I was worn out and I felt nauseous. My mouth tasted as if
I’d been chewing mouldy bread, as mouldy as I was myself, as mouldy as my
bones. I tried to spit out the taste and I lay down tired and weak. My spirits
wavered between calm and desperate, tempered by a light anxiety. Sometimes I
feel afraid of the immense solitude. Whichever way I turn, I only meet myself.
But I’ve seen enough of myself now and I’ve nothing more to say to myself.
Nothing more. Now and again I feel afraid, but the room protects me. When, not
long ago I closed the door, it seemed to make a different noise. It did not
hang in the air as usual, but broke through the silence like a full stop. Time
itself stopped. The hands on the clock continue on their way, but the hours are
all the same. There is no longer a time to eat, a time to sleep, a time to talk
to others, a time to work, but there’s always a time for myself, alone. Now all
time belongs to me and I pay it no heed. There is only night and day, but the
mornings have ceased to be the beginning of anything. There’s no need to
prepare for the day ahead. Everything has stopped. I no longer take in the
noise of the cars passing by or the voices on the street. The rain on the
window pane is the same as silence to me.
I am in my room. No longer is it dark and finally it has
lost the smell of an unwashed body that no longer sweats, that has no strength
to make the effort even to lie down, the smell of old wallpaper and ants, like
the smell of old ladies, the smell that the house has had for all these years.
It was a smell that followed me about, covering me, coming
through my nostrils and my mouth, a smell that hasn’t left me these past few
years and which I scarcely notice. Little by little the room stopped being
horrible.
Now I look around me, looking attentively at the low ceiling
with its great eyes of fallen plaster, which are forever watching me, which
weigh on my shoulders, the old and ugly furniture, the flowered wallpaper in
which Dona Gloria took a, perhaps, excessive pride.
Sometimes she comes in with all the sweet sugariness that
she has at her disposal. Why not go for a little walk? Would you like me to get
you anything? Cheer up a bit, dear! It’s such a lovely day, the sun is so warm
today. Me, go out? And what if I met someone I know? I can hear them as they
stand in front of me, “How thin and pale you look dear. You should go and see a
doctor. Why not go and see Dr. So and So? He’s really good.” And then I would
hear the list of people saved by Dr. So and So.
And then, “You know, I hardly recognised you. Look, get treatment while
you can. You remember Cicraninha? She began to turn yellow, and lost all her
energy. When she finally went to the doctors it was too late. Nothing could be
done. Poor thing. Now she lies in the cemetery.
Even if they did not know it, even if they did not say that
I was dying, they certainly felt sorry for me. People like to feel sorry for
others, sometimes with good reason, ‘You look poorly! You look dreadful! Have
you lost weight? “ They have the vengeful unhappy air of the frightened, the
truly unhappy, that aversion that most people have, even the best, that even
supposedly good people find hard to dissimulate. “Things happen, you have to be
patient. I, for example……….” I’m sick to death of examples, I’m sick to death
of other people.
Worst of all are the nights, the long, endless nights, full
of ghosts. Some are old, yet recent, almost without face or voice. Others are new, yet ancient, bodies in the
air whose decomposition has not yet begun, which does not want to begin so long
as time flows on. António, Luís Gonzaga, Estrela too, naturally, Estrela more
than any of them. I think of them without even wanting to, even when I make
such an effort that it hurts me not to let them enter my head. They come, in
spite of everything, and settle in quickly. I see them how I used to, or as I
imagine them to be now. They are all happy, immensely happy, after having
brushed me off like a dog of no importance that they had become bored of. What
else could they do? How else could it be? It only hurt me that they managed to
be happy at my expense. It was me and my silence that gave them the
opportunity. A word would have sufficed, a shout or a tear, but I could not
drag out of myself even one. It would be too late now, anyhow, even if I weren’t
travelling along the road to death. Fortunately, in Portugal, you can buy sleep
without a medical prescription. One, two, three, sleep capsules. If I were back
in Paris, “L’ordonnance, s’il vous plait……….Interdit, Madame…..á cause des
suicides, Madame.”
From how long ago does this voice come to me? A clear, real
voice. From six years ago? Or eight? I think the chemists shop was called
Heudebeurt. Or was it Saint-Michel? It was situated on the left as you went
down by the Seine. “I’ve already told you, Madame. It is impossible, I’m
sorry.”
I went out into the streets. A light rain was falling, and
feeling cold I went into a Biard café and I suddenly remembered that I hadn’t
eaten since the night before, and this now seemed a matter of supreme
importance. Then I went down the steps to some Metro station or other whose
name I can’t remember. In any case I was down there for a long time, for
several hours. It was late afternoon and there were a lot of people about. They
took me along with them……..it was convenient…….they chose for me. It felt good
that boiling hot night travelling nowhere. Dub………Dubon……………..Dubonnet………….The
night was coming to an end. Barbès or Place Clichy? Eat Lustrucu cakes…………..The
Children Love Banania………….Marignon………..The Lovers Of Venice…………Two corridors
through which they push me again and again towards the night. Vous ne sortez
pas? Alors permettez………permettez……..permettez. A girl sitting next to me was
reading ‘Confidences’. It’s strange that I still remember her face clearly, as
if she were some sort of intimate……..Omo Washes Whiter………Jean Marais is about
to kiss an immobile face, the long blonde hair, Messieurs, rasez-vous avec la
lame?
Some days later I sorted out the tickets for my return to
Lisbon. António insisted on coming with me.
No comments:
Post a Comment