6. The Illumination

 

 

He has wrapped him in the covers, letting only one passage of air in front of the face, but so that the young woman cannot see him.

Then, he has taken the string of hemp and he has surrounded the fabrics, taking care so that nothing is visible, even the hands. Above all the hands!

The body felt strongly and the old Master of the Family SHIN was bothered by it. His nostrils quivered and in spite of the sharp cold as the wind which attacked from the slope of the mountain, the odor penetrated in him.

 

- Go on, pull ! He shouted towards the path when everything was ready.

 

Only the silhouette of the young woman was guessed between the trees and the rocks, just a little higher. She held herself almost at the top of the old man and as a girl of the mountain she had placed herself directly above the gap. The body will go by there. It will be enough to pull strongly and to follow his breath.

“The old man will push !”

 

It took them a long time. The moon had disappeared behind the crest.

 

- Hum my word ! Heidi belched out still doubled up under the effort.

 

She had to kneel down on the path and secure her body against the large rough fir tree not to slip under the load at the end of the cord. She had to take off her gloves and her hands bled.

 

- Are you hurt ? Asked the old man who panted near her.

 

He also was kneeling on the icy snow. He took again his breathing on four legs, the forehead almost in the snow. Some sweat ran from his thin neck which let see the bones.

He had seen the young girl massaging her hands then to carry them to her mouth. She sucked them a long moment and a red trace remained on her lips.

 

- It is nothing… Almost nothing. I am used to it, you know !

 

He knew that she was used to it. Her strong hands showed it. She did not need to speak, but it is him which has asked because he wanted to divert her attention of what seemed a fabric sarcophagus between them.

He wanted to check that the slips of the body during the towing had not discovered this flesh which was not to be seen.

 

- It is well, he said while being straightened up… You know your business, my daughter !

 

Heidi puffed herself up and launched her head in the icy wind, towards the top, where the crests are.

 

- I am used to it, small father !… The wood does not arrive all alone at home, you know.

 

She says it with pride and her eyes shone with the sweat which still beaded on her forehead.

 

- So, like that, it is your son that you have tied up like that ? She added while contemplating the roll of covers.

 

She had touched it to haul it in the last effort. She had hooked it with the hand to prevent it from slipping a third time into the hole close to the shrubs of the path.

She had then thought of nothing, only to hook, to pull… to block her shoulder against the tree in order not to be carried along. She had not felt anything of this man who was maintained under the rough covers of icy snow. She was only in her effort, such as her brother had learned to her.

Now she felt the curious odor which emerged from the package and she leant.

 

- Do not approach so much !… It is very contagious his disease.

- Hey, he does not smell good your son, she said while frowning… Hey, what it is this disease, by the way ?

 

She was maintained leaning close to the covers and the old man kept watching on her hands. She must not look for seeing the face by the gap which he had arranged in the fabrics.

She could then become mad and flee while yelling towards the village to tell them that a demon was in the mountain. He should then kill her before she was straightened from the snow of the path, in this moment of immobility which follows the tragic discoveries.

 

- Do not approach too much, my daughter… Think of your health, he said while clutching the fabric by the feet… Help me thus to place him on the sledge !

 

The young girl shrugged her shoulders and straightened herself. The old man lost a little of his stiffness and a smile stretched his thin lips white by coldness.

 

- You are strong and you have done a good job my daughter… Here, take him thus by there… I will deal with the head.

- As you want… You know, I am stronger than you and it is by the top that he weighs more… By all the Gods of the Mountain! What it is then this disease which smells so strongly?

 

She had slipped on four legs against the sarcophagus because it took almost all the width of the path. The old man let her come close to him, then he made the same passage in the snow not to slip once again in the steep slope.

 

- It is a rotting of the skin… A bit like leprosy… Here, take him by the feet.

- It is for that you have wrapped him up thus, like a sausage ?… But hey, he did not risk anything to remain all alone under his rock during the day ?

 

She became curious now that she did not have anymore the concern of her house and of the pains which clung to it like an old wrinkled skin. It was this odd packet which questioned her now. By all the Kamis, how he smelt strongly ! Not a rot… Rather a very acid odor that she also thought to know but she did not remember. However her memory told her that this odor, she had had it against her one day… “Almost the same one”.

 

- What do you say my daughter ?

- Nothing, small father… Here, block him thus with the large cord that I have hung to the ring of the top.

- You think of everything, young girl.

- Of course ! … You believe may be that I have an aid when I will charge the wood in the mountain! I have to think of everything.

 

She smiled when she spoke. She still had this face of child that the laughs of youth had not forgotten. She was still a paste for the beauty of the life.

It is may be this happy smile which decided him to keep her with him.

 

Then, he stretched the hand and bound her to him.

 

- What do you do on my forehead, small father ?… Hey, that heats me where you have placed the hand !

 

He did not answer.

Her eyes shone of a curious gleam, as if there existed at the bottom of them a blue-tinged source with a sharp white center such as a beam.

She felt the heat of the hand on her forehead and this beam made as a point that one would have placed on her forehead and who would burn her.

She did not move back because the burn which had started just between her two eyes radiated now at the top of her eyebrows and it is as if one widened her forehead. That did good to her, of the one that she has not known since a very long time. She did not move and slightly opened the mouth to expire her breath. This heat which opened her forehead, she knew that she also knew it but she did not remember. It seemed to her that her mother, she believes that it is her but she is not very certain with this mist which leaves her mouth and which seems to make a cloud in front of her. This is curious this cloud !

 

- Hey ! it is as if I had never seen anything before in this way, she said while hardly moving the lips

 

The old man did not answer.

His hands slipped now on the temples of the young girl.

Heidi closed the eyes then because the heat radiated so strongly that she was no longer able to make some other way than to come in it and to forget what weighs so heavy on her belly. It is like a burden that she forgot on the edge of the path.

A deep sigh came from her belly and her lips were stretched in a smile which she did not know but she saw herself making it and she was certain that it was the same one that the one she had seen on the face of the old man while she stretched out to him the bowl of burning soup in front of the chimney.

 

- Breathe deeply, small of the Man and the Woman of the Earth, says the old man the mouth against her right ear.

He had closed the left ear of his palm and it seemed to her that one introduced a certainty into her body.

 

- What do you do with me, hey small father ?… I am all warm from your hands on me… Hey, what are you doing !

 

She spoke while hardly opening the lips. One heard only the sounds which frosted in the coldness but she was warm. She was boiling hot ! She thinks that it was tremendous what was happening there. She saw herself as if she were above her, kneeling in the snow, leaning from the two hands to the sledge and she felt the hot body “of the son” under the covers. She also saw the old man like from the top with his fur hat folded back on the ears and the whitish goatee which took the white frost between its long wicks.

 

- Hey…, she began, without too much knowing what she was going to say. She was stopped by a ball which went up all of a sudden from her belly and which exploded in the throat such as a burning fire.

- But… I…

 

She had just left the world of the possible vision for the men and it is as if she had just disappeared from her body. Behind, there was a seal which had just lost its bottom suddenly torn off.

 

- By all the Kamis… So it was true !… So it is true !!!!

 

She was no longer able to say some other way. She saw herself there, like that on the snow with this sledge, this body under the covers, this old man who smiled to her while looking at her the two hands now returned in the folds of his heavy coat, the winter around her… The snow !

She had never seen the snow like that !

She did not know this warmth which accompanied her vision by the double presence of the things. Because it was a so obvious double presence that her brain did not talk anymore. It noticed what existed behind the bottom of the seal burst and suddenly she breathed out a puff of tenderness around her and that did not have anything anymore in common with the words of love that she had heard, guessed and even hoped.

She opened the eyes because now it was not possible anymore to make some other way. This force, this certainty of existence tried to flow and it is its movement that she called “tenderness” and she realized it instantly.

It was the first thing of her life that she met and which did not have any past !!!!… No past !

- By all the Kamis !!!… I am brand new. I am brand new, she shouted while rising abruptly.

 

She was speechless about it, upright in front of the sledge, next to this little old man who had the head leaning towards the body of his son. His wrinkled hands arranged the folds of the cover close to the face. He opened the fabric, as if he wanted to give a little more air to his son.

He did it so gently that she looked at quietly, with the same eyes than a moment ago but in the same certainty to discover once again the things, another face, a new scene.

Because it was a new scene of the world of the things of which it was about. As if the games were on both sides at the same time. It is that, on both sides at the same time!

And this certainty gave her the presence of her existence.

She lowered the eyes on the little old man meaning her recognition to him because it was him which had done that, at least which had allowed this vision.

It is then that she saw the face of the one rolled up in the covers and she leapt up backwards.

 

- Oh !!!!!

 

The old man looked at her curiously. It was as if he paid an extreme attention to the position of the body of the young girl. A body doubled up, the prominent buttocks against the bark of the tree against which she has bumped into. The two feet anchored in the snow up to half boots.

He does not say anything. He did not move. Except his eyes folded up in his deep orbits. Those ones undulated with slowness as if they were sucked even further in the osseous cavity. It was astonishing and Heidi did not realize that she was attracted by this movement and that she did not see anymore but it.

He did not say anything. He has simply undulated the eyes under the bushy eyebrows. He has not left the young girl. He has not moved. His hand always held the cover opened of the face of the lying man. This one seemed without life. Just a very light mist under the thin nostrils which said the presence of the Force.

 

And under this look, the young girl felt taken by the belly. Like a hand which mixed her bowels. Just the bowels. Like a massage which became increasingly vigorous. And which started to double her up.

 

- I need to answer the call of nature, she says, almost like a sleepwalker. She was not able to be withdrawn from this look. It is as if she was connected to a wire that she knew she would not be able to break. She did not look for it besides.

 

He made a sign with the head.

Then, she was able to lower the look and she turned over towards the forest.

The old man did not lose sight of her one instant. She stood with her back to him. He directed the steel wire of his eyes towards the low part of the spine of the young girl. He saw the stiffening.

She spanned a trunk shot down by a storm and looked for a shelter behind the stock coming out of the ground.

While she disappeared behind the large roots and the lump of earth which remained hung to it, he printed the shape of her body at the bottom of his orbits and lowered the eyelids on the visualization. He continued to press against the bottom of the spine. Until he felt fully the reaction of the belly.

He smiles. At least is it a smile ? Just a stretching of the thin lips, not even half-opened. But it was a smile because a very attentive being would have perceived a light modification of the luminosity of the eyes and like a flame which danced there in the center. Like a kindness. Or rather, just like a beauty. A small beauty. Of those which say that the Life is quite present.

 

He leant on the body of the lying man. He touched lightly with the hand, just with the end of the fingers, the skin smoothed by the cold. He felt a little heat below. A little. Not much.

 

- THEY were really about to kill you... My Son.

 

“My SON !”. It was necessary to start one day !

By all the Kamis and the whole of the Gods of the Universes… how he is ugly !

He scanned him. He examined this hideous face. He breathed this acid and strong odor which made him feel sick. This prickly odor like only “those there” are only capable to produce. The hand slipped towards the thin neck, almost emaciated. The Adam's apple did not move. Frozen. Like the heart which did not inflate anymore the chest.

Just an infinitesimal mist under the nostrils. Just his certainty, at him, the Master of the family SHIN, that bubbling Life was in this body. This so hideous body. And that this one was going to be his son. That he was already his son. Since he came to extract him from the claws of the death. Since he was not able to make some other way than to come. So far from his monastery. In this so dangerous Country. The one where men are killed.

Then, he curved the size and approached his face near the one who was lying. Of the one that one did not know yet if he breathed. Except him, the Master of SHIN. Him, he knew the presence of the life hidden at the bottom of the belly of this one. The skin wrinkled by the years touched the icy skin. The hot breath slipped on the one who did not have anymore heat. The lips were placed on the dead forehead, where the eyebrows met. They remained there lengthily without moving. He must not have to be scared, this almost dead ! Him also will have his Decision to take. A more important decision than the one of the old man. Him, this body there, this young body, he will have to say if he accepts him as Father… Then, the lips were half opened and a kiss settled on the forehead of the young man.

 

- My Son, it will be hard… Very hard.

 

He knew it. He could not be some other way. No one can become the future Master of the family SHIN without being gone through the flames.

The Gods had decided thus. His wet lips touched for the first time the icy skin of the one which was going to come after him. For the first time. He had wished this moment so much where he gave up all his being in the one of another. This gesture, this soft contact by which he said his complete gift to the one who was going to continue after him. It will be necessary to learn everything to him. But will he want ? The Death had already seized him in its claws. He knows that this death had also been required of all his wishes by the cold body. This one had decided not to live anymore.

 

He had never been able to imagine that the Transmission can be done in a similar place. In full nature, in the turmoil of the snow, of the wind, of the coldness. Far from the Men. Only both of them. Without knowing if the young man were going to agree this enormous load to be the Master. The one after him.

“Only the Energy of the Universe can recognize Its Force”.

So, it is necessary to be subjected. There is no means to be withdrawn from it because the memory of the man has not amassed this Force.

Him, the old man, he was subjected. He deposited a second kiss on the forehead of the young man.

Him, the young man, so hideous !… will he be subjected ?

 

 

 

 

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