Nest in the Bones: Stories by Antonio Benedetto
250
Nest in the Bones: Stories by Antonio Benedetto
250Paperback
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Overview
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9780914671725 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Steerforth Press |
| Publication date: | 05/23/2017 |
| Pages: | 250 |
| Product dimensions: | 6.00(w) x 7.50(h) x 0.90(d) |
About the Author
About the translator: MARTINA BRONER has previously translated the work of Prince of Asturias Award recipient Antonio Muñoz Molina, including his piece "The Lighthouse at the End of the Hudson," for The Hudson Review. She has published two books of fiction, Abundancia de cielo (DíazGrey Editores) and El ruido de la fiesta (Mancha de Aceite). She has received the Tribeca Film Institute's Voces award, the Austin Film Festival Award, and the Zaki Gordon Award for Excellence in Screenwriting. Broner holds an M.F.A. in Film from Columbia University and an M.F.A. in Creative Writing in Spanish from NYU. She is currently pursuing the Ph.D. in Hispanic Literature and Culture at Cornell University.
Read an Excerpt
Nest in the Bones
Stories
By Antonio Benedetto, Martina Broner
archipelago books
Copyright © 2013 Antonio BenedettoAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-914671-72-5
CHAPTER 1
Nest in the Bones
I am not the monkey. I have different ideas, even though, at least in the beginning, we were put in the same position.
My father brought it here, like the palm tree. He has too much land, too much money. He put up the little palm tree and it seemed very good to him while it remained young and exquisite. But when it began to stretch, and stretch, he grew tired of it, for it was ungainly and bearded, for it was maladjusted, he says. For he lost sight of it, I think, as he is not in the habit of looking up to the sky, at least not toward where the palm had risen. He looks toward the mouth of the river, where storms begin, as the harvest depends, for better or for worse, on the rain.
Neither did he realize that the little monkey would not adapt, not only due to matters of climate, but also because adapting to the family would be impossible for it, and he wanted it to be like a member of the family. Perhaps he wasn't completely mistaken, since, profiting from certain considerations, occasional instances of intuition from my father, the small ape made some effort to gain the place promised to it. But its place, ultimately, was the palm tree. My father did not always employ festivity, aliment, and a loving touch; largely, he deprived it of food and he didn't worry about truly educating it. The monkey ran away, finding refuge in the palm tree, like a son returns to his mother. It would only come down to pilfer or to take the food that somebody's compassion would have left at the foot of its dwelling. It lived alone, just like the sight of the palm tree's emaciated crown in its height. It became reticent and pensive, awkward at anything beyond procuring sustenance. Perhaps due to a bad mood – because the announced greenhouse was never built – my father ordered all vegetables removed from the area where the palm tree stretched, languidly, like a nostalgic sigh. Tree and monkey fell, and the monkey hid among some crates and trunks until the dogs, ignited by blood from a chicken that took a few beheaded, agonizing steps, threw themselves upon it without anyone stopping them.
* * *
I am not the monkey, but, per my father's orders, due to slight infractions, I too was often prohibited access to the table during my childhood. I don't have a palm tree, yet I made a palm tree out of my house, or rather, out of the rooms and the portions of land that could become that, out of a stroll, out of a book and out of a friend. My palm tree possessed, truthfully, many branches, and because of that, perhaps, I had the possibility of believing that I could not be like the monkey. Perhaps it all depended, as in the case of the ape and the tree, on a birthplace and a subsequently inadequate destiny. I don't know. Maybe I should have been born in another land and maybe that is not the way it is. It is possible that I should not have been born in this time. I don't mean to say with this that my enlightenment should have occurred in the Middle Ages or in the same year as Dostoyevsky's. No. Maybe I should have been born in the twenty-first century or the twenty-second. Not because I think it will be easier to live then, either, although it is possible that it will. For this to be possible, since it is impossible for me to be born after a century has passed, I have wished, as far as lies within my power, to be of some use.
When I understood the monkey's uselessness I was able to approach what seemed to me would mean creating a useful destiny, at least for others. Its empty head suggested how to make use of mine. I wanted to make, and it was easy to make, a bird nest out of it. My head overflowed with birds, voluntarily and joyfully, on my part and theirs. I enjoyed myself, yes, because of the happiness of being able to give them a firm, secure and warm nest, and I enjoyed myself in other different ways. Like when, for instance, I made an appearance that time, physically somber, at my mother's tepidly joyful canasta tea party, with its scheme of transfigured calculation and restlessness, and she had to ask me, reproachful and losing aplomb, how I could do something like whistle at a gathering of ladies. And I had said, through my mouth of lips merely split by a smile of pity for her ignorance, that I myself was not the one whistling, and in that gal I awakened the candid awe of someone witnessing the appearance of a musical, tangible, perishable god.
* * *
It wasn't always like that, just for a few years, maybe a few months. With this change, I've doubted a bit whether by creating one bird's happiness I will create the happiness of all families for centuries to come. If we all put our heads to the service of general happiness, that might work. But our heads, not just the sentiment.
I provided mine and sparrows, canaries and partridges landed, jubilant. So are now the vultures that have nested in it. But I can't be that anymore. They're unendingly voracious and have sharpened their beaks to eat even the last tiny scrap of my brain. Pecked to the bone now, they're still at it, I wouldn't say with spite, but as if fulfilling an obligation. And even if their pecking were affectionate and playful, it could never be tender. It hurts fiercely, it makes the bone hurt and makes my pain and torture expand into constantly flowing, mangled and hysterical weeping. I cannot do anything against them and no one can, since nobody can see them, just like nobody else could see the whistling birds. And here I am, with my nest brimming with vultures that, opportunistic, insidious and perennial, make, with each peck from each one of their thousand beaks, each bone in each part of my entire skeleton crunch. Here I am, hiding among these trunks, waiting for any of those who once fed the monkey to take pity on this hostage and to urge the dogs to attack.
But, please, may no one, upon learning my story, let horror win over them; may they overcome it and not desist, if they harbor any good wish of populating their head with birds.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Nest in the Bones by Antonio Benedetto, Martina Broner. Copyright © 2013 Antonio Benedetto. Excerpted by permission of archipelago books.
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