The Day I Killed My Father by Mario Sabino

all this.’
    â€˜I burned everything I ever wrote. I also torched my library.’
    â€˜You did what?’
    â€˜One thing at a time. First, the blackmail. The wife of a political candidate. Quite pretty. Anyway, I had an affair with her, and I documented it.’
    â€˜I’m speechless.’
    â€˜I had to truly live. I had to live the truth.’
    â€˜Hang on. What, pray tell, is the truth?’
    Hemistich smiled.
    â€˜Remember Augusto?’
    â€˜Of course.’
    â€˜He asked the same thing.’
    â€˜And what was your answer?’
    â€˜I didn’t have an answer at the time. But Augusto ended up discovering his own truth — which, from a certain perspective, is everyone’s truth.’
    â€˜How is he?’
    â€˜He killed himself.’
    â€˜What?’
    â€˜After slashing his wife’s throat.’
    â€˜He lost it …’
    â€˜He left me a letter. A kind of poem, actually. I know it off by heart:
    From tongue to blade, unrestrained. With a swift slash, I gash my beloved’s throat. And, among such vocal cords, I seek the words that once filled my ears with tenderness, don’t find them, and wonder where they are.
    â€˜It was premeditated?’
    â€˜He wrote it after he killed her. The paper had bloodstains on it.’
    â€˜Is that the answer? Desperation?’
    â€˜To act on impulse, the purest expression of the senses.’
    â€˜Death.’
    â€˜Death is a contingency.’
    â€˜Not your own, you callous prick. I’m hungry.’
    â€˜There it is!’
    â€˜What?’
    â€˜The key to my truth. Let’s to the feast, monsieur .’
    â€˜Let’s.’
    And that’s what they did. And that’s how it was to be. Blessed were those called to the supper of Hemistich.
    In Antonym’s memory, the orgy of rump steaks, porterhouses, t-bones, tenderloins and sirloins, accompanied by an array of perfectly cooked vegetables, seemed like an hallucination. To accompany the banquet was a wine that, from the very first glass, heightened his senses, drove away his anxiety, and made time pause. Meat, wine, meat, wine: a steady flow of waiters presented oblations with reverence, as if they were serving the lords of the world. All notion of time slipped away. Had it been three, four hours? Impossible to tell. Hemistich was transformed.
    â€˜Such is the mystery of faith! Which has been revealed by me, only me! Music incarnate! Where is it?’
    At the next table, a group of inebriated Germans stood and began to sing the national anthem — ‘Deutschland über Alles’.
    Hemistich cackled with laughter.
    â€˜Not that, no!’
    The dining room was stormed by twenty musicians in colourful clothes and shiny adornments, carrying strange percussion and wind instruments. They played an oriental-sounding melody and sang in an indecipherable language. Then twelve dancers appeared — four brunettes, four blondes, and four redheads. Wearing transparent clothes that provided glimpses of perfect contours, they swayed and gyrated between the tables, occasionally making the high-pitched sound that Muslim women make on festive occasions and when they’re mourning.
    â€˜Touch the women, Antonym. Go ahead. Come here, my lovely. I want my friend to run his hands over you. Look how smooth she is, Antonym, so soft … Not silk, not satin. There’s nothing nicer to the touch than skin like this. Parlez, mes mains, pour moi .’
    The room was now spinning around Antonym. A light perfume wafted not only into his nostrils, but into his pores. It was as if there was no longer a barrier between outside and inside, between him and his companions in revelry.
    â€˜One body, one soul!’
    Hemistich was dancing on the table.
    A lysergic effect rippled out in all directions, and the satyrs and nymphs peeled off the walls, and joined the dancers and musicians. In sassy voices, the satyrs sang a song with just