THE NARROW WAY: LILIANA COLANZI

The Devil can be a cloud, a shadow, a gust of wind that shakes the leaves. He can be the nightjar flying across the sky or a reflection on the surface of the river.

- LILIANA COLANZI

Some say that he travels with the wind, others that he dwells in electricity. There are those who swear that he hides in the jungle, beyond the perimeter, where the branches whisper secrets that drive men crazy. But the Devil is also the scarecrow that runs across the fields when everyone is asleep.

“The World Outside is made of darkness,” the Reverend says, “and whoever crosses the perimeter shall be swept away by the shadows. That is why we must not let ourselves be diverted from the narrow way, the way of our Lord. Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it.”

My sister, Olga, got tired of life on the narrow way. She and I used to sleep together, and sometimes, in the darkness, we’d play cows and calves. Susana, let’s play cows and calves, she’d say, and lift up her nightie to offer me her tit. Her armpit hairs tickled my face like corn floss, and the inside of her arm smelled like warm ashes and bonfire smoke. I sucked on her tit as if I were the little calf that Jacinta the cow had just dropped, and Olga had to cover her mouth so she wouldn’t wake Father and Mother.

When people leave, they vanish into the shadows, Mother used to say. We never see them again, because we are the people of the narrow way, who work the earth and speak the name of God while waiting for the end of time. Here we conquer nature by the force of tractors and prayer, taming the wilderness, subjecting it to order. Beyond the perimeter lies the jungle with its shadows, and beyond that the city with its illusions. If we are ever tempted to see what there is outside the colony, the obedience collar reminds us where we belong: at a distance of forty yards from the perimeter the current is a mere tickle, but as we approach the magnetic field the shocks become more intense, more compelling, until we turn back to the way of the Lord.