With My Dog Eyes: A Novel by Hilda Hilst

Unhinged
    I test the climb
    And explosive words
    Pressed into the stones: pound, dredge
    Knifed in front of the mirror.
    I’m in the yard behind the house. My mother’s house. I didn’t tell them I was coming here but I came. There’s a vine-covered arbor. And with straw dirt and bamboo I closed off the sides. The depths. I should have said my good-byes. Amanda and the kid. The station. The train. I should have told them about the dark-gray despair streaked in black, a viscous substance taking me. I hoped the Unfounded would pierce the ribs of a tiger and in that gesture transfigure my own landscape unto the infinite. My poverty is the dryness of spirit. My solitude is to have remained the prisoner of that which I felt on top of the hill and today I find only links of sand, currents of dust. A stray bitch appeared at dusk. She’s yellow. She must have just given birth. Her teats sagging, her ribs showing. Her brown eyes have the vehement glint of hunger. There are sparks that escape the flesh in misery, in humiliation, in pain. The sparks show in animals too. My mother bringsus food and water. And searches for words: Amós, it doesn’t make much sense to have the house up there and you back here, seems like it doesn’t make sense, that is if things are supposed to make some kind of sense. Guess so, mother.
    I feel like I know how it is.
    Really, mother?
    Your father once explained it to me without explaining. It was early in the morning. He got up, put on his boots. It wasn’t a nice day at all. He looked at you in the crib, you were six months old. We were young and your father was handsome. Everything seemed all right. His eyes went blank for a moment as though you and I were no longer there, as if he himself were another person, his mouth gaping like he couldn’t breathe and he said all at once: it’s such an effort to try not to understand, it’s the only way to stay alive, trying not to understand.
    Doesn’t seem like dad. You sure you weren’t with another man?
    She laughs. The earthen floor. There are woven mats spread around. Big boxes. Mother called two men to come thatch the roof of the arbor. A vine roof is a bit much, son. Is he your son, ma’am? He seems sick, wouldn’t it be better for him to stay in the house up front? He likes to be right here. Strange, ma’am. I named the yellow dog Snorey. Long hoarse creaks in her sleep at night. I have paper. Pens.I draw Snorey snoring. I draw the boxes, the mats, I look at myself in a piece of broken mirror and I draw myself looking at myself in a piece of broken mirror.
    A minuscule heart trying
    To escape itself
    Dilating
    In search of pure understanding.
    From the other side of the mirror: I felt so tired but needed to keep walking no matter what because the gallows were just three hundred yards away and the guys escorting me seemed to be in a hurry. Couldn’t I just have a little nap? Look at this, the guy’s gonna get hanged but he wants to catch some z’s first. You’re gonna get to sleep for all eternity. I know, but will I even know that I’m sleeping? And sleeping now, I’ll know I chose to sleep, or rather, if you want to know, that I need it. A little further and then you’ll sleep.
    Ah, it’s nothing, the man insists, it makes no difference to you if I’m ten minutes behind. How’s that, man, no difference? It’s noon, I’m hungry, one of the escorts shot back, today’s Saturday and there’s a buffet at Arnolfo’s bar. The other escort: and I’m dying for some rum. The other escort: and it’s so hot, shit, hanging people at noon is sucha drag, at five or six in the afternoon would be better, the early morning would be reasonable too, nice and fresh out. Hey why are you gonna get hanged?
    Because I wanted to kill myself. I shot myself here.
    Where?
    They all stop to surround the doomed man. He shows them a scar on his left shoulder. Not such good aim, eh? Nah, doesn’t look pretty, one of the other escorts said in a low voice.