was strange that day—the mass, the procession, the burial, and the homily given by a priest cloaked in a wind-ravaged cassock. The wind had begun to blow when the coffins left the castillo, and stopped abruptly with the last word of the funeral oration. And then silence fell all around, until the bells tolled the angelus, and there was a feeling of departing an unknown land—this is what had quietly filled people’s hearts all day long, this inner crossing, this aimless wandering along unfamiliar paths, undisturbed by the priest’s Latin gibberish or the ridiculous sight of a procession of toothless old folk. Now they awoke as from a long meditation and watched Alejandro walking back up the steep slope to the fortress. Only one man was with him, and the village council was praised for its decision to entrust the child to his wise hands. Everyone knew he would take care of the castillo and treat the orphan well; they were glad that he would initiate him into certain higher things and, above all, they were relieved that they would not have to take charge of the matter themselves.
Luis Álvarez must have been in his fifties and, whether from the stubbornness or the negligence of the gods, was altogether a little man, somewhat bent and very thin. But when he removed his shirt for the hardest tasks, it was to reveal taut and astonishingly vigorous muscles flexing beneath his skin. Similarly, he had an ordinary, unexpressive face, shining with deep blue eyes, and the contrast between the anonymity of his face and the splendor of his gaze summed up everything there was to know about the man. His position was that of steward: he supervised the upkeep of the domain, collected the rent from the tenant farmers, bought and sold wood and kept the ledgers. His soul, on the other hand, made him the guardian of the stars of the castillo. In the evening when they dined in the kitchen of the deserted fortress, Luis spoke with his pupil at length, for this man who was dedicated to serving the powerful and dealing with trivial commerce was in fact a great intellectual and a masterful poet. He had read everything, then reread it, and he wrote the sort of lyrical poetry that only a fervent soul can produce—a poetry of incantations to the sun and murmurs of stars, love, and crosses; of prayers in the night and silent quests. It was in his poetry, during the hours when he wrote it, that he perceived at the edge of his vision the same light Alejandro received from his dead, and he alone, more than anyone, would have been able to answer the boy’s questions about pilgrimage. However, he kept his peace.
And so, for eight years, every day at noon, you could see him come down from the fortress in the company of the adolescent and sit at his table at the inn, wearing the same white shirt with an officer’s collar and the same light-colored suit, the same worn leather boots and the same wide-brimmed hat—straw in summer and felt when the first frosts arrived, in winter adding one of those long overcoats that shepherds on horseback are known to wear. They would serve him a glass of sherry, and he would stay for an hour while everyone stopped by, asking about his latest poem or the estimated price of cattle. When he was seated he seemed tall because he held himself straight, one leg over the other, one hand on his thigh, elbow propped on the table. He would take a sip intermittently, then wipe his lips with the white napkin folded next to his glass. He seemed enveloped in silence, although he spoke a great deal during these meetings that passed for banal conversation. His elegance was not intimidating; it was elevating, comforting. Next to him, Alejandro sat quietly, and learned the life of poor men.
A lesser-ranked man can hold an entire country together. Blessed are the lands which know the comfort of such a being, without whom they are doomed to languish and die. In fact, everything can be read in two opposite ways; one has only to see grandeur in the place of wretchedness, or ignore the glory that shines through decline. Poverty had not made the place indigent: it evoked a calming fragrance of splendor and dreams, made all the more remarkable by deprivation; and as long as Luis Álvarez was managing the fortress, it was