The Brush (an excerpt)

The Witnesses say:

Yes, we heard something, but we said nothing, we couldn’t say anything, the rainwater swarmed on the windowsills. We heard something, but it was a snail-trail slicking along, the summer heat, irritation licking our faces: we thought it was the click-clack of the train. We said nothing, and anyway, what could we have said that they would’ve heard, didn’t everyone know by then? We’re real men. If we open our mouths, will we be able to forget?

We left.

Northward from the forest, as we know, blows the wind, generous.

**

The Investigators continue:

They reach the town like a triumphal march, an astonishing entrance: the exhibition of an omnipotence that could be called defiant at the very least. Even so, we were unable to determine the number of women who were forced to cook, of men and women who were forced to watch, of women and children who were locked up. It is necessary to establish the number of people whose property was damaged, whether fire was used to destroy said property. It is imperative to elucidate the circumstances of the means, time, and place. Still others cannot be understood: why a ghost plane flew overhead in the dead of night, how was it that the authorities heard, and why, when they heard, they failed to lend their ears for a moment, what they were doing, we don’t know, and why they arrived when there was no longer anything to be done.

**

The Brush clarifies:

If matter is human,
this brush, which breathes,
follows the current of itself,
and is a substance that decays
and eats itself
and comes back into being:
breathing, furious.
Everything envelops it:
larvae, their patience,
naked mushrooms, the hypnotic
scent of flowers.
During the concert,
rain is generality.
Every I and every mine
is open sky or moss.
It loses its possessive, but
it’s water pooling densely,
breeding tadpoles.


Translated from the Spanish by Robin Myers


Reprinted from The Brush (Archipelago Books, 2024) by Eliana Hernández-Pachón, translated from the Spanish by Robin Myers. Reprinted with permission. All rights reserved.