I don’t know where the whole world went.
After we said goodbye I walked, lost, wordless, in the hubbub of the market, until in silence we met at the corner before the boarding house, at lunchtime. She said:
‘I have to tell my godmother.’
I said nothing. She said:
‘I’d rather tell her before she notices.’
In the street, in front of anyone who might pass by, I hugged her. Inside our closed eyes we hugged. Time passed, I opened my eyes and saw her move away. And her body, alone, ever further from my arms, crossing the street and walking up the pavement, along the wall where I waited every night of this summer. And her body, alone, disappearing through the open boarding-house door.
As I waited, I didn’t know what to be afraid of. I concentrated on the entrance to the boarding house and tried to believe in the images I imagined for my eyes — her coming out, coming towards me — her smile — her returning to my arms. For a time I waited, a time in which only I got old. The ivy leaves on the wall lifted when a breeze pushed them further over the pavements. And it was sudden — the thunder of the door closing, the shutters of all the boarding-house windows closing. I witnessed this moment without knowing how to exist.
I felt a hand touch my shoulder.
I turned.
The blind, dirty face of my uncle.
~ ~ ~
The start
I don’t want just to have this name, I want to own it.
at last. I imagined this day every time I had hope — when I was lying beside my wife, my hand resting on her round belly, pregnant with our son; or when I was a lad, I’d come back from the workshop with my father and see him going into the taberna, hear him sending me home and I’d continue alone along the dirt road, my clothes, face and hair covered in sawdust; or when I was small and I would sit in the piano cemetery, side by side with time. I had hope, I imagined this day and believed that I wouldn’t be afraid; I repeated it a thousand times within myself — I won’t be afraid, I won’t be afraid — and I could see distinctly, clearly, this moment, these faces. And I believe that all the moments when I imagined this day, together, added up, are longer than this day, but I also believe that this moment, now, is deeper, is an infinite well, and if I were to dive into this now, it would take my whole life to fall into its size and I would die before I touched the end. At this time in the afternoon
within the marble. I rest my hand on the white surface of this wall — and it’s as though I were touching the frozen inside of the limestone. I have arrived here. I put my cardboard suitcase down on a worn out bench. It is a new suitcase which my wife bought, with money she’d saved and which she hid from me — the change from the grocer’s. I was angry, happy, angry, happy, just happy, the moment she handed it to me — the case sitting on the kitchen table. Beside the fastener, under the clasp, it has the tin figure of a man running — my wife’s expression smiling when I notice the little man running and lift my head to see her. It was my wife — her hands, her voice, her face that smiles before being kissed — it was my wife — my wife — who bought a tin man and kept it wrapped in paper hidden at the bottom of a box, until the moment when she stuck it on the new suitcase, beside the fastener, under the clasp, where I could always see it. I open the case — the vest ironed and folded, the shorts, the running shoes, my father’s pocket watch and the tin of special grease. I had the idea when
everything again — we still believe. Time hasn’t passed. The days are once again the surface on which we dream. The afternoons
also during the thing I want. Time is dislocated within itself, moved by anxiety and by desire. Time has no will, it has instinct. Time is less than a running animal. It doesn’t think where it’s going. When it stops, it is anxiety or desire that obliges it to stop.
went back to being the size we were when we walked across the gardens, hand in hand. The sun that illuminates us, that illuminated us, must always exist. Forgive me. The same lightness that filled us continues, like light, like light. I’m asking you: forgive me. We are everything again — we still believe. Time hasn’t passed. The days are once again the surface on which we dream. The afternoons
was laid out there: special grease. It’s a mixture of oil and tallow and grease. Almost asleep, but unable to sleep, I could feel the warmth of my wife beside me. A body breathing. I had my right arm over her and my chest stuck to her back, the bend in my knees fitting in behind the bend in her legs and the inside of my arm going under her arm, following the shape of her ribs, surrounding her, enveloping her, protecting her, and the palm of my hand rested on her belly — our son. My hand on her belly, on our son, was my way of falling asleep telling them my thoughts and my dreams. I thought about our son as though I was speaking to him and I thought about the races and I thought about what it is to go to Sweden, representing your country in the marathon for the best runners in the world: the Olympic Games. I was imagining our son’s face when he’s born. And I thought about the races again. Stockholm, I thought. And it was a word which had no connection to anything I knew. I was almost falling asleep when I was awoken by that idea. If it had been up to me I’d have got up and begun to prepare the grease there and then; but it wasn’t until the next day that I went to buy one part oil, another part tallow, and another part grease. I allowed the mixture to sit for a night. As evening fell on the following day, after work, it was the coolness of June, and I spread this special grease over my whole body. I didn’t have a watch on, but I was sure I ran much faster. I became lighter. My legs slipped more quickly through the air. I didn’t need to drink so much water because I didn’t perspire. I became stronger. This grease I’ve got here was made
silence made up of the runners dressing themselves, some of them crossing themselves, and by the voices of the stadium, invisible, beyond the walls, as though they didn’t exist and as though they existed more than anything, like fear. Then the silence of the nervous little steps the runners pretend to take, as though doing their exercises. I begin to spread the grease over my body. I immerse my fingers in the tin full of grease, and when I slip them across my legs, arms, shoulders, cheeks, I begin to shine. My body is transformed into muscles that shine. The sleeves of my T-shirt mark the line where the skin turns from brown to white. My hands spread grease over this line, and give it a shine. This is the science that is going to make me win. I feel my own hands touch my body as though they were someone else’s hands. In these seconds, seconds that are marked by running shoes being tied with a bow and a knot, I feel the looks and the hidden astonishment of the other runners. They turn their heads away, but they look at me because they’ve never seen anything like it. I clean the walls of the tin and spread the final remnants of the grease
a man in a tie gesturing to call us. In a disordered queue, not speaking, the runners all come out. I come out, too. Under the brightness, voices crack. The expectation of a thousand mixed voices is a skin resting over the light. The size of the stadium opens itself up to the sky. The sky could pour down over this stadium now. You’d need the whole sky to fill it up. If I come to a bit of shade, I feel the cool on my oiled skin. Before the trip, a man who met me at the entrance to the workshop explained to me that Sweden is cooler than Lisbon. Either he was trying to fool me or he didn’t know. It’s the same heat we usually get in Lisbon at the height of August. It’s a living light that makes the faces of the people in the stands incandescent — the women with parasols, hats and dresses are shining; the black of the men’s top hats is bright and shining; the children shine who watch us and imagine in us lives we will never know. The runners’ steps bring up the smell of the dry, burned earth. I put the palm of a hand against a barrier and move my feet just to get used to the new running shoes. The others run slowly back and forth. Some do exercises. I don’t want to tire myself out yet. I look at them. I stop looking at them. In the crowd of mixed voices that fill the stadium stands and that surround me I can make out bits of my father’s voice when he called me over to learn something — come have a look — or my mother’s voice saying my name in the middle of a conversation — Francisco — or my brother’s asking me for something, or my sister Marta and my sister Maria, still small, taking care of me and always wanting to play with me. No time has passed. All these moments