The Tree

That night my grandmother came into the room and whispered in my ear:

"Come with me and don't ask me any questions."

Very sleepy and reluctantly, I got up and followed her. I had no idea what he was up to but it was unusual for me to wake up in the middle of the night. She was never what is understood as "a grandmother to use", one of those who insist on you eating the croquettes or one of those who spends the day knitting while watching TV from time to time, nor one of those who goes to the gym with the girlfriends. No, my grandmother was a different kind of grandmother. She didn't fit any of the stereotypes.

In her youth she was a composer of musical pieces of great beauty for guitar. She performed them herself, and she came to be considered among the greatest guitar soloists of all time. Still, today, she continues to retain her masterful gift with the guitar, but what would stand out the most about her is her cheerfulness of character, shaped thanks to her travels around the world.

We all loved sitting next to her and listening to the stories she made up to keep us a good time with her. Our particular Scheherazade, every night she chained stories of imagined beings, of trees hidden in sacred places, of music, of dreams with boats. She narrated it in such a way that we were petrified following the gestures on her face, the movement of her hands. That way of staging the stories, making us immerse ourselves in unknown worlds, produced a certain concern in me, since I did not reproduce them as a product of her imagination, but rather as if I remembered them from another time in her life. She detailed characters from other worlds and it seemed as if she was seeing them or had once seen or dealt with them.

Of all the stories, the one that always caught me was the one that revolved around the construction of a ship. He insinuated that once built it was capable of managing itself, as if it had its own will, as if it were capable of navigating wherever it should, unaware of captains' orders or subjected to crew maneuvers.

Other stories seemed to be a mixture of memories of her concerts, anecdotes of how the music came to her and ravings caused by incipient dementia.

"Grandma, what's wrong?" I told her.

"Psss-come with me."

I followed her to her room, and inside she quietly closed the door.

"I have to talk to you, Hector," she told me with a strange look that scared me. Then he reached into his shirt and reached into his bra, where he always kept his handkerchief, pulling out a small, tiny key. He approached his closet, diving through a mountain of sheets he located a notch, which he gently lifted, behind the patch-like piece a lock was hidden, he successfully inserted the key. Without making any noise, he opened a gate, hiding a hole. The same mechanism that activated the gate slid a platform carrying a guitar. My grandmother gently took it in her hands and with the same affection that she showed us, she caressed it and offered it to me while kissing her cheek.

-I have something to tell you.

The first thing that crossed my mind was why my grandmother hid that guitar, I couldn't understand it, even more so when there were instruments scattered everywhere in her house, in any room. We all knew that when she was alone, she would play suddenly, as if she felt an overwhelming impulse. After her trance, she began to capture in the form of musical notes what she herself did not seem to understand, despite the fact that she did not stop repeating that it was her way of feeling her music. That musical madness made her fill the house with countless instruments, bought in each of the places she had visited. She experimented with everyone because the music came to her —in a peculiar, magical way—, she said.

He put the guitar in my hands, the moment I held it something happened to me. Even if I wanted to, I couldn't describe the tumult of sensations that came over me. I felt absent, lost among images that were familiar to me, I already knew them, I was sure. I felt that I was inside the stories he told us.

—Sit next to me, I'm going to tell you something you already know, I've told you in pieces, in parts, without order and distorted, but the time has come for everything to be in its place.

"Grandma, I don't understand anything," I told her.

—What I am going to tell you is a part of my life, an unknown episode, which I have hidden from everyone. The time has come for you to meet him. Now that you've had it in your hands, and you've been able to notice..., she remained thoughtful for a while while she looked at my face waiting for me to agree, revealing that she had perceived something. I moved my head up and down, understanding the importance of the moment, since I was convinced that his story would not leave me indifferent. After a moment, where I perceived that he was organizing thoughts, I intuited that this time it would not be a story that was the result of his imagination, but that it would be something deeper.

"I'm prepared for what you have to tell me," I affirmed, convinced of what I was saying. He began his account:

Somewhere near nowhere, there was a forest that covered as far as the eye could see and more. Trees of all species and varieties grew there. Hidden in that green sea, a being was praying at the feet of an immense specimen, so enormous that it was scary just to look at it. The old tree was always there and next to it since the beginning of time, worshiping it as if it were a God, a tribe of shamans watched over it. They were beings covered in rags and nothing could be guessed about their physiognomy. The only detail that was obvious was its imposing size, otherwise, the stubble of cloth was in charge of hiding any section of its body with some skill.

One day lumberjacks began to appear in the forest, observing the trees and making marks following sometimes random criteria. The forest protected its most beloved specimen, the thickness hid it, despite the fact that its size made such an effort difficult. Day after day, the loggers advanced more and more, leaving in their wake a trail of felled and discarded trees, always the largest specimens, the oldest, which fell one after another.

Nature somehow tried to defend itself, acting against them, laying invisible traps to make them desist from what seemed like a suicide mission. The hindrances never ceased to amaze them: insect bites that sometimes paralyzed limbs, unfathomable precipices that delayed the mission, unbridled torrents that dragged bodies like dust motes, calamities that would have made the bravest of explorers give up.

After years and effort, one of them discovered it and raised the alarm. Looking at it they were unable to utter a word, they had never seen anything like it. It was not only the tree that was impressive, the location at times seemed labyrinthine, perceiving a premeditated strategy to make the presence of the natural monument imperceptible, it became invisible until it was right in front of it.

After a long break, the time came when these men armed with saws and other tools began to cut down its trunk. Many of them doubted that it was possible to fell a tree of such dimensions, there were even those who opposed an absurdity of that magnitude; despite this, with much effort and after several months a cry was heard: – Trunk goes! – and he slowly collapsed until he fell, hitting the forest floor with a great crash. The tremor was felt hundreds of kilometers away; the animals perceived the earthquake with sadness, not with fear, suspecting the origin of the strange movement.

They had cut down an ancient tree that had been there for thousands of years, maybe millions, and that in an instant simply disappeared from the place where it belonged since the beginning of time. It was while cutting it that one of the woodcutters said in astonishment that the sound of falling reminded him of a moan, a painful scream, he was not able to tell anyone, but along with the certainty of feeling watched, he sensed that they had just committed an atrocity.

At nightfall, when the woodcutters retired to their camp, the tribe of strange beings gathered around him and watched over his body from dusk to dawn, in silence, as if he were one of their own. Only the painful sighs of those who for generations venerated what they loved more than their own life could be heard. They could not intervene in the course of events, they were mere observers, but infinite suffering was perceived in their prayers. It was just before dawn, just a few minutes before the workers arrived, when the mysterious being who acted as the great boss, took his ax and searched inside the tree until he came across what seemed to be a misshapen piece of wood, he extracted it from him and with tearing cries cried out:

“YOU WILL RETURN TO THE PLACE WHERE YOU BELONG,

THE EARTH WILL SHAKE AND THE SKY WILL TURN DARK,

THE WHOLE UNIVERSE WILL THEN KNOW WHO YOU ARE,

SOUL AMONG SOULS,

GOD AMONG BEINGS,

AND SO IT WILL BE, IT WILL BE THEN,

WHEN THE SKY WILL GET DARK AND THE WIND WILL BLOW,

AND SO IT WILL BE, IT WILL BE THEN,

THAT WILL RETURN TO EARTH,

WHAT WAS, AND ALWAYS WILL BE”.

The shaman extracted his heart. That being, with features unrecognizable by the painting and whose body resembled anything but that of a human being, took the piece of wood and, holding it close to his chest, pressed it tightly, whispering words in an ancient language.

AxNaxa aquin karkaunatao

Naxa aquin Partantaunatao

I'm here in Kartantaunatao

The shaman began to make involuntary movements. The songs of the beings, flooded the forest, the wind was in charge of moving them sneaking into every corner of the thick foliage, however, the woodcutters trapped in a deep sleep, remained oblivious to what was happening there. The animals moved restlessly from one side to the other, simulating a synchronized dance with the shamans. The invisible energy became perceptible at times in the brightness of the light on the immense petals of the exotic flowers that populated the place. The exaltation grew until suddenly, in an instant that no one seemed to intuit, the energy that swarmed as a dancer from one side to the other, gave way to a blinding light that sprouted from the bowels of the earth, passing through the felled trunk and lost in the depths of the universe. The beam of light shaped the invisible axis that linked the center of the earth with the depths of the cosmos, it seemed to point to a specific place among thousands of stars. All eyes pointed to the sky, the shaman unleashed an invisible and inaudible scream accompanied by a tumult that lifted all those present a foot off the ground. After that, everyone fell into a peaceful sleep.