The Watchful Toad
There was a pair of twins who wandered alone all through the world. They were no bigger than a grain of millet.
They wandered through a deep, dark forest in which the evil witch lived, and she paralyzed the air. And there was also the toad, who protected the woods and their secret.
Walking, walking, children of no one, the twins kept walk- ing through life’s immensity.
One day, a little perfidious path opened up before them and used its tricks to lead them to the woods. When they tried to leave, the path had fled, and there they were, lost in endless darkness that not a ray of light penetrated.
They slowly felt their way forward, not knowing where they were going, touching the darkness with their sightless hands. And the woods became thicker and more sinister and fearfully silent. It moved deeper into the entrails of the starless night.
The twins began to cry and that woke up the toad, dozing in his lifeless mud puddle, lifeless for centuries with no concep- tion of light.
(Now the old toad had never heard a child cry.) He walked for a long time in the echoless forest – there were neither bird songs nor sweet rustling branches – and he found the twins who were quivering like the cry of a cricket in the grass. (Never had the cold toad seen a child.) The twins embraced him, not knowing who he was, and there he sat motionless, one child cradled asleep in each arm. His warm heart melted, and the children’s dreams flowed through his veins.
“Tángala, tángala, mitángala, tú juran gánga. Kukuñongo, Evil devil, new broom for sweeping
The Watchful Toad
Cocuyero, give me eyes so that I may see! Horror of dreams, let all tremble! I knock over la Seiba1
angulo, the seven Rays, Mamma Louisa . . . Sarabanda! Jump, wooden horse! Lightning! Tornado!
Evil wind, carry it off, carry it off!”
The woods were pressing against his back on tiptoes and watching him anxiously. From the dead branches, ears were hanging, listening to his heartbeat. Millions of invisible eyes, with sharp, furtive glances, pierced the compact darkness. And behind everything lay silence’s inexorable claw.
The guardian toad left the twins lying on the ground. “No matter who suffers, Sampunga wants some blood! No matter who suffers, Sampunga wants some blood!” At the far end of the night, the witch extended her hands like rotten roots.
The toad sighed deeply, and he swallowed the twins. He fled through the woods like a thief, and when the twins were jolted awake, they said:
“Chamatú, chekundale, Chamatú, chekundale, chapundale,
Kuma, kuma tú! Tún! tún! Túmbiyaya!
Where are they taking me? Túmbiyaya! Where are they taking me! Túmbiyaya!” In the muddy stomach.
Dust of the crossroads.
Earth from the cemetery, dug at midnight.
Black earth from an anthill, because ants have worked dog-
The Watchful Toad
gedly, thinking neither of pain nor pleasure, since the begin- ning of time. The Bibijaguas,2
industrious and wise.
Stomach of Mama Téngue. She learned her mysterious work in the roots of the Grandmother Seiba, in the earth’s womb for seven days. For seven days she learned the work of silence among the fish in the river’s depths. Mama Téngue drank the Moon.
With the hairy spider and the scorpion, with rotten rooster head and with owl-eye, eye of immovable night, blood yoke, the Word of the Shadows shone. “Evil spirit! Evil spirit! Mouth of darkness, worm’s mouth, consuming life! Allá Kiriki, allai bosaikombo, allá kiriki!”
Flat on her stomach, the old woman spat alcohol along with dust and Chinese pepper into the enchanted saucepan.
On the ground, she drew arrows with ashes and sleeping serpents with smoke. She made the seashells speak.
“Sampúnga, Sampúnga wants some blood!” “There’s no time left,” said the witch. The toad didn’t answer.
“Give me what’s mine!” repeated the old hag.
The toad cracked his lips and a viscous green thread came out.
The witch burst into cackles like a whirlwind of dry leaves, and she filled a sack with stones. The stones turned to rocks, and the sack got as big as a mountain.
“Carry that load away for me, over there, nowhere!” With his weak arms, the toad lifted up the mountain and put it effortlessly on his back.
The toad hopped forward as best he could in the limitless darkness. The witch followed him through a broken mirror.
“Chamatú, chekundale, Chamatú, chekundale, chapundale,
The Watchful Toad Kúma, kuma tú!
Tún! Tún! Tumbiyaya! Where are they taking me? Tumbiyaya!
Where are they taking me! Tumbiyaya!”
And now the warmhearted toad was singing joyously at ev- ery hop:
“Saint John of Paúl With one swig, Saint John of Paúl, That’s how I swallow.”
There, neither very close nor very far away, the toad let the twins out of his stomach. And the twins, again finding them- selves in that unknown night, now that they were awake, burst into bitter tears. . . .
Then Toad’s fat, ugly face expressed unbelievable tender- ness. And he pronounced that incorruptible word, a forgotten lost word that was older than the world’s sadness. And the word became the light of dawn. Through their tears, the twins saw the forest retreat, disintegrate in slow, vague dance steps, and finally disappear into the pale horizon. And soon the new day arose, the clean smell of the morning.
They found themselves at the gates of a village, in full sun- light, and went off down the white road singing and laugh- ing.
“Traitor!” cried the witch, twisted with hate. And the toad, filled with sweetness, lay dreaming in his mud puddle, dreaming in the purest waters. . . .
The witch came to kill him. But he was already sleeping, lying sweetly dead in that clear, limitless water filled with eter- nal calm. . . .