‘But you purloin the meaning from your father.’
‘I’ve already said I don’t believe in discussing my problems, I’m also convinced it’s extremely dangerous to shatter intimacy; to me, the larva is only wise while spun in its nucleus, I don’t see where it gets its strength once it breaks through the cocoon; it wriggles, of course, and goes through a metamorphosis, all with great effort, only to expose its fragility to the world.’
‘Rectify your slovenly point of view: it takes strength to face reality; and furthermore, this is your family, you would have to be insane to consider this environment hostile.’
‘Strong or weak, it depends: reality isn’t the same for everyone, and you cannot ignore the fact, Father, sir, that the unfertilized egg doesn’t hatch; time is abundant and generous, but it cannot revive the unborn; for those defeated at the outset, for fruit withered at seed, for the downtrodden who haven’t ever stood up, there is but one alternative: to turn their backs on the world, to nurture the hope that everything will be destroyed; in my case, all I know is, any environment is hostile, insofar as the right to live is denied.’
‘You shock me, son, although I don’t understand you, I understand your nonsense: there is no hostility in this house, no one here denies you the right to live, it’s absolutely inadmissible that such absurd thoughts cross your mind!’
‘That’s one point of view.’
‘Refrain from your customary impudence, don’t answer in such a manner as to cause me pain. It is not a point of view! Each of us knows our purpose in this household: your mother and I have always lived for you all; you and your brothers and sisters, for each other, no one in need has ever lacked for support in this family.’
‘Father, sir, you didn’t understand me.’
‘How could I understand you, son? You’re stubborn in your denial, and I don’t understand that either. Where could you ever find a more appropriate place to discuss the problems causing you so much distress?’
‘Nowhere, and even less likely, here; in spite of everything, our family life has always been precarious, there was never room for trespassing certain limits; Father, you yourself said only just now that every word is a seed: it contains life, energy and may even contain an explosive charge: we run great risks upon speaking.’
‘Don’t interpret my words with suspicion and levity, you know very well that you count on our love in this household!’
‘The love we’ve learned here, Father, I discovered only much, much later, knows not what it’s after; this indecision makes it of ambiguous value, at this point, no more than a mere hindrance; contrary to belief, love does not always unite, love also separates; and it would make perfect sense for me to state that love in the family may not be as grand as is commonly thought.’
‘That’s enough of your eccentricity, you’ve gone far enough, your observations are worthless, and your thoughts are chaotic, stop your arrogance, be simple in your use of words!’
‘I don’t think I’m being eccentric, although it no longer matters to me if I say this or if I say that; but since you think I am, what difference would it make if now I were to be as simple as the dove? If I were to lay an olive branch down on this table, you, sir, might only see a nettle stem.’
‘There’s no room for provocation at this table, that’s enough of your pride, control the snake beneath your tongue, ignore the devil murmuring in your ear, answer me as a son should, above all, be humble in your manner, be clear as a man should be, for once and for all, stop with this confusion!’
‘If I’m confusing, if I avoid making myself clear, Father, it’s only because I don’t want to create further confusion.’
‘Be quiet! Our water doesn’t flow from this fountain, nor our light, from this darkness, your haughty words aren’t going to destroy now what it has taken millennia to build; no one in our household will speak with presumptuous profoundness, mixing up words, tangling up ideas, disintegrating everything into dust, because those who open their eyes too wide will only be blinded; furthermore, let no one in our household suffer from a supposed and pretentious excess of light, for it can be just as blinding as darkness; nor should anyone in our household set a new course for that which cannot be diverted, let no one ever confuse that which cannot be confused, the tree that grows and bears fruit with the tree that is barren, the seed that drops and multiplies with the grain that does not sprout, the simplicity of our daily life with unproductive thoughts; I’m telling you to hold your tongue, I will have no depraved wisdom contaminating the ways of this family! It was not love, after all, but pride, scorn, and selfishness that have brought you back home!’
My father mixed so much bitterness in with his anger! And how foolish of me to have exposed the skeleton of my thoughts to him, to have ground a few shavings of bone onto that strange table, so scanty before the powerful strength of his figure at its head.
I was shrunken, and at one point I felt my mother’s presence at the kitchen door, checking on the heated discussion, probably trying to interfere in my favour; even without turning around, I could clearly sense the anxiety on her face, begging my father with her anguished eyes, ‘That’s enough, Iohána! Spare our son!’
‘I’m tired, Father, forgive me. I admit I’m confused, I admit I was unable to make myself understood, but now I’m going to speak clearly: I have not returned with my heart bursting with pride, sir, as you believe, I’ve come home humble and submissive, I have no more illusions, I know all about loneliness now, I know about misery, and I also now know, Father, that I shouldn’t have ever taken one step beyond our front door; from now on, I want to be like my brothers, I’m going to give myself over to the discipline necessary for my assigned tasks, I’ll be out in the field to till before sunlight falls over them, and I’ll stay long after sunset; I’ll make of my work my religion, of fatigue my inebriation, I’ll help preserve the union of the family, from the bottom of my heart, Father, I want to deserve all your love.’
‘Your words have touched my heart, dear son, I feel new light on this table, tears of joy in my eyes, erasing the bitterness you caused when you left home, erasing all at once the nightmare we’ve just experienced. For a minute I thought I’d sown long ago in infertile land, in gravel or in a field of thorns. Tomorrow we’ll celebrate the son who was blind and has now recovered his sight! So, go rest, it’s been a long journey and your homecoming has been filled with emotion, go rest, dear son.’
Then I was immediately further compensated for my apparent change of mind: unexpectedly, my mother, who was by then standing behind my chair, took my head in her hands; I surrendered like a child to those thick fingers pressing my cheeks into her breast, my old resting place; leaning over me, she rubbed her eyes, nose and mouth into my hair, smelling it noisily, and spilling out the tender words she had used to address me in her ancient language since I was a child, ‘my eyes’, ‘my heart’, ‘my lamb’, and relaxing in that cradle, I noticed my father heading out into the back yard gravely, as if her effusive tenderness went against his will; he was carrying the same knife he had when he came in, and was now going out in back to join my sisters, who were standing around the rustic table in the shed, caught up in excited flurry, preparing the meats for my party; looking out towards them, I was asking myself why I had come back and I was still unable clearly to discern the dubious outline of my reasons when I noticed, beyond the patio, just inside the woods, Pedro’s shadow: with his head bowed, he was walking slowly through the trees, seemingly solemn and taciturn.
26
My father always used to say that suffering is good for man, that it strengthens the spirit and increases sensitivity; he implied that the worse the pain, the greater the opportunity for suffering to play out its most noble role; he seemed to believe that man’s resistance was boundless. For my part, I learned when I was very young that it is difficult to determine exactly where resistance ends, and I also learned very young to see resistance as man’s strongest trait; but it was also my belief that in strumming the string of a lute — stretched to the limit — a highly tuned note would resonate (assuming that it would be no more than a melancholy, shrill twang), yet it would be impossible to draw any note at all from the same string were it to be stretched until broken. That, at least, is what I thought until the night of my homecoming, having never before suspected that from a broken string, yet a different note could be drawn (which only confirmed my father’s belief that man, even when broken, has not yet lost his resistance, although there is nothing to prove that he has become still more sensitive).