I spent the days with my eyes and myself in the sky, that sky which is closer to me than to the ones who are still dedicating their life to the present time. It seemed that when I could join the girls of my age and walk or comment together the last Bernart´s songs and adventures, was not my own existence. Now I don´t go down to the women´s rooms and I can´t cross the door of the gardens, or the bridge towards the undulating roads where the vassals work in the plantations.
My father always sends me the necessary provisions, as well as entertainment from the two jugglaresses who recite and sing all the afternoons punctually at tea -time. My father has already decided about my marriage and he wants to feel at ease. He kept the homage tower for me, although specially arranged. I must live there without listening to unsuitable conversations. My husband is a king, twice a widower. I must be happy, and actually I can´t see anything better than this marriage to settle with the court´s approval; I have no other option for my future .One day , not very far now, before the tournaments with which the wedding will be celebrated, I will meet my husband who will come with the ring.
My father´s juglaresses look very young; they were slaves brought from far places and thanks to their singing, they became free among us. Perhaps because artists belong only to their beloved kingdom.
The unknown places, conquered by my father, wouldn´t exist without our donations. The men who live in these lands must take care of us, so that the river which crosses our castle so proudly, reaches them splendid as a young boy. I must feel (there is always a must ) glad just like the young girls who live outside the walls and can bathe freely in the river.
The jugglaresses always sing something that seems totally unsubstantial, but since I´m here upstairs, I have tried to dedicate all my life to listen to them. They dedicate to Trobar leu and more than once they reminded me of Beatriz de Día:
I give him my heart, my love, my conscience, my eyes and my life
They wear colourful clothes in which all the colours seem to have a fight to show themselves. And they wear hats which are difficult to be looked at because they have shapes which are not the usual ones. When they are about to leave, always one of them, Rafaela or Mercedes sing as if they were telling me things from further along using so many unknown words, and never heard, that is impossible to enjoy anything but its sound.
Yesterday I asked them to repeat that song, and to sing it many times without stopping. Then both of them sang it and in the end they were wrapped by a strange sun reflection that took them away, impossible to reach them with my arm. They seemed to enjoy what they were singing with their own eyes. They named a poet Darnauchans, who appeared among their words and in a magical way he remembered us although he had never visited us, and I didn´t know either, whether that kingdom of his , Uruguay, wasn´t only imaginary. They finished and started again. Their singing was so beautiful that it became irresistible.
The sun made us so thirsty as to drink the juice from all the fruits; the dress became heavy and I had to hide under the sun-umbrellas. I could roll myself a little the hem and the sleeves, but not much for the blaze burnt and I was supposed to be completely white, from my face to the hands; I was going to have a husband now.
The square of the sun rose in the northeast corner of the tower, as a guardian of my father´s decision. I must contemplate it and mark with colours the days of my saint purification. I have the feeling that time turns in that square and that my future is something unknown that traps me.
And today, leant, without knowing what to do with my thoughts that seem to be put in order by Rafaela and Mercedes´ song, I heard a weak moan. Its sound was so demanding that I went closer and with quick steps to the battlements. The plantations where my jugleresses and I used to ride our horses and admire the wheat and vines, were far away. Even further, there were the secret places of the trees by the river. When I looked down, I noticed a floor or a cloud of larks .They were quiet, with their wings hard so I couldn´t discover, only imagined whether they moved or not. I felt that that was the moment when they gathered energy to throw themselves among the trees or kill themselves. A great flood of them was about to fly down. They were red because of the sun. They were and they weren´ t larks. Their heads were bigger than a bird´s. and kept their singing under that surface covered of feathers.They were all looking down, fixedly .And I thought: why do they cry so sadly if they look so aggressive? And I heard the moan again, much fainter and much closer. I bent down and I noticed a bird alone, with grey feathers, its peak open and its eyes terrified, wet as if the rain had surprised it while flying. It curled up in the capital of the exterior wall of the castle. I could only guess that the bird was sweating of terror on seeing the group of larks with the aggressiveness in their peaks, their wings. The silence and the quietness.. I could almost reach the bird with my hand and now it was even more terrified at the idea of my pushing it towards the larks..We looked at each other. For the bird, the time we were looking at each other, must have been eternal, just like my hours in the tower. That cloud of larks dominated any living being. I felt as if I were the bird, inside those wet feathers. I walked back. The sun pushed my shadow forward .A short time was left for them to come with the lute and the mandola, and just as they did yesterday, they raised with their singing the virgin cloth of a painting where you could embroider a name of gentleman, and contemplate how his presence raised among the letters. Even his manly voice could be heard.
The sun suddenly turned red, with its mouth widely open. It didn´t burn but made me feel sick. I took off my clothes, one by one, leaving them in a figure on the prie dieu so that they could be seen as the clothes left there by a young girl who went running to the edge of the river. I was exactly the same as when I was going to have a bath full of parfums. My naked body was rather strange under the sun and just then the jugglaresses ´song appeared in the air.
I realized that I had always wanted to be like this. Closing my eyes I felt the sun burning from inside and the colours of the larks turned in my closed eyelids .Some imprecise images from my sisters came from nowhere, inexplicably, because I had never seen them since they had married and they were not named in the family¨s reunions.
When Rafaela and Mercedes come, they will find my dresses in order and they will not be able to waste one moment; they will have to leave their musical instruments and run down the stairs with the news. They will have to be lucky enough not to be pointed as guilty. But nobody who questions them will make them repeat the singing of the far kingdom. With boys in the middle of magnificent colours.I walked towards the towers and I went up. I put my arms like the wings of the larks and I threw myself down. I would be floating like them, for a moment.
1. Alondra: lark.
Traducción: Teresita Barreiro, Salto 1948. Profª en el Liceo Crandon (1966-1984), en el Instituto Cultural Anglo (1966-2001) y en Enseñanza Secundaria, en Uruguay, desde 1980 hasta la fecha.