NUBKY AND THE BEARS

I don't know how much time has passed since I blacked out. But when I felt I was back my first reaction was to see Aline. She was not there. I got up quickly, started looking for her. I found her calling from a pay phone at Dom Hélder Câmara. When she saw me she dropped the phone, astonished, incredulous. These words came out of his mouth: "You are dead. I saw you die. I saw". She was crying and ran to hug me. The days passed, the routine returned to normal. Everything seemed like a distant dream. But when I looked at the book, which was still with me, what I wished was a dream became palpable. I hid it, tried to burn it, tear it up, but it came back to haunt me. The book that the moment I opened it, I would see my end. I avidly devoured the book, fighting my own aversion to its poisoned pages. However, when I felt the touch of the paper on my fingers, hands, an energy passed through my hair and was absorbed directly by the nervous system, like a drug.

The icy atmosphere so well described that it could be felt, the character's breath as if it were expelled from those lungs. The Eskimo unfortunate's thoughts and afflictions began to fill my thoughts, occupying the spaces like blood in the blood vessels. I did not read for nothing, but had been transported into those pages, breaking the barrier of the fourth wall and suffering the most imperceptible subtleties that affected poor Nubyk. Exposing the story I read in this first chapter was difficult, when perplexity and panic prevented me from digesting the absurdities contained in its pages, but I will try, transcribing some passages in full:

"In time immemorial, at a time when the winds of prosperity blew away from the village of Zesmick, in that icy country, where fishing and hunting were arduous and their inhabitants in search of sustenance often died frozen or starved, Nubky traveled the white plain looking for food for him and his wife Gurnyeva. His seal-lined parka kept his chest warm and the kimiks protected his feet from the biting ice. The traditional way of fishing for the seal was dangerous and required skills inherited from father to son. Precision-handled harpoons pierced seals through holes in the ice, and traps often caught hunters themselves who could die if they fell into the cold water below the thick frozen blocks.

Nubky, although careful and expert in this type of fishing, suffered in those days. It was three days away from his village until he found the bear. Polar bears were dangerous and even hungry and weak wreak havoc, but they tracked food, so if you were chasing the animal in the distance, you could find the hunt. Hunger, however, is relentless and the long journey in search of food is sometimes so desperate that it takes hunters to the most unthinking acts. The spear hit the bear's left flank, which fed. The predator roared bravely, as if to say it would fight for its life. The hunter, inflamed by the need that bordered on despair, tried not to make eye contact with the animal, surrounding him from behind and thinking about the next strategy. Even injured, the beast was running, with the spear hanging, which came to fall the moment it climbed a small hill. Armed with the weapon, he looked for the best time to attack, but tiredness fatigued him noticeably, leaving him at a disadvantage in relation to his prey.

The red trail that snaked through the snow like a winding river showed the amount of blood the bear had lost. Perhaps it was only a matter of time before it fell from weakness and became vulnerable. But although Nubky trusted in the animal's physical exhaustion, he knew he would have to act to end that hunt at last or he couldn't take it. But the unpleasant surprise that followed made him discouraged and retreated. There was another bear, which he found very strange. Polar bears are often territorial, and finding another one so close was very unlucky. He knew he couldn't face them and he ran for his life. The two bears would fight each other for the prize. The level of the snow, which had risen much in such a short time due to the falling snowfall, made it difficult for him to progress, and physical exhaustion finally caused him to fall. The bears' paws crushed their bones and their teeth, like spears, tore at their flesh. The meal was served and neither he nor Gurnyeva would have dinner that night. But contented bears grazed among their guts stretched out over Nubky's open belly."

The Eskimo and his sad and bloody death moved me so much that for a month I was barely able to pass the class on to my students. I invariably lost myself thinking, looking at the wall, at nothing, until one of them caught my attention. Poor Gurnyeva who waited for his hungry Nubky and ended up without dinner or Nubky. She must have starved to death.