MargenFrom my uncle Elías I inherited a hundred and forty compasses. They arrived in wooden boxes, wrapped one by one in newspaper from different decades, and with them a note in his own hand, which the notary's office handed over without comment, the way one hands over things that are a little frightening:
«They are not broken. Each one points to someone's north. Address them by name.»
Each compass did indeed carry a label: people's names. Amalia. Doctor Casas. The girl from the kiosk. Mum.
I tried them in order. Amalia's pointed firmly south-east, trembling a little, the way someone points while crying. Doctor Casas's spun without stopping, dizzy. The one marked «Mum» —my grandmother, I suppose— pointed at the village cemetery, I checked it against a map, and it wouldn't budge from there even inside an iron box.
I understood slowly, the way inheritances are understood. My uncle didn't collect instruments: he collected other people's directions. Each person's true north. The thing that, whether they wanted it or not, they pointed at from within.
At the bottom of the last box there was a compass with no label, newer than the rest, its needle restless. The box wore a ribbon and a second note:
«This one is yours. I bought it the day you were born and I haven't looked at it in forty years, because another person's north is not to be looked at without permission. You have two options, and both are good: look and know, or not look and choose. As for me, with what time I have left, I'd rather tell you what I learned from the other hundred and thirty-nine: almost nobody points where they think they do. And the few who do are not the ones who went furthest. They are the ones who walked most at peace.»
The compass is still in its box, ribbon on. I keep it on my desk, and some nights I can hear it: the needle brushing the glass, seeking my bearing, patient as he was.
I haven't opened it yet. There are mornings when I'm certain I'll open it that very day, and mornings when I'm certain I'll never open it at all. I like living in that tremor. It's the closest thing I know to having every north at once.