The Past Ahead. Gilbert Gatore

undoubtedly be embarrassed. He might even get angry. How can you not see the real reason for my withdrawal? he’d think. Do I have to unlock my breast so that what drove me here would be on display? Don’t you smell the odor that accuses me? And the sorrow that I breathe? To express all this he’d laugh in that peculiar way of his. He’d laugh without anything showing in his face, and that inner laughter would accompany a mirthless gaze.

      19. Niko’s face is well proportioned and even graceful. Nevertheless, when it cracks into a smile, which hasn’t happened in a long time, it reveals dirty, crooked, and uneven teeth. Then a repulsive demon pierces his harmonious features. Niko knows it. That’s why his smile no longer passes beyond his innermost thoughts, the enclosed compound where he lives most of the time.

      20. Before he became aware of the horror it stood for in the eyes of other people, Niko used to smile a lot.

      21. Is it this smile that made them call him Niko the Monkey?

      22. The day he felt the urge to come and live in the cave, Niko was afraid of two things: that they would try to prevent him, or that someone had the same idea before him and was already living there. But other than killing himself he had no further solution. To assure himself he hadn’t been followed or, more importantly, hadn’t been preceded, he spent some time in a eucalyptus tree overlooking the slope of the hill and consequently a good part of the island. From the height of this tree he was able to observe the shrub-covered ascent through which he’d come and the slender band of sand on which he’d landed. Farther in the distance the calm waters of the lake stretched out. Farther still, the greenery began again, in whose center he tried fruitlessly to make out some place he knew. He also surveyed the entrance to the cave, especially at night when light, noise, and smoke were easier to spot. After several days, when he still hadn’t noticed any sign of life either preceding or following him, Niko decided to come down from the tree and approach the cave.

      23. The first time he came here, on that unfortunate night, he’d been obliged to hold his torch at ground level to see where to put his feet. He was in complete darkness as soon as he’d crossed the threshold of the cave. He seemed like a ghost floating in black water. Everything materialized at the last moment, just to scare him. He could see no further than his outstretched hands palpating the darkness around the luminous halo inside which he was moving.

      24. This time Niko waited for the daylight. It ultimately changes nothing since the light abandons him as soon as he’s inside the cave, but he feels more secure. Knowing what to expect, he didn’t forget to bring a torch.

      25. Since the day he should avoid thinking about for fear of feeling dreadfully ashamed, he has given up on various expressions that normally animate the human face. Gradually, he’s replaced them with a single expression that he now wears like a mask. Besides, to anyone not paying particular attention, Niko’s head would look like a real mask.

      26. What is it that could have brought Niko to keep his face frozen in such an enigmatic contraction? Is it the same reason that led him to return to the cave?

      27. The mask Niko displays as a face seems to be sculpted out of hard wood covered with a brownish, fairly uniform patina. It is topped with a rug of raffia fiber, surely meant to represent a head of hair. Wide, black eyes are outlined below a smooth forehead. One could assume that in the past they must each have been bejeweled with a diamond. From the center of these eyes juts out a long nose with small nostrils. The hollows of the mask’s cheeks emphasize the high cheekbones, each decorated with two prominent lines that suggest scarification. Finally, the sculpture displays a diamond-shaped mouth formed by thick lips surrounded by fine specks hinting at a beard. This mask is Niko’s face today. The rest of his body is wrapped in a bulky, grayish cape, from which protrude two slim, dry legs set upon large bare feet.

      28. At the moment, the most noticeable difference between a mask and Niko’s face lies in the hunger, the exhaustion, and the guilt that cannot afflict a mere piece of wood with such intensity.

      29. After his watch from the top of the tree, he assured himself that the cave was empty by pricking up his ears in front of the entrance and standing motionless longer than even the most seasoned hunter would have tolerated. All he heard or saw were insects, water, bats, and small animals that were probably rats or wild cats or both. But since his mind is not happy with the evidence, Niko decides to assume there must have been a monster, too, that had fled at his approach. If it’s true that monsters sense invisible things, as fables describe them, it’s normal that it would have frightened him. As always, Niko soon finds his first assumption too simplistic. In fact, when he starts to listen to the cave with complete attention he feels a breath. A breath that’s as light as it is regular. What if the island and the hill were only the projection of the nose of a giant who drowned in the lake? The shock of his head against the bottom of the lake could have knocked him unconscious without finishing him off. And what if in reality the two volcanoes in the distance were the feet of this same giant? And couldn’t the series of hills that rise from the lake here and there be the arms of the colossus? To end his description, he imagines that the head split by the shock must have dissolved in the lake, leaving only the nostril that stubbornly keeps breathing. It is this nostril that had shaped the cave in which he was going to seek refuge.

      30. How is it possible to imagine that a hill and a cave forming an island in the middle of a lake are actually the remainders of a half-dissolved but still living giant? To Niko such a concept comes as naturally as thinking that two and two make four comes to others.

      31. Convinced that he’s alone, is Niko really satisfied? Wouldn’t he like to meet the monster, of whose presence he has always been assured, so he can be devoured and finally relieved of the hunger, exhaustion, and above all the nausea that torture him?

      The room is dark, yet welcoming: a strange mix between a place to live and a place to work. She holds herself rigidly, and one has to pay close attention to make sure that she’s not a mannequin. Sitting amidst a mound of papers, notebook and pencil in hand, she’s not writing. She’s looking through the narrow window.

      Methodically, she starts by recalling how it all began. At times she loses the thread. She no longer knows what brought her here. Often she even tells herself that she’s made a mistake, a “fine fuckup,” as the other one told her one day.

      The other is the one who was important at some point but would be crushed today if he were aware to what extent he no longer means anything to her. But in her inner dialogue she recognizes this is an always-fleeting doubt. She knows that being here can’t have been a mistake. A mistake happens only when you have several options. She isn’t sure she ever had a choice.

      She remembers the morning when everything began, she is now certain of that. That morning is set firmly in a recess of her head. Every now and then she likes to take it out, the way you unfold an old garment to let it breathe, consider its wear and tear and its obsolescence. Almost indifferent, she sees it unfurl again, as precisely as possible.

      It’s a typical morning. A strident ringing wakes her. Seven o’clock. A few minutes later, she gets up, slowly. She puts on the kettle and lights a cigarette. She takes a shower. She gets dressed after spending a minute, dazed, in front of her closet. She has cereal and drinks tea. She gathers up the things she needs for her classes and goes off to catch the 8:10 train. A typical day also means that she puts on makeup before leaving while the small apartment whose window she has opened fills up with fresh air from outside and that she turns off the clock-radio whose sound has been her companion since seven o’clock. Usually, nothing of the flow of news, weather reports, commercials, and songs reaches her foggy consciousness. Just like her yawns, the shower water, or the tea, the radio is only a means of stimulating her sleepy senses.

      As she remembers it she is alone that morning. The other one hadn’t inflicted himself on her for the night. Before picking up her briefcase she makes sure she has everything she needs. She almost left the report she’d prepared for the marketing strategies course on her desk. She congratulates herself on her habit of checking everything before going out. How does an involuntary action manage to slip into an automatic physical function?