Today I feel calm, and for this reason I am writing again to
myself. Who, except for me, would waste time writing to me? Who, since my life
is empty of everybody, empty of António, empty of Luís, empty of Lúcia, my
friend since ever and forever……..Forever……. The illusions that I once had!
Empty as those bit players who enter and depart the stage having said their
little phrase, who are, at the end of the day so necessary if the show is to go
on.
Surrounding me now all I have is death, every day closer
now, and the silence of the house, the silence of the noises of the house, the
old rasping monotonous voice of the owner, Dona Gloria, talking with the
neighbours, talking at night with other neighbours, about lodgers, about maids
(they are enemies within, Dona Gloria), the noise of the cars that go by in the
street, the voices of women selling vegetables or fish. Sometimes they are the
same as silence, other times they are noises that I don’t want to hear, because
they aren’t my noises, they no longer belong to me. They belong to other
people, to those who are still alive. I shut the window, hide my head under the
pillow, so I don’t notice them, so I can be alone. And so it is as if I have
reached the summit of the hill and there I feel extremely calm, ready for
descent.
There are days when I sit on the balcony watching people who
I now know well; the barber who spends his day at his shop door, ‘The Chic Barber
Shop’, to take in some fresh air, or to catch the sun, according to whether it
is cold or warm outside; the old lady with the cat who smiles at me whenever
she sees me; the pretty girl in the building next door and who sometimes goes
out in the car of a bald respectable looking gentleman of a certain age; the
children who play in the alley when they come back from school. And when I see
them, when I hear their young voices I shut the window and go back into my own
life, which is only mine, and which takes place inside my room.
I spent so many years wanting to flee from a solitude that
would terrorize me just thinking about it. I spent that time believing in
people and then letting them fall through my hands. Luís Gonzaga would say that
I expected too much of God’s creatures, that I would forget that they were
merely human. Perhaps he was right. Then there were the days, sometimes months
on end, that were black and empty, with neither beginning nor end, days that
had to be spent, leafing through other people’s lives in detective stories that
had a happy ending, with the villain always suitably punished and virtue clear
cut and well rewarded, or watching stupid films, smoking cigarettes which I
would light one after another without pleasure, walking through the streets
randomly. Alone. Where it was all leading to…….
Now I am here and I am not even able to read. I know that
I’m going to die and this certainty is enough for me, like a tranquilizer.
Before this certainty everything else disappears. But sometimes everything
comes, depending on the day. The days are grey, disconsolate, running together
in tears. The black days I spend tormenting myself with my failed existence. It
seems to me that this existence would have been different, better used, had I
proceeded differently, followed different paths. And no, it wasn’t I who had
decided that it must be so. It wasn’t I who opened my hands and let the people
fall through. I see now that my hands had always been open. I had to act but was
forced to stay still. At times I would go down a long road, thinking the road
clear, and then suddenly, unexpectedly coming up against a wall. It was too
late to go back and yet I had to find a way out of there, or give up and stay
where I was. It wasn’t me who built the wall, nor I who had let time go by.
Everything was already preordained, waiting for my arrival, waiting for me.
My life in this room has lasted for five years now and it is
the only life possible. Now I know what awaits me, some sort of death, some
sort of cloudy, nebulous, intermediate thing. This isn’t death yet, but it
isn’t exactly life. I never was very good at living. Long ago I lost the habit
of living. For me the experience of living was always too difficult. It was
something I never quite got used to, which is strange really, because other
people find living simple and natural, indeed, the most simple and natural of
all things that exist. I had always stood on ceremony and I had never acted as
I should have done, without thinking, like other people do, even the coarsest
and roughest people. I spoke loudly when even the most elementary rules
demanded that I speak quietly. I said nothing when I absolutely had to say
something. I didn’t know how TO BE. I
always chose badly those moments when I should speak and when I should keep
quiet. I always got everything the wrong way round, mixed everything up, to the
point of confusing even myself. People like Estrela, even Lúcia, know the value
of the moment and how to choose it. I always chose it badly. Even the time of
Fernandinho’s birth, even if he had ever been born, was wrong. Estrela herself
told someone that it couldn’t have been a worse moment. Estrela!
My son died inside of me. One afternoon I was crossing the
road at Restauradores when I caught sight of Estrela. She was wearing a yellow
suit which looked perfect on her. From a distance her head looked somehow
smaller and blacker. Without thinking what I was doing I stopped to look at
her. Just at that moment a passing car hit me and knocked me down. I fell to
the ground and passed out. Before that I think I screamed.
That is how my son died. I could have no more children, ever
again. Because I looked at Estrela. Certainly she never saw me. She hadn’t even
stopped, because she never was one of those people who stop in the street
because someone yells. She probably didn’t even notice. Her fault lay in
passing close to me, for the second time in our lives. But sometimes all it
needs is to look at somebody, to say a simple word, to laugh, to pass by, and
the other person dies.
Later, many months later, I found out that at that moment
Estrela had been abroad with António. For me at least, that is secondary. I can
never free myself from the idea that Estrela was that woman. Estrela herself or
a deceiving shadow? What difference does it make? It was she who I saw even if
her real body was in Paris or London. It was her fault that Fernandinho was
never born.
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