Structure Of Prayer. Diego Maenza

child of God. And Manuel manifests his unconditional surrender. The reverend has imposed the dogma on him. He has shown him that faith is the most important thing to be saved and that one must trust in the designs, always inscrutable, of the Lord. And the boy believes him. Sometimes, when he kneels in front of the bed, the father stands right behind him and squeezes his hands next to the boy's. It's a reinforced prayer, he whispers in his ear. In this way God will hear us better, you as a son and me as a father, he mumbles to him each time, almost inaudibly, manifesting the secret that he does not want him to auscultate the small carved image of the macerated man of the cross that hangs over the head of the bed. On cold nights Manuel finds the company of that double prayer pleasant, but on hot days it seems unbearable, he cannot tolerate the firm, sticky body attached to his buttocks, the longing, warm breath expelled by his father in prayer, and the words of farewell when the doughy kiss on the back of his neck is sealed. But now, kneeling, resting his elbows on the mattress, the boy is praying before the effigy of the prophet and the father has not arrived.

*

      I'm not getting up tonight. God has strengthened my faith. God is my shepherd, my guide, my light and my path. Hear my prayer and let it be strong, do not let it fall into the darkness of sin, O beloved God, O beloved Father.

*

      What a horrible dream, for God's sake. Save me, Lord. Watch over me and protect me, Father. Watch over me, Lord. What a horrible dream. Help me, Lord, I implore you. I will not sink back into the satisfactions of sin. I swear it. Because I can't stand this darkness. My eyes can't stand this darkness. I walk, I grope my bed, less warm without my body. I feel the wardrobe, hard as the blackness that suffocates me. I can't find the way out that will take me to the light, Lord, lead me to that escape. Don't let my foot stumble again. I feel a wall as cold as my hands, frozen in the cold. Guide me, Lord. In vain I continue to cry out. This house is so sad and so lonely and so big that Father Misael can't hear me. Nevertheless, you Lord, beloved Father, who hears the cries of all your children, guide my legs, welcome them into your light, bring me out of this darkness and I promise to be faithful to the end of my days. I promise to offer up my faith every morning. I promise to do the penances of your divine command. I trust in you, Lord, beloved Father. Your word will be a lamp to my foot and a light to my path. I know, Lord, I trust in you completely. Lead me into the light. Lead me to your light.

*

      The door opens and the boy, barefoot, calls to his father's room. He has had to cross the long purgatory of the corridor that separates the rooms as if it were the endless threshold between hell and paradise.

*

      And she comes to me with her teeth shaking and chattering, icy, ghostly.

      I had a horrible dream, Father. I dreamt of a puppet in the teeth of a huge beast. The freak was to be feared. It had enormous red eyes and it looked at me while it held me in its mouth because that puppet was no other than me. How it looked at me. It snorted like a bull and its slime was very liquid and fell down sticky, disgusting. Everything was dark. But his eyes, oh God, his horrible eyes.

      "Come in, beloved son," I say. And I welcome him into my bed, and I smile within me at his childish fear of the dark.

*

      Come in, young man. Enter, triumphant in your Jerusalem, where you are acclaimed.

*

      One more night Father Misael will not be able to fall asleep, while leaning out of the window, with the boy asleep on his bed, he wishes only for a glass of wine, not the sacred chalice that metamorphoses into the blood of the Lord but the one that palliate the contained nerves and the repressed desire to be another. Below the city sleeps. In the distance it sees no window with light and realizes that his sleeplessness is infinite, that it cannot be compared to anyone else's. It is a solitude without end or interval. He recognizes the fact that he has no one like him. The world would not understand. It will not understand. God, in His infinite wisdom and with His omnipresent gaze, would not understand. It will not understand.

      MONDAY

Prayer and blasphemy…sanctificetur nomen tuum

      The chest creaks and a miniature earthquake born from the bronchi widens the thoracic cavity, germinating in the rings of the trachea purring an unconscious and collective response invoked by millions of bacilli avid for substances, convulsing, in its path, pharynx and larynx. The microscopic avalanche flows and spreads its halo with the trepidation of the entire epiglottis. The tiny cyclone reverberates in the pituitary membrane and distributes the alluvium between nose and palate, causing congestion in the sudden burst of snoring.

*

      I spent the whole of the night in vigil, imploring mercy from heaven, listening to the whisper of my jaculatory prayers mixed with the clatter of the boy's breath. The sound of his swollen chest has been another incentive for my vigil. I'll call the doctor first thing in the morning. On each occasion when I was seized by the desire to contemplate his anatomy resting on my bed, I submitted to an incredulity stimulated by my desire to remain a child of God. Follow in the footsteps of the prophet and do not give in one iota to the instigation of evil. I want to serve you Lord and defeat the temptation of the devil and tell him that man does not live by flesh alone. He tries to tempt me, to take me away from you, O beloved Father, but I will submit exclusively to your commands.

*

      Thomas sees shadows where there are none. He makes them up. Sometimes, on sunny summer mornings, he chases lizards, little animals that sneak in between the stone walls of the garden, in the crevices of the mud bricks in the backyard, in the cracks on the edge of the windows, where those vandalous vermin come out to get some sun. Thomas rebukes them with his old voice, with his thick grunts charged with slowness and scant impetus. Though on many other occasions he barks with unusual energy, as if to assert his former authority as a domineering dog, his sentry-like disposition of a part-time Cerberus lurking in the wake of his weak antagonists, making sure that no one usurps his domain. Right now he jumps with a sudden boldness that has taken who knows where from his dusty anatomy and warns the vermin that he has surely sought refuge in some branch of the old almond tree where the animal performs stalking pirouettes while barking and barking. But usually it is his tired imagination that outlines, in his colour-blind fantasy, exacerbated by his worn-out olfactory acuity, the demons that always torment him. I tell myself, after observing him, that we are not so different after all. Simple instinctive animals succumbing to the whims of our nature. All this if it weren't for our soul. Thank you, dear God, for having given us a soul.

*

      I celebrated the Eucharist without the boy's presence, and although the charitable hand that waved the incense was not absent, it was not an experience similar to those I perceive when he is present. Not seeing him for a couple of hours was more tormenting than having him lying inches away from my skin.

*

      The doctor's verdict has been final. It's a bad cold that breaks the young man's defenses, he tells me in a deep voice, smiling as usual, but with a couple of days of rest and a good dose of painkillers his health will be back. We both walk to the door, whose hinges scream in a rusty voice, and are shaken by the hearing damage. After the mishap the doctor turns solemnly, submissively bends his gaze and asks for a blessing. He draws a cross in the air just at the level of his face, then bids farewell with a salute. The boy goes back to sleep, breathing in and out with difficulty. I feel his forehead to explore the pain, but all I get is a tremor in my body and excessive perspiration flowing from my hands.

*

      I did some clerical work and had short, otherwise uninspiring interviews with the parishioners. Free of my responsibilities, I walk along the paved promenade on the river bank that connects this small town with the neighboring village, hit by the breeze that stirs up a deep whistle, like every occasion, the loop of my hairstyle. The end of the summer brings beautiful murmurs. The swallows encourage the well-known annual exodus towards the west in a pilgrimage that has a lot of regret, since in their scatological anarchy the birds, which during this time travel precisely in the central park area, decorate cars, sidewalks, squares and passers-by with an unparalleled excremental feast.

      It is precisely now that I walk near the central park that I can perceive the choral trill of these tiny birds hooked on the electric cables, a collective chirp that is hindered for brief intervals by the thunder of the transports that circulate unceasingly along the avenue. I continue my walk along the most discreet street