At the Edge of Waking Read Free Page B

sunlight, burning themselves to ash before they touched the ground.
    The day of the vote was an undeclared holiday. Even the news station played music, waiting for something to report, and every open window poured dance songs and ballads into the streets. Neighbors put aside their feuds, strangers were treated to glasses of beer, talk swelled and died away on the hour and rose again when there was no news, no news.
    Sandoval, trying as always to be extraordinary, had declared that today was an ordinary day, and had gone with Ruy and Orlando and some others to the swordsman Corredo’s atelier for their morning practice. Santiago, summoned by Ruy, entered those doors for the first time that day, and he was not sure what to feel. While Sandoval strove to triumph over the day’s great events by cleaving to routine, Santiago found it was impossible not to let his first entry into the duelists’ privileged realm be colored by the tension of the day. And why shouldn’t it be? He looked around him at the young men’s faces, watched them try to mirror Sandoval’s mask of ennui, and wondered if their fight to free themselves from the common experience only meant they failed to immerse themselves in the moment they craved. This was the moment, this day, the day of decision. And yet, Santiago thought, Sandoval was right in one thing: however the vote went, whatever the decision, life would go on. They would go on breathing, pumping blood, making piss. They would still be here, in the world, swimming in time.
    “You’re thinking,” Ruy said cheerfully. “Master Corredo! What say you to the young man who thinks?”
    “Thinking will kill you,” said the swordsman Corredo. He was a lean, dry man, all sinew and leather, and he meant what he said.
    “There, you see? Here, take this in your hand.” Ruy presented Santiago with the hilt of a rapier. Santiago took it in his burn-scarred hand, felt the grip find its place against his palm. The sword was absurdly light after the iron weight of the glassmaker’s tongs, it took no more than a touch of his fingers to hold it steady.
    “Ah, you’ve done this before,” Ruy said. He sounded suspicious, as if he thought Santiago had lied.
    “No, never.” Santiago was tempted to laugh. He loved it, this place, this sword in his hand.
    “A natural, eh? Most of us started out clutching it like—”
    “Like their pizzles in the moment of joy,” Master Corredo said. He took Santiago’s strong wrist between his fingers and thumb and shook it so the sword softly held in Santiago’s palm waved in the air. After a moment Santiago firmed the muscles in his arm and the sword was still, despite the swordsman’s pressure.
    “Well,” said Corredo. He let Santiago go. “You stand like a lump of stone. Here, beside me. Place your feet so—not so wide—the knees a little bent . . . ”
    Ruy wandered off, limbered up with a series of long lunges. After a while the soft kiss and whine of steel filled the air.
    By noon they were disposed under the awning in Corredo’s courtyard, drinking beer and playing cards. Santiago, with a workingman’s sense of time, was hungry, but no one else seemed to be thinking about food. Also, the stakes were getting higher. Santiago dropped a good hand on the discard pile and excused himself. He would save his money and find a tavern that would sell him a bushel of flautas along with a few bottles of beer. Not that he could afford to feed them any more than he could afford to gamble with them, but he had heard them talk about spongers. He would rather be welcomed when they did see him, even if he could not see them often.
    And then again, the holiday atmosphere of the streets made it easy to spend money if you had it to spend. In the masculine quiet of Corredo’s atelier he had actually forgotten for a little while what day it was. The vote, the vote. Red and green handbills not yet faded by the angry sun fluttered from every doorjamb and drifted like lazy