THE TEMPLE

CHAPTER 1: THE TREE

That night, my grandmother entered my room and whispered into my ear:

“Come with me, and ask no questions.”

Heavy with sleep and reluctant, I rose and followed her. I had no idea what she was plotting, but it was unheard of for her to wake me at midnight. She was never what one would call a “conventional grandmother”—the kind who insists you eat your weight in croquettes, or spends her days knitting while glancing at the television, nor the kind who hits the gym with her friends.

Naturally jovial, she used to tell us that what she yearned for most while on tour was returning home after her concerts. For our part, sitting by her side to listen to the stories she invented heralded a day of wonder. Our private Scheherazade, she wove nightly tales of imaginary beings, of trees hidden in sacred groves, of music, and of dreams involving ships. She narrated them with such intensity that we remained petrified, tracking every gesture of her face, every movement of her hands. Her way of staging these stories—submerging us in unknown worlds—filled me with a certain unease, for she recounted them as if she were remembering another era of her life.

“Grandmother, what’s happening?” I asked.

“Shh. Come with me.”

I followed her to her room; once inside, she silently closed the door.

“I have to talk to you, Héctor.”

She reached into her robe pocket and pulled out an L-shaped tool coated in rust. She approached her wardrobe, shifting a mountain of linens to locate a notch which she carefully pried up. Behind the makeshift patch lay a hidden mechanism. She moved a panel, revealing a hollow space. The same mechanism that opened the door slid a platform forward, carrying a guitar. She took it in her hands and offered it to me, kissing my cheek as she did so.

The first thought that crossed my mind was why my grandmother would hide this guitar, when her house was littered with instruments in every room. She placed the guitar in my hands.

“Sit beside me.” She wouldn’t stop staring at me.

“I’m ready for whatever you have to tell me,” I affirmed, convinced of my own words.

I had been chosen by my grandmother from among all her grandchildren to be invited into a game that promised to be fascinating. I forgot my insecurities; nothing could harm me in that moment. And so it all began, with a story:

Anchurica was an island lost in the Sea of Sorrows. It was far from any inhabited place, and thus it went ignored for many centuries. A few ships dared to draw too close, but the tales of shipwrecks near its coasts were well-known. According to the ancient accounts of survivors, beyond the lush and dense vegetation, there was nothing of interest there.

Anchurica harbored a forest that stretched as far as the eye could see. Trees of every species and variety grew in that corner of the world—lost, forgotten. Hidden within that green sea, a being prayed at the feet of an immense specimen. Animals approached its trunk seeking shelter when they felt threatened, knowing that there, nothing could harm them.

The ancient tree had always been there, and alongside it since the dawn of time, a tribe of shamans prayed, worshipping it as if it were a god. They were beings covered in rags, their features impossible to discern. The only detail that stood out was their sheer stature; otherwise, the scraps of cloth expertly concealed every inch of their bodies.

One day, loggers began to appear in the forest, observing the trees and making marks based on seemingly random criteria. The forest protected its most beloved specimen; the thicket hid it, despite its size making such a task difficult. They advanced, leaving a trail of discarded trees in their wake—always the largest, the oldest specimens, which fell one after another.

Nature attempted to defend itself, setting traps to make them desist from what seemed a suicidal mission, but risk does not deter a desperate man when an incentive makes the eyes glitter and the mind cloud.

After years of effort, it was discovered. Upon beholding it, they were unable to utter a word; they had never seen anything like it. It wasn’t just the tree that impressed them; the location itself felt labyrinthine, as if there were a deliberate strategy to make the presence of this natural monument imperceptible. It remained invisible until one stood directly before it.

Standing there, only Captain Tanenbaum whispered:

“More than a tree, I would venture to say it is a temple. An organic cathedral. This place is…”

He paused to draw a slow breath. He felt a curious delight in a gesture as mundane and necessary as breathing. He was filled with a sense of well-being, of absolute calm, reaching back through his memories, yet he could not recall feeling this good at any prior moment in his life.

Mr. James, the forestry engineer in charge of locating the tree, interrupted the captain, adding:

“I wouldn’t dare categorize this species. I haven’t seen a similar specimen even in the oldest botanical texts. I can sense the depth of its roots; they must spread so far that everything growing here is somehow connected to it. If we were to felling it, the disaster caused could affect the environment for a long time, perhaps causing everything we see here to vanish. It would be a tragedy for a natural space of this magnitude to be destroyed by a tycoon’s ambition. I cannot be a part of this,” he stated, shaking his head doubtfully, overwhelmed by the sensations the place transmitted.

“I regret it as much as you do, I assure you, Mr. James. This will be no easy task. But we have a mission to fulfill. Our wages and those of our men depend on it. Mr. Ferrer will want to recover his investment. We either ensure success or the replacement of what was invested.” A grimace of resignation appeared on his face. Of one thing he was certain: they could not face the volume of the debt, just as he was certain he would regret his actions for the rest of his days.

After several days of deliberation, the moment came when these men, armed with tools, began to fell its trunk. Many of them doubted it was even possible to bring down a tree of such dimensions; some even opposed what they considered an absurdity. Nevertheless, with great effort and after several months, a cry rang out:

“Timber!”

A shudder announced the shift toward the southern slope. It let itself fall parsimoniously, in a farewell that had been foretold for days. The sound of tools striking its trunk had warned of the disaster. It was cradled by the surrounding timber, which cushioned its fall, shielding the body of their old friend with their own. None of this prevented the thunderous crash, nor the tremor felt dozens of kilometers away. The animals perceived the earthquake with sadness, not fear, suspecting the source of the movement.

They had felled an ancient tree that had stood in that place for thousands of years, perhaps millions, and which took an age to break only to vanish in an instant, leaving the place to which it belonged since the beginning of time desolate.

One of the loggers remarked in awe that the sound of the fall reminded him of a moan—a painful shriek. He couldn’t bring himself to tell anyone, but along with the certainty of being watched, he felt they had just committed an atrocity.

That day did not alter the routine of the loggers, who continued their work, retreating to camp at nightfall. More than tired, they were weary of a job that on that fateful day had made them feel miserable. Cutting down a tree doesn’t make you heartless, but they were all sure that this specimen was irreplaceable. There wouldn’t be another like it on the planet—if any others had ever existed.

A tongue of polar cold unexpectedly invaded the plateau resulting from the felling. Raised slightly above the ground, the portion of the trunk still joined to the earth gave off a deep scent of ancient wood, impregnating the beings who silently approached to certify the death. They kept watch over its body from dusk till dawn, as if it were a living being, praying beside it. Occasionally, the silence was broken by the painful sighs of those who for generations had venerated what they loved more than their own lives; an infinite suffering was perceptible in their prayers. It was just before dawn, barely hours before the men would arrive to continue their work, when the mysterious being acting as the Great Chief took up his axe. Kneeling, he caressed the bark of the specimen, bringing his face close to its surface while feeling its ridges, searching for a specific area—a sign of something that finally appeared. He struck with force, driving the tool into the bark until it went deep enough. He hit what seemed to be a deformed piece of wood embedded there, warping its interior. In a ceremonious fashion, he extracted it and, with gut-wrenching cries, he claimed:

“Naxa aquin lag takka”—“We are all you.”

The shaman extracted its heart.

That being, with features unrecognizable due to paint and whose body resembled anything but that of a human, took the piece of wood and, bringing it to his chest, squeezed it tightly, whispering.

The shaman broke into involuntary movements. The chants of the beings flooded the forest; the wind carried them, slipping into every corner of the thick foliage. However, the loggers, trapped in a deep sleep, remained oblivious to what was happening. The animals moved restlessly from side to side, simulating a synchronized dance with the shamans. The exaltation grew until the energy dancing from one side to the other gave way to a beam of light from the bowels of the earth. It pierced through the trunk anchored to the ground, losing itself in the deepest reaches of the universe. All those present watched the events with curiosity. Afterward, they ran to hide.

“Grandmother, are you okay?” I shook her. She had gone catatonic, barely reacting to my movements.

“Héctor, don’t interrupt me. I must continue.”

“You worried me, Grandma.”

CHAPTER 2: THE LUTHIER

Perhaps it was luck, or perhaps something that escapes understanding, that led a luthier to pass by the sawmill where the tree’s planks rested that day. A luthier in search of wood for new instruments. In his long professional career, he had carved out a good name, but he had never managed to reach beyond the limits of the old city where he lived. However, he knew himself to be the possessor of a great virtue; he knew that his instruments would one day immortalize his surname. He built his instruments by bringing the qualities of a musician to those of a carpenter, added to the gift that had accompanied him since birth and for which he never knew the name: he possessed absolute pitch. Having the advantage of perceiving certain tonal nuances in the wood unnoticeable to the rest of his guild made his instruments objects of desire for his closest circle of musicians. Aware of his gift, it was only a matter of time before word of his prowess reached the ears of a great musician. When that happened, his life would change.

The opportunity came from afar, from across the ocean, from the New Continent. It was then he realized he would need a different kind of wood to surprise his special client; he also understood that this would be the breakthrough he had so desired. He had scoured many sawmills for months and hadn’t found what he was looking for, but that day everything changed. That wood was something extraordinary: smooth, taut, and of an intense color—so much so that he immediately pulled a round wooden stick from his backpack and began striking along the planks to test their resonance. He searched through mountains of pieces, striking each one and listening to its response. He wanted to locate the planks closest to the center of the tree; from experience, he knew these were the best, but there were too many there. It wasn’t possible they all came from a single specimen; he was alarmed to think they might have felled an entire forest. He chose a plank that seemed peculiar to him. It protruded slightly from the pile where it was stacked; its edges were irregular in places; they hadn’t been careful when cutting it. “All identical except this one,” he thought. “How curious,” he reflected, and went back for it after initially discarding it.

“That’s not for sale!” shouted the worker in charge of guarding the planks. “Get out of here right now!” he insisted rudely. The luthier descended slowly with his plank in hand, ignoring the guard’s words. Once down, he reached into his pocket without haste, pulling out a tangle of bills that he offered to the watchman without counting.

“No one will know. This is a deal between you and me,” the luthier said without fanfare, never taking his eyes off the manager, who held his gaze without blinking but eventually grabbed the money and turned away.

“Fine, but don’t take long to leave,” he muttered as he turned, arranging the bills to count them in the booth.

It was wood unlike any he had seen until then—it wasn’t rosewood, nor ebony, nor mahogany, not even koa. He studied it thoroughly, checking its density, hardness, and contraction to obtain precise information. He always did this before building an instrument, but he found no clues as to the type of tree it came from. He asked colleagues in the guild; no one could tell him.

“Perhaps it comes from an exotic tree,” he told himself, and decided not to dwell on the matter, focusing on what really mattered. He did not doubt the success of his mission for an instant, gazing enthusiastically at the singularly grained plank.

He dedicated years and all his talent to transforming that piece of wood into something extraordinary. He spent entire nights calibrating the fingerboard, expertly cutting the fret slots to obtain a uniform depth; he locked himself in his workshop for days to achieve the beauty of a rosette worthy of the instrument he intended to build. He calculated to the millimeter how much the string stretches when pressed, preventing the slightest error from ruining his effort.

In his quest for perfection, he became obsessed with varnishes, searching ancient alchemy treatises for a formula that would protect the instrument while allowing the wood to breathe. He mixed dyes into oily formulas, providing a light touch of color to identify his creation and thus exalt his name. He meticulously cared for all construction details; he knew all too well that any error in calculation, choice of wood, or string placement would affect the quality of the result, so he decided that a lack of diligence would not be the cause of failure.

The surprise came afterward. Despite the effort, the sonority was not what was expected for an instrument of that quality, and this was the least of his troubles. He reviewed the entire process, trying to improve the resonance. He questioned what he was doing wrong, but lost in thought, he shook his head from side to side, denying any fault on his part. His dream was vanishing, and in his desperation to make it unique, everything turned into its opposite. He couldn’t believe what was happening; he had never had such high-quality raw material in his hands that yielded such poor results. He did not stop insisting, sanding day and night, fraying his nerves and his health. He felt certain that something strange was happening, something that escaped his limited understanding. He had strange dreams and even came to suppose the wood was hexed or bewitched; he couldn’t say exactly what. When he woke up in the morning, he would murmur.

“Humbug!” he said, refusing to give an irrational explanation for everything that was happening to him, not even when the strings snapped while he tried to tune it. “Humbug!” he growled again and again, increasingly surly. Finally, he ended up hanging it in the display window.

CHAPTER 3: MARÍA

Every day, the little girl stared absorbed at the glass of the shop window. Behind it, a guitar was offered for sale. For as long as she could remember, it had always been there. Along with the guitar, violins, cellos, and other string instruments made up the display in the shop called: “CARLOTE & SONS.” That instrument thrilled her, though she wasn’t clear on why. Having the chance to contemplate it daily felt like a privilege. Without a doubt, it was the instrument she liked most of all those shown there.

“CARLOTE & SONS” was a renowned workshop for the repair and construction of string instruments. They also dealt in sales. It had passed from fathers to sons for several generations, but now only Carlote remained in charge. The sons had moved far away, to the new lands that offered promises of prosperity and promising futures. Carlote refused to close down to join them. Not that he consented to change the name of his business.

“Someday they’ll come back, when they can’t get their guitars to sound like they’ve dreamed,” he would say, referring to his own particular misfortune.

He adored his work, his city, the routine of knowing what awaited him the next morning, but above all, the smell of wood. A Geppetto tempered by the most unforeseen setbacks. That was exactly how he looked.

One afternoon, Carlote noticed the routine visit of that girl who stared fixedly at the guitar as if hypnotized. From that day on, he watched her, admiring the way she spent her afternoons glued to the window. It became a spectacle for him, almost a habit. From the corner of his eye, hidden so as not to be seen, he tried to understand the unusual interest in the instrument that had meant a professional disaster and a personal tragedy for him. He observed how she subtly sat on the ledge of the window and pressed her tiny nose to the glass; then she would become absorbed, almost paralyzed, looking at it. Behind the curtains that led to the workshop, he tried to understand the obsession of that girl.

At times it crossed his mind to go out and ask her why she did it, why that such unusual interest in the guitar—in that guitar. He remembered the day when, to clear his doubts, he swapped it for another of similar appearance from the many he stored in the workshop. The little girl made a grimace of displeasure followed by an onset of tears. She recovered, containing her distress with a deep breath. The next day, it wasn’t necessary to tell her everything was back in its place as it had always been. She arrived and, sketching a smile, once again placed her nose lightly against the glass, escaping everything surrounding her.

Months passed, and one day Carlote decided to intervene. He took the guitar, went to the door, and said to her:

“Do you like it?”

She didn’t even hear him, absorbed as she was in her world. Surprisingly, he continued:

“I’m giving it to you. It’s yours.” He felt better thinking he had just performed a good deed. Ultimately, the guitar was a piece of junk that had caused him many headaches and very few economic benefits. It had been in the window for years. Everyone who had ever been interested in it had returned it, claiming back the hefty sum they had paid. After this, he wondered to what musician he could offer a guitar determined to go out of tune and whose strings broke so easily. Not a few times he had devised making a huge bonfire to see it burn, to finally be rid of it. But that was just before seeing that girl.

María couldn’t believe what was happening to her; she took it against her chest and, grabbing Carlote’s neck, she kissed him and said:

“Thank you! Thank you!”

For the first time he heard her voice; it struck him as curious. She trembled with joy while hugging him.

He felt, without a shadow of a doubt, that the guitar was in the right hands; it was as if everything fit and there was a reason for everything. Wiping away her tears, he said:

“Take good care of it; it has character. I’d venture to say it’s a rebellious guitar—if such a thing were possible, right? All I know is that I’ve dedicated many years of my life to it. It’s as stubborn as an old mule, take it from me, I know it well.”

He spoke of it as if it were his girlfriend or his wife. A woman he adored despite the difference in temperaments. The first day he saw the girl by the window, he understood that perhaps he should let it go, that his part in this story had concluded—“everything flows,” he told himself.

“I’m sure you’ll know how to make it sound.” He sensed she could achieve it, feeling happy and conflicted at the same time. He was letting go of the instrument that should have given him the fame necessary to reach glory, would have settled his retirement, and provided the trip of his dreams.

“Just one more thing: I’d love to know your name.”

“My name is María,” she said while smiling.

She no longer seemed so excessively thin, nor so neglected in appearance. She didn’t show the paleness of other days or even the moment before.

“Will you play a piece for me when you learn to play? You would make my life happy.”

“Someday, sir, don’t doubt it,” the little girl affirmed as she skipped away.

Back at home, no one saw her enter her room. With great care, she tucked the instrument under the bed, covering the view with the bedspread. She went down to dinner as she did every night. Only her younger brother noticed that something had happened when he saw the slight tremor at the corner of her lips, trying to prevent a smile from escaping.

CHAPTER 4: THE SHIP

“Good morning!” Mr. Ferrer, as he ordered to be called, addressed his general board after glancing sideways at those present, avoiding fixing his gaze on anyone in particular. The gravity and the tone of voice used to say good morning did not bode well. No one returned the greeting for fear of causing discomfort or provoking a negative reaction that might unleash his wrath, avoiding through omission any appearance of disdain.

“I have gathered you again to talk about the latest report that has come into my hands.” He raised his eyebrows, peering over his reading glasses which had slipped to the tip of his nose. This time he held the gaze of each of them, indicating with his brows his level of displeasure.

“I don’t understand where the difficulty lies…” He sank into his armchair, never taking his eyes off the blueprint of a ship from which he was never separated. Accustomed to buying consciences and obstacles, he found it contradictory not to be able to find a simple tree.

“We have found a forest in the interior of Anchurica Island. We are not sure we can find what we are looking for, but we have reports that a reserve of millennial trees may remain there. Mr. James has verified this by reviewing documents from explorations made several centuries ago. It would be the last chance to find what you want. There are no other places to look.”

Tanenbaum spoke, not avoiding the gaze this time. He was calm. He would have loved to tell him to his face that what he was looking for didn’t exist; why not settle for several specimens of the same species? “Cursed bastard,” he thought.

Locating the tree was an odyssey, but the construction of the vessel was even more so. Added to the complexity of the design were continuous changes, revisions, and ostentatious decoration. “A ship with an innovative design based on historic vessels of grand dimensions.” Ferrer dreamed of building himself a vessel worthy of a king, in the image and likeness of the “Sovereign of the Seas.” This was the ship that obsessed his father, a fan of naval modeling.

“It is the finest and most luxurious ship ever built,” he would repeat to him day after day while, with the skill and tenacity of a surgeon, he placed the umpteenth cannon on the model of the majestic vessel. “It was ordered built by Charles I of England in 1634; since then, nothing like it has been achieved, son.”

“I will build it in your memory, father…” a grimace of contempt appeared on his face. “Pity you aren’t alive to see the greatness of your ‘little disaster.’ It will be a pleasure craft where I can rest and enjoy myself; there I will conduct my best business.” He always sought economic benefit above all else, even above his own particular revenge.

His wishes were fulfilled, and the ship was built exactly as he had imagined it. To avoid dust and inconveniences, he did not go to see it until its construction was finished, on the day of its launching.

The heat was stifling; it was already almost three in the afternoon when he arrived at the shipyard. A sort of legion of fawning acolytes accompanied Ferrer. Standing before the vessel, just as he looked up to see it for the first time, he felt curious about what the size of the tree must have been that had given rise to such beauty.

“It is glorious!” A faintness followed the exclamation, causing him to fall to the ground, losing consciousness for a few seconds. He was assisted, recovering his composure with some difficulty.

When the ceremony was drawing to a close, a sailor from the crew shouted in alarm; they had to evacuate the ship: it was taking on water. They didn’t know why, but seawater was leaking in from everywhere; it was impossible to locate the source. Large quantities began to accumulate in the lower cabins, and it was thought it would sink right there. It did not.

What did sink was the pride of the man who ordered its construction, while the rage and contempt toward the ship that became his public shame stayed afloat.

Years passed without them being able to solve the problem. When they finally did, upon heading out to sea to test the vessel, the ship failed in its steering. It would only sail when no one intervened, as if it possessed its own will, as if it were capable of sailing where it ought, oblivious to the orders of captains or the maneuvers of the crew.

They ended up abandoning it in a ship graveyard.

CHAPTER 5: ENCOUNTER

“You suggested that everything began when they cut down the tree, but everything began when that man…” I tried to get her to explain why she was jumping forward and backward instead of following a straight line to tell the facts.

“It’s about fitting pieces together, darling.”

He finally found it; many years had passed since the last time he was inside. He closed his eyes, inhaling and exhaling as slowly as he could. A slight tickle caressed his cheek; however, there was no one there.

“It’s her,” he told himself.

The stubbornness he inherited from his father had brought him there. Of him, he remembered almost everything: his incredible strength, his neglected appearance, and his tenderness. He would signal him to always be alert. He had to become invisible, or they would fire him from the job. “No one hires a carpenter with a young son.”

He learned to move by his side like a shadow, watchful of the contractor who appeared unexpectedly, as well as the appointed hours: seven, eleven, and four in the afternoon. Everyone feared him, always intimidating them with his shouting. The crew helped Rodrigo, protecting the boy.

The memories of his past were there, in that place, all circumscribed to that ship, to the shipyard. Like a flash, the working days came to his mind. A hive of men perched on scaffolding, placing wood day after day. His father was one of them.

Rodrigo glimpsed that in a short time, if he managed not to be discovered, he could employ his son as an apprentice. Certain jobs required small hands to perform more precise tasks, so he understood that explaining everything being done there and how things worked—even if the age wasn’t right—could guarantee a future by his side.

Once inside, he inhaled and exhaled again:

“Now you are mine.” That ship thrilled him; he knew it by heart—every nook, every corner; he had played in it thousands of times since its construction began. He could navigate it with his eyes closed because many were the nights he slept inside when the working days stretched on as something routine.

He wished to fall asleep because it was then that he felt his mother’s presence by his side, kissing him. He kept the secret by her express wish. For nothing in this world would he jeopardize those moments. Sometimes he doubted it was a dream. He only saw her when he slept on the ship; she would stroke his hair and face while whispering words of love in his ear. Perhaps that was why he felt so good in it and searched for it with such vehemence.

When he was forced to abandon it, he had grown enough to handle gouges, chisels, and rasps with skill. “The eye is the best teacher,” his father reminded him every day. He no longer hid from the foul-mouthed foreman, who saw in the boy a virtuosity unusual for a child his age. He never showed him a kind gesture, but occasionally he turned a blind eye to his father, letting him rest without hounding him.

Rodrigo returned to his trade as a sailor; deep down he yearned for it, he was a man of the sea. With the money saved, he bought a small sailboat, allowing himself the whim of enjoying some time without ties alongside his son. “Men of the sea do not moor in any port; their place is the open sea.” The swell diverted their path when they were sailing near the Sea of Sorrows. Gonzalo had discovered the island on one of the maps, and for some reason had convinced his father to go there.

“I’ve heard some stories about that sea from old sailors; they don’t advise approaching, it’s risky, Gonzalo.”

“I didn’t imagine you’d be a coward at this point, father.”

The rough sea bested them, despite the efforts to handle the vessel, which finally gave way to the waves, breaking into pieces. Luck was on their side, and clinging to a plank, they remained adrift for a couple of days until they sighted land, being rescued by the locals.

“Are we in Anchurica, father?” Gonzalo insisted, trying to find out their location.

“I have no idea where we are, but I don’t think we’re near any city.” He knew it would take time to return.

They had reached a small island of fishermen. They were isolated; leaving there would mean several weeks of navigation. They needed a ship of some solidity to return.

That place was primitive, but it was not Anchurica; he knew that the moment he set foot on solid ground. The vegetation was not lush, nor did the sea beat furiously. It invited one to submerge and frolic in its sand as if nothing mattered. The days passed slowly, not with the urgency of the days at the shipyard.

In that place, the sky revealed its secrets. It was enough to contemplate the clouds and their shapes, to sniff the air deeply to understand what would happen next. At night…

…"

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