Picture yourself inside a country house now
turned by a harsh winter's snowstorms into
Nowhere's unavoidable spot: its middle. You are not
scared, for this is your family's ancient house,
where you have spent many holidays before. Now you
have come to prepare the family gathering, but sit
instead isolated on Christmas Eve. Although your
loved ones are not far away, you can neither reach
them nor they you; for phones do not work and the
snow blocks the roads as the storm rages outside.
Yet there are provisions and firewood in the house,
so you will not be hungry or cold. You should soon
be in the dark though; but you know that there is a
box containing your great grandmother's
"Remembrance Candles", which neither the old woman,
nor grandma, nor mamma ever lighted, since they
were too fine to be kindled.
So at dusk you go to the attic to search for the
box of candles, which, as you recall, is inside the
"Empire" chest; and while you go upstairs you
wonder for the first time why exactly it bears that
name. It is pitch-dark in the attic, but still you
feel that you see the chest's deep blue while
seizing the sides of its lid to open it. It is not
locked of course, but had it been—the thought
crossed your mind as a flash of dark
lightning—you would have used the axe against
the cherished heirloom without hesitation.
When the lid sounds open you stretch your arms
like a blind man, and inside the chest your hands
move straight towards the "Remembrance Candles"
box. You know exactly where it lies, since no one
ever opens the "Empire" chest except the children
when they hide in the attic, and the last child to
play invisible in the attic was you, years ago.
As you take the box out of the chest you think
of lighting a candle right away; but you remember
your mother: "Do not play with matches in the
attic"; so you warn yourself: "More bad luck and I
could set afire the whole place". Instead, and as
if you were enjoying your blindness, your hands
depart by themselves for more objects: you now
sense your grandfather's ukelele lying beside some
ironed fabrics and you bring it out, laying it
beside the candles. Then, as if you suddenly could
see in the dark, you close the lid as a matter of
course; and having left the attic you sit by the
fireplace with a bottle of wine and your retrieved
treasures beside.
You open the "Remembrance" box, take one of the
twenty-four remaining candles and light it with a
fireplace match. Although the ukelele amused your
childhood you cannot play it, and therefore you
wonder why you brought it down; but as with a hasty
gesture you put the instrument aside, you hear a
sound inside it. You look through its hole and
catch a glimpse of a thin booklet evading your hand
as you weigh the ukelele above your head. You try
to capture it with your fingers, but they look like
elephant legs entangled in the bars of a cage.
You now handle the instrument like a musician
and, as if you were tuning it, you loose the
strings. Having laid the entrance bare you insert
your index and middle fingers and, by tenderly
manoeuvering inside with patient dexterity, you
finally succeed in eliciting your purpose. "Like a
message from a bottle, or like perfume from a
flower", you dream up while you slowly pull the
booklet out of the cavity.
Having placed it under the light of the
"Remembrance" candle you read the title on the
cover dated 1907: "How to Play the Ukelele"; and
opening the first page you see: "How to Tune the
Ukelele"; and turning the remaining four pages you
expeditiously examine the brief and yet detailed
instructions in small print.
It was when you closed the booklet that you
discovered the calligraphic inscription on its last
page: "To soothe your whiles of loneliness. Aunt
Susan to her beloved nephew on Christmas Eve 1912."
You first evaluated the symmetry of the star that
the woman had depicted beside the text; but when
you then raised your eyebrows you caught, on the
surface of the wall mirror, the ukelele on your
chest and your familiar glance.
Carlos Parada
Christmas 2000 |