Kilometre twenty-eight
that never leaves my chest. The guilt. I’ve thought so often about what it would have been like if I had been the one blinded in one eye and not Simão, I’ve thought so often about how much I’d have wanted me to be the one blinded. Later on, I think about how ridiculous I am, that I don’t really feel that, that I’m an egotist, and, more ridiculous still, I feel sorry for myself for not even being able to feel sorry for myself. Many times I believed I’d got used to this weight, I believed it had become a part of me, like my arms, my legs, but every time I saw my brother turning his whole head to see something that was happening to his right, each time I remembered how he moves his head, I realised that I’d never
a child
on the day he died
in the yard, with my mother’s weeding-hoe. I had a tin full of worms by the end of the afternoon. When I showed them to my father, he said: ‘Tomorrow you wake up early and you’ll come with me.’ We went to the workshop just to fetch a bucket, my father’s fishing-rod and a small rod he’d made for me from a very thin lath. My eyes shone when they saw it — it had a coconut-fibre thread tied to one end of it, and at the end of the line two or three round lead weights and a hook. My father put it in my hands and said, ‘It’s yours.’ He waited, in his contentment, and with a father’s voice said, ‘Be careful with the hook.’ We went out together and it was still early. I carried my rod in one hand, the tin of worms in the other, and I was proud. My father carried his rod in one hand and the empty bucket in the other. There were not many people out on the street yet, but as we walked I’d have liked them to have looked at us. A father, a son. We reached the park and went round behind walls of boxwood, under flowering trees, through the green smell of trimmed bushes, through the sweet smell of flowers. When we reached the lake, our reflection in the water was my father, big, my father, and me, small, beside him, boastful, happy. Then I looked through the water, fresh and green-tinged and thick with slime over a bed of dust that was liquid, almost liquid, light, and I saw the fishes slipping, bending their red, yellow, orange bodies. I saw the fishes slipping, serious, serene. My father pointed to one of them and whispered, ‘It’s a pompano fish, see?’ I replied in my child’s voice, in my eagerness, but he put his index finger to his nose and said, ‘Shhh.’ He whispered, ‘Don’t startle the fish.’ We were up against a barrier that came up to our knees, between a bush and the little house for the two ducks that slept and floated adrift in the lake. I chose a worm from the tin — it twisted itself between my fingers — and I felt sorry for it. It was my father who chose another and taught me to put it on the hook. Then it was him who taught me to dip the hook in the water and to give it a light tap, a light tap. When a fish came close, my father put his hands over mine and taught me to pull it in. When my father took the hook from its mouth and put it in the bottom of the bucket I watched it until my father caught another and another. He caught two more. In a short time we’d filled up the bucket. It was still early and we were already heading home. It seemed natural to me that it was still early, just as it seemed natural to me that we were returning by the same way we’d come, behind walls of boxwood, under flowering trees. My father had the bucket hanging from one arm. I watched him admiringly. He made his way contentedly, father, my father. He had his work clothes on, his sleeves rolled up, his strong arms. I had a hat wedged on to my head, but it was only then as we returned that the sun
burns
was starting to warm up. Our steps were the scraping sound of boots on grass. We were just about to leave when a man came running towards us and held my father by an arm. It was only much later that I learned he was the man who looked after the park. At that moment I just looked at my father, I looked at the man and didn’t understand. I came up to just above my father’s waist. I raised my head and saw him apologise. I saw the man grab him by the arm, without looking at him, as if he couldn’t hear him. And my father asking him to let us go. And the man gesturing to a lad who was passing and telling him to go fetch a policeman. And my father asking him not to do that. And the man not looking at him, not hearing. And my father putting the bucket down on the ground. And time held back by silence. And me, little, my fishing-rod in one hand, the tin of worms in the other and a hat wedged on to my head.
Kilometre twenty-nine
the sky comes undone over Stockholm
child
the sky comes undone over Stockholm
not yet born
arms lighter, because they’ve stopped existing. And I can’t feel my legs. In my body, there’s some other thing that sacrifices itself in place of my body. Maybe it’s what I’m thinking. Like when I close my eyes and I still exist. When I close my eyes, cover my ears and I still exist. Maybe it’s this shapeless matter that’s burning up, this shadow. Hands hurl themselves out to touch it and to pass through it, like passing through flames. Words hurl themselves out to name it, but they don’t stop, they go right through its infiniteness. And there’s peace in the chaos of my movements, my legs, my arms, unbalancing, free, lost, desperate. And there’s silence in the roaring that surrounds me, grave and constant and deafening. There’s silence in the voices, in the applause, that are thrown towards me from one side of the road and the other, that I pass through as though breaking through fine tangled bushes, as though passing through a cloud of birds. I no longer have any doubts. I am strong and serene and immortal. I no longer have any doubts.
child. I feel you in the palm of my hand, under the skin of your mother. In her eyes, I see yours.
on the road. My running shoes land crooked on the road. Feet to the side, crooked, unable to recognise the surface of the road.
wooden steps. Maria opens the door for me. My mother. Ana. Íris. Maria saying to me, ‘My little boy.’ Me looking at each of their faces.
notes played on the piano, now heaped up inside me, and us, lying on the rug, our bodies
my mother, mother, my mother, proud of me running in the Olympic Games, but silent, only her face. Ana and Íris around me, happy — happy children. And Maria, my sister, like when she was young, like when our father died, saying to me, ‘My little boy.’
father
father
Kilometre thirty
fall over myself — stones — my cheek to the road, the world cloudy through my eyes, my breathing inhaling dust, my legs burnt, embers, my arms burnt, my heart, my chest breathing
time passes in Benfica, silence passes over the piano cemetery
I must go and meet my father.
~ ~ ~
Piano notes come out of the wireless. Who is there, far away, playing them? The white shining surface of the refrigerator. The white shining surface of the tiles. My wife knows this time of day through her own skin. The afternoon is drawing to its close, as it does every day. It’s Monday, maybe this is why my wife remembers ‘every day’ better. Monday is a day my wife associates with ‘every day’. If someone in a conversation says ‘every day’ my wife thinks of an infinite succession of Mondays. Friday is the eve of the weekend, which is why it’s a different day. Saturdays and Sundays are different days. Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays are particular days on which things happen that are particular to Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays. Mondays are regular, anonymous days. They are every day.