The Ants
- combination Gabriel García Márquez magic realism and Edgar Allan Poe
tale of terror, an unforgettable yarn deserving its own review. Here
goes -
Forbidding Foray - “It''s sinister.” So says the tale's
narrator when she and her cousin stand before an old two-story house
with oval windows peering down at them like two melancholy eyes, one of
the eyes broken by a hurled rock.
Financially Strapped Students –
I'll give these two young ladies names: narrator Ana and cousin Beta.
Beta pulls Ana toward the front door and says they have no other choice
since, after all, they are both penniless students and this is the
cheapest boardinghouse available. Beta adds, “At least I don't see any
signs of cockroaches.”
Lovecraftian Landlady – The landlady, “a
swollen old crone, with a wig blacker than a crow's wing” lights a
cheroot and, the middle of a coughing fit, says she'll show them the
room – in the attic. Once the old landlady with fingernails covered in a
crust of dark-red enamel knows Ana studies law and Beta is a medical
student, she goes on to inform them the last tenant also studied
medicine and left behind a box of bones. Ah! A box of bones – another
stroke of Lovecraft.
Dwarf Bones - Ana and Beta follow the old
crone up a winding staircase and once the light's turned on in the attic
they can see the room is tiny with a ceiling sloping down so sharply
that they will have to get down and crawl in one part. Beyond two beds, a
table, and chair there's a small crate covered with a sheet of plastic.
Beta sets down her suitcase and, kneeling, opens the crate by its rope
handle – she can see the bones are little and asks if they are a child's
bones. Nope, the crone says, they're adult bones, the bones of a dwarf.
Dream – After telling them not to leave the door open so her
cat can't get out, the landlady departs and the two young ladies settle
in (sort of) in this attic with a pervasive sour smell. That night, Ana
has a dream where a blonde dwarf wearing a plaid vest enters the room,
sits down on Beta's bed and watches as Beta sleeps. Ana wants to scream,
“There's a dwarf in the room!” but just then she wakes up. The light's
still on and Ana can see Beta on her hands and knees staring at
something down on the floor. Ana asks what she's doing down there. Beta
tells her: “These ants. All of a sudden they just appeared, grouped
together. So purposeful, do you see them?”
Ants, One – Ana gets
up; she can see red ants in a solid line crossing from a crack under the
door and marching to the side of the small box. The ants, thousands of
them, swarm inside the box, as disciplined as an army on parade. When
Ana tells Beta about her dwarf dream, Beta replies, “He's underneath and
pulls the box out and takes off the plastic. Beta asks Ana to fetch a
bottle of alcohol. Ana says there must be something on the bones the
ants are after. But Beta tells her the bones are absolutely clean – and
wonders what all the ants came looking for.
Superweird – Beta
douses the ants in the box with alcohol then proceeds to crush the line
of ants all the way to the door. And then the discovery: Beta tells Ana
the dwarf bones have definitely been rearranged!
Ants, Two –
Fast forward to the next night in the attic. The ants reappear. Beta can
clearly surmise what they're up to: beginning with the skull and
working downward, the ants are reconstructing the dwarf, putting the
entire skeleton together bone by bone. At this point both Ana and Beta
can see the ants are nearly complete with their project.
Exit -
Ana says she's scared. She wants to leave immediately. Beta asks if
she's serious – it's still the middle of the night. Oh, yes, Ana is
indeed serious. They start packing their suitcases. Will Ana and Beta
make it out? For Lygia Fagundes Telles to tell.
For readers of English, The Ants is one of fourteen stories collected in Tigrela and Other Stories published by Avon Books.
Brazilian author Lygia Fagundes Telles, born 1923
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