Obabakoak Read Online Free

Wouldn’t it be better to leave the past well alone, rather than stir it all up?
    “Only the young really enjoy looking back,” he thought. But when they talked about the past, they were really talking about the future, about the fears and desires they had about that future, about what they wanted from life. Moreover, they never did so alone, as he did. He didn’t really understand his urge to remember. Perhaps it was a bad sign, a sign that everything was over once and for all, that he was tired of life.
    He shook his head to drive away such thoughts and finally noticed what was going on outside. By the side of the swans’ house someone had stopped to shelter from the rain and to throw pieces of bread into the lake. The swans were swimming back and forth, honking like mad things. “Their first visitor of the day,” he thought, “they must be hungry.” Then to himself he said: “Back to the choir loft.”
    The moment I entered the choir loft, the canon got up from his seat at the organ and stretched out his arms. Almost sweetly, he said:
    “Young Werfell is finally among us. Let us all rejoice and give thanks.”
    Putting his hands together he began to pray out loud and all my companions followed suit.
    “Welcome, Esteban,” he said afterward, assuring me that: “From now on you will belong to our community, you will be one of the chosen.” My companions stared at me as if they were seeing me for the first time. Andrés was in charge of distributing the books of psalms. The copy he handed me was almost brand new.
    “Don’t worry, Esteban. A few more Sundays and you’ll be as good as us. You’ll probably end up being the best of all,” he whispered.
    The pages of the book were very thin and had gilded edges. A red ribbon marked the psalms for that day.
    When the canon asked me to sit at his side, the gaze of my companions became even more fixed. I hung back. I realized that it was an honor to be asked, but feared the physical proximity of the canon. The disagreeable smell emanating from his clothes was still fresh in my memory.
    “Don’t be frightened, Esteban. Come and sit up here with me,” said the canon, as he began to play. The floorboards of the choir loft vibrated.
    I was puzzled to see that the organ had two keyboards and that in order to play it, one had to move one’s feet. Sometimes the melody grew unpredictable with abrupt highs and lows and the canon seemed to be dancing sitting down, rocking back and forth on the bench and bumping up against me. I found it difficult to follow the melody of the psalms we sang; I couldn’t concentrate.
    By the third psalm, I had closed the book and simply sat looking at the scene before me. There were my companions opening and closing their mouths and down below were the kneeling women; a little farther off, the candle flame burned, giving off orange lights.
    Suddenly the flame began to rise into the air. At first it seemed to be moving of its own accord, as if propelled forward by something at its base. But then, when it was already hovering above the altar steps, I saw that this was not the case, that the flame was not traveling forward on its own but was held in the hand of a young girl with fair hair. She was the one hovering there, gently, unhesitatingly.
    “She’s coming toward me,” I thought. The light from the flame was blinding me now.
    The young girl flew across the whole length of the church and came to a halt in front of me. She hovered in the air, about a yard above the floor of the choir loft. The organ had fallen silent.
    “Do you know what love is, Esteban?” she asked sweetly.
    I replied with a nod and tried to get up from the bench in order to see her face. But the candle flame kept me riveted to the spot.
    “Could you love me?” she asked and for a moment I glimpsed her nose, her half-open lips.
    “Yes,” I said. It seemed the only possible answer.
    “Then come and find me, Esteban. Come to Hamburg,” she said. “My address is