Read Blind Sunflowers for Free Online Page B

victims.
    On this page there is a drawing which shows a boy riding on a wolf; both of them are smiling and seem to be flying through the air above a field full of flowers.

Page 15
    A wolf told a boy that with his tender flesh
    He could survive the winter.
    The boy told the wolf to eat only one leg
    Because he was so young and tiny
    That he needed the wolf to be nice and plump
    Ready for the moment when
    Even one-legged, he would need some roasted
    Wolf to dine on.
    They stared at each other, sniffed one another and felt so bad
    That they would have to harm each other
    They agreed to repeat the scene
    Without resorting to the deceit
    That for two people who love each other to survive
    They always have to admit
    That whatever their feelings, one must live
    And the other one die.
    And as a corollary:
    The pair of them perished of hunger.
    Underneath these lines there is a musical scale and some notes, although these do not correspond to anything that resembles real music. Several experts have tried to decipher this supposed tune, but to no avail.
Page 16
    The snow keeps coming down. I feel so weak it’s harder and harder for me to chop firewood to heat the cabin where the cow, the boy and I live. All three of us are losing strength. Yet the boy, whom I still have not given a name, is surprisingly lively. He makes noises in his throat when he’s awake that sound like gurgling. On the one hand, I like it that he’s not asleep, because his total dependence on me makes me feel important in a way that no one except Elena has ever done before. On the other, his eyesare so huge in his eye sockets and his cheeks so sunken that I can see his skull. He is so skinny! The cow is too, but she still gives enough milk for the boy and me. I am emaciated too, and frozen stiff.
    I have no idea what month we are in. Could it be Christmas already?
    Today I followed an animal’s tracks and went down the mountain in the direction of Sotre. In the valley bottom I saw some woodcutters. I felt a familiar, solid fear grip me. Nowadays I am proud of my fear, because at the end of this monstrous war I have seen too many people die thanks to their courage. If we stay up here, the cow, the boy and I will die. If we go down into the valley, the cow, the boy and I will die.
Page 17
    I’ve thought a lot about it, but I don’t want to give them the final satisfaction of victory. It may be right and proper for me to die, since I was nothing more than a bad poet who sang of life in trenches where death ruled the roost. But for the boy to die is nothing more than necessity. Who is going to tell him about the colour of his mother’s hair, about her smile, the graceful way she glided through the air as though trying not to disturb it? Who is going to beg for forgiveness for having conceived him? And if I do survive, what am I going to tell him about me? That Caviedes is a village perched on a mountain that smells of the sea and firewood, that I had a teacher who could recite Góngora and Machado from memory, a father and mother who were unable to keep me on the farm, that I have no idea what I was looking for when I went to Madrid in the midst of the war… a balladeer dodging bullets? That’s right, my son! I wanted to be a balladeer dodging bullets!
    Now I’m your gravedigger!
    This last phrase is underlined with a thick, heavy line, so firmly drawn it has torn the paper of the black oilskin notebook.
Page 18
    I can no longer provide food for the cow, and the cow can no longer provide food for the boy. I scrape about under the snow searching for grass shoots, but they are increasingly rare and straggly. Among the roots of thefrozen hazel trees I found some kind of bulbs. I use them to make a paste that is completely tasteless but which, when boiled and mashed, I offer to the cow and the boy. I don’t know if it is of any use as food, but I am giving him my saliva, and he is surviving. Even though he is very weak, he is already trying to stir, but he