there’s his angular face,
befitting a tough farmhand, his thick moustache, his iron gaze, and the small crowd of
their children standing around them, mineral, well-behaved, the odd mouth twisted in a
rictus, an unsuccessful attempt to meet the photographer’s frivolous demand, and
there I lingered among the foundations and the supports and the unshakeable beams of our
greenhouse, we had short legs back then, but under that roof every step we took was
safe, the soft hand that guided us seemed always to be lucid, and without a doubt there
was something gratifying about the solidity of the chain, the joined hands, the simply
laid table, the washed clothes, the measured words, the cut nails, everything within its
limits, everything occurring in a circle of light, in strict opposition – no
patches of half-light – to the dark place of sins, yes-yes, no-no, the stain of
imprecision was of the devil, it was in childhood (in mine), no doubt about it, that the
world of ideas was found, complete, perfect, undebatable ideas, which I now – in
my turmoil – barely glimpsed in memory (even though the reverse side of each one
was inscribed with ‘guilt improves man, guilt is one of the world’s driving
forces’), while at the same time I believed piously that words – impregnated
with values – each of them carried, yes, in its core, an original sin (just as a
passion is always concealed behind every gesture), it occurred to me that not even the
tub of the Pacific would have enough water to wash (and calm) such vocabulary, and
there, empty-handed in the middleof that devastation, with nothing to
lean on, not even a cliché, I only know that I suddenly let myself drop like a
load, I literally ended up prostrate there in the courtyard, my head buried in my hands,
my eyes an itching swarm of ants, shaking all over from a terrible explosion of sobbing
(hoarse moans pulled from deep inside), until my arms were lifted by heavy
peasant’s hands, Dona Mariana on the one side and Antônio on the other, he
clumsy and silent, she casually at ease in spite of her bulk, straight away trying to
distract me with what she was saying, cajoling me gently that I couldn’t not pass
by the hutches before ‘running off to São Paulo’, saying she was
‘perplexed’ with Quitéria’s young, ‘the girl had thirteen
in her first litter, thirteen! who’d have thought?’, and reminding me that
‘Pituca sired them, that naughty old rabbit, still at it at his age’,
‘perplexed!’ repeated Dona Mariana in her lullaby, only altering her tone to
give a half-whispered scolding to her husband, who wasn’t pulling his weight, the
two of them trying to lift me off the ground as if they were lifting a boy.
The Arrival
And when I arrived at his house, at kilometre 27 on the road
from town, I was surprised the gate was still open, since the late afternoon had almost
turned to night, whose atmosphere, I noticed getting out of the car, had gathered early
in the bushes, the black, erect gravitas of the cypresses impressing me a little, and
there at the foot of the stairs I also noticed that the door to the conservatory was
wide open, which could be construed as another sign, redundant and almost too obvious in
fact, that he was waiting for me, although the device was more likely there to remind me
that I, even if late, would always go and see him, that I was unable to dispense with
the rewards a visit would bring, and indeed I went pensively up to the landing, and
stopped there for just a moment before going into the conservatory, where I saw myself
watched by Bingo, an angry mongrel who fitted his role as the monastery dog perfectly,
he was sitting rigidly immobile on a cushioned chair, the blade of his eyes slicing
through the dull hour, but I ignored him, not only because I was used to him, but also
because I’d spied the piece of paper on the table, on which I could read when I
got closer, without picking it up, or even bending over, ‘I’m in
befitting a tough farmhand, his thick moustache, his iron gaze, and the small crowd of
their children standing around them, mineral, well-behaved, the odd mouth twisted in a
rictus, an unsuccessful attempt to meet the photographer’s frivolous demand, and
there I lingered among the foundations and the supports and the unshakeable beams of our
greenhouse, we had short legs back then, but under that roof every step we took was
safe, the soft hand that guided us seemed always to be lucid, and without a doubt there
was something gratifying about the solidity of the chain, the joined hands, the simply
laid table, the washed clothes, the measured words, the cut nails, everything within its
limits, everything occurring in a circle of light, in strict opposition – no
patches of half-light – to the dark place of sins, yes-yes, no-no, the stain of
imprecision was of the devil, it was in childhood (in mine), no doubt about it, that the
world of ideas was found, complete, perfect, undebatable ideas, which I now – in
my turmoil – barely glimpsed in memory (even though the reverse side of each one
was inscribed with ‘guilt improves man, guilt is one of the world’s driving
forces’), while at the same time I believed piously that words – impregnated
with values – each of them carried, yes, in its core, an original sin (just as a
passion is always concealed behind every gesture), it occurred to me that not even the
tub of the Pacific would have enough water to wash (and calm) such vocabulary, and
there, empty-handed in the middleof that devastation, with nothing to
lean on, not even a cliché, I only know that I suddenly let myself drop like a
load, I literally ended up prostrate there in the courtyard, my head buried in my hands,
my eyes an itching swarm of ants, shaking all over from a terrible explosion of sobbing
(hoarse moans pulled from deep inside), until my arms were lifted by heavy
peasant’s hands, Dona Mariana on the one side and Antônio on the other, he
clumsy and silent, she casually at ease in spite of her bulk, straight away trying to
distract me with what she was saying, cajoling me gently that I couldn’t not pass
by the hutches before ‘running off to São Paulo’, saying she was
‘perplexed’ with Quitéria’s young, ‘the girl had thirteen
in her first litter, thirteen! who’d have thought?’, and reminding me that
‘Pituca sired them, that naughty old rabbit, still at it at his age’,
‘perplexed!’ repeated Dona Mariana in her lullaby, only altering her tone to
give a half-whispered scolding to her husband, who wasn’t pulling his weight, the
two of them trying to lift me off the ground as if they were lifting a boy.
The Arrival
And when I arrived at his house, at kilometre 27 on the road
from town, I was surprised the gate was still open, since the late afternoon had almost
turned to night, whose atmosphere, I noticed getting out of the car, had gathered early
in the bushes, the black, erect gravitas of the cypresses impressing me a little, and
there at the foot of the stairs I also noticed that the door to the conservatory was
wide open, which could be construed as another sign, redundant and almost too obvious in
fact, that he was waiting for me, although the device was more likely there to remind me
that I, even if late, would always go and see him, that I was unable to dispense with
the rewards a visit would bring, and indeed I went pensively up to the landing, and
stopped there for just a moment before going into the conservatory, where I saw myself
watched by Bingo, an angry mongrel who fitted his role as the monastery dog perfectly,
he was sitting rigidly immobile on a cushioned chair, the blade of his eyes slicing
through the dull hour, but I ignored him, not only because I was used to him, but also
because I’d spied the piece of paper on the table, on which I could read when I
got closer, without picking it up, or even bending over, ‘I’m in
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