado, presa fácil de desengaños fueran del tipo que fueran, había perdido ya la cabeza, pero no por eso dejó de moverse por el dormitorio con una cautela premeditada. Aquella mañana, después del afeitado en los lavabos colectivos, había entrado en uno de los retretes. Allí desenroscó la maquinilla entre cuyos cabezales semi curvos se instalaba y se aprisionaba la afilada cuchilla, se hizo con ella con mucho cuidado liándola en una tira de papel higiénico, y luego la escondió debajo del colchón de la parte baja de la litera donde dormía.
Finalmente, cuando ya la noche había extendido su manto somnoliento sobre el fuerte, el soldado, descalzo, sin dejar de mirar a su alrededor y comprobando que el centinela también dormía, anduvo con pasos tan silenciosos como los de un gato hasta los lavabos situados al fondo del dormitorio. Pese a todo, sus impresiones sensoriales le presionaban tirantemente, y le exprimían la mente como si se desbordara de lo íntimo. Aquello le detuvo, lo acobardó. Estaba mareado, como una sombra absorbida por un vacío vertiginoso Y de nuevo se sintió perseguido por todas las humillaciones de los compañeros de cuartel que ahora roncaban en el dormitorio y lo habían tratado como a un pobre tonto apasionado. Y en especial por el desengaño amoroso y las palabras de despedida definitiva que su mujer le había comunicado por escrito, que resonaban sin cesar en sus oídos y a las que él consideraba como una intolerable salmodia pecadora. Pero no por ello dejó de comprender que si llegaba a ser sorprendido por el centinela en el momento de cometer lo que llevaba in mente podría ser sometido a un Consejo de Guerra. "¡Qué estupidez!...Cuando me encuentren, que podrá importar...!" Así hablaba ahora consigo mismo, allí parado, ante la entrada de los lavabos iluminados tenuemente por las noches. No lo dudó más. Ya no existía para el soldado más virtud de sacrificio que el de su propia muerte, que iba a sumirle por fin en el más deseado de los estados de inocencia, de beatitud, y hasta de mística voluptuosidad. Se escondió en uno de los retretes, Una pequeña bombilla frontal estaba encendida para casos urgentes de necesidades corporales que pudieran acometer durante la noche a alguno de los que allí dormían. El soldado deslió la pequeña y afilada cuchilla que tenía envuelta desde por la mañana. Antes trató de atrancar la puerta que cerraba la letrina, pero el pestillo no encajaba. Era como una burla a la refinada inventiva del suplicio. De todas formas, no importaba. El joven más que un hombre era ahora la imagen viva de un santo a punto de mutilarse. Tomó fuertemente la afilada hoja de afeitar entre el dedo pulgar y el índice y en seguida se cercenó ambas muñecas. Fueron dos manos con sus antebrazos casi desmembrados bárbaramente los que ahora no dejaron de sangrar de forma ininterrumpida. El soldado se había apoyado en la puerta semicerrada del retrete que se abrió dos o tres minutos después del intento de suicidio cometido. Su cuerpo medio desnudo se desplomó en un desmayo mortal como si participara de la gloria arcaica de un elegido. Y quedó alli tendido, en la penumbra de la sala de lavabos, sobre el suelo de grandes losetas grises, entra un charco de sangre que no cesaba de expandirse.
[It is often said that a soul enjoys a state of grace when it lives from the benefits of heaven, from a human and spiritual nature in sweet balance. But this is not the case, because it is absurd to think that one can live so freely at the expense of God. Furthermore, that God in which Russell Merryck was forced to believe, that God that so many devotees and mystics take advantage of, allows the carnal, and not always the soul, attempt of his chosen creatures. They are not assumptions. Because Russell Merryck never hid what it would be better for him not to have possessed in such abundance. It is true that the best in life is often left behind us. And to move forward that devout stillness actually lives with tombstone syntax. Merryck's face, bearing, gaze, hierarchy were like a military man. There was not the slightest hint of a benevolent smile in his composure, only a subtle mystery, a cold affectation that rested without a doubt on his unwanted priestly militia. In Merryick God had succeeded in his carnal plan. His childhood and adolescence wound, too sudden, was a demanding injury in which now, as a priest, everyone must feel wounded. He was the punished one who wrests guilt from others in his silent and closed cell, and by disqualification before the sacred pomps of his ministry. An avenger retreated into a somber indifference, forcibly hardened by covert licenses and scandals, by the hidden perversities of the clergyman capable of dating many of his penitents, and even by the cowardice and terror experienced under the Japanese bombings in Corregidor during the past war. He hated the military camp, and his church, with the quartered services with which the liturgy exhausted him, burned him in a flurry of clothes, looks, prayers and hated fires. In his suffocation he avengingly brandished his profane sword because, turning its back on him in disdain, the church of Jesus lowered him from his abjection as the only measure of what was really his disenchanted human quality. His was a precocious, perverse and decrepit atheism, lacking in innocence and mortification, because his sowing of possible remorse was easily buried, even those that he might not have felt,
Although the father kept among the youthful experiences of the senses such irremediably convulsive exhaustions, so apt to reach a shameful abhorrence, in his predominant will without penitence the God of forgiveness also conferred on him an excusable hierarchy that many years ago he never obtained from the life. He was still that boy in whom the blood of flight boiled; that adolescent devoted to other wills, but lost at the same time in the cruel mistreatment of the world in which he had been born. And now his apparent clerical resignation actually possessed pulsations of an arrhythmia as vibrant as it was hidden, a harsh and strong wheeze of renewed desire. that haunted him like an unsatisfied child's craving, like a sob of twisted adult affliction, and even like one of those agonies that don't die because another god he didn't know seemed to have arranged it that way. Merryck used to leave his church like a monk who, after tedious, devouring evocations, fled from a cold cloister forgotten about outside life, and in which he found himself subjected to a hateful resignation of liturgical sorrows. Among that fog of stones, decrepit altar and dry altarpieces, he cursed himself for always hearing himself so much. Outside there, the shady grove of the fort, warmed by the mornings or by the insatiable naps of the newly arrived spring, exempted him from the leisurely sensation of that small temple that overwhelmed him so much, and where God, with his reverent and curious gifts of blessings, Christian simplicity, became a precise sensation of a specter, gloomy, invisible but too demanding, tempting him again and again to definitively become a man of the altar and not of shameful affairs. He left his church unlit, smelling of incense, which was nothing more than a motionless smoke in the closed air that suffocated him.
The crucifix in the background, of a tall, thin and grayish carving, hanging from a broken arch in the ceiling, looked gelatinous and cold like a large lizard. Looking at him dismayed him, as if he were reproaching him for such depravity, as if he were digging into the deformed design of the convolutions of his brain to fill it with scruples of which he so lacked. That God could breathe with compassion for this world. But that commiseration did not cure the conscience of the bad priest. And Merryck therefore continued to stir in a disorder of spite because an unbearable sensual unease had taken over his body. The ignoble desire was exalted again in his senses like a hidden torch inside him, which left him burned by the harmful warnings that the spied body of the inaccessible soldier Tracy now caused him.
During those late winter afternoons and in the exultant spring of the newly arrived month of May, at the time when the soldier usually left the stables, Merryck used to prowl the stables. The mornings brought a smell of hot fodder between that complacent intimacy of the stalls, and the submissive tread of the horses whose shiny, velvety backs Tracy stroked and brushed while such beautiful creatures watched him with satisfied obedience. Merryck then awaited the young man's appearance surreptitiously, pretending to be absorbed in reading a prayer book. And when he passed Tracy, he would suddenly stop. Everything happened very quickly, like a flash of light. And for the same concepts that brought him there, as if he were waiting to see him and even be able to kiss him, he looked at his eyes and then at his mouth, finally resting in the nervous and inconceivable contemplation of the man he desired. Some of those afternoons Merryck also tried to hide his concern. He felt ashamed and even hated, because soldier Tracy's mind never seemed to show a certain astonished discomfort when he found the clergyman hanging around so often, sometimes even going to the ranch in the evening around seven o'clock, already approaching the hour of the twilight.
-Páter...-he often greeted him with a look as indifferent as it was distant, and as if the thoughts in the young man's mind remained empty, without reaching any configuration.
And Merryck then hated soldier Tracy with a hidden inner sob, because his wound was once again that demanding laceration in which he now wanted the young man to feel wounded as well.
- "It is you, damn you, who envelops me in this solitary sin" - said the feverish clergyman to himself, wishing to shout at him - "There are others, yes, much worse, like yours, when you abandon me with your indifference, with your indolent cruelty making me suffer..."
Those thoughts were repeated over and over again in the priest's guiding mind with the pride and hardness of someone who feels slighted. But they were absurd reflections repeated ad nauseam, and then repeatedly rejected. Although, suffering and pondering, his secret continued to brew. A secret of his, and, why not?, a secret that could also probably boil in the mind of soldier Tracy, as he wanted to imagine it. Merryck then, one of those empty afternoons, no longer wanted to contain himself, he pretended to stumble upon the young man carelessly, to feel his touch even if it were only for a second, and then he exclaimed with a hopeful smile:
-Why are you looking at me like that, soldier? Have I scared you?
-Me, father? How am I looking at you?... If I'm to blame, forgive me- the young man responded. And in that response the priest perceived a first tone of distrust on Tracy's part.
And Merryck, realizing that he was embarrassing the soldier, who was ridiculing himself, hastily corrected himself:
-I'm to blame... Yes, I'm to blame. What must you have thought of me, soldier!
For Merryck, that loss was like a tremendous effort to dissuade himself from his other delirium, trying to encourage a humiliating sensual agreement with that strange young man who apparently was part of the fort's militia without carrying out the slightest mental scheme of his actions in reality. the same. And Merryck ended up accepting it like this: the soldier cerebrally lacked solid rational rigor, and that is why he did not accuse him of anything by looking at him. Merryck was the only one who could defend himself within himself against the intransigence of his conscience, although in doing so he was forced to excuse the hateful and desired young man who never smiled. The following days Merryck ceased to be content with his persecutory crime, but he did not dare to get rid of him. And even he imagined that soldier Tracy was probably taking pleasure in that absence.
-"Maybe he despises me the same way I despise myself now" - Merryck thought. - "Happy to have gotten rid of my presence because he surely hates me... or maybe he hates me... because my secret has been chasing him with his eyes." of a stray cat... I have shamefully flirted with him... like an invert and he understood everything."
For Russell Merryck, sleepless nights followed forging projects that, when dawn came, seemed totally senseless. However, his zealous espionage had not ceased at all, although he now maintained an adequate distance from the stables in order not to create a new and stupid crisis of incoherent distrust with the soldier, or for him to finally come to suspect something shady in that situation. harassment, and that an inescapable animosity towards him no longer had a remedy. But soldier Tracy continued with his wandering, lost in thought, on his way to the stables, the ranches, the wooded area shortly before sunset, when a pure and fresh breeze undulated as if it crystallized all the magic and the chemistry of health that the It still provided the winter forest, as incarnate as a larvated heart, and the greenery that announced the arrival of spring. And then he would return with a face of satisfaction from which a certain melancholy at retirement time could not be ruled out; and on Sundays even from the camp canteen to end up somewhat intoxicated by drink in the dormitories during the night, and being elusive without saying a word to anyone. And meanwhile the clergyman had been wandering around for hours like a convulsed sick man, lost in the restlessness of a captive larva waiting to be reborn in a beneficial world. And even if there was no remedy for the anguish of his sexuality, Merryck then found a remedy even for his longing for dissatisfaction. Thus a new stage as unusual as it was mysterious was going to begin for the priest.
For several Sundays, after the obligatory celebration of masses, (which were always very early in the morning, and attended only by the officers and their wives, among them Captain Thomas Huntington, always alone, and several soldiers among whom Tracy was never there; or near dusk, as the last religious audience), Merryck accepted with his feigned priestly esteem the submissive confusion of some poor straggler recruits, the most believing and unwary, welcoming them in confession on their return to the camp after their escapades incorrigible drinkers and to whom it was easy to return, after the absolution of the confessional, the subtle thread of forgiveness when a certain hidden responsibility of remorse weighed on them. And Merryck ingratiated them with their God by thanking that small seed of famuluses of the most outdated Christianity, with its blaming outbursts, and those who still bristled with the fear of sin when they sought in the hermetic virtue of the clergyman the best measure of forgiveness, which in reality did not It was more than the imperfect measure of the wickedness of the holy man to whom none of this mattered.
May was coming to an end, and now the hot days, until the arrival of summer, were accentuated in an almost unbearable way even before the beginning of the month of June. The mornings were already filled with the greenish and large clusters of flowering branches on the maples, oaks and elms that ran along the camp paths through which the fine shiny and golden strands of the burning sunlight filtered. But summer, even before it appears in human life as an unbearable bonfire, undoubtedly possesses a kind of painful enjoyment of its own surroundings in the immensity, as agitated as an evanescent fever, because within its haze everything has a frenetic vibration of unlimited oppressive flame. And the atmosphere seems to become a gigantic archaic crystal, unbreathable between heaven and earth, to fix its climatic lineage, going back over a world now closed to the search for comforting shadows. The birds' desire to fly multiplies, the flocks writhe and crumble, exhaling their sounds in the space they colonize and in the smells of the soil as if they longed to communicate from the touch of the earth. And in the afternoons it is the swallows and swifts that most emphasize the solitude of the forest and the sleepy peace of the camp. Some crows even pass by, whose blackness plays at crossing those limits exclusive to the drawing of the smallest birds. And in the fort, so light in dynamism due to the tremendous heat from morning until nightfall, it seems that the fire of dawn and dusk have joined together like two formless Prometheans who obeyed in unison the cruel precepts of their Zeus. almighty. The invisible god who, evidencing a fiery prodigy and very long farewells, now invaded those military landscapes. The spasmodic winks of the heat also gave the inhabitants of the fort singular numb expressions behind which such constant restlessness as repressed apathy was brewed together that, of course, could not have a place within the supreme fabric of the army, forced at all times to a mandatory recognition of outstanding military worth.
Russell Merryck, since the winter tornado in which the enormous elm tree collapsed on a part of the barracks church and the excessive effort with which soldier Tracy tried, without success, to remove it from the shattered window, had lived among nightmares and sensual restlessness. with the image of the young man always before him. And his mute sobs were constant, trying to calm the cries of the flesh. All of this was like living many leagues away from desire, walking as if in a forbidden dream among an unexpected emptiness that finally compelled him to open the doors to his oppressive virtue, of hermetic clerical exclusivity, to continue lowering him from the lowest onanistic abjection. of sexuality. And because he also could not resist meditating that the desires that most participate in our lives must also be granted to ourselves, even to an insatiable saturation. And painfully assuming that the eyes of the attractive soldier were laughing at his inability to reject his image, which was for the priest as an incarnation of evil, or as an irreversible cancer whose malignant cells settled in his brain, destroying all the tissues of reasoning, his the presumed ecclesiastical nature thus rots to accept that even the most rigid and chaste servant of God can also turn his forced and hypothetical purity into manure.
But agonizing tribulations can just as easily become a kind of devout anxiety that neither gets lost nor rots amid the harsh, insatiable writhing of a tormented mind. And they would only stop being kept in the sinuosities of the brain, giving them a liberating opening even if they approached, under the guise of danger, any modesty pursued by the moaning scandal of despair. All of this is true, and it has the appearance of recklessness, one of the many that come to this world to attack human life like a dart impregnated with poison. And in the military post of this set, which now lives in the monotony that peace grants it, and as tiny as a geometric point on the curved surface of the planet we inhabit, the skin of men will not stop striving to give the turning our back on the darkness that continually threatens our flesh, convinced only that there should be no more fear than that which minor illnesses entail. And so he lives, without wanting to feel the doctor's presence. But since a military garrison has nothing like an artificial grotto of sanctified Marian apparitions, among the profusion of dormitories where the soldiers rest and the buildings where the highest-ranking officers display their governing hierarchy, there is not always a subordinate passage of men governed by obedience. . In these camps there is not even a silence of those naked and light skies of the earth on which the icy or burning hours fall, intimate and long, and so frightened by not being able to understand man's complaint about its spherical surface, of a balloon, which, impetuous or slight, takes hold of life. For this reason, also in a military camp, in peacetime, things happen that should never happen again.
In the soldier Jason Tracy, a strange opposition continues to manifest imperiously between a certain ascetic austerity and the sensual pleasures that men's daily lives show so naturally. This opposition distinguishes Tracy between two groups: those of life and those of anti-life, and thus distances himself from the more positive ones who are beings who love sex, and begin to enjoy it even individually from their own body. Soldier Tracy, mysteriously, does not seem to enjoy all the senses, apart from the palate, touch, and especially the effluvia granted to him by the Nature that surrounds him on the outskirts of the fort. It would be said of him that he does not know the world he inhabits well, and with his limited silence he avoids the stress suffered by, for example, the talkative and hedonistic camp companions who dream of women. And for that very reason he is a being who does not know how to approach the pain or pleasure of others, who does not care at all about those who suffer or have fun, although he does belong to the group of sensitive characters who love animals, especially animals. horses, and not to man, as if they had once whispered in his ear that since man is the cruelest of animals, as a product of evolution on this planet, he is the only one believed not to be. Consequently, he is not straightforward in dealing with the rest of his comrades who live and sleep around him, lovers of life, of the female sex, and endowed with an imperious unabashed sensuality. He, too, does not possess a necessary ideal of behavior because with his enigmatic, unfathomable air, he lives very far from the consciences of traditionalists, especially present in the military world. He is not rude because he prefers silence to the words so necessary to see the world as it is, and love it or hate it. His body structure has a more complex disposition, because he is an attractive young man, solidly plastered in a virile beauty, with a weathered face and flaming brown eyes from which a certain lost look always emanates. And his well-spread, red lips radiate suggestions or insinuations of voluptuous honey like passionate drownings of an unredeemed sinner. And his hair, straight and brown, appears closely cropped as a mandatory physiognomic imposition of a dutiful soldier in a military post. But the soldier doesn't seem to care about his image at all. And he is as elusive and careless as if, probably without intending it, the poetic figure of him as an unpublished and grown-up Renaissance ephebe were nothing more than an incorporeal entity. Perhaps that is why he is seen so often, in the mornings, after breakfast, moving alone from the bedrooms to the stables to take care of the steeds and mares, and from the stables to the midday ranch, and then to the forest area where. He disappears until the late afternoon like a cautious but innocent feline. He drinks when he frequents the canteen, and there, inexplicably, he often obsesses in a dense atmosphere of unexpected quarrels with some of his fellow barracks and often even in the dormitories themselves, as if for him there was not the slightest pattern of camaraderie. As if his rigor in these quarrel some frictions with other soldiers concealed an enigmatic hatred towards his own species. And in that microcosm of dense atmosphere of indolence that the soldier shows between life and death, it is not surprising that he is detested by the rest of the recruits. And in reality there is not the slightest and most satisfactory precision of behavior on his part other than having to admit that Jason Tracy lives in the disastrous complexity of a certain mental retardation, if not in a hopeless frustration with which he so often attacks us. the tragedy of existence. And that despite living in a world in which men and women love and hate, subject at all times to the uncontrollable voracity of time and its passage, the ironic parallelism that in effect seems immutable in the rigid essence of Tracy's life is that, without having friends and perhaps even enemies who could wish for his death, although he thus nourishes incessant resentments, he cannot escape the force imposed by the facts of his barracks, given that, conscious or not of them, he will necessarily have to live between inequality and his boredom as a soldier isolated in the military fort to which he is assigned.
The fort's dormitories, as the movies show, form two long rows with three or four dozen double bunk beds (after the Korean War they were replaced by single beds, which soldiers still called cots) and Tracy, accustomed to being enigmatically alone, he sleeps on top of his bunk and never has any conversation with his companions, nor with the person installed below or in front of him. The work on the stables gives little work to Tracy, who never participates in the practice of any sport, neither in the pool nor in the gym. He, too, does not complain about the ranch, a continuous source of discontent among many of the recruits. He eats it in abundance and many times even demands from the cooks in charge of distributing it, without a word coming out of his mouth, a double portion of food that they reluctantly place on his tray, although with misgivings that a refusal on their part could cause leading to a probable brawl with the brawler Tracy, always detached from the barracks camaraderie, and in whose gestural requests it is possible to appreciate a kind of wild look of a sudden thief. His walks through the forest during the afternoon have the cornering externality of the hermit who takes refuge among rock dens. And no one, except when he is required for some extra activity by a sergeant, captain or lieutenant (who once, during the first months of his arrival at the fort, had served as an orderly until he was definitively assigned to the care of the stables due to his good hand with horses) he is worried and much less interested in the hidden prostration of his solitude or what he does among that limited area of the wild, unplowed forest that surrounds the camp. Tired or not, after his disappearance, he returns so calmly to ranch time; and on weekends, without leaving his quarters, he also takes refuge among the glasses of bourbon in the canteen until it is time to retire to the bedroom, if he does not undermine his mysterious calm as a solitary drinker with some imprecation that could lead to an altercation with the groups of soldiers present there, who, knowing his furious, senseless outbursts, decide to distance themselves from him. And in those days, there was even someone who, fed up with the impassive calm of the groups, swore that he would end up breaking his head if he persisted in his antagonistic and belligerent preeminences. But Tracy, when he is drunk, does not mind seeing himself hated by the rest of the recruits, and if he starts any dispute, they avoid him, preferring not to report his atrabilious behavior to the higher command of the officers. Finally, after a few attacks, he stumbles to the bedroom and sleeps off the drunkenness in complete tranquility. He thus falls into a deep sleep until dawn, and wakes up at the time when the bugle plays reveille with his usual agility without the slightest hangover and apparently not remembering anything of what happened the night before in the canteen.
-Why don't you close the windows? -He shouted agitatedly with a bubbling desire to slap them- I don't know if you're drunk or if you're just a couple of idiots! How much nonsense for four damned flies!
-It is possible that with those command qualities that you boast so much about, even the flies will obey you- Margaret exclaimed with her usual irony, but without stopping laughing- It's okay, my captain! -She then gave him a military salute mockingly- In any case, call us if you need us, which is more than likely. Prissy and I, and even Lissy... - Margaret continued laughing incessantly - we will respect your unbearable militarism for once, and we will show ourselves as obedient little sheep to free you from the enemy,... sorry, my captain, I meant from the overwhelming danger of so many stupid flies...
And with Prissy, followed by Lissy, who continued barking, the two women headed to the kitchen, laughing and pawing at the sticky flies. Huntington did not want to appear to be mortified by those mocking glances, but in reality that was what he felt. The voices, the shouts and the laughter continued in the kitchen, and then the captain, without waiting for the breakfast tray, could not help but admit that it would be somewhat in his favor not to again show any irritation at the sarcastic attacks of Margaret, which hurt him even more if he carried them out in front of the stupid Prissy. And again he skinned them like two real fools. Once outside the house, he stuck his head and gave it a few smacks, because four or five flies were stickily chasing him. And while he went to the barracks dining rooms to have breakfast there, his mind kept repeating that God must have been on the moon when he made the mistake of creating the female sex, even if it had been from Adam's rib. The most probable and sensible thing, being what they were. It is that he had conceived them from a donkey's jaw like the one Samson, the Danite hero of the Bible, had used against the furious attacks of his Philistine enemies. (Huntington was also a dogmatic, conspicuous and insistent reader of the Old Testament.) This idea had suddenly made him feel very sagacious and virile, and it made his little birds happy as he descended to the barracks.
In the dormitories, at night, when the lights went out, and the sentry on duty ended up equally drowsy, not all the soldiers put an end to some of their whispered conversations. And also because of the heat that had fallen on them, reaching, as expected, up to the large, half-closed doors of the barracks, the tiles were burning and the mosquitoes were buzzing between the hot groups of bunks where the soldiers, trying to reconcile the essential hour, From sleep, in simple underwear, they incessantly beat their chest, arms, face and even their ears, feeling the buzzing presence of the hateful insects, whose bites, after almost completely undressing, ran over their defenseless bodies in search of every corner of the themselves like a tongue made of nettles. Tongue that stirred on their naked flesh with a fierce itch from the insatiable movement of mosquitoes, which even looked like wasp bites. And as if the whole body was corrupted in an inflammatory insistence of hives, hands and nails sought the corners of soft pecked stillness, gelatinous for the merciless and humid attacking flutter of the insects, scratching incessantly among that heated atmosphere of the night. And the night breeze, which also made itself felt through the open windows, softly trapped, bowed only to the external flight of the bats. Then, when the dizzying gestures of the sleepy soldiers, to free themselves from the attack of the insects, finally ended, and after fighting with them, they sank into a deep sleep of exhaustion, the field was free for those insufferable worms that continued buzzing until that the light of dawn penetrated into the bedrooms. Once the darkness entered them, the apathy and forgetfulness did not completely calm down over the night either, because the man also reveals his spirit through that precise but distant sensation that dreams and nightmares produce. Those dark halls of the mind through which human forms slide in the vigils of unconsciousness. Sadness, virulence, and even the most unexpected sensual outpourings met there. But perceptions were also frustrated because the man or woman, while dreaming, is not always overwhelmed by sin or the vile things of life. There are those who even dare to swear that during sleep the wounds of the human soul, upon losing consciousness or the ability to face the reality of existence, do not fan the darkest insights of the mind with their thorns. They are just assumptions. And there are too many virtues to attribute to sleep, because sleeping is not getting rid of the precise sensations of the occasional sorrow, nor is it an unknown responsibility that shuns us. It is also a gluttony that causes anger, sorrow and pleasure.
All of these meanings could be, as has been said, more or less false or true, because in that military barracks, as in any unknown home, at night, among the unavoidable human snores, the men sometimes scream, drowned by the sinister nature of the sounds. nightmares, they utter blasphemies that they forget during the day, they vomit without the vomit ceasing to possess the bitter aftertaste of gall, they cry for their lack of reconciliation with the world in which they live, and they sink into a rest of severity until to plot revenge, or as it was said, pleasurable sensations. And they also release their cries of envy, resentment and hatred. Even their regrets can become for many poisonous snakes that during sleep coil around their helpless sleeping bodies to inoculate them with the poison of death. The dream can thus become the exact measure of the most terrifying of fears. And since it is neither blind nor silent, it is like a revenge of the night, a sinister and impenetrable sign that hates our blood and our skin. A deception of life that, no matter what Sigmund Freud thinks about the repressed desires and impulses of the unconscious, when we finally wake up, no one is to blame.
Precisely one of those unsuspecting soldiers whom Merryck used to welcome in confession from time to time had revealed to him that recently, after one of the last family letters he had received, it was now almost impossible for him to continue breathing in that military world, and, dangerously, he planned to desert it. And all because the woman he had been married to for only a year now "sinned" [he repeated it several times: she sinned!] in a city very close to the fort, cheating on him with another man, and had decided to abandon him. The sorry soldier, who wanted to surprise her and take revenge on her for her adultery, always attended with enormous fervor the religious Sunday service of the father and then remained pensive on the solitary bench. In the stillness of the empty temple, the lost gaze of the sentimentally disappointed boy, with his gaze fixed on the crucifix on the altar, was like that of a sick person who demanded compassion and intimate supplications for that lost affection, and of course in that room of decadent religiosity no one would ever listen to. Merryck, who experienced as an unalterable punishment and without cure the same sensual shock of his, and his shameful liturgical and moral deterioration, was also enraged by every act of piety. And therefore, for the soldier torn by jealousy, neither the beatitude of all priestly consolation nor the graces expected from heaven could be offered to him by the frustrated diocesan. He had never forgotten the heretical hatred that the late Clifford Brassen professed towards the human race from his childhood and adolescence in Ashtonville. And he still remembered many of his sacrilegious incitements: "I, stupid brat, do not suffer for greed for holiness... I save my virtues... I do not fear God because he has gentle cat eyes... they are only those of the devil those who should be feared, because if his lordship as a fallen prince existed, it would pierce the walls of our souls, shrouding every minute of our lives"... Merryck, who no longer asked much of the life he led in the fort, with the exception of that dispersed, insurmountable passion and under that yellow and cold sky with which he never found favor, however, through the mental imbalance suffered by the mocked young soldier, he was going to find permissive moments of silent stalking for momentary relief of his agony.
The soldier who was cheated on by his wife continued to be tormented by all kinds of thoughts, including those of suicide. In the small groups of the canteen, some of his companions who, between shots of bourbon or beer, managed not to be saddened by the adversities of their neighbors, repeatedly tried to alleviate the dark ideas of the unfortunate young man by insisting between laughter and pats on the back that what he really did He was in great need of those drinks of alcohol, sedatives and restoratives, to avoid any sorrow, especially those of love. Some of them used an exaggerated, cuddly and sweetly feminine tone of voice, as offered by the romantic encounters of the cinematographic couples who, amidst laughter, forced the betrayed soldier to get up from the table where the huddles took place and leave the canteen in shock. where he felt treated like a perfect idiot. And to make matters worse, the boy was a fragile, blessed being, captured by an almost childish tenderness, and who easily let himself be trapped by feelings of bitterness and helplessness. And when he received a final letter from his wife saying goodbye to him definitively, , the pain that the letter caused him hurt him to such a point that in the following two days his looks and attitudes remained rigid, with a stuttering heartbeat on his tongue, on his dry palate, in his entire mouth, and as if in every pore A harshness of coldness arose from his body that took him almost to the brink of madness. It was of no use that his commanding officer tried to insist that his duties at the fort should continue to be governed by those apologetic definitions of the virtues of the most refined militarism: "A good soldier must maintain at all times a warlike, martial spirit, which distance as far as possible from worldly passions that are nothing more than pure neurasthenia." But the young man's illness was not only physical, but swirling and mournful among that depressive aftertaste that scrutinizes the most distant depths of consciousness where the bitter galls of men. And the passions, because of malicious acts, do not always live on miracles, nor on rejoicing, nor on flattering talks or militaristic sermons. They are like historical learning that has to be repeated over and over again for them to be true.
And one night, the soldier rose from his bunk with the silent step of a cat, feeling overcome by one of the most unbearable sensations of helplessness. He had not been able to fall asleep either because of the snoring or the mysterious moaning of many of his dormmates, but because he had gone to bed with an obsessive feeling, with his nerves destroyed, and because he had had to continue depending those last days on the exaggerated and even mocking attention from the other soldiers, feeling shame and disgust inside. He knew very well that that insistent attachment of camaraderie was nothing more than that peculiar friendship that exists among the quartered of a fort, a mixture of careless conversations, morbidity and boredom, which soon fade away after a drink of bourbon, beer, or even from the prohibitive whiskey And because the soldier never tends to explain the undoubted sadness of a potential companion, and has to drink to cheer himself up. Plus, ironically, there is nothing else to do. But now to the suffering soldier, who already hid a silent concentration of troubled pessimism in the depths of his being, although he maintained in the darkness of the bedroom a hidden attitude as if of procrastination or trance, the decision to commit suicide had arisen in him like a slow and dark germination. A sleepy bunkmate opposite woke up for a moment and observed his neighbor standing, in his underwear, next to the cot with the lost look of someone who hasn't just woken up completely: "What are you doing?" he asked. Then the two looked at each other, the soldier, alone, agonizing and cold, responded with a faint whisper: "Nothing"... "The damned mosquitoes!" exclaimed the other, hitting his neck. Then he turned around and continued sleeping. The heat had been intense that night, and a part of the silver light of the waning moon filtered through the open window. But the back of the bedroom where the night sentinel also dozed was almost dark because only a further part of the blackness of the firmament showed through there, although Orion and even the Big Dipper, as Captain Thomas Huntington, an expert, would have pretentiously described In astronomy, they entertained the bluish curtain of the night among a gigantic multiform picture of stars. The unfortunate event that was about to occur was going to end as suddenly as it began. The soldier, an easy prey to disappointments of any kind, had already lost his mind, but that did not stop him from moving around the bedroom with premeditated caution. That morning, after shaving in the collective toilets, he had entered one of the toilets. There he unscrewed the clipper between whose semi-curved heads the sharp blade was installed and imprisoned, he took it with great care by wrapping it in a strip of toilet paper, and then he hid it under the mattress at the bottom of the bunk bed where he slept.
Finally, when the night had already spread its sleepy mantle over the fort, the soldier, barefoot, without stopping looking around and verifying that the sentinel was also sleeping, walked with steps as silent as those of a cat to the toilets located at the side. bedroom background. Despite everything, his sensory impressions pressed him tightly, and squeezed his mind as if he were overflowing from what was intimate. That stopped him, it cowed him. He was dizzy, like a shadow absorbed by a dizzying void And again he felt haunted by all the humiliations of the barracks mates who were now snoring in the dormitory and had treated him like a poor passionate fool. And especially because of the disappointment in love and the words of final farewell that his wife had communicated to him in writing, which echoed incessantly in his ears and which he considered an intolerable sinful chant. But that did not mean he failed to understand that if he were surprised by the sentry at the moment of committing what he had in mind, he could be subjected to a Court Martial. "What stupidity!...When they find me, what does it matter...!" This is how he spoke to himself now, standing there, in front of the entrance to the bathrooms dimly lit at night. He didn't hesitate anymore. There was no longer any virtue of sacrifice for the soldier other than his own death, which was going to finally plunge him into the most desired state of innocence, beatitude, and even mystical voluptuousness. He hid in one of the toilets. A small front light bulb was on for urgent cases of bodily needs that might attack one of those sleeping there during the night. The soldier unwrapped the small, sharp blade that he had wrapped around him since the morning. Before him he tried to bar the door that closed the latrine, but the latch did not fit. It was like a mockery of the refined inventiveness of torture. It didn't matter anyway. The young man, more than a man, was now the living image of a saint about to mutilate himself. He grabbed the sharp razor blade tightly between his thumb and forefinger and immediately severed both wrists. There were two hands with their forearms almost barbarously dismembered that now did not stop bleeding uninterruptedly. The soldier had leaned against the semi-closed door of the toilet that opened two or three minutes after the suicide attempt was made. His half-naked body collapsed in a mortal faint as if he were participating in the archaic glory of a chosen one. And he was left lying there, in the darkness of the toilet room, on the floor of large gray tiles, a pool of blood entered that did not stop expanding.]
