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I knew that what appeared to be peace was actually a precarious truce, renewed every hour the guns and monsters were silent. But the Sitauca seemed further away as each day passed. I took great pains not to think about how they were sure to return, sooner or later. Wishful thinking is the most tenacious of human frailties. The Antarctic winter was giving way to a savage spring. Every day the light shone a bit longer, stealing precious moments away from the darkness. The storms were no longer so brutal; the flakes fell less thickly. Sometimes it was hard to tell whether it rained or snowed. We were almost never hemmed in by fog. The clouds were much higher in the sky, but they were certainly not silent. I refused to take part in Gruner’s nightly vigils. There was no need. But I did not take anything for granted. The children’s presence did not just call a truce; it gave both sides a much needed respite. I told him, “We won’t be attacked, Gruner. The children are our shield. They will not touch us, by night or day, as long as the little ones are with us. Rest.” He counted and polished his bullets. “We can begin to worry the day the little ones fail to show up on the island. Perhaps something will happen then, I know not what.” Gruner opened his silk handkerchief, counted the bullets and knotted the fabric up again with care. He treated me as if I had never set foot inside the lighthouse. Then there was the question of the Triangle. Once I let him near me, it was impossible to get rid of the creature. He slept with me every night, unaware of our anguish. The Triangle was a bundle of nerves, scampering under the blankets like a giant rat. It took him quite a while to calm down. He would finally fall asleep by sucking on my ear, clinging to me like an infant and breathing noisily though his nose like a clogged drain. But the creature was a blessing. The egotism of childhood put our suffering into perspective. While I was worrying about how to end that cosmic war, he was enjoying a warm bed. Gruner sensed the perils of such an apparently harmless activity. We were playing, and that was all. But play, no matter how innocent, creates a sense of fellowship and equality. Borders cease to exist when people play together. There are no hierarchies, no past. The game is a space open to all. Naturally, Gruner felt threatened by something so simple and friendly. Before he went inside, I threw a snowball at him, which smashed against his neck. “Come now, Gruner, enjoy yourself a bit,” I said. “Who knows, we might get out of this yet.” His glare branded me a traitor. Another snowball might have been one too many. I had unwittingly, and without even trying, developed a routine. It was the start of a new day. After a bloody battle, the first rays of light divided the terrestrial and celestial realms in two. We had been given a shock at the last minute more than once. The island was practically devoid of life. There were no birds or insects. The wind and waves were the only sounds to accompany our own. Gruner and I dreaded calm weather. Smooth waters and a light breeze set our nerves on edge. We would set off flares at the slightest noise, convinced that the Sitauca were coming. But my outlook was changing. It took a great deal of effort to recall my past, a time when silence did not pose a threat. The island was bathed in light. Bands of little creatures gambolled around the lighthouse’s walls. Gruner holed up in his fortress like an elephant cowed by mosquitoes. It was his way of turning his back on reality. The Triangle had princely privileges. The mite hung from my neck and chest as he pleased. It was hard to believe. I had kept the Sitauca out of the lighthouse for months with cannon fire. And yet, I was unable to disentangle myself from a creature which barely came up to my waist. The Triangle had the hotheaded nature of impetuous youth. Throughout the day, he led hordes of young Sitauca all over the island. He dropped from exhaustion when the other children left, no matter how rough the terrain. I would find him curled up beneath a tree or rock crevice and carry him to my mattress. I do not know why I wrapped the creature in a blanket. The Sitauca seemed to be indifferent to the heat and cold. But I covered him nonetheless. I fell into the habit of pausing at sunset on the very beach that once witnessed my arrival. The inlet softened the waves as they lapped toward the shore. Fireworks burst across the horizon as the sun lowered in the sky. Bolts of sulphur and swaths of springtime gold put on their show. Rays of orange and violet wrestled like flying serpents, twisting over and under each other. Those last flashes of light made me fall victim to a strange delusion. I wanted to believe that the Sitauca were speaking to me. Their murmurs, confused with the outgoing tide, seemed to be saying, no, not today, we shall not kill them today. At length, I would return to spend the night in the lighthouse. The snow might have been melting, but my relations with Gruner were growing ever chillier. The weather was, curiously, the only thing uniting us at that point. Until then, we had been too preoccupied with the Sitauca to consider other, more fortuitous risks. A body being run through by a bayonet has no time to worry about a possible attack of appendicitis. The spring fell upon us with all of its Antarctic brutality. The tempests felt eternal with the Sitauca gone. Thunderclaps seemed to bombard us like heavy artillery. The walls shook. An unremitting light glowed through the windows. Lightning spread across the horizon, resembling a network of giant roots. My God, such lightning. We dared not confess it, but we were deathly afraid. Aneris was unmoved. Perhaps she did not understand the full extent of our peril. She did not know that the builders had neglected to install a lightning rod. We knew. Our flesh might be reduced to ash at any moment, like ants beneath some sadistic child’s magnifying glass. And so, while Aneris kept her regal poise, Gruner and I bowed our heads and muttered incantations like prehistoric humans of old, impotent against the elements. But this fellowship ended when the sky cleared. I had to conceal my emotions whenever Gruner took Aneris off to his quarters. Those nights were often sleepless. Gruner’s hoarse cries resounded throughout the lighthouse as he pounded his slave. The man genuinely repulsed me. I could barely refrain from bounding up those stairs and snatching Aneris away from that greasy bed. On those days, I should have infinitely preferred to murder Gruner than any Sitauca. He did not know it, but the most flammable charge of dynamite to be pulled from the Portuguese ship was me. My fuse was lit every night, and I knew not how many times it might be blown on before exploding. My passion for her had grown larger than the island itself. I found the sweater she wore particularly offensive. It was an unravelling woollen rag filled with holes, which may have once been white but had long since mutated into a sickly greyish yellow. She freed herself of it when Gruner wasn’t looking. Nudity was her natural state. Aneris moved with an admirable lack of modesty; the concept of shame was unknown to her. I never tired of gazing at her, taking in every angle: as she walked naked through the forest; as she sat with her legs crossed on the rocks; as she climbed the lighthouse steps; when she was as immobile as a salamander on the balcony. She lay with the forlorn sun on her face, chin up and eyes closed. I made love to her as often as I could. Although he abused her more than ever, one could never tell when he might throw her aside. She suffered through the night and was bored during the day. Our paths sometimes crossed. When Gruner had no other choice, he would gloomily trudge upstairs to gobble down some food. Aneris put our rooms in order while Gruner lurked about outside. She had a very peculiar relationship to objects. She considered shelves elusive and unstable. She insisted on placing our things on the floor. Our belongings were lined up closely together along the walls, each item weighted down by a stone. On the days Gruner left Aneris alone, we would secrete ourselves in the woods. The little ones saw us together several times, and the truth is that they were quite indifferent to our passion. I tried to catch Aneris interacting with the children out of the corner of my eye. They had almost no contact. If anything, she treated them as an added nuisance. They might have been a line of communication between her and the others. The children could have brought messages and news. But they did not seem to interest her in the least. She ignored them just as we might ignore a colony of ants crawling about on the ground. One day I spied her scolding the Triangle. The little ones may have been troublesome, but he was more mischievous than the rest of them put together. She shooed him away, but he always came back, as though deaf to her shrill cries.