The Complete Stories (52 page)

Did you know that I can speak the language of dogs and also of plants? Amen. But my word is not the last. There exists one I cannot utter. And my tale is gallant. I am an anonymous letter. I do not sign the things I write. Let other people sign. I do not have the credentials. Me? But me of all people? Never! I need a father. Who will volunteer? No, I do not need a father, I need my equal. I am waiting for death. Oh such wind, dear sir. Wind is a thing you cannot see. I ask Our Lord God Jehovah about his wrath in the form of wind. Only He can explain. Or can he? If He cannot, I am lost. Oh how I love you and I love so much that I die you.

Remember how I mentioned the tennis court with blood? Well the blood was mine, the scarlet, the clotting was mine.

Brasília is a horse race. No I am not a horse. Brasília can go to hell and run by itself without me.

Brasília is hyperbolic. I am suspended until the final order. I survive by being as stubborn as I am. I have landed indeed.
Th
ere is no place like home
. How good it is to be back. Leaving is good but coming back is more better. That’s right: more better.

What is supplementary in Brasília? No I don’t know, dear sir. All I know is that all is nothing and nothing is all. My dog is sleeping. I am my dog. I call myself Ulisses. We are both tired. So, so tired. Woe is me, woe is us. Silence. You should sleep too. Ah astonished city. It astonishes itself. I am feeling stale. What I’ll do is complain like Chopin complained about the invasion of Poland. After all I have my rights. I am I, that’s what other people say. And if they say so, why not believe it? Farewell. I’m fed up. I’m going to complain. I’m going to complain to God. And if He can, let him heed me. I am one of the needy. I left Brasília with a cane. Today is Sunday. Even God rested. God is a funny thing: He can do it all for Himself and needs Himself.

I came home, it is true, but wouldn’t you know my cook writes literature? I asked her where the Coca-Cola in the fridge was. She answered, lovely black girl that she is: she was just so tired, so I made her go rest, poor thing. Once, ages ago I recounted to Paulo Mendes Campos a comment my maid at the time had made. And he wrote something like this: everyone gets the maid they deserve: My maid has a beautiful voice and sings to me when I ask her to: “Nobody Loves Me.” She draws, she writes. I am so humbled. For I don’t deserve this much.

I am nothing. I am a frustrated Sunday. Or am I being ungrateful? Much has been given me, much has been taken away. Who wins? Not me that’s for sure. Someone hyperbolic does.

Brasília, be a little bit animal too. It’s so nice. So very nice. Not having peepee-dogs is an affront to my dog who will never go to Brasília for obvious reasons. It’s a quarter to six. No particular time. Even Kissinger is asleep. Or is he on a plane? There’s no way to guess. Happy birthday, Kissinger. Happy birthday, Brasília. Brasília is a mass suicide. Brasília, are you scratching yourself? not me, I don’t go in for that kind of thing because whoever starts won’t stop from. You know the rest.

The rest is paroxysm.

No one knows it, but my dog not only smokes but also drinks coffee and eats flowers. And drinks beer. He also takes antidepressants. He resembles a little mulatto. What he needs is a girlfriend. He’s middle class. I didn’t let the newspaper in on everything. But now it’s time for the truth. You too should have the courage to read. The only thing this dog doesn’t do is write. He eats pens and shreds paper. Better than I do. He is my animal son. He was born of the instantaneous contact between the Moon and a mare. Mare of the Sun. He is a thing Brasília is not. He is: an animal. I am an animal. I really want to repeat myself, just to annoy people.

My God, I’ve gone back in time. It’s exactly twenty to six. And I answer the typewriter:
yes
. The monstrous typewriter. It’s a telescope. Such wind. Is it a tornado? It is.

Oh what a place to look pretty. Today is Monday, the tenth. As you can see, I didn’t die. I am going to the dentist. A dangerous week, this one. I am telling the truth. Not the whole truth, as I said. And if God knows it, that’s His business. Let him deal with it. I don’t know how but I am going to deal as best I can. Like a cripple. Living for free is what you cannot do. Pay to live? I am living on borrowed time. Just like that mutt Ulisses. As for me, I think that.

How embarrassing. It is my case of public embarrassment. I have three bison in my life. One plus one plus one plus one plus one. The fourth kills me in Malta. In fact the seventh is the shiniest. Bison, if you didn’t know, are cave-dwelling animals. I perform my stories. Human warmth. Fearless city, that one. God is the hour. I am going to last a while yet. No one is immortal. Just see if you can find someone who doesn’t die.

I died. I died murdered by Brasília. I died to pursue research. Pray for me because I died on my back.

Look, Brasília, I left. And God help me. It’s because I am slightly before. That’s all. I swear to God. And I am slightly after too. What can you do. Brasília is broken glass on the street. Shards. Brasília is a dentist’s metal tool. And very motorcycle too. Which doesn’t stop it from being mullet roe, fried up with plenty of salt. I just happen to be so eager for life, I want so much from it and I take advantage of it so much and everything is so much—that I become immoral. That’s right: I am immoral. How nice to be unsuitable for those eighteen and under.

Brasília exercises every day at 5 a.m. The Bahians there are the only ones who don’t go in for that kind of thing. They write poetry.

Brasília is the mystery categorized in steel filing cabinets. Everything there is categorized. And me? who am I? how have they categorized me? Have they given me a number? I feel numbered, and constricted all over. I barely fit inside myself. I am just a little me, very unimportant. But with a certain class.

Being happy is such a great responsibility. Brasília is happy. It has the nerve. What will become of Brasília in the year, let us say, 3000? How big a pile of bones. No one remembers the future because it’s not possible. The authorities won’t allow it. And me, who am I? Out of pure fear I obey the most insignificant soldier who stands before me and says: you’re under arrest. Oh I’m going to cry. I am barely.
On the verge of
.

It’s becoming clear that I don’t know how to describe Brasília. It is Jupiter. It is a word well chosen. It is too grammatical for my taste. And the worst thing is it demands grammar
but I don’t know, sir, I don’t know the rules
.

Brasília is an airport. The loudspeakers coldly and courteously announce the departing flights.

What else? the thing is, no one knows what to do in Brasília. The only ones who do anything are the people who work like crazy, who make babies like crazy and get together like crazy to dine on the finest delicacies.

I stayed at the Hotel Nacional. Room 800. And drank Coca-Cola in my room. I am constantly—fool that I am—giving away free advertising.

At seven in the evening I will speak just superficially about avant-garde Brazilian literature, since I am not a critic. God spare me from critiquing. I have a morbid fear of facing people who are listening to me. Electrified. Speaking of which Brasília is electrified and a computer. I am definitely going to read too fast so I can get through it quickly. I will be introduced to the audience by José Guilherme Merquior. Merquior is much too wholesome. I feel honored and at the same time so humble. After all, who am I to face a demanding public? I’ll do what I can. Once I gave a talk at the Catholic University and Affonso Romano de Sant’Anna, I don’t know what got into that fabulous critic, asked me a question: does two plus two equal five? For a second I was speechless. But then a darkly humorous anecdote sprang to mind: It goes like this: the psychotic says that two plus two equals five. The neurotic says: two plus two equals four but I just can’t take it. Then there was laughter and everyone relaxed.

Tomorrow I return to Rio, turbulent city of my loves. I like to fly: I love speed. With Vicente I got him to zip around Brasília very fast by car. I sat beside him and we talked a lot. See you later: I’m going to read while waiting to be picked up for the conference. In Brasília you feel like looking pretty. I felt like getting all done up. Brasília is risky and I love risk. It’s an adventure: it brings me face to face with the unknown. I’m going to speak words. Words have nothing to do with sensations. Words are hard stones and sensations are ever so delicate, fleeting, extreme. Brasília became humanized. Only I can’t stand those rounded streets, that vital lack of corners. There, even the sky, is rounded. The clouds are agnus dei
.
Brasília’s air is so
dry
that the skin on your face gets dry, your hands rough.

The dentist’s machine called “Atlas 200” says this to me: tchi! tchi! tchi! Today is the 14th. Fourteen leaves me suspended. Brasília is fifteen point one. Rio is one, but a tiny one. Doesn’t Atlas 200 ever die? No, it doesn’t. It is like me when I am hibernating in Brasília.

Brasília is an orange construction crane fishing out something very delicate: a small white egg. Is that white egg me or a little child born today?

I feel like people are working voodoo on me: who wants to steal my poor identity? All I’ll do is this: I’ll ask for help and have some coffee. Then I’ll smoke. Oh how I smoked and smoked in Brasília! Brasília is a Hollywood-brand filtered cigarette. Brasília is like this: right now I am listening to the sound of the key in the front door lock. A mystery? A mystery, yes sir. I go open it and guess who it was? it was nobody. Brasília is somebody, red carpet, tails and a top hat.

Brasília is a pair of stainless steel scissors. I save what I can to make ends meet. And I have already drawn up my will. I say a bunch of things in it.

Brasília is the sound of ice cubes in a glass of whiskey, at six in the evening, the hour of nobody.

Do you want me to tell Brasília: here’s to you? I say here’s to you with the glass in my hand. In Rio, in my pantry, I killed a mosquito that was quivering in midair. Why this right to kill? It was merely a flying atom. Never will I forget that mosquito whose destiny I plotted, I, the one without a destiny.

I am tired, listening at dawn to the Ministry of Education that also comes from Brasília. Right now I am listening to the Blue Danube in whose waters I recline, serious and alert.

Brasília is science fiction. Brasília is Ceará turned inside out: both bruising and conquering.

And it is a chorus of children on an incredibly blue, super cold morning, the kids opening their little round mouths and intoning an utterly innocent Te Deum, accompanied by organ music. I wish this would happen in the stained glass church at 7 in the evening. Or 7 in the morning. I prefer morning, since twilight in Brasília is more beautiful than the involuntary sunset in Porto Alegre. Brasília is a first place on the university entrance exams. I’m happy with just a little ol’ second place.

I see that I wrote seven as a numeral: 7. Well Brasília is 7. It’s 3. It’s four. It’s eight, nine—I’m skipping the others, and at 13 I meet God.

The problem is that blank paper demands I write. I’ll go ahead and write. Alone in the world, high on a hill. I would like to conduct an orchestra, but they say women can’t because they don’t have the physical stamina. Ah, Schubert, sweeten up Brasília a little. I’m so good to Brasília.

Right this instant-now it’s ten to seven.
Me muero
. Make yourself at home, dear sir, and the service I offer is deluxe. Whoever wants to can live it up. Brasília is a five-hundred-cruzeiro bill that nobody wants to break. And the number 1 penny? that one I insist on keeping for myself. It’s so rare. It brings good luck. And it brings privileges. Five hundred cruzeiros go down my throat.

Brasília is different. Brasília is inviting. And if invited, I’ll attend. Brasília uses a diamond-studded cigarette holder.

But it is common for people to say: I want money and I want to die suddenly. Even me. But St. Francis took off all his clothes and went naked. He and my dog Ulisses ask for nothing. Brasília is a pact I made with God.

All I ask is one favor, Brasília, of you: don’t take up speaking Esperanto. Don’t you see that words get distorted in Esperanto as in a badly translated translation?
Yes, my Lord. I said yes, sir. I almost said: my love
, instead of
my Lord
.
But my love is my Lord.
Th
ere is no answer? O.K., I can stand It
. But how it hurts. It hurts so much to be offended by not getting a reply. I can take it. But don’t anyone step on my feet because that hurts. And I am on familiar terms, I go by my first name, don’t stand on ceremony. It’ll go like this: I address you as honorable sir and you use my first name. You are so gallant, Brasília.

Does Brasília have a botanical garden? and does it have a zoo? It needs them, because people cannot live on man alone. Having animals around is essential.

Where is your tragic opera, Brasília? I won’t accept operettas, they are too nostalgic, lead soldiers are what I used to play with, despite being a girl. The blues gently shatters my heart that even so is as hot as the blues itself.

Brasília is Physical Law. Relax, ma’am, take off your girdle, don’t get flustered, have a little sip of sugar water—and then see what it’s like to be Natural Law a little. You’ll love it, ma’am.

Does there happen to exist a course of study called Course on the Existence of Time? Well it should.

Well didn’t they pour bleach on the ground in Brasília. Well they did: to disinfect. But I am, thank God, thoroughly infected. But I had my lungs x-rayed and said to the doctor: my lungs must be black from smoke. He answered: well actually they aren’t, they’re nice and clear.

And so it goes on. I am suddenly silent and have nothing to say. Respect my silence. I don’t paint, no ma’am, I write and do I ever.

In Brasília I didn’t dream. Could it be my fault or does no one dream in Brasília? And that hotel maid? what became of her? I too have suffered, you hear, maid-woman? Suffering is the privilege of those who feel. But now I am sheer joy. It’s almost six in the morning. I got up at four. I am wide awake. Brasília is wide awake. Pay attention to what I am saying: Brasília will never end. I die and Brasília remains. With new people, of course. Brasília is hot off the press.