
Vladimir Vasiliev

Esteban Blankes Cloister


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(c) Vladimir Vasiliev, 1998
Translation by Nadejda Sokolova, 2001

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It would be untrue to say I had never heard about this 
cloister before. At least its name silently stayed in a 
distant corner of my memory. But I knew for sure it was the 
first time I saw those walls, even though I walked through 
length and breadth of Cartakhena when I was a youth. 
My profession obliges me to know everything. Lack of 
knowledge of the town is out of the question.
Surprising as it was, I realised I happened to be there 
for the first time.
Outer suburbs, the back of beyond. An oblique hollow of 
two hills... Whose idea was it, to build a cloister in a 
hollow? Buildings of the kind are normally reared on hill 
tops, or on hummocks. In other words, in high places.
That was the time it first came to my mind that the 
cloister was strange. 
A large piece of wasteland resembling a giant lichen 
separated it from the town. Dusty hens were scavenging in 
clutters; fat black rats were hunting them. Thin tramp cats 
were preying the rats. Packs of ragged dogs, simultaneously 
malign and craven, were chasing the cats. I would not even 
be surprised if the locals told me new-born babies 
disappeared from cabins.
I suppose they aren't just dogs. Something more than 
usual tramp dogs. They are abhorrent beasts, offsprings of 
nasty wolf-dog intercourse. They don't avoid humans as real 
wolves do. And they are dreadful when in pack, the way only 
owners of grey wolfskin and insatiable throat can be.
I mechanically touched my baldric with missile knives 
under my summer cloak. It's probably hard to fight a pack 
alone. Maybe, this is the clue? And in fact the cloister 
has nothing to do with it. A pack. They were just torn to 
pieces by the local pack that temporarily forgot about fear 
of humans.
I sighed and continued my way along a tortuous path to 
the walls, my boots decidedly rising road dust. I destined 
for the massive cloister gate.
The closer I came, the more depressed I felt. However, I 
saw no particular reason for that; probably, it was the 
spirit of desertion that influenced me, for it was becoming 
ever more pronounced as I was approaching the cloister. Or 
it could have been the cloister sinister architecture. 
Scaled heads, seven in quantity, reared into the festive 
sky, but this proximity failed to make them less gloomy. On 
the contrary, sky above the cloister began to look lurid 
despite of its brightness and light blue colour. All the 
cloister heads topped with round caps, Alonzo crosses on 
their domes, were of different size. Besides, it seemed 
they were not built simultaneously because the stone they 
consisted of was of various shades. Higher heads on thick 
towers were darker. More modest ones were light, as if 
their existence was not long enough for them to have 
acquired the dark scale of fled years. Under the dome of 
the highest head two words in lighter stone could be seen: 
Esteban Blankes. On the second highest one "Carlos Diego 
Larazzabal" was written. Somebody's names proof against 
years could be deciphered on other towers as well. Who were 
those people? I wish I knew.
Manoeuvring in the sea of trash, I approached the gate. 
It was massive and dilapidated as hand-written copies of 
the Old Testament. Only the fabulous resistance of Roman 
larch to decay allowed it to survive till nowadays; wood 
appeared more longeval than iron. Bands and fasts rusted 
and crumbled, but the gate remained relatively intact, 
though red traces of numerous generations of southern 
lichen could be seen on the outer side of the wings.
The left wing fell down from the dead upper band, and 
its lower edge was abutted against earth, several inches of 
it buried. An oblique aperture between the sagging left 
wing and the relatively straight right one was entirely 
webbed, and the web was full of dried out mummies of small 
insects dancing in the wind.
Hmm. Nobody came here for a long time. There could have 
been another entrance, though. The high cloister fence 
could have suffered too. How could I know for sure Santiago 
Torres and Fernando Camarasa came in through the gate, not 
through some long-ago gap?
I wouldn't even have been surprised if I found out they 
had flown in there. On an air-balloon, for instance, or on 
a broom borrowed from one of the hundreds of Cartakhena 
witches.
A smile barely touched my lips. It was probably caused 
by the thought of witches.
But for some reason I hated the idea of plunging into 
the aperture between the wings, and, I can assure you, the 
reason had nothing to do with the web.
Something prevented me from approaching the cloister 
temple. Something people still fail to rationally explain. 
Instinct. Flair. Premonition.
But this is what my profession is all about - to violate 
instinct and to move on despite of premonition.
However, caution is also a component of my profession. 
Cowardly intelligent caution. It's a part and the keystone 
of success.
Who needs a dead searcher?
Nobody. Only the search subject.
After some hesitation I decided to start with a walk 
round the cloister. Outside the fence.
Walls fleeced with moss (or, to be more precise, with 
lichen) formed an irregular circle round the cloister 
court; the circle had two characteristic protrusions near 
cell towers. Roughly hewn blocks had probably been brought 
here in time immemorial from stone pits north of 
Cartakhena. Now it was a shelter of wild beasts. Those born 
wild and those wilding.
Having finished my way round the cloister, I realised 
with an obscure frustration that the walls were intact, 
and, if Torres and Camarasa came here, they had to have 
used the gate. My recent thoughts about air-balloon and 
witch's broom were no more than a nervous joke, so don't be 
surprised...
It takes spiders two or three days to fill a gap with 
their toils. Let's make it a week for easier calculations: 
it's clear that the web between the gate flaps has been 
providing its owners with food and serving as an execration 
for local gnat for several days already.
Torres disappeared a month and a half ago. Camarasa, 
almost two weeks ago.
They could have entered the cloister, and they could 
have left it as well, so the web means nothing.
OK. I should enter too.
Or should I?
I stopped in front of the gate. Something refused to let 
me in. Anticipation. Or fear.  
I don't know.
I stood there for a long time, not daring to violate the 
web integrity; sticky sweat was streaming down my face, 
neck and back, and I felt a wild desire to strip the dusty 
cloak from my back.
"This isn't anticipation," I thought a bit gloomily. 
"This is fear, Manuel Martin Velasquez. A usual fear it's 
hard for you to overrule."
And what if it's not usual? Nobody in Cartakhena would 
dare call me coward. Even if somebody did, it would be 
untrue. But at the moment I could do nothing about myself.
A slight noise behind me brought me back to reality; my 
hand crept towards the baldric under my cloak, and the cool 
metal of my knife made me feel more secure.
I turned around very slowly expecting to hear more 
noises, but it was quiet behind. 
A dog. Or a wolf-dog - a scraggy long-legged beast with 
hungry eyes full of hatred was watching me from behind a 
laystall. Something resembling a dirty rag was hanging down 
its chaps.
I carefully drew my hand from beneath the cloak. If 
there's only one dog, it's of no danger to me.
The movement scared the beast, and it awkwardly leaped 
away from the scrap-heap. I moved again, and the dog took 
to its hills, its thin, almost rat's tail between its legs. 
It dropped down its loot, and didn't seem to regret it.
I watched the dog running away for a little while, then 
its piebald back stopped outlooking from the speckled junk 
of the town dumping ground. 
A dump near an abandoned cloister... A strange place, 
isn't it? Probably this ever-growing stinking laystall was 
the reason why monks, Esteban Blankes' followers, left the 
cloister. Laystall, which is a sad, but obligate result of 
human existence.
Wherever man comes, dumping grounds and laystalls start 
appearing soon.
My boots leaving prints in the road dust, I reached the 
place where the dog had recently stood. For some reason I 
wanted to see what it was chewing before I frightened it.
It was really a rag. A dirty one, and, it seemed to me, 
rather sopping since short. The dog's saliva could hardly 
be the reason. I fastidiously unfolded the rag with the toe 
of my boot; a cloth of dense texture looking like material 
for summer cloak or jacket could be identified under the 
dark accretions. The cloth was plain, jagged, and had 
several holes in it. The latter were not produced by a 
sword or a knife. Neither had they anything to do with 
dog's teeth. Triangle lacerated holes of the kind can only 
appear if the flap of your cloak incidentally hitches on 
something sharp, and you, having not noticed it, give it a 
wrench. Crash! And here is a hole, lazy bachelor's 
execration. It's a shame wearing ripped clothes, but 
repairing them is too much.
I sighed in desperation. I hate mending clothes. I 
detest it since I was a boy, even though I have to do it 
rather often. I loathe it despite the fact my mother was a 
sewer, and a good one. She was very popular. It was due to 
her sufficiently good earnings that I haven't become a part 
of low company and have received a certain education.
Only three people on our street can read. I am one of 
them.
Or maybe it is because I had enough of it all in my 
childhood that now needle and thread look unbearable to me, 
and I get sick whenever I see cutting-out scissors. I don't 
know...
By the way, something about cutting-out scissors. One of 
my clients' wife was murdered with them. If you ever 
consider stabbing somebody, don't use cutting-out scissors. 
Particularly if you are fastidious the way I am.
Finally I spitted onto the rag that a tramp dog for some 
unknown reason got interested in, and almost started my way 
back to the cloister gate, when a stain of a queerly 
regular form suddenly attracted my attention. The stain was 
at the very edge of the cloth, near the ripped selvage.
I bobbed.
This was not a stain! It was a stitched mark, almost 
buried under a layer of mud. Stitched letters on the inside 
of the cloth.
Two letters. "F" and "C".
I froze up.  "F"  and  "C". Which could mean, for 
instance, "Fiesta Castilla" - there's a hotel in Cartakhena 
named so. The hotel is for the reach and noble; I wouldn't 
even be let in there. Particularly now, smelling the way I 
did having visited the Esteban Blankes cloister 
surroundings. "Fiesta Castilla" valets and servants may 
have the hotel indication on their clothes.
But it can also mean "Fernando Camarasa". If so, the 
price of this stinky relic is sufficiently more than one 
could expect. 
I got under the cloak and produced a canvas bag 
specifically destined for findings like this. Having 
squashed the unsuspectedly valuable rag into it, I attached 
the bag to a side of my dress and covered it with my cloak.
Now it would be difficult to get to the knives on the 
left, but this didn't matter. There was no reason to expect 
troubles so far.
I came back to the gate, full of determination to 
quickly examine the cloister court, to drop into cells, 
towers and the temple and to get jogging to Salvador 
Camarasa, the honourable uncle of the lost eighteen-years-
old scamp.
No more than fifteen steps separated me from the gate. 
But for some reason my determination decreased with every 
pace, and at the end of this way I stood still in front of 
the gate and realised I couldn't go any further.
I just couldn't.
No idea why.
I suddenly sweated. What the hell! It looks as if 
somebody just doesn't let me in! But who? And how?
After another five minutes of useless hanging about I 
decided to get out of there while the going was good. 
Perhaps, it was an anticipation again. And I prefer to 
trust this kind of feelings.
I will go to see Salvador, show him today's trove, he 
will most probably bawl at me, apply some harsh epithet to 
me and throw me away. Then his butler, a fifty-years-old 
ex-sailor and the owner of amazing whiskers, stentorian 
voice and addiction to strong rum, will pull me up 
(somewhere near the Edmundo Flores market). He will give me 
a smack on the shoulder, tell me in his bass voice that his 
master is sorry about his hastiness and asks me to go on 
with the search, and hand me the daily four coins. Then he 
will cough meaningfully and stare in an indefinite 
direction. We will go to a nearby sailor tavern and leave 
one of the coins there. We will drink rum, the butler will 
recall his past days, I'll listen to him and gloomily wait 
for a sudden insight. Later in the night I will drag myself 
home, staggering as if a galleon deck is under my feet 
instead of the cobbled street. I'll tell Henis to warm up 
water for me, delightfully take a bath and go to bed. And 
in the morning everything will start from the very 
beginning.
Later I appeared to have been mistaken. Salvador didn't 
bawl at me or banish me. We'll get back to it later.



* * *

For me the whole story started twelve days ago. Twenty 
four hours after Fernando Camarasa, Salvador Camarasa's 
nephew, disappeared. And Salvador Camarasa was not just 
somebody, but the doge of Cartakhena and the head of the 
guild of commerce.
At the moment I was occupied with what I considered an 
absolutely ordinary case. I was searching for a Santiago 
Torres, a minor merchant who owed an insignificant amount 
of money to Alfonso Barolla's board. The latter absolutely 
wasn't going to clobber Torres; in the contrary, his board 
supported oil and odorous gums trade where Torres was one 
of the distributors, and a good one. Alfonso Barolla was 
interested to know where his minor partner got to. Torres 
probably had a set sales network, and Barolla didn't want 
to lose it.
Somehow or other, Alfonso Barolla assigned his assistant 
to find the lost merchant, and the assistant without much 
ado hired me for half a coin a day. Since I had no better 
offers at the moment and no reason to expect any, I got 
down to business.
Certainly, people often disappear in Cartakhena, as well 
as in any other sufficiently big town. I don't think 
anybody scouted for them; anyway, the town magistrate 
warriors do nothing of the kind, preferring to squeeze 
taxes out of market haunters. Besides, will disappearance 
of a beggar ever be noticed? And, even if it does, will 
anybody care?
More conspicuous persons are an absolutely different 
pair of shoes. When Fernando Camarasa got lost, the whole 
town immediately learned about it.
By the moment I didn't move an inch closer to a solution 
in the Santiago Torres case, though I managed to ascertain 
more or less precisely what he was doing in the morning 
before he disappeared. Nothing particular, not a thing to 
fasten on. Damn it.
And then all of a sudden Salvador Camarasa bodily 
honoured me with a visit. I was taken aback. The doge of 
Cartakhena at my place?
Fortunately, he didn't stay there long; otherwise I 
would have died of shame.
Have I already told you I disliked mending clothes? 
Tidying up my digs is not my hobby as well. As for Henis, I 
just don't let him in.
All in all, the doge promised to pay me four coins a day 
for finding his dearest nephew who was barely eighteen. 
Many young people start to have all sorts of maggot in 
their brain at this age. Besides, local ruffians, as well 
those visiting, will hardly dare touch the doge's nephew. 
Most probably, I thought, hunger for travel overcame the 
guy, and he was hanging about somewhere in the port. The 
situation was worse if he had managed to get onto a ship 
and was already far in the sea. But Fernando had been lost 
for three days only, and I understood it perfectly that it 
would be elementary to find out if a ship left Cartakhena 
recently or not.
The whole thing could be even more trivial. The guy 
could be on the fuddle in a tavern, lying under a table 
unaware of any problems outside. On the other hand, he was 
a doge's nephew. Any tavern owner in Cartakhena would 
consider himself obliged to take him home immediately after 
he gets unconscious.
Finally, he could have got into a relation with some 
girl; one of his age can spend a week in bed without 
getting bored of it.
There still remained a tiny chance that the poor man was 
murdered on his way home, when he was drunk. A tiny one, 
because doge's nephew would not go to a second rate tavern, 
and armed heavies don't normally hang around the town 
centre.
In short, I expected I would quickly find Fernando, 
receive the compensation agreed and quietly get back to my 
search for Santiago Torres to go on with it till Alfonso 
Barolla's assistant stops considering it reasonable to pay 
me half a coin a day. The Torres case seemed much more 
hopeless to me.
My expectations were deceived. I started, as usually, 
from dragging around the town, talking with cadgers and 
boys (a really precious source of information, by the 
way!), queries - in a word, I started from routine. I got 
down to reconstructing Fernando Camarasa's way from the 
moment he stepped out of the gate of his uncle's house.
By the night I found out Fernando Camarasa didn't 
approach the port. He was also unlikely to have entered a 
tavern, at least a central one befitting his position of a 
grown-up and rich dangler. First he lounged about the 
market square, seemingly waiting for someone. Then he moved 
in the direction of the Santa Rosalina cathedral, 
accompanied by a great-bearded man ("such a long beard, it 
reached his knees!" the ten-year-old Jose informed me). The 
bearded man was probably Portuguese, for, as Jose reported, 
he always pronounced "sh" instead of "s", and his "o" 
sounded more like "ou".
The conclusion about his being Portuguese was, 
naturally, mine, not Jose's.
The two men chose not to enter the cathedral, and the 
next witness saw Fernando leaving Xavier Unsuhe's library a 
little bit later.
I grew circumspect: before Santiago Torres disappeared, 
he was also noticed near the library! It was unclear, 
though, if he entered it or not.
That was all I managed to find out that day, and the 
next day the old Bookreader Unsuhe appeared lost too.
I immediately stopped liking the whole story. I mean, 
it's not that I'm normally glad when people disappear 
tracelessly giving me the opportunity to earn four coins a 
day. It's just that I believed till that moment that those 
cases were an inevitable tribute to chaotic fate. And now 
it seemed to me those disappearances meant something really 
horrid.
As far as I understood, Salvador Camarasa swelled with 
the most sinister anticipations. I heard he sent soldiers 
to comb out the Cartakhena coast. They discovered four 
bodies thrown up by the sea, but Fernando was not among 
them. To be on the safe side, I asked if Santiago Torres or 
the Bookreader Xavier Unsuhe was there. The answer was no.
I spent almost a week idly wandering over Cartakhena 
slums, hoping to find Fernando's traces: his clothes, his 
cross (Camarasa appeared to have special family crosses), 
or maybe his knife. Anything.
And then I was told Xavier Unsuhe returned and re-opened 
his library as if nothing happened.
Frankly, I absolutely didn't expect anything of the 
kind.
Naturally, I dashed to the library ahead of my own 
thoughts.
The old Bookreader certainly knew every blessed one of 
his visitors - people who can read aren't numerous in 
Cartakhena. And those who want to read are even more rare. 
For instance, I was visiting Xavier Unsuhe's place for the 
third time in my life. And again the purpose of my visit 
had nothing to do with the wish to read a book.
Yes, both Santiago Torres and the young Camarasa 
frequented the library long since. They came there on the 
days of their disappearance as well. Without any hope I 
queried what books they had read on those fatal days.
Different, the Bookreader said. Absolutely different. 
Torres read a tractate of some ancient agnostic with an 
unpronounceable name, and the young Camarasa chose 
"Calderon's anger" by Alejandro Calvo Sicvenza. Quite 
clear, an eighteen-year-old is really supposed to be 
interested in heroic epic full of steel clash, gun shots 
and musket crash. I also enjoyed reading "Calderon's anger" 
once, but I borrowed it from the library of the Santa 
Rosalina cathedral, not Xavier Unsuhe's. I still remember 
the priest looked at me disapprovingly when I showed 
interest in this book; I think, he expected me to ask for 
something theological. But he allowed me to take the book, 
for a tailor's son who could read undoubtedly didn't seem 
as hopeless to him, as my street fellows who couldn't.
So, the books were different, the Bookreader told me. 
But still they had something in common.
I became alert.
What was it?
The both books, the Bookreader explained, once belonged 
to the now abandoned Esteban Blankes cloister. Xavier 
Unsuhe had a lot of books from there. He kept them all on a 
separate shelf.
And then I felt the trace. I felt it with my liver, with 
my spine, whatever you like best. Even my breath 
accelerated, as if I were a hound on a trail.
But the problem was neither in those books, nor in their 
owner, the oldman went on. The problem was in another book 
he started to be afraid of himself. Not even started, in 
fact he was already afraid of it, very much afraid, and 
since long. That book was also kept on the shelf mentioned 
above.
Nobody ever wanted to borrow it. But still somebody 
touched it from time to time.
Xavier Unsuhe did not practise peeping at his readers, 
and they normally stayed guideless in the spacious library 
hall. Certainly, nothing prevented them from choosing 
another book in case they happened to dislike the one they 
took from the owner directly.  And they undoubtedly did it.
The trouble was people attracted by the books kept on 
that shelf sometimes disappeared.
I don't know why, but after these words of the 
Bookreader I almost froze to the floor. That was the first 
time I sensed somebody's evil will, the one that did not 
let me enter the cloister today.
"And how often do they disappear?" I queried, my tongue 
hardly moving. 
Seldom. In fifty four years that passed since the moment 
the Esteban Blankes cloister was abandoned and the books 
that belonged to its library were sold out only twelve 
people got lost. I asked if this number included Torres and 
Camarasa. The answer was yes. But previously years 
separated cases of the kind, and this time only two weeks 
passed between the last two ones. And the one before last? 
Two years. Two years ago a foreigner, Verner Schpreedicht, 
disappeared. Tracelessly, exactly the way his nine 
predecessors had.
And did all those poor fellows read books from the 
cloister? No, not all, Unsuhe said. At least, not in his 
presence. But all the twelve undoubtedly touched that very 
fatal book. Why did he think so? Because the book every 
time disappeared together with its readers.
Then I probably batted obtusely, for I understood 
nothing.
"I guess," Xavier Unsuhe said, "they took the book away. 
When it happened for the first time, I didn't even notice 
the loss. The innocent Juan Santahelena brought the book to 
me, for he knew I had a lot of books, he hoped I would be 
glad to obtain one more and tip him several coins for beer. 
Juan found the book in the cloister. To be more precise, in 
the cloister temple, right at the entrance.
"When eleven years later Gabriel Roberto Martinez, a 
poet from Veracruz, disappeared, I suddenly recalled of the 
book. And I found out it was absent from the shelf again. I 
found Juan Santahelena and asked him if he wanted to earn 
another beer. In short, he brought me the book again from 
the cloister temple, and also informed me he didn't meet 
the poet there.
"Juan brought the book to me three more times before he 
died because of old age or an illness.
"Since then I keep hiring some beggar for visiting the 
cloister. And I've never been mistaken. The book is found 
there every time."
I asked where it was at the moment, here or there. My 
voice kept trembling all the time for some reason. Already 
here, Unsuhe said. Has any of those lost earlier ever been 
found, dead or alive? No, Xavier Unsuhe replied. Never. All 
those who deal with this book disappear tracelessly, and 
the book itself is invariably found in the cloister temple. 
Usually it lies directly on the dusty floor. But why 
nothing bad happened to Juan Santahelena and his hired 
fellows, I asked (I even got a little bit glad of my 
intuitiveness). They also touched the book, and probably 
even opened it.
Unsuhe grinned.
The innocent Juan Santahelena could not read, the old 
Bookreader explained. He paid attention to hiring patently 
illiterate people.
Then I plucked up my heart and asked, 
"Show me the book, Xavier Unsuhe. I hope I will not 
regret these words..."
Contrary to my fears, the Bookreader did not refuse. But 
he warned me he wouldn't touch the book. He never fingered 
it, even before he started to suspect something. And he 
recommended me to think it over properly before taking the 
book from the shelf and sitting down at the vast reading 
table.
I reflected. And almost gave up. But I managed to 
overrule myself.
It happened yesterday.
By the way, the book was titled "Eye of abyss". 
Something philosophical. I never found the author's name on 
its pages. Not even on the title one.
When I was leaving, Xavier Unsuhe looked at me as if I 
was sentenced to death.


* * *



Salvador Camarasa neither banished me, nor even bawled 
at me. He gloomily looked at the letters barely detectable 
under the grime. Then he told his maid to bring one of the 
cloaks that belonged to his lost nephew.
In short, it was Fernando Camarasa's mark.
"Look, senor," the maid said, watching me sadly and 
holding out the cloak outside in. "Here is the same mark. I 
stitched it myself. I always stitched young senor's 
initials on his clothes."
She probably had affection for this luckless guy.
"Always?" I asked, not even knowing why. "Can you read, 
lady light hand?"
"Yes, senor. I can read, and write as well. Not too 
good, though..."
I shut up. Well. There were strange manners in use in 
the Doge of Cartakhena's house. Literate maids... I've 
never ever seen any.
However, tailors' children are rarely literate, too.
I honestly informed the beetle-browed Salvador about all 
but the strange and mysterious story with the book. I told 
him about the packs of hungry dogs ruling the roost at the 
dump ground. I let him know the rag was the only thing I 
managed to find, and this was nothing but an occasion too. 
I mentioned in passing that I disliked the lone cloister, 
and it would be good to visit it with a company of 
soldiers, to rake round cells and towers. Also, to drop a 
look into the temple; it probably had an attic, for the 
vault was very high.
"Thank you," Salvador replied with a restraint I failed 
to understand. "Others couldn't find even this dirty rug." 
And he put twenty coins instead of the agreed four in front 
of me.
"Thank you," I shrugged. I quaffed the vine he offered 
to me and swept the coins.
Frankly, the way I felt was far from perfect. I slurred 
over the largest and, it seemed, the most important portion 
of the story. I always tried to do my job well. But on the 
other hand, how could I report this? If I were the Doge, I 
would immediately throw out a detective telling me thin 
stories of the kind, and thrash his jacket as well.
In short, it all came to a single question: did I 
believe it myself? Did I believe Xavier Unsuhe and his 
incredible story?
I was reflecting over it all the way home.
In the morning the Old Bookreader's tales of the 
previous day already seemed a pure flam to me. Actually, an 
abandoned cloister, some mysterious book, lost people - all 
that looked a part of an Umberto-like fantasy. Besides, 
corpses were never found. And should Xavier Unsuhe be 
trusted at all? He was respected in Cartakhena as a clever 
and educated person, but his age needed to be taken into 
consideration as well. There was hardly anyone older than 
him in the whole town. Who knows, maybe his mind, once 
clear and grasping, started to decay as years were passing 
by. And the old Bookreader suddenly found himself living in 
a world full of ghosts and weird forces noticed by nobody 
but him.
In brief, I couldn't just sit and wait, even though I 
intended to have a good night's rest in my digs and not to 
get up before noon.
First of all I tried to find Unsuhe's hired assistant, 
the one he assertedly sent to the cloister to look for the 
unquiet book. It appeared to be a rather difficult thing to 
do, and I didn't succeed till dinner time.
The subject of my search was named Augustino Munos. He 
was short, chunky, hairy and lousy. I had to pucker my 
fastidious nose and to keep breathing through my teeth for 
a while. Munos belonged to the sort of people that have no 
idea of what tomorrow means. He lived a day at a time, and 
didn't care a curse about what was going to happen next. He 
dwelled in a brushwood shelter on a spacious wasteland 
behind the Edmundo Flores market. It was a back alley of 
commercial quarters, a former fen. Wealthier people 
preferred not to build anything there, for it was too miry 
a place, and this tiny speck of land in the town centre was 
inhabited by beggars, loafers, cripples - all those who 
encountered only frowns of fortune and already didn't hope 
to see an amiable smile of this capricious lady.
I knew I was not reach, but, if compared to these Muerta 
Folla dwellers, I could feel a king. My pockets were 
ajingle with fourteen coins, which was probably more than 
all the wasteland population had.
"Yes," Augustin Munos said, or, to be more precise, 
rasped out. His dirty beard moved, and I noticed a pinkish 
scar on his throat. Yes, old Xavier Unsuhe sent Munos to 
the Esteban Blankes cloister. And he promised a handful of 
clods for that. And he kept his promise, virgin Stefania 
bless him! For many years Augustin Munos hadn't drunk as 
much beer at a time as he did a couple of days ago together 
with his mates...
Munos's mind was mostly occupied with beer, and it took 
me a serious effort to draw a story about the cloister 
itself out of him.
"A cloister just like all cloisters are, I swear by 
virgin Stefania, but an abandoned one. The gate is sagging, 
web everywhere... And so much dust in the temple, ya know, 
a hell of dust! Hey, in Selesh Rodriguez never ain't that 
much dust, even during the season of winds."
The book was on the bottom step of the staircase, right 
in the dust. What? On the cover? No, there was no dust on 
the cover... Ahh! Munos guessed! Dust on the cover would 
have meant that the book had been forgotten on the stairs 
long ago, right? Right, I swear by virgin Stefania! No, 
Munos didn't open the book since he can't read. Eh, no, 
noticed nothing special, just took it under his arm and 
doddered towards the exit. No, everything was quiet round 
there, and even echo was a kinda' dumb there, probably 
'cause of dust. Dogs? Sure, there are lots of dogs, all of 
them snappish like... like... eh, really snappish. But 
Munos had a hock, and the dogs were afraid of approaching 
him.
Where did he go then? Actually, right to Unsuhe's place. 
And then to the Carmenchita's tavern, for beer is very 
cheap there...
So, the old Bookreader didn't lie to me at least in a 
portion of his story. I could see no single reason for 
Augustin Munos to fable; besides, he was hardly able of 
fabricating anything neat or even appropriate. His every 
word seemed truth to me as an observation of a fleckless 
nomadic soul.
Augustin Munos really visited the Esteban Blankes 
cloister one of these days, and he really brought some book 
from there.
Some book. It was the only thing that persisted in 
remaining unclear. According to Munos, the book was "ya 
know, with some dashes on the cover, and thick as a loaf, I 
swear by virgin Stefania".
I poured several small copper coins into Munos's brown 
palm and left Muerta Folla, full of doubts and all of a 
dither.
Some time passed, and I visited portside quarters to 
talk to three local oldmen (there are somehow many long-
livers there). All of them perfectly remembered that dark 
story with Verner Shpreedicht's disappearance; I did as 
well, though. At that time even triflers from the 
magistrate made a fuss for a while and awkwardly tried to 
explore details of the German's stay in Cartakhena. He was 
never found, as well as the details.
One of the oldmen remembered even the long-ago printless 
escape of a rhymester from Veracruz; he told me that for no 
less than four days shrill-gorged criers were heard all 
over Cartakhena pulling everybody to listen to that bird 
Saturday evening in the "Fiesta Castilla" hotel. They say, 
somebody actually came, but the rhymester himself could be 
found nowhere at the appointed time; the oldman had a 
distant memory about some backwash of that scandal.
All the three recalled the innocent Juan Santahelena, 
and they unanimously attested he died in his seventies or 
sixties. He passed over in peace and quietness, heaven 
bless his unstained soul.
In the evening soldiers came back from the suburbs where 
Esteban Blankes is situated. They scoured the wasteland, 
turned the dumping ground inside out just the way robbers 
do looking for hidden jewels in feather beds. They found 
remains of a kid killed with a knife and a corpse of an 
oldman gnawed by dogs. They searched every nook and corner 
of the cloister court, and found nothing but dust. Hunt in 
cells, towers, refectory, in the temple hall, subterranean 
and attic also gave no result.
Frankly, soldiers said nothing really definite about the 
subterranean, and I guessed nobody reached the depth of it. 
They say, Salvador Camarasa was pale when he listened to 
the captain's report, but not a word escaped his lips.
Indeed, nobody in their senses would get into the depth 
of an abandoned cloister hypogeum.
Anyway, dust let the searchers know nobody approached 
the subterranean entrance for a long time. Something else 
it revealed was the fact that the temple was recently 
visited. Two people passed to the staircase leading to the 
attic and climbed up, other two only reached the stairs, 
then returned and went away. According to the searchers, 
the first two never descended from the attic. As for the 
attic itself, it remained absolutely empty, and there were 
no traces. One could think those guys climbed the staircase 
and dissolved into thin air.
The searchers identified one of the chains of traces 
with Fernando Camaras's footsteps.
I kept reflecting on it the whole evening. I was lying 
on my bed, dressed, staring into the lamp light.
So, dogs had nothing to do with it. Which means, if I 
had only entered the cloister court at that time, I would 
have observed it all and unbound the knot. But what was it 
that didn't let me in? Anticipation?
What a frightening mystery is concealed beyond those 
ancient walls? And in what way is it related to the book 
named "Eye of abyss"? Why this strange and sinister name 
for a philosophic tractate, after all?
What have you intruded upon, Manuel Martin Velasquez, 
tailor's son and feckless detective? What are those forces 
whose breath touched you?
I kept asking myself those questions and fell asleep 
without even noticing it. I dreamt of a book, it opened by 
itself, but I couldn't read a single word, letters faded, 
and then, suddenly, a young face definitely showed from the 
depth of the page. The face was distorted by either suffer 
or enragement, and I somehow knew that it belonged to 
Gabriel Roberto Martinez, the poet born in Verakruz who 
perished on the outskirts of Cartakhena. Dumbness 
overpowered me; unable to ask a question, I desperately 
gesticulated, but Martinez did not notice me. And then all 
of a sudden the face appeared to belong not to a poet, but 
to the old Bookreader Xavier Unsuhe. The Bookreader looked 
at me and distinctively pronounced: "Evil comes from abyss 
to search for wicked souls. As long as sin exists, evil 
will return."
I woke up wet as a mouse; an unstable semidarkness of 
the approaching dawn was filtering in through the window. 
The lamp was off, but the bellied glass vessel was half 
full of oil.
The light couldn't go out before all of the oil was 
burned. Which meant somebody put it out. But it clearly was 
not me. And Henis is banned from entering my digs.
I sweated again, and then realised I felt a strange 
smell, a subtle one, and alien to human dwelling. It was a 
mixture based on musk. A sudden uprush of horror petrified 
me and made me bate my breath; it seemed to me I was not 
alone in the room, and if I only move, something will break 
out from a dark corner, and...
I failed to imagine what was supposed to happen after 
that "and...", and my desperation grew stronger because of 
that.
I died and resurrected lots of times before my body 
stopped being a focus of icy waves rambling under the skin, 
and the very nature of mine  was no longer a clot of semi-
animal fear. Dawn was pouring into Cartakhena windows and, 
fortunately, into my window too. My digs were empty - I 
mean, nobody and nothing alien appeared - and, as usually, 
full of junk. Only a trace of the strange smell and the 
lamp that went out in an unknown way.
"Evil comes from abyss," I thought. "I swear by virgin 
Stefania, as Augustin Munos says!"
I suddenly realised that I was not the sole owner of a 
certain part of my soul any more. "Eye of abyss". Evil is 
watching from abyss, and recently it remarked me.
A cold shiver shook my body.
God knows what I'll mint, if I go on in this manner! I 
need to go off here, off the room outside, where there is 
fresh air and morning sky...
I clattered down stairs, disquieting my neighbours' 
dreams, and thought enviously that those dreams were 
probably sweet. Fresh morning breeze and primeval innocence 
of the nascent day struck me, and I stood frozen on the 
cobbled street in front of the house where I was born and 
grew up as if I saw it for the first time. The dawn was 
quickening in the east, birds jugged, every one in its own 
manner, saluting the waking sun.
The darkness remained only in the form of an aftertaste 
in a distant part of my soul, if at all.
But I knew it perfectly that darkness never leaves 
tracelessly or irrevocably. Particularly if it's darkness 
in your soul.
A week passed, and Alfonso Barolla's assistant decided 
he had enough of paying me half a coin a day. Well, I said, 
nobody would dare claim Manuel Martin Velasquez didn't try.
And nobody did. There was no more need to search for 
Torres, as well as for Fernando Camarasa. But this story 
refused to go out of my mind. I had nightmares twice again, 
but they weren't as bloodcurdling as the first one. I was 
gradually regaining the balance I once had, though 
something inside me remained altered, and I felt it.
I can't say the Esteban Blankes cloister attracted me, 
but I swore that if I ever had an opportunity, I would try 
to solve this strange puzzle of people disappearing.
A year passed. A whole year. During that time I tracked 
down a lot of faithless wives and husbands, found plenty of 
stolen goods and even successfully investigated Alfonso 
Barolla's assistant's murder - the poor guy didn't outlive 
Santiago Torres by long, but his death contained no 
mystery: he was run through at the Edmundo Flores market 
for a handful of silver coins oil distributors paid him for 
a week of trade. When I hounded down the murderer, a 
visiting criminal from Borita-Feh, a pen-pusher heading the 
magistrate kept shaking my hand and assuring me he would 
try to get a regular salary for me. Naturally, I didn't 
believe him, and later I appeared right. All in all, time 
was passing by.
Once in the evening I discovered the Bookreader Xavier 
Unsuhe walking along the street where I lived. He looked as 
old, grey-haired and alive as a year ago. The only 
difference was a morbid feverish shine that could now be 
seen in his eyes.
"Velasquez!" he exclaimed having noticed me. "I've been 
waiting for you for half of the day!"
"Something happened?" I asked, prick-eared.
"Yes, it did," the Bookreader replied gloomily. "Is 
there somewhere we could talk?"
"There's quite a decent tavern just around the corner."
"Decent?" Unsuhe said, it seemed to me, with a sniff. 
"Do you really mean there happen to be decent emporia in 
this part of the town?"
"Quite decent for this quarter," I parried calmly. 
"There you are guaranteed against being run through 
immediately after you enter. Besides, I'm known there."
They really knew me there in "Manana". They could even 
trust me for food and drinks, when I was stranded. 
Fortunately, difficulties of the kind were becoming more 
and more rare lately; I was known as a successful and sly 
detective, and the number of people approaching me was 
increasing. Frankly, I even started to consider purchasing 
a more appropriate dwelling in a more appropriate 
Cartakhena quarter.
"So, what happened?" I asked when we sat down at a table 
in the most distant corner of the tavern and took a sip of 
beer.
The oldman looked at me examiningly. His eyes gleamed 
again, and a silent question seemed to be caught in the web 
of his deep wrinkles.
"Tell me, Velasquez," the Bookreader asked me after a 
while. "Hasn't anything strange been happening to you? 
Something like bad dreams or inexplicable wishes... for 
instance, the wish to visit Esteban Blankes. How about it?"
I reflected. Dreams... Dreams occur, no sense in hiding 
it. But I could recall no unusual wishes. However, I 
understood what the Bookreader was asking me about. An 
impress of that very book. He believes that, since I opened 
the "Eye of abyss", I should now be bearing a sinister 
impress. And the day will assertedly come when I find out I 
don't belong to myself any more.
"No, Xavier Unsuhe," I replied, and the reply seemed 
quite sincere to me. "I feel no damnation upon me. As for 
bad dreams, everybody has them once in a while. Even the 
righteous do. Is this all you wanted to hear?"
The Bookreader went on fixing me with his eye. Most 
probably, he didn't believe I noticed nothing strange in 
me. Then he gloomily stared into the half empty beer jug.
"Someone took interest in the book again," he said in a 
low voice.
I almost jumped on the bench. Was it really the time to 
unravel the mystery of the book and the cloister? I swore I 
would do it one day. But in fact I absolutely didn't expect 
the occasion to turn up that soon.
"Who was it?" I asked, fighting down a whole eddy of 
conflicting emotions.
"Ricardo Echeverha. A student."
"When?"
"He has been visiting my place for more than a year. 
This morning I noticed he approached the shelf where I keep 
the cloister books."
"Is that all?" I drawled out in hesitation.
"He touched the book. I saw it. Perhaps, not even for 
the first time."
"And what do you want of me?"
"Follow him," Unsuhe asked me, whispering. "I can't take 
it any more."
"What is it you can't take?" I asked in a harsh manner. 
"You can't stay silent when your readers are facing certain 
death?"
Unsuhe began to seem not even old, but senile.
"So, you could do it before, eh?" I continued. "Hey, 
Bookreader! What happened to you so suddenly?"
I realised I was behaving cruelly. But I couldn't stop.
We kept sitting in a singing silence for some time. 
Finally I melted a bit. 
"How much time do we have? We... and him?"
"No idea," Unsuhe replied, still whispering. "I guess, 
about a week."
"Where does he live?"
"In the Santa Rosalina student tabernacle close to the 
cathedral. Do you know where it is?"
"I do," I sighed. "What did you say was his name? 
Rodrigo Echeverha?"
"Ricardo. Ricardo Echeverha," the Bookreader corrected 
me. I perfectly registered the name the first time I heard 
it, though. I'm a detective after all, not a drivelling 
beggar from Muerta Folla.
"OK," I declared abruptly. "I'm getting down to this 
case. Try not to absent yourself from your digs, for I can 
require your presence at any moment." I got up and threw a 
copper coin onto the table.
"One more point I meant to mention," I added a bit 
softer. "Sorry about having been that harsh with you, 
Xavier Unsuhe..."
It seemed to me, something huge and dark staggered back 
from me in fear. Just as if it noticed something fatal in 
me.
Well... That's what you call nothing strange happening 
with you.
In a week I knew Ricardo Echeverha's life virtually hour 
by hour. I knew all his affairs, what places he visited and 
when, I was aware of his sleeping and eating habits - in 
other words, nothing remained secret to me. I couldn't fail 
to notice he was not behaving in a usual way - he often 
stood still on the street, as if musing, and then suddenly 
started to look perplexedly around, as if unable to 
understand where he was and why. His acquaintances also 
noticed Ricardo became absentminded recently and on many 
occasions missed questions addressed to him. Father 
Gonsalio who professed philosophy, theology and literature 
in Santa Rosalina confirmed it all and gave a guess that 
the young man was simply tired.
I didn't think so. Ricardo had only a few friends, and 
fortunately none of them knew about the nature of my actual 
affairs and interests. I invented for them some reasons 
because of which I was assertedly searching for Ricardo, 
and I had hardly time enough to get rid of them and to get 
lost in the crowd when Ricardo himself appeared in a 
distant part of the street. He was dragging himself towards 
the student tabernacle, his head low, making his way from 
north-east. That was exactly where Xavier Unsuhe's library 
was situated.
I carefully watched him from behind a candle merchant 
booth.
He represented a perfect example of someone bearing an 
impress of despair, which could be seen right away; his 
appearance was the one incurables usually have.
This was the first time I observed Ricardo Echeverha so 
closely.
He passed through the tabernacle gate, absently nodded 
to the old janitor and bent his steps towards the enter to 
camchoh, a small parcel gathered under his elbow.
I almost immediately detected Xavier Unsuhe. He was 
following Ricardo, awkwardly trying to stay unremarked; 
doing so, the old Bookreader was craning his neck in a 
funny way and drudgingly turning his heads in all 
directions. I rushed to meet him.
He didn't notice me; I waited till Unsuhe passed me and 
slightly plucked him by the sleeve.  
The Bookreader started and turned around. Then he heaved 
a sigh of relief.
"That's you, Velasquez! I chanced upon you just in 
time!"
I chose not to elaborate who was actually the one to 
chance upon the other.
"Echeverha took the book! He keeps the "Eye of abyss" 
now! Just imagine, this is the first time I detected loss 
of the book earlier than I could detect loss of my 
reader..."
Unsuhe was whispering so deliriously and loudly that 
bypassers began to look back, and I drew him away from the 
square to a quiet location under olive trees in front of 
the cathedral.
"Do you think it's a sign which means he is going to 
visit Esteban Blankes?" I asked when I was sure no 
strangers could hear us.
Unsuhe looked at me as if I were bereft of reason.
"Of course! Otherwise what did he take it for?"
I shrugged:
"I guess he could go to the cloister with no book as 
well. Something is wrong here..."
The Bookreader swallowed; Adam's apple below his baggy 
skin twitched as if trying to obtain freedom.
"I don't know. But those who come to Esteban Blankes 
without the book find nothing there. Nothing but dust and 
desertion. I guess, the book allows to reach a place other 
mortals have no access to."
"To reach it, and to stay there forever?" I gave a 
sarcastic hum.
"Who knows," Unsuhe said pensively. "Maybe after we see 
it, we will not want to go back to Cartakhena."
I kept silence for a little while.
"Well," I sighed. "Then I'll go and try to dissuade 
him..."
The Bookreader clenched my arm:
"No!"
Surprised, I stood still.
"Why not? He will disappear! Disappear, just the way all 
the others have!"
Xavier Unsuhe kept on holding my elbow with a strength 
unexpected in a person of his age.
"We should trace him, Velasquez! Follow him to the 
cloister and see everything with our own eyes. And 
understand."
I reflected. Frankly, it sounded reasonable. Let's even 
assume I'll deceive this hag-ridden student, though 
something made me doubt successful results of such an 
effort. But others will come. Later. Who knows, who will 
acquire the book after the old Unsuhe dies.
We should really straighten it all out. I didn't believe 
the book was a clue to a kind of christian heaven, for in 
this case it wouldn't be called "Eye of abyss" and wouldn't 
have been that awesome. And nobody would have told me evil 
was watching from the abyss, not even in my dreams. This 
book was evil. Otherwise it wouldn't have caused human 
loss. Perhaps, when I oversee Ricardo Echeverha, I'll be 
able to understand the way evil trammels people and entices 
them into the cloister. And I'll get to know how to brake 
its chains.
Usual human valetudinarianism immediately came on the 
scene.
Hey, Manuel Martin Velasquez! Come down to earth! What 
evil? What shackles? Stop this flapdoodle, and do not try 
to play the role of the one who judges what is evil and 
what is good. It's none of your business; go nose for 
cheats and faithless wives, and drink your beer in dirty 
taverns. Fighting evil is a predestination of heroes.
How can evil be personalised and reified? What do you 
expect to encounter in the cloister? What or who? Devil 
with a card deck? A pack of hell dogs snapping their teeth? 
Do you know what real evil is?
No.
Then why do you get into it?
But I swore.
This does not matter.
Then what does matter on this earth, damn you? What? 
Silver coins? I have already received them. For Fernando 
Camarasa whom I failed to find. For Santiago Torres I 
failed to find either. How are you going to keep on 
respecting yourself in case you break your oath? And how 
are you going to live without self-respect? 
"There he goes!" Xavier Unsuhe motioned to me. "Virgin 
Stefania, he goes!"
I looked trying to suppress malice against myself. 
Ricardo Echeverha, the package still under his arm, was 
marching decisively across the square, away from the 
tabernacle gate. He trod fast and purposefully, making his 
way down the street that lead towards the port downhill. It 
was exactly the right place to turn towards the outer 
suburbs where the Esteban Blankes cloister was situated.
Now stop with it. No more deliberation. It's time to 
act. Spying, spy.
And I followed the student. Xavier Unsuhe stayed under 
the olive tree, though I thought he would go with me.
I guess he was scared.
I can follow somebody on Cartakhena streets and stay 
unnoticed. Don't ask me how I do it; there are no words to 
explain it, and I dislike letting secrets out anyway. But 
even a dabbler could skulk after Ricardo Echeverha: the 
student was walking without looking back or around. Now and 
then he dropped an occasional look on the road at his feet, 
but he did it lazily, almost reluctantly, and then again he 
seemed walking asleep. Strange as it was, his quick pace 
did not disperse the impression this feckless guy with a 
package was dozing, and even made it stronger in some 
graspless way. Probably because only his legs were moving, 
while his arms pressed against his body and his head stayed 
motionless, as if they belonged to a tailor's dummy in my 
late lamented mother's shop.
We passed a bend to the port; Echeverha stroke to the 
right, just the way I expected him to, and dipped into the 
Tortosa Benitos quarters - endless curved off streets, two- 
and three-storied grubby houses built of rag, dumb hedges 
and dusty branches of peach and olive trees over them. Now 
and then bandogs, lucky cousins of the constantly hungry 
ones at the town dumping ground near Esteban Blankes, 
started to bark from beyond those invulnerable fences. Once 
in a while I got ahead of Echeverha, hurriedly passing 
numerous side streets, waited for him, and got ahead of him 
again. I circled around him as a predator could circle 
around an unwitting prey.
I still could stop him, and all this time I was keeping 
it in my mind.
Echeverha approached the cloister even earlier than I 
expected him to. The student appeared to be a tireless 
walker, which was unguessed. I settled myself down behind a 
high and the less stinking dump pile - I think, it was 
debris - and got ready to observe.
Ricardo Echeverha came out of a periphery bystreet and 
started to hurriedly descend into the hollow, moving along 
a path full of turns and twists.
The sun just began its slow way down towards laystalls 
in the distant part of the hollow. I realised with an 
unclear strain that I hoped the student would not wait for 
the night there. To hang about in this place in the dark? 
Oh no, let me be excused. I will not stay close to Esteban 
Blankes in the night, and I will not let this guy do so 
either. I'll take him by the scruff of the neck and 
accompany him to the tabernacle, to other boneheads of his 
kind.
I failed to notice where dogs (or wolf-dogs) came from. 
Several laystalls simply appeared to be totally under the 
paws of those beasts.  There were lots of them, and they 
all were standing along the path and silently looking at 
Ricardo Echeverha. Just like escort of honour at the King's 
solemn entry in Escurial.
It was the first time during the last one or two hours 
that Echeverha recovered from his incomprehensible 
stupefaction. He looked around observing the dog escort and 
seized his package with even more care.
The dogs were silent. No growling, no barking - nothing 
but a silence of death, a sinister one.
A creepy chill I knew so well touched my back for the 
first time during that day. 
Echeverha was making his way by the dogs, his kneels 
trembling, as it seemed to me; they were reaching for him 
with their wet noses, emitting no single sound. It was 
horribly incorrect, unnatural, impossible - a silent pack.
Cold, endless cold was torturing my body.
Breath of abyss.
Echeverha disappeared beyond the gate. The dogs didn't 
even try to enter; they milled about the aperture for a 
while and jogged away one by one.
I briskly sprang and hurriedly followed his way to the 
gate. The pack immediately stood still, their heads turned 
towards me. It suddenly seemed to me they were not multiple 
creatures, but a single one, multi-headed and alien.
Frost became more severe, but it couldn't move me from 
my determination.
Manuel Martin Velasquez never breaks his promises... Or 
at least tries to believe he doesn't.
Rugs of the torn web were stirring on the wings edges. I 
distinguished Ricardo Echeverha's back in front of me: the 
student was entering the temple. He didn't notice me; he 
didn't look sideways, and didn't give a single look back on 
his way from Santa Rosalina.
Moving fast and silently, I hurried to follow him.
I listened carefully at the entrance; I scarcely could 
hear the student's steps. It seemed to me they should have 
been louder.
I looked inside. Echeverha was approaching the staircase 
leading to the attic.
A step. One more step. A step again.
The whole place was quiet and empty, but it only 
increased nervousness and coldness.
And suddenly, when Echeverha climbed a couple of steps 
towards the attic, slowly unwrapped the package and, as if 
entranced, put the book down onto the stone of the 
staircase, I sensed that something momentarily changed in 
the cloister.
Or, to be more precise, in the temple.
Just a moment earlier it was empty and dusty upstairs.
Now it was not. Something started up there. Well, to be 
more precise, not exactly started up. Everything having 
constituted the normal Esteban Blankes cloister attic 
disappeared. Another place emerged there, and it was 
inhabited by something.
I have no better explanation.
Ricardo Echeverha, still drowsy and submissive to an 
outer will, was climbing the staircase. I felt a tormenting 
desire to hail him, to stop and save him. I still could do 
it, for the staircase was sufficiently long.
But I kept silence.
And the student came upstairs without let or hindrance 
and stepped where a usual attic had once been, and where 
that very alien place now appeared.
I can't say for sure how long I was staying at the 
temple entrance, rooted to the spot. It was quiet upstairs.
And then Ricardo Echeverha cried. It was not a howl of 
horror or fear. It was the groan of fatality.
Unconscious of what I was doing, I hurriedly climbed the 
staircase to the very top of it. I remember having been 
surprised about my boots not gliding like on ice. They say, 
ice is glib. It still looked like a normal dusty attic that 
somehow became hundreds of times larger. Unstable light was 
falling from above, it was dim and unsure, masking more 
than illuminating.
Ricardo Echeverha kneeled about twenty metres in front 
of me, and something was squirming on cold stones making 
its way towards him. It was something shapeless, looking 
like a sack or a bota. It was so much alien that didn't 
even cause any fear. It was fear itself.
Evil from abyss.
A sob - not even a cry, but a sob froze in my throat. I 
got petrified. I turned to stone, became similar to the 
temple arch, the attic floor, the cloister walls. But, 
unlike real stone, I still could see.
When it approached the student, dogs outside could 
barely be heard to howl. The student fell down. It began to 
creep over him as a monstrous, faceless and senseless 
amoeba. And I felt it virtually with my whole nature that 
the student was disappearing, getting dissolved, losing his 
entity. His soul was leaving him. Uncontrolled, his arms 
were twitching droopingly, clawing stone.
I couldn't imagine what he felt. But I knew for sure 
Ricardo Echeverha was suffering. Suffering the way no human 
could ever envisage. And then this shapeless something 
suddenly sprouted a kind of two powerful and long arms and 
started to beat Ricardo Echeverha like a plasticine doll, 
to mould a stone statue out of his body. I don't know why 
it seemed stone to me; probably because not a single ounce 
of warmth remained in this man who had been alive just 
several minutes earlier. That was why such a comparison 
came to my mind.
Several clear-cut movements, and the dummy is thrown 
away; it jumps on the floor, bending as if in pain beyond 
any endurance, its arms awkwardly spread, and all of a 
sudden it becomes still. It stands frozen - not a human any 
more, but a statue whose name is Pain and Suffer.
From now on, and forever.
Somehow I knew it for sure - Pain was forever, and 
Suffer too.
A moment later I noticed something else.
This statue was not the only one in the suddenly grown 
attic of the Esteban Blankes temple. There were hundreds of 
them. Or maybe even thousands - there's always enough time 
for evil. They stood as a forest, as a motionless crowd, 
every one in its own posture, but all of them had the same 
name.
Pain and Suffer forever.
Then the evil looked at me, and this look appeared 
colder than my very first dream about abyss.


* * *


I don't remember how I happened to get out. I have no 
idea why abyss let me go and chose not to make one of those 
statues, frozen and totally emptied at the edge of 
eternity, out of me. I was lying between two laystalls, 
pressing the damned book to my breast. A meagre black dog 
was carefully nosing my boots.
My clothes were clammy, outside because of mud, and 
inside because of sweat. My hands holding the book were 
trembling despite of my pressing them to my body. The sky 
was full of stars, a little bit pecky moon was up there 
neighbouring Cartakhena, pouring its unstable ghostly light 
over the spanless wasteland and the cloister walls that 
looked like portions of darkness fallen from the deep 
violet sky.
Esteban Blankes. Focus of evil. The evil that always 
comes back because this world is full of people like you, 
Manuel Martin Velasquez. You, who could try to stop the 
besotted Ricardo Echevarha, and became only a witness of 
his doom instead. Not even a doom, for a doom is just a 
step beyond the edge, into the darkness.
I was suddenly struck by a keen realisation of what 
heaven was. It isn't pastures and singing angels, 
absolutely not. Heaven is the bliss of blackness, a chance 
not to become a statue whose name is Pain and Suffer, a 
statue doomed to an eternal stay beside evil, but to 
disappear in the gloom.
You deprived the student of such a chance, Manuel Martin 
Velasquez. And as long as people like you exist, evil will 
come back.
Realisation of this simple fact made me sob 
convulsively. And at the same time the knowledge came. 
Paying no attention to the dog beside me I sat and opened 
the book. And I found the page I needed right away.
You can't banish evil. But you can chase it, drive it 
away for a long time.
The only price for life is life, Manuel Martin 
Velasquez. Suffer is paid for with suffer. And betrayal 
requires an atonement. But the price is never too high.
Use your name to chase the evil, to keep it away for as 
long as you can. The stronger your spirit remains on your 
short way towards the cloister temple and the steep 
staircase, the longer the book will silently stay on some 
bookreader's shelf. No matter if you languish and get 
tripped on garbage; you will be strong enough not to look 
back and not to slow your pace.
And let the silent dogs guard be your witness: you will 
never doubt your decision while you follow this way.

* * *


Soon after dawn two men stumbled across the abandoned 
laystall. They were the old Bookreader Xavier Unsuhe and a 
beggar whose name was Augustin Munos. They were making 
their way to the cloister.
"There seems to be no dogs," the Bookreader mumbled 
worriedly. "You told me there are lots of dogs here!"
"No dogs, and, I can tell you, it's for the better, 
Santa Stefania bless us," Munos replied jauntily. As he was 
walking, his hock polished by hundreds of hands - just a 
regular wooden stick - got grinded into thrash. "I've never 
liked those beasts!"
Augustin Munos was giving himself over to dreams. In his 
dreams he was bringing the book from this strange, but 
absolutely unhazardous place, giving it to this simpleton 
of a Bookreader, getting a couple of coins for that... And 
his Muerta Folla fellows were already waiting edgily for 
him at "Carmenchita's", where beer was very cheap.
Finally the meandering path has lead them to the 
dilapidated gate.
"Nobody here!" Augustin Munos announced, definitely 
satisfied with this discovery.
"I'll be right back! Hey, don't be that scared, I was 
here a lot of times."
The Bookreader nodded with uncertainty. He hoped till 
the last moment that he would meet Velasquez and Echeverha 
on his way. Even now he kept on hoping.
Munos slid into the aperture between the gate flaps and 
tottered to the temple entrance, knocking his stick against 
the stone pavement of the cloister court. For some 
indefinite reason the entrance reminded Xavier Unsuhe of 
the insatiable maw, the Rughian Gate of "Limit of the 
impossible" by Itor Villaroya.
The thought made the Bookreader shudder. The comparison 
happened to be too sinister. Then he was suddenly aware of 
a barely noticeable change in the temple appearance. Even 
the ancient stone of the cloister heads stretched to the 
sky seemed to have become lighter. And crosses started to 
shine in the sunlight.
And even walls covered with lichen suddenly began to 
look almost festively decorated.
Very slowly, dragging his feet as oldmen do, Xavier 
Unsuhe entered the cloister court. He chose not to approach 
the temple entrance. Something drew him to the backside of 
the temple, to one of the most distant cell towers.
He walked a long way, incredulously listening to his own 
sensations. Chippings were cracking under his feet.
Having left the temple behind, Xavier Unsuhe turned 
around and gave one more look to the Esteban Blankes 
cloister altered heart. He watched the temple in the centre 
of the court.
And then he suddenly realised what had changed.
The temple now had not seven, but eight heads. A small 
tower, only a half of human stature, of cream-coloured 
stone reared a correspondingly small dome with an Alonzo 
cross to the chest level. Something made Xavier Unsuhe 
think it resembled a young tree that will grow and get 
darker, as time will pass.
But this thought flashed and immediately disappeared, as 
soon as the old Bookreader saw a shiny white inscription 
below the small dome, a glary white one bearing no traces 
of time that were characteristic of the already grown heads 
of the Esteban Blankes temple. 
Three words. A name.
Manuel Martin Velasquez.
"Hey, Bookreader!" Augustin Munos called, standing at 
the temple entrance. "Where are you? Here is your book!"
But Xavier Unsuhe couldn't hear this call. He slowly 
slumped down to the ancient stones of the cloister court, 
his hands pressed against his heart, and his dead unseeing 
eyes peered into the sky of Cartakhena suburbs.


 March, 1998

Nikolaev, Moscow
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