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poliedricoHello. Have two more stories I like, translated into English, again. They are once again stories by Caio Fernando Abreu; the first one, The saddest boy in the world (O rapaz mais triste do mundo), is from his short story collection Os dragões não conhecem o paraíso (1988), and A story of butterflies (Uma história de borboletas) is from Pedras de Calcutá (1977). You can read the individual stories in Portuguese as they were originally written here > (1 + 2).
I once again apologize for any mistakes, feel free to tell me if you find any (as I'm sure there are some. hiding in here somewhere), I'm not a professional translator nor a fluent english speaker, this is mostly practice, etc., etc.
THE SADDEST BOY IN THE WORLD
For Ronaldo Pamplona da Costa
In the jukebox, to soothe this meeting they don’t even realize they’re having yet, to help them navigate better through this unnamed thing they can’t even see without my help, I’ll pick slow blues, anguished saxophone solos, even slower pianos on the verge of ecstacy, breathy clarinets and deep, dark voices, hoarse and rough from cigarettes but made smooth by sips of bourbon or brandy, so that everything flows golden like a drink made with other waters, not these murky ones from where the two poor fishes emerged, blind from the night, forever unaware of my presence here, beside the jukebox, next to the hallway and the filthy bathrooms, creating impossible clarities and using those damned songs to lull this sudden meeting — that is as sudden to them, who swim blindly, as it is to me, hookless fisherman hunched over the body of water that separates me from them.
That boy, the one I'm gazing now, that boy opposite to where the man in the gray raincoat sits with his beer. This one right there: a boy that's almost twenty, beginning to overdo his drinking, though not too much, like boys who are almost twenty and still don’t know the limits and dangers of the game tend to do, a few pimples (though not too many) spread across his much too white face, remainders of his adolescence, among odd strands of beard that had not yet found that well-defined shape already established in the faces of men who are almost forty, like the one that sits in front of him. Behind the pimples, among the unformed strands of beard, certain thoughts arise — thick with mist, some alcohol and too much loneliness. That boy lights up a soaked cigarette, that boy rolls down the collar of his black coat, that boy brushes away ash, dust, hairs, droplets, crickets from his frayed lapel. Then sighs, freezing. Looks around as if not seeing anything, anyone. Not even the man who sits in front of him, who apparently doesn’t see him as well.
There are many things that one could sa about that boy in this dark night, in this city that has always been his, in this pub where he now sits, opposite to that complete stranger of a man. But standing still in the back of the same pub in which he sits, he and his short, probably melancholic past, and no future, for the future of boys who are not yet twenty are always obscure, almost invisible — these somewhat vague, somewhat stupid things are all I can say about him. Thin, wet, slightly bent from his thinness and the cold. With this detachment that’s typical of boys who have not yet learned the dangers or the pleasures of the game, if there even is a game.
Were I the great Zeus Olympius and I’d destroy the city with a flaming beam just so I could live the moment of the thunderbolt’s electric light*— is what that boy will say, matching the arrogance that’s expected from his age. But not yet. For now, he doesn't say a thing. They both stay quiet, the almost forty-year-old man and him, sitting opposite at the table on the left of where I strategically watch, beside the jukebox, on the right of those who enter, emerged from the bottom of the dirty aquarium night outside where they swim blind and dizzy before walking in. Before I can suck them up with my eyes, greedy for the encounters of others, so that I can give them life, even if it's precarious like this, a life made out of paper, where Zeus Olympus Oxalá Tupã exert their power over predestined simulacra too.
No, they don’t say a thing. There’s enough noise around to spare them the words — who knows if they’ll come out too bitter. Or perhaps like milk instead, unbearable for the burning throats of those who wander in the night like they do, I do, we do. Delayable — that's their words. Not mine.
For now, they simply look around. They deliberatebly don’t look at each other. Even though they’re both thin, slightly bent from this thinness, wet from the mist outside; even though one wears gray and the other wears black, like the times demand if they don't want to be rejected; even though both of them drink rather tepid beers, in this pub where it doesn’t matter what you drink as long as you're drinking, and they both smoke equally creasy cigarettes, vicious and sad cigarettes, this kind of cigarette only solitary and nocturnal men bring out to the night on the bottom of their coat pockets, whether they are twenty or forty years old. Or a little more, or a little less — solitary men have no exact age. Even when they’re both freezing, woozy with alcohol, stiff with the cold, lucid with that loneliness that haunts like fate men with no future, no wife or friend, no family or belongings — they don’t look at each other.
They ignore each other, fearing that — I make up, Lord of my absurd and stupidly real invention, living it now in my veins as I make it up — were they to give up to each other’s solitude and there would be no more room left for escapades like a drunk fuck with someone whose face they’d forget, or a snort of coke around the street’s corner, a sly piss taken next to a waiter who’s avoiding conflict, though sympathetic to drunken strangers, an impatient blunt in the mud of the park. Things like that, you know? I do: loving the self reflected in the other sometimes chains, but when the bodies touch one another the minds are freed to fly further beyond the horizon line, which is never seen from here. Though it’s clear from over there, when the bodies touch after loving the self reflected in the other.
Therefore, they don’t look. And it’s not me who decides, but them. One should not look when looking means bending over a mirror that might be cracked, that might wound with its distorting shards. That’s why I hesitate, then, between using my coin on Bessie Smith or Louis Armstrong (everything is imaginary tonight, in this pub, in this jukebox full of more fashionable facilities); as to help with the flow, clear the traffic, to make things sweeter or sourer, even though I fear that boys under twenty might not yet understand such colonized abysses, the dark nocturnal elegance of hoarse voices against the blue velvet covering the walls of some place that’s not this Polish Corridor in a provincial city whose name I've forgotten, we've forgotten. Sophistication, pose: fatigue and long gloves.
Mine, theirs. For we are three and one. The one who watches from the outside, the one who watches from afar, the one who watches too early. This one, foresight. A single fright for the three of us. Watching from within, tangled together. Four, now?
Because then it begins. But it begins in such a banal way — what’s your name, what’s your sign, do you want another beer, can I have a cigarette, I'm short on money, don’t worry, I’ll pay, what are you doing, just hanging around, seeing what’s up, do you come here often, it’s so cold — that I almost press the button for some other sounds, different from the ones I imagine, so hoarse, so that with the piercing scream of an electric bass they can wallow in the shrillness of each night. But suddenly they compose themselves — this man in the gray raincoat, that boy in the black coat, together at the same table — and, without warning, though I was already well-aware, being the one to set this trap, suddenly they look deep into each other’s eyes. Surrounded by the black mass, sea monster, the smell of piss and beer, amidst the white tiles on the walls, like a huge bathroom attached at the center of the night where they’re lost — they find each other, and they look.
They recognize each other, they finally agree to recognize each other. They light each other’s creasy cigarettes, steady, full of a certain tenderness, although timid. They delicately share a beer. They contemplate each other with distance, precision, method, order, discipline. Without surprise or desire, for it's not this boy — with his black coat, his patchy beard and a few pimples — who the man with a balding spot on the top of his head would want, did he want other men, and perhaps he does. And so is true of the opposite: that boy, even if perhaps capable of such audacities, would not want this man through the palm of his hand, inventing frenzies in the silence of his room, which is certainly full of banners, superheroes, stickers and all those remainders of a time that had just passed, when it’s too early for one to know if he unavidably wants someone of his own kind. And perhaps he does. But this man, that boy — no. It all happens in a different way.
They contemplate each other with no desire. They contemplate each other sweetly, unarmed, accomplices, abandoned, poignant, severe, comrades. Compassionate. They wield words that only reach me in fragments, broken by the air that separate us, which take the form of gentle, hesitant interrogations, questions surrounding with caution and enchantment a recognition that’s no longer nocturnal, transformed into something else I have not yet named and I don’t know if I ever will, this thing so bright it threatens to blind me as well. I contain the word while they watch this thing just beginning to take shape, and I find it beautiful.
The boy looks at his own arms and says: I'm so thin, see? Whenever I hug a girl I keep looking at my arms, too weak to hold a woman tight, and I imagine muscles I don’t have, I imagine strengths for myself, because I’m so weak, so thin, so young. He looks around without a single trace of passion in his pale face, and he says: I want to kill myself, I don’t know how to stay alive, I don’t have a father, every day my mother shakes me and shouts at me, "wake up, get up you layabout, go to work." I want to read poetry, I've never had a friend, I've never received a letter. I spend all my nights wandering from pub to pub, I’m afraid of going to sleep, I’m afraid of waking up, I end up playing pool all night and only go to bed when the sun is rising and I’m completely drunk. I was born in this time after everything is already over, I have no future, I don’t believe in anything — this he doesn’t say, but I can hear it clearly, and so does the man in front of him, and so does the entire pub. And then the man answers, with this half-sober wisdom that men who are almost forty inevitably acquire.
He, the man, runs the palm of his hand through his thinning hair, as if caressing some old time, and says, the man says: don’t be afraid, it’ll pass. Don’t be afraid, boy. You will find a way that’s right, even if there’s no definitive right way. But you’ll find your way, and that’s what matters. If you know how to hold on, it might even be beautiful. The man takes his wallet out of his pocket, orders another beer and a brand new pack of cigarettes, then looks at the boy, teary-eyed, and says. No, he doesn’t say anything. He just looks at the boy. For a long time, a man who’s almost forty looks teary-eyed at a boy who’s almost twenty, whom he has never seen before, in the middle of a pub in the middle of a city that is no longer his. While this gaze is held, and it is held for a long time, the man discovers the same thing as I do, at the same time.
That boy, with his black coat, a few pimples, patchy beard and too white skin — he is the saddest boy in the world.
And to make everything even more ridiculous, or at least more unlikely, tomorrow, which already is today, will be Fathers' Day. Shaken up by a date that holds no meaning to those who don't have a thing — who have no children, just to reinforce his loneliness — the man who’s almost forty begins to explain that he came from another city to see his own father. And he goes on revealing, in that same desolate tone as the boy who has now and forever become the saddest boy in the world, just like the man used to be, but won’t ever be again, though he’ll never truly stop being so; and he says: they don’t look at me, they keep themselves in that armed security of a family who won’t admit anything or anyone capable of disturbing their made-up peace, and they don’t look at me, they don’t see me, they don’t know me. They water me down, they turn me invisible, they limit me to that unbearable limit of what they chose to tolerate, and I can’t bear it — do you understand me?
The boy, who's not yet twenty, almost doesn’t understand. But he reaches his hand over the table to touch the hand of the man who’s almost forty. The man’s fingers close inside the boy’s hand, between the boy’s fingers. There is so much thirst between them, between us.
A long time has passed. It’s almost dawn. The cold has grown stronger. The pub is nearly empty, almost closing. Leaning over the cash register, the owner is asleep. I've spent almost all my coins: everything is blues, music and color, tender pain. I have only one quarter left, which I’m going to throw straight at Tom Waits. I get myself ready. Then — while the waiters stack chairs on top of the empty tables, a bit annoyed with me, who keep feeding lines, and at these two odd men, holding hands like they're two fags, hopelessly in love with someone who is not the other, but could be, if they dared enough, if they didn’t had to part ways — the man tightens his grip around the hands of of the saddest boy in the world. Their four hands squeeze each other, warm each other, merge together and comfort each other. Not a black and viscous sea monster, vomit in the morning, but a white starfish instead. Pentacle, mother-of-pearl. Half-open oyster displaying the black pearl ripped out of the night and out of the sickness, pure blues. And he says, the man says:
“You don’t exist. I don’t exist. But I’m so powerful in my immense thirst that I have invented vou just to quench it. You are so powerful in your fragility that you have invented me to quench this exact thirst in you. We've invented each other because we were all we needed to keep on living. And because we invented each other, I give you power over my destiny and you give me power over your destiny. You give me your future, I hand you my past. Then, just like this, we’re present, past and future. Infinite time in itself, this is eternity.”
In this pub filled with stacked chairs, they sit at the only table that’s left, unaware of the ruins of the background. From my corner, I spy. There must be a hooker lying in some corner, some faggot jerking off a black man in some bathroom. I don’t see them. For now, I don’t. From my corner, I can only see these two men, distinct and identical, the four hands held together over the cheap table, formica emulating marble.
That’s when the boy says he’d been delivering flowers all day, that he'd made some money, fought for a hundred bucks or some other small sum like that, like boys who are under twenty do — and he insisted, magnificently, on paying for the last beer. All things now ending, there are no more open pubs left in the city. A glassy light begins to pierce through the night fog where they’re still submerged with me, with you, myopic fishes squinting so they can see each other, close-up, and they can. Beautiful, frightening: their gills tremble. The man pulls out his wallet once again, full of bills and cheques and credit cards, one of those stuffed wallets only men who are almost forty get to carry, but that mean nothing in moments like this. The boy insists and the man gives in, puts his wallet away. The last waiter brings their last beer. I give my last quarter to the jukebox, one last blues. No one sees it, no one hears anything else when morning comes to put madness to sleep. Tomorrow, will you remember?
Tender, pale, real: they stare at each other. They caress each other’s hands, then arms, shoulders, neck, face, the lines of the face, hair. With that sweetness born between two men alone in the middle of a cold night, half-drunk and with no other option but to love each other like this, more passionately than they’d be were they chasing for any other body, similar or different from theirs — it doesn’t matter, it’s thirst all the same. From where I stand, I watch their souls shine. Yellowish, light-purple: dancing over the filth. They cry in their embrace. A man who’s almost forty and a boy who’s not yet twenty, both ageless.
I am the both of them, I am three the three of us, I am the four of us. These two who find each other, this third who spies and tells, this fourth who listens. We are one — one who searches without finding and, once he finds, doesn’t know how to handle this encounter that disproves his supposed faith. It’s important that what he searches for does not exist, or else the script would have to be rewritten to introduce Tui, who’s Joy. And joy is a lake, not this murky aquarium, fog, dull words: Neptune, synastry. And perhaps it does exist, at least to quench the thirst for a time that’s gone, a time that hasn’t come, a time that’s imagined, invented or calculated. A thirst for time, in short.
This strange demiurgic power leaves me even dizzier than them, when they get up to the door and lingering embrace after paying the bill. Lovers, relatives, equals: strangers.
So the boy leaves, because he has other paths to follow. The man stays, having his own different paths to follow. He watches the boy's silhouette going away, exactly like I do, watching the man’s silhouette standing for a moment at the pub’s door. He won’t stay, because that’s a city no longer his. The boy will stay, because it’s in this very same city that he must make that vague choice — a path, his way, a destiny — if he even has a choice, before it’s time to kill it, this vague future thing, once it’s turned into past, if one ever really kills anything. Tom Waits’ hoarse voice repeats and repeats and repeats that it’s time, and there will be time, like in a T.S. Eliot poem, yes, there will be time, certainly, while the last waiter lightly taps on the shoulder of the man in the gray raincoat, hair thinning at the top of his head, almost forty, standing still at the pub’s door. Gentle, friendly, pointing to the silhouette of the saddest boy in the world walking away to catch the first bus of the early morning, the waiter asks:
“Is he your son?”
From where I stand, beside the jukebox that falls silent, I can feel an inexplicable scent of fresh roses, as if dawn itself had brought a sudden spring to the nearby park. Before the man leaves, I can see him smile softly and lie to the waiter, saying that he is, that he's not, who knows. It's whatever I say, if I am the one saying it, that will be the truth. Here by myself I know that we're still three and four. Me as their father, me as their son, me as the two of them, and you: the four of us, a single man lost in the night, sank in this dirty aquarium reflecting the neon lights. Blind fish ignorant of my inevitable path towards this one whom I watch from afar, teary-eyed, lacking the courage to touch him. High on night, a certain madness, some alcohol and too much loneliness.
I want to drink more whiskey, I want to do another line. Slowly, all things turn to day and life, oh life, can be fear and honey when you surrender and watch, even from afar.
No, I don't want or need a thing, if only you touch me. I reach out my hand.
Then I sigh, freezing. And I leave you alone.
* “Pudesse eu ser o grande Zeus Olimpo e destruiria a cidade com raios flamejantes só para viver o momento da luz elétrica do raio”, an unpublished verse by Antonio Augusto Caldasso Couto.
A STORY OF BUTTERFLIES
"Because when one is white like the white phoenix and the others are black one has enemies."
Antonin Rimbaud, quoted by Anaïs Nin
in Je suis le plus malade des surréalistes
ANDRÉ WENT CRAZY yesterday afternoon. I must say that I too find myself a bit arrogant, phrasing it like this — went crazy — like I’m perfectly sure not only of my own sanity but also of my ability to judge the sanity of others. How to phrase it, then? Perhaps: André started acting strange, for example? or: André was a bit of a mess; or even: André seemed in much need of a rest. Either way, gradually and slowly, in fact so slowly it was only yesterday afternoon that I decided to take action, André — and I apologize for my audacity or arrogance or condescendance or whatever else you want to call it, anyway: André went completely crazy.
First I thought of taking him to a clinic, like I vaguely remembered seeing in some movie or TV show, a place filled with green and peaceful people, distant and slightly pale, looking out into some place far away from this world, reading books or cutting paper dolls, surrounded by friendly and helpful nurses. André could be happy there, I thought. And I must say I still wanted to see him happy, despite all the hurt he caused in these last few days. But all I had to do was take a peek at our checkbook to know there was no way for this to work.
So I opted for the asylum. I know, it sounds a bit harsh to say it harshly like this: so-I-opted-for-the-asylum. These are tricky words. As a matter of fact, it’s not like I had much of a choice. It’s just that: 1º) I barely had any money and André had even less, which meant he had nothing, since he stopped going to work when the butterflies started to grow out of his hair; 2º) the clinic costs money, the asylum is free. Besides, places like the one I saw in that movie or TV show are very remote — in Switzerland, I think — and I couldn’t visit him there as often as I’d like. The asylum is close by. So, after explaining myself, I say: I opted for the asylum.
André didn’t show any signs of resistance. Sometimes I even think he must have always known that, in some way, this is how things would inevitably end up for him. So I put him in a taxi, then we disembarked, crossed through the courtyard and, at the lobby, the doctor didn’t even ask that many questions. Just his name, age, address, if he had ever been there before, things like that — but André wasn’t saying anything, so I had to answer for him, like I was the crazy one. Oh: and the doctor didn’t even doubt my words, not even for a second. I thought about how, were André sane but I declared him mad anyway, that alone would be enough to keep him locked there for a long time. But his face said it all — wordless, motionless, his eyes entirely still, his hair a complete mess.
When the two nurses came to get him inside I suddenly felt the urge to say something more, but I couldn’t. He just stood there in front of me, staring. But not looking, not properly; it’d been too long since he had last looked at anything — it was like his eyes had turned themselves inwards, or like they pierced through objects and people to get to their innermost depths, seeing all these things not even we know about ourselves. It made me uneasy, his way of staring, so… so wise. Definitely insane, but extremely wise. It was an unbearable stare to have upon me, all the time, in my own home, trans-lucid like that. But then, suddenly, his eyes seemed to blink, though they may not have blinked — I must explain that, to me, blinking is like some sort of comma written by the eyes when they want to change the subject. Without blinking, then, his eyes blinked for a second, and then they were once again gone to that world to where he'd moved without telling. And his eyes looked at me. Not at something hiding inside me where not even I could see, not through me; he looked at me, physically, I mean: he looked at this pair of gelatinous organs between my brow and nose — he looked into my eyes.
He stared deep into my eyes like he hadn’t done in a long time, and it surprised me so much I wanted to tell the doctor we had all made a great mistake, and that André was perfectly fine, looking into my eyes as if seeing me, his expression recovered, attentive, almost friendly, like the André I'd lived with and knew so well, looking at me like he understood everything and like he just wished things would turn out fine for me, not even angry at me for bringing him there. Like he’d forgiven me, as neither of us were to blame – not me, still lucid, nor him, who had gone crazy. I wanted to take him back home with me, undress him and lick him like I used to do, but there were all those papers already signed, those filled-in forms, tick boxes crossed where it said single, male, white, things like that, and the two nurses standing next to us, waiting impatiently — I kept thinking of all of this when André’s gaze rested upon me and he said:
“One can only fill a bowl up to its brim. Not a single drop more.*”
And then I left. The two nurses held him by the arms and took him inside. From the window, a few other lunatics watched. Ugly and dirty and fetid in their grubby striped clothes, some of them toothless — and I grew afraid of coming back to find that André had turned into someone just like them: ugly and dirty and fetid, wearing those grubby striped clothes. I thought the doctor would put his hand on my shoulder and say be brave, old boy, just like I see in the movies, but he didn’t. Instead he simply leaned over the pile of papers, as if I wasn’t even there. I turned around and walked away, not saying a single word of what I wanted to say — to take good care of him, not to let him climb over to the roof, cut paper dolls all day or take the butterflies out of his hair like he used to do. I slowly passed through the courtyard, sad lunatics everywhere. I hesitated at the iron gate, then decided to go back home by foot.
It was late afternoon and the streets were horrible, filled with those cars, those frantic people, the sidewalks dirty with shit and litter. I felt sick and guilty. I wanted to talk to someone but since André had gone crazy I'd been pushing everyone away, his gaze tearing me apart, and suddenly I felt as if my own gaze had turned to be just like his, and I was right. Just as I realized this, I looked at the people — like I knew something about them that not even they could know. Like I was piercing through them. White and dirty creatures, that's what they were. When I pierced through them, I saw what came before them — and what came before them was some colorless and shapeless thing, something I could rest my eyes upon without worrying about giving it a name or a color or a shape — a smooth and calm shade of white. But this smooth and calm white frightened me and, as I tried to go back, I began to see in people what they didn't know about themselves, and that was even more terrifying. What they didn’t know about themselves was so frightening that I felt as if I'd desecrated a tomb closed for centuries. The curse had fallen upon me: no one would ever forgive me, had they known what I dared to do.
Taken over by some force within me, stronger than I was, I couldn’t help but look and feel what laid beyond and before those white creatures, and so I knew that everyone on that street, in that city, in that country, everyone in the whole world knew I was looking at them like that, and suddenly it was no longer possible to pretend or to run away or to ask for forgiveness or to try to go back to my previous way of seeing — and I knew they wanted revenge. Just as I realized this, I began to walk faster, trying to escape, and God, God was on my side: at the street's corner I spotted a taxi stand, got a taxi, told the driver to go ahead, threw myself against the seat, closed my eyes, took a deep breath and wiped my sticky palms against my shirt. Then I opened my eyes to see the driver (cautiously, of course). He was watching me through the rearview mirror. Noticing that I had noticed him, he looked away and turned on the radio. From the radio, a voice: Ladies and gentlemen, it is now six o’clock in the evening. Tighten your seatbelts and get your minds ready for takeoff. We’ll soon be departing for a long one-way trip. Attention, we’ll start the countdown: ten-nine-eight-seven-six-five… Before it could get to four I knew the driver was one of them. I told him to stop, paid him and got out. And I don’t know how, but I was just in front of my house. I got inside, turned on the light and sat on the couch.
The house quiet without André. Even when he was still there, in those last few days, the house was always quiet: he stayed in his room all day, cutting paper dolls or leaning against the wall, his eyes staring at things with that gaze, or standing in front of the mirror, looking for the butterflies that grew from his head. First he’d feel his hair with his hands, then he'd split his strands, then he’d locate the butterfly, just like a louse. In a delicate gesture, he’d pick it up by its wings, between his thumb and forefinger, and throw it out the window. One of the blue ones, he used to say; or one of the yellow ones, or any other color. Then he’d go out to the roof and repeat a bunch of things I didn’t understand. From time to time, a black butterfly would appear. Then he’d have violent fits, get scared, cry, break things, accuse me. It was because of a black butterfly that I decided to send him to that green place and, later, to the asylum itself. He'd broken all the furniture in the room, then he tried to bite me, saying it was my fault, that it was I who kept putting those black butterflies in his hair while he slept. That wasn’t true. When he slept I would sometimes come over and watch him. I liked to see him like that, forgetful, the pale hairs on his chest rising and falling over his heart. Almost like that André I used to know, who’d bite my neck with fury in those sweaty, long gone nights. One time, I reached out and ran my fingers through his hair. He woke up abruptly, stared at me in horror, grabbed my wrist tightly and said that now I couldn’t pretend it wasn’t me anymore, that he catched me right in the moment of betrayal. Things went like this for a long time, and I couldn’t understand it, and it exhausted me.
But now the house was empty without André. I went to the bathroom, piled with dirty clothes, the tap dripping; in the kitchen, our sink overflowing with weeks-old plates and pots; windows and curtains filthy with dust; that sweet smell of garbage all around. Then it was time to muster the courage and go into his room. André wasn’t there, of course. Instead of him, I found magazines scattered all around the floor, his scissors, his paper dolls among the broken furniture. I picked up the scissors and began cutting some dolls myself. As I cut, I gave them stories, jobs, past, present, future (which was the trickiest part), I gave them struggles and even a few dreams. That’s when I felt something: like an itch coming from my hair, as if something was sprouting from inside my brain, piercing through the walls of my skull to get in my hair. I went over to the mirror and searched for it. It was a butterfly. One of the blue ones, I realized with joy. I held it between my thumb and forefinger, then released it through the window. It fluttered for a few seconds, hesitating, which was perfectly natural since it had never been over a roof before. Once I realized this, I climbed over the window and reached the roof tiles so I could talk to it.
“This is how it is,” I said. “The world outside my head has windows, rooftops, clouds, and those white creatures down there. You must not dwell on them too much, or else you’ll be at risk at piercing them through look and seeing what's inside them and not even they can see, and that would be as dangerous as desecrating an ancient tomb. As a butterfly, however, it won’t be too hard to avoid them: just fly over their heads, never landing, because landing would put you at risk of being once again entangled in hair and absorbed by their swamp-like brains; if you can’t avoid it, be it due to recklessness or adventure, you must not torture yourself too much — that’d do no good — and instead just try to calm down and slide as smoothly as you can down into their brains, so you don’t get crushed by the edges of their thoughts, and everything is natural, so don’t be afraid — you must only preserve the blue of your wings.”
Seemingly reassured by my advice, it took off and flew away towards the sunset. Just as I was about to turn around and get back down again, I noticed the neighbors were watching me. I paid them no mind and went straight back to my paper dolls. And, again, the same thing happened: the itching, the mirror, the butterfly (this time, it was one of the purple ones), then the window, the roof, the advice. And then neighbors and the paper dolls once again. This went on for a long time.
It was no longer afternoon when I found my first black butterfly. I felt my stomach violently turn just as my thumb and forefinger touched its sticky little wings; I screamed and smashed the closest object I could found — I’m not even sure what it was. I just remember the shattering noise it made, which leads me to believe it was probably a porcelain vase or something like it (I believe that was the moment I remembered the sounds from the nights before: the fringes of a shawl falling over the strings of André’s guitar while we rolled from bed to floor). I wanted to break more things, scream even louder and cry, if I managed to, because I felt sick and never again— when I heard the sound of footsteps through the hallway, and several people broke into the room. When I first looked at those people it was like how I used to look at things before, no white creatures, and I recognized a few of them: the neighbors who were always watching us, the man from the nearby bar, the gardener from across the street, the taxi driver, the landlord of the building next door, the hooker who lived in that white house. But then everything expanded and I couldn’t help but see them in that other way, even though I didn’t want to. I closed my eyes to avoid it, but closing my eyes was like looking inside my own brain — and the only thing I could find was a multitude of black butterflies nervously flapping their disgusting little wings around, jostling against each other to get to my hair. For some time I fought back. Somehow, I still had some hope, despite the many hands that held me down.
When the sun rose today, I had already lost. They called a taxi and brought me here. Before they got me into the taxi I tried to suggest that green place instead, why not, those friendly and helpful and distant people, slightly pale, some of them reading books, others cutting paper dolls. But I knew they wouldn’t allow it: there was no forgiving for someone who had seen what I saw. Besides, I had completely forgotten their language, this language I used to understand so well, a language I then realized was so imbued with lies and confusion, each word meaning so many different things in so many different dimensions. So I gave up on understanding. I could no longer stay in just one dimension like they did: every word extended itself and invaded so many realms that, so as to avoid losing myself, I remained silent, only paying attention to the gurgle the butterflies made inside my brain. When those people left, after filing a bunch of papers, I stared at one of them just like André did to me. And I said:
“One can only fill a bowl up to its brim. Not a single drop more.”
He seemed to understand. I saw how disturbed he got, trying but failing to tell the doctor something. I watched how he lowered his eyes over the pile of signed papers, how indecisive he looked as he crossed over the courtyard just to hesitate at the iron gate, look around, and walk out. Next thing I know, the nurses were bringing me inside, sticking a needle in my arm. I tried to react but they were too strong, one of them kneeling on my chest while the other inserted the needle into my vein. I sank, the white quilt behind me like a bottomless well.
When I woke up I found André staring at me, his expression transformed. Almost like he used to do, but calmer, more intense. Like we were finally sharing the same realm. André smiled. He reached out his right hand towards my hair and, gently, using his thumb and forefinger, he catched a butterfly. One of the green ones. Then he lowered his own head and, my fingers on his hair, I catched another one. This time, it was one of the yellow ones. Because there was no roof, they fluttered around the courtyard as we said all those things — him, talking to my butterflies; me, talking to his. We stayed like that for a long time, until I accidently catched one of the black ones and we started to fight. I bit him many times, drawing blood, and he dug his nails into my face. Then came the men, four of them to be precise. Two of them knelt over our chests, the other two inserted needles into our veins. Before falling down once again over the white quilt well, we still managed to smile at each other, reaching out our hands at the same time so that, very carefully, between forefinger and thumb, each of us could catch a butterfly. This one was so red it looked like it was bleeding.
* Laozi, Tao Te Ching.
I once again apologize for any mistakes, feel free to tell me if you find any (as I'm sure there are some. hiding in here somewhere), I'm not a professional translator nor a fluent english speaker, this is mostly practice, etc., etc.
THE SADDEST BOY IN THE WORLD
For Ronaldo Pamplona da Costa
AN AQUARIUM WITH DIRTY WATER, the night and the haze of the night where they swim without seeing me, blind fishes oblivious to their inevitable path towards each other and me. Cold August winter, the middle of the night at the corner of the funeral home, they navigate among punks, hobos, neon lights, prostitutes and electronic synthesizer moans — sounds, seaweed, water — adrift in the space that separates the damned pub from the shadows of the park in this city that doesn't belong to one of them anymore, nor will it ever again. For cities, like occasional acquaintances and rented apartments, were made to be left behind, he thinks as he navigates.
Him: this man, almost forty, beginning to overdo his drinking, though not too much, just enough to rekindle his tired emotions, and beginning to lose hair on the top of his head, though not too much, just enough for a few pathetic jokes. Drops of dew, crystals of mist, fall on this empty space at the top of his head; beneath him, some thoughts arise, high on night, some alcohol and too much loneliness. He lights a soaked cigarette, pulls the collar of his gray raincoat up to his ears. In this gesture, the hand holding the cigarette roughly touches over his three-day beard. Then he sighs, freezing.
There are many things one could say about this man on this dim night, in this pub he now walks into, in this city which once was his. But standing here, in the back of this very pub he walks into, with no past, for there’s no past for men like him, who are almost forty and wander alone late at night — these somewhat vague, somewhat stupid things are all I can say about him. Thin, wet, slightly bent from his thinness, the cold and detachment, this detachment typical of men who are almost forty and wander in cities that, no longer theirs, become more foreign than any other.
The pub is like a long Polish Corridor. The walls — on the right of those who enter, but on the left of where I watch — are demarcated by the long counter and, at the opposite side, by a single line of cheap tables, formica emulating marble. Thin, curved wet — he moves through this line, which extends horizontally from the front door to the juckebox at the back where I stand and watch, amongst all these people tangled together. Dressed in black, a black mass, a monster vomited by the nocturnal waves onto the dirty sand of the pub. Amongst these people, even though he’s dressed in gray, the man looks like he’s all white.
In the jukebox, to soothe this meeting they don’t even realize they’re having yet, to help them navigate better through this unnamed thing they can’t even see without my help, I’ll pick slow blues, anguished saxophone solos, even slower pianos on the verge of ecstacy, breathy clarinets and deep, dark voices, hoarse and rough from cigarettes but made smooth by sips of bourbon or brandy, so that everything flows golden like a drink made with other waters, not these murky ones from where the two poor fishes emerged, blind from the night, forever unaware of my presence here, beside the jukebox, next to the hallway and the filthy bathrooms, creating impossible clarities and using those damned songs to lull this sudden meeting — that is as sudden to them, who swim blindly, as it is to me, hookless fisherman hunched over the body of water that separates me from them.
That boy, the one I'm gazing now, that boy opposite to where the man in the gray raincoat sits with his beer. This one right there: a boy that's almost twenty, beginning to overdo his drinking, though not too much, like boys who are almost twenty and still don’t know the limits and dangers of the game tend to do, a few pimples (though not too many) spread across his much too white face, remainders of his adolescence, among odd strands of beard that had not yet found that well-defined shape already established in the faces of men who are almost forty, like the one that sits in front of him. Behind the pimples, among the unformed strands of beard, certain thoughts arise — thick with mist, some alcohol and too much loneliness. That boy lights up a soaked cigarette, that boy rolls down the collar of his black coat, that boy brushes away ash, dust, hairs, droplets, crickets from his frayed lapel. Then sighs, freezing. Looks around as if not seeing anything, anyone. Not even the man who sits in front of him, who apparently doesn’t see him as well.
There are many things that one could sa about that boy in this dark night, in this city that has always been his, in this pub where he now sits, opposite to that complete stranger of a man. But standing still in the back of the same pub in which he sits, he and his short, probably melancholic past, and no future, for the future of boys who are not yet twenty are always obscure, almost invisible — these somewhat vague, somewhat stupid things are all I can say about him. Thin, wet, slightly bent from his thinness and the cold. With this detachment that’s typical of boys who have not yet learned the dangers or the pleasures of the game, if there even is a game.
Were I the great Zeus Olympius and I’d destroy the city with a flaming beam just so I could live the moment of the thunderbolt’s electric light*— is what that boy will say, matching the arrogance that’s expected from his age. But not yet. For now, he doesn't say a thing. They both stay quiet, the almost forty-year-old man and him, sitting opposite at the table on the left of where I strategically watch, beside the jukebox, on the right of those who enter, emerged from the bottom of the dirty aquarium night outside where they swim blind and dizzy before walking in. Before I can suck them up with my eyes, greedy for the encounters of others, so that I can give them life, even if it's precarious like this, a life made out of paper, where Zeus Olympus Oxalá Tupã exert their power over predestined simulacra too.
No, they don’t say a thing. There’s enough noise around to spare them the words — who knows if they’ll come out too bitter. Or perhaps like milk instead, unbearable for the burning throats of those who wander in the night like they do, I do, we do. Delayable — that's their words. Not mine.
For now, they simply look around. They deliberatebly don’t look at each other. Even though they’re both thin, slightly bent from this thinness, wet from the mist outside; even though one wears gray and the other wears black, like the times demand if they don't want to be rejected; even though both of them drink rather tepid beers, in this pub where it doesn’t matter what you drink as long as you're drinking, and they both smoke equally creasy cigarettes, vicious and sad cigarettes, this kind of cigarette only solitary and nocturnal men bring out to the night on the bottom of their coat pockets, whether they are twenty or forty years old. Or a little more, or a little less — solitary men have no exact age. Even when they’re both freezing, woozy with alcohol, stiff with the cold, lucid with that loneliness that haunts like fate men with no future, no wife or friend, no family or belongings — they don’t look at each other.
They ignore each other, fearing that — I make up, Lord of my absurd and stupidly real invention, living it now in my veins as I make it up — were they to give up to each other’s solitude and there would be no more room left for escapades like a drunk fuck with someone whose face they’d forget, or a snort of coke around the street’s corner, a sly piss taken next to a waiter who’s avoiding conflict, though sympathetic to drunken strangers, an impatient blunt in the mud of the park. Things like that, you know? I do: loving the self reflected in the other sometimes chains, but when the bodies touch one another the minds are freed to fly further beyond the horizon line, which is never seen from here. Though it’s clear from over there, when the bodies touch after loving the self reflected in the other.
Therefore, they don’t look. And it’s not me who decides, but them. One should not look when looking means bending over a mirror that might be cracked, that might wound with its distorting shards. That’s why I hesitate, then, between using my coin on Bessie Smith or Louis Armstrong (everything is imaginary tonight, in this pub, in this jukebox full of more fashionable facilities); as to help with the flow, clear the traffic, to make things sweeter or sourer, even though I fear that boys under twenty might not yet understand such colonized abysses, the dark nocturnal elegance of hoarse voices against the blue velvet covering the walls of some place that’s not this Polish Corridor in a provincial city whose name I've forgotten, we've forgotten. Sophistication, pose: fatigue and long gloves.
Mine, theirs. For we are three and one. The one who watches from the outside, the one who watches from afar, the one who watches too early. This one, foresight. A single fright for the three of us. Watching from within, tangled together. Four, now?
Because then it begins. But it begins in such a banal way — what’s your name, what’s your sign, do you want another beer, can I have a cigarette, I'm short on money, don’t worry, I’ll pay, what are you doing, just hanging around, seeing what’s up, do you come here often, it’s so cold — that I almost press the button for some other sounds, different from the ones I imagine, so hoarse, so that with the piercing scream of an electric bass they can wallow in the shrillness of each night. But suddenly they compose themselves — this man in the gray raincoat, that boy in the black coat, together at the same table — and, without warning, though I was already well-aware, being the one to set this trap, suddenly they look deep into each other’s eyes. Surrounded by the black mass, sea monster, the smell of piss and beer, amidst the white tiles on the walls, like a huge bathroom attached at the center of the night where they’re lost — they find each other, and they look.
They recognize each other, they finally agree to recognize each other. They light each other’s creasy cigarettes, steady, full of a certain tenderness, although timid. They delicately share a beer. They contemplate each other with distance, precision, method, order, discipline. Without surprise or desire, for it's not this boy — with his black coat, his patchy beard and a few pimples — who the man with a balding spot on the top of his head would want, did he want other men, and perhaps he does. And so is true of the opposite: that boy, even if perhaps capable of such audacities, would not want this man through the palm of his hand, inventing frenzies in the silence of his room, which is certainly full of banners, superheroes, stickers and all those remainders of a time that had just passed, when it’s too early for one to know if he unavidably wants someone of his own kind. And perhaps he does. But this man, that boy — no. It all happens in a different way.
They contemplate each other with no desire. They contemplate each other sweetly, unarmed, accomplices, abandoned, poignant, severe, comrades. Compassionate. They wield words that only reach me in fragments, broken by the air that separate us, which take the form of gentle, hesitant interrogations, questions surrounding with caution and enchantment a recognition that’s no longer nocturnal, transformed into something else I have not yet named and I don’t know if I ever will, this thing so bright it threatens to blind me as well. I contain the word while they watch this thing just beginning to take shape, and I find it beautiful.
The boy looks at his own arms and says: I'm so thin, see? Whenever I hug a girl I keep looking at my arms, too weak to hold a woman tight, and I imagine muscles I don’t have, I imagine strengths for myself, because I’m so weak, so thin, so young. He looks around without a single trace of passion in his pale face, and he says: I want to kill myself, I don’t know how to stay alive, I don’t have a father, every day my mother shakes me and shouts at me, "wake up, get up you layabout, go to work." I want to read poetry, I've never had a friend, I've never received a letter. I spend all my nights wandering from pub to pub, I’m afraid of going to sleep, I’m afraid of waking up, I end up playing pool all night and only go to bed when the sun is rising and I’m completely drunk. I was born in this time after everything is already over, I have no future, I don’t believe in anything — this he doesn’t say, but I can hear it clearly, and so does the man in front of him, and so does the entire pub. And then the man answers, with this half-sober wisdom that men who are almost forty inevitably acquire.
He, the man, runs the palm of his hand through his thinning hair, as if caressing some old time, and says, the man says: don’t be afraid, it’ll pass. Don’t be afraid, boy. You will find a way that’s right, even if there’s no definitive right way. But you’ll find your way, and that’s what matters. If you know how to hold on, it might even be beautiful. The man takes his wallet out of his pocket, orders another beer and a brand new pack of cigarettes, then looks at the boy, teary-eyed, and says. No, he doesn’t say anything. He just looks at the boy. For a long time, a man who’s almost forty looks teary-eyed at a boy who’s almost twenty, whom he has never seen before, in the middle of a pub in the middle of a city that is no longer his. While this gaze is held, and it is held for a long time, the man discovers the same thing as I do, at the same time.
That boy, with his black coat, a few pimples, patchy beard and too white skin — he is the saddest boy in the world.
And to make everything even more ridiculous, or at least more unlikely, tomorrow, which already is today, will be Fathers' Day. Shaken up by a date that holds no meaning to those who don't have a thing — who have no children, just to reinforce his loneliness — the man who’s almost forty begins to explain that he came from another city to see his own father. And he goes on revealing, in that same desolate tone as the boy who has now and forever become the saddest boy in the world, just like the man used to be, but won’t ever be again, though he’ll never truly stop being so; and he says: they don’t look at me, they keep themselves in that armed security of a family who won’t admit anything or anyone capable of disturbing their made-up peace, and they don’t look at me, they don’t see me, they don’t know me. They water me down, they turn me invisible, they limit me to that unbearable limit of what they chose to tolerate, and I can’t bear it — do you understand me?
The boy, who's not yet twenty, almost doesn’t understand. But he reaches his hand over the table to touch the hand of the man who’s almost forty. The man’s fingers close inside the boy’s hand, between the boy’s fingers. There is so much thirst between them, between us.
A long time has passed. It’s almost dawn. The cold has grown stronger. The pub is nearly empty, almost closing. Leaning over the cash register, the owner is asleep. I've spent almost all my coins: everything is blues, music and color, tender pain. I have only one quarter left, which I’m going to throw straight at Tom Waits. I get myself ready. Then — while the waiters stack chairs on top of the empty tables, a bit annoyed with me, who keep feeding lines, and at these two odd men, holding hands like they're two fags, hopelessly in love with someone who is not the other, but could be, if they dared enough, if they didn’t had to part ways — the man tightens his grip around the hands of of the saddest boy in the world. Their four hands squeeze each other, warm each other, merge together and comfort each other. Not a black and viscous sea monster, vomit in the morning, but a white starfish instead. Pentacle, mother-of-pearl. Half-open oyster displaying the black pearl ripped out of the night and out of the sickness, pure blues. And he says, the man says:
“You don’t exist. I don’t exist. But I’m so powerful in my immense thirst that I have invented vou just to quench it. You are so powerful in your fragility that you have invented me to quench this exact thirst in you. We've invented each other because we were all we needed to keep on living. And because we invented each other, I give you power over my destiny and you give me power over your destiny. You give me your future, I hand you my past. Then, just like this, we’re present, past and future. Infinite time in itself, this is eternity.”
In this pub filled with stacked chairs, they sit at the only table that’s left, unaware of the ruins of the background. From my corner, I spy. There must be a hooker lying in some corner, some faggot jerking off a black man in some bathroom. I don’t see them. For now, I don’t. From my corner, I can only see these two men, distinct and identical, the four hands held together over the cheap table, formica emulating marble.
That’s when the boy says he’d been delivering flowers all day, that he'd made some money, fought for a hundred bucks or some other small sum like that, like boys who are under twenty do — and he insisted, magnificently, on paying for the last beer. All things now ending, there are no more open pubs left in the city. A glassy light begins to pierce through the night fog where they’re still submerged with me, with you, myopic fishes squinting so they can see each other, close-up, and they can. Beautiful, frightening: their gills tremble. The man pulls out his wallet once again, full of bills and cheques and credit cards, one of those stuffed wallets only men who are almost forty get to carry, but that mean nothing in moments like this. The boy insists and the man gives in, puts his wallet away. The last waiter brings their last beer. I give my last quarter to the jukebox, one last blues. No one sees it, no one hears anything else when morning comes to put madness to sleep. Tomorrow, will you remember?
Tender, pale, real: they stare at each other. They caress each other’s hands, then arms, shoulders, neck, face, the lines of the face, hair. With that sweetness born between two men alone in the middle of a cold night, half-drunk and with no other option but to love each other like this, more passionately than they’d be were they chasing for any other body, similar or different from theirs — it doesn’t matter, it’s thirst all the same. From where I stand, I watch their souls shine. Yellowish, light-purple: dancing over the filth. They cry in their embrace. A man who’s almost forty and a boy who’s not yet twenty, both ageless.
I am the both of them, I am three the three of us, I am the four of us. These two who find each other, this third who spies and tells, this fourth who listens. We are one — one who searches without finding and, once he finds, doesn’t know how to handle this encounter that disproves his supposed faith. It’s important that what he searches for does not exist, or else the script would have to be rewritten to introduce Tui, who’s Joy. And joy is a lake, not this murky aquarium, fog, dull words: Neptune, synastry. And perhaps it does exist, at least to quench the thirst for a time that’s gone, a time that hasn’t come, a time that’s imagined, invented or calculated. A thirst for time, in short.
This strange demiurgic power leaves me even dizzier than them, when they get up to the door and lingering embrace after paying the bill. Lovers, relatives, equals: strangers.
So the boy leaves, because he has other paths to follow. The man stays, having his own different paths to follow. He watches the boy's silhouette going away, exactly like I do, watching the man’s silhouette standing for a moment at the pub’s door. He won’t stay, because that’s a city no longer his. The boy will stay, because it’s in this very same city that he must make that vague choice — a path, his way, a destiny — if he even has a choice, before it’s time to kill it, this vague future thing, once it’s turned into past, if one ever really kills anything. Tom Waits’ hoarse voice repeats and repeats and repeats that it’s time, and there will be time, like in a T.S. Eliot poem, yes, there will be time, certainly, while the last waiter lightly taps on the shoulder of the man in the gray raincoat, hair thinning at the top of his head, almost forty, standing still at the pub’s door. Gentle, friendly, pointing to the silhouette of the saddest boy in the world walking away to catch the first bus of the early morning, the waiter asks:
“Is he your son?”
From where I stand, beside the jukebox that falls silent, I can feel an inexplicable scent of fresh roses, as if dawn itself had brought a sudden spring to the nearby park. Before the man leaves, I can see him smile softly and lie to the waiter, saying that he is, that he's not, who knows. It's whatever I say, if I am the one saying it, that will be the truth. Here by myself I know that we're still three and four. Me as their father, me as their son, me as the two of them, and you: the four of us, a single man lost in the night, sank in this dirty aquarium reflecting the neon lights. Blind fish ignorant of my inevitable path towards this one whom I watch from afar, teary-eyed, lacking the courage to touch him. High on night, a certain madness, some alcohol and too much loneliness.
I want to drink more whiskey, I want to do another line. Slowly, all things turn to day and life, oh life, can be fear and honey when you surrender and watch, even from afar.
No, I don't want or need a thing, if only you touch me. I reach out my hand.
Then I sigh, freezing. And I leave you alone.
* “Pudesse eu ser o grande Zeus Olimpo e destruiria a cidade com raios flamejantes só para viver o momento da luz elétrica do raio”, an unpublished verse by Antonio Augusto Caldasso Couto.
A STORY OF BUTTERFLIES
"Because when one is white like the white phoenix and the others are black one has enemies."
Antonin Rimbaud, quoted by Anaïs Nin
in Je suis le plus malade des surréalistes
ANDRÉ WENT CRAZY yesterday afternoon. I must say that I too find myself a bit arrogant, phrasing it like this — went crazy — like I’m perfectly sure not only of my own sanity but also of my ability to judge the sanity of others. How to phrase it, then? Perhaps: André started acting strange, for example? or: André was a bit of a mess; or even: André seemed in much need of a rest. Either way, gradually and slowly, in fact so slowly it was only yesterday afternoon that I decided to take action, André — and I apologize for my audacity or arrogance or condescendance or whatever else you want to call it, anyway: André went completely crazy.
First I thought of taking him to a clinic, like I vaguely remembered seeing in some movie or TV show, a place filled with green and peaceful people, distant and slightly pale, looking out into some place far away from this world, reading books or cutting paper dolls, surrounded by friendly and helpful nurses. André could be happy there, I thought. And I must say I still wanted to see him happy, despite all the hurt he caused in these last few days. But all I had to do was take a peek at our checkbook to know there was no way for this to work.
So I opted for the asylum. I know, it sounds a bit harsh to say it harshly like this: so-I-opted-for-the-asylum. These are tricky words. As a matter of fact, it’s not like I had much of a choice. It’s just that: 1º) I barely had any money and André had even less, which meant he had nothing, since he stopped going to work when the butterflies started to grow out of his hair; 2º) the clinic costs money, the asylum is free. Besides, places like the one I saw in that movie or TV show are very remote — in Switzerland, I think — and I couldn’t visit him there as often as I’d like. The asylum is close by. So, after explaining myself, I say: I opted for the asylum.
André didn’t show any signs of resistance. Sometimes I even think he must have always known that, in some way, this is how things would inevitably end up for him. So I put him in a taxi, then we disembarked, crossed through the courtyard and, at the lobby, the doctor didn’t even ask that many questions. Just his name, age, address, if he had ever been there before, things like that — but André wasn’t saying anything, so I had to answer for him, like I was the crazy one. Oh: and the doctor didn’t even doubt my words, not even for a second. I thought about how, were André sane but I declared him mad anyway, that alone would be enough to keep him locked there for a long time. But his face said it all — wordless, motionless, his eyes entirely still, his hair a complete mess.
When the two nurses came to get him inside I suddenly felt the urge to say something more, but I couldn’t. He just stood there in front of me, staring. But not looking, not properly; it’d been too long since he had last looked at anything — it was like his eyes had turned themselves inwards, or like they pierced through objects and people to get to their innermost depths, seeing all these things not even we know about ourselves. It made me uneasy, his way of staring, so… so wise. Definitely insane, but extremely wise. It was an unbearable stare to have upon me, all the time, in my own home, trans-lucid like that. But then, suddenly, his eyes seemed to blink, though they may not have blinked — I must explain that, to me, blinking is like some sort of comma written by the eyes when they want to change the subject. Without blinking, then, his eyes blinked for a second, and then they were once again gone to that world to where he'd moved without telling. And his eyes looked at me. Not at something hiding inside me where not even I could see, not through me; he looked at me, physically, I mean: he looked at this pair of gelatinous organs between my brow and nose — he looked into my eyes.
He stared deep into my eyes like he hadn’t done in a long time, and it surprised me so much I wanted to tell the doctor we had all made a great mistake, and that André was perfectly fine, looking into my eyes as if seeing me, his expression recovered, attentive, almost friendly, like the André I'd lived with and knew so well, looking at me like he understood everything and like he just wished things would turn out fine for me, not even angry at me for bringing him there. Like he’d forgiven me, as neither of us were to blame – not me, still lucid, nor him, who had gone crazy. I wanted to take him back home with me, undress him and lick him like I used to do, but there were all those papers already signed, those filled-in forms, tick boxes crossed where it said single, male, white, things like that, and the two nurses standing next to us, waiting impatiently — I kept thinking of all of this when André’s gaze rested upon me and he said:
“One can only fill a bowl up to its brim. Not a single drop more.*”
And then I left. The two nurses held him by the arms and took him inside. From the window, a few other lunatics watched. Ugly and dirty and fetid in their grubby striped clothes, some of them toothless — and I grew afraid of coming back to find that André had turned into someone just like them: ugly and dirty and fetid, wearing those grubby striped clothes. I thought the doctor would put his hand on my shoulder and say be brave, old boy, just like I see in the movies, but he didn’t. Instead he simply leaned over the pile of papers, as if I wasn’t even there. I turned around and walked away, not saying a single word of what I wanted to say — to take good care of him, not to let him climb over to the roof, cut paper dolls all day or take the butterflies out of his hair like he used to do. I slowly passed through the courtyard, sad lunatics everywhere. I hesitated at the iron gate, then decided to go back home by foot.
It was late afternoon and the streets were horrible, filled with those cars, those frantic people, the sidewalks dirty with shit and litter. I felt sick and guilty. I wanted to talk to someone but since André had gone crazy I'd been pushing everyone away, his gaze tearing me apart, and suddenly I felt as if my own gaze had turned to be just like his, and I was right. Just as I realized this, I looked at the people — like I knew something about them that not even they could know. Like I was piercing through them. White and dirty creatures, that's what they were. When I pierced through them, I saw what came before them — and what came before them was some colorless and shapeless thing, something I could rest my eyes upon without worrying about giving it a name or a color or a shape — a smooth and calm shade of white. But this smooth and calm white frightened me and, as I tried to go back, I began to see in people what they didn't know about themselves, and that was even more terrifying. What they didn’t know about themselves was so frightening that I felt as if I'd desecrated a tomb closed for centuries. The curse had fallen upon me: no one would ever forgive me, had they known what I dared to do.
Taken over by some force within me, stronger than I was, I couldn’t help but look and feel what laid beyond and before those white creatures, and so I knew that everyone on that street, in that city, in that country, everyone in the whole world knew I was looking at them like that, and suddenly it was no longer possible to pretend or to run away or to ask for forgiveness or to try to go back to my previous way of seeing — and I knew they wanted revenge. Just as I realized this, I began to walk faster, trying to escape, and God, God was on my side: at the street's corner I spotted a taxi stand, got a taxi, told the driver to go ahead, threw myself against the seat, closed my eyes, took a deep breath and wiped my sticky palms against my shirt. Then I opened my eyes to see the driver (cautiously, of course). He was watching me through the rearview mirror. Noticing that I had noticed him, he looked away and turned on the radio. From the radio, a voice: Ladies and gentlemen, it is now six o’clock in the evening. Tighten your seatbelts and get your minds ready for takeoff. We’ll soon be departing for a long one-way trip. Attention, we’ll start the countdown: ten-nine-eight-seven-six-five… Before it could get to four I knew the driver was one of them. I told him to stop, paid him and got out. And I don’t know how, but I was just in front of my house. I got inside, turned on the light and sat on the couch.
The house quiet without André. Even when he was still there, in those last few days, the house was always quiet: he stayed in his room all day, cutting paper dolls or leaning against the wall, his eyes staring at things with that gaze, or standing in front of the mirror, looking for the butterflies that grew from his head. First he’d feel his hair with his hands, then he'd split his strands, then he’d locate the butterfly, just like a louse. In a delicate gesture, he’d pick it up by its wings, between his thumb and forefinger, and throw it out the window. One of the blue ones, he used to say; or one of the yellow ones, or any other color. Then he’d go out to the roof and repeat a bunch of things I didn’t understand. From time to time, a black butterfly would appear. Then he’d have violent fits, get scared, cry, break things, accuse me. It was because of a black butterfly that I decided to send him to that green place and, later, to the asylum itself. He'd broken all the furniture in the room, then he tried to bite me, saying it was my fault, that it was I who kept putting those black butterflies in his hair while he slept. That wasn’t true. When he slept I would sometimes come over and watch him. I liked to see him like that, forgetful, the pale hairs on his chest rising and falling over his heart. Almost like that André I used to know, who’d bite my neck with fury in those sweaty, long gone nights. One time, I reached out and ran my fingers through his hair. He woke up abruptly, stared at me in horror, grabbed my wrist tightly and said that now I couldn’t pretend it wasn’t me anymore, that he catched me right in the moment of betrayal. Things went like this for a long time, and I couldn’t understand it, and it exhausted me.
But now the house was empty without André. I went to the bathroom, piled with dirty clothes, the tap dripping; in the kitchen, our sink overflowing with weeks-old plates and pots; windows and curtains filthy with dust; that sweet smell of garbage all around. Then it was time to muster the courage and go into his room. André wasn’t there, of course. Instead of him, I found magazines scattered all around the floor, his scissors, his paper dolls among the broken furniture. I picked up the scissors and began cutting some dolls myself. As I cut, I gave them stories, jobs, past, present, future (which was the trickiest part), I gave them struggles and even a few dreams. That’s when I felt something: like an itch coming from my hair, as if something was sprouting from inside my brain, piercing through the walls of my skull to get in my hair. I went over to the mirror and searched for it. It was a butterfly. One of the blue ones, I realized with joy. I held it between my thumb and forefinger, then released it through the window. It fluttered for a few seconds, hesitating, which was perfectly natural since it had never been over a roof before. Once I realized this, I climbed over the window and reached the roof tiles so I could talk to it.
“This is how it is,” I said. “The world outside my head has windows, rooftops, clouds, and those white creatures down there. You must not dwell on them too much, or else you’ll be at risk at piercing them through look and seeing what's inside them and not even they can see, and that would be as dangerous as desecrating an ancient tomb. As a butterfly, however, it won’t be too hard to avoid them: just fly over their heads, never landing, because landing would put you at risk of being once again entangled in hair and absorbed by their swamp-like brains; if you can’t avoid it, be it due to recklessness or adventure, you must not torture yourself too much — that’d do no good — and instead just try to calm down and slide as smoothly as you can down into their brains, so you don’t get crushed by the edges of their thoughts, and everything is natural, so don’t be afraid — you must only preserve the blue of your wings.”
Seemingly reassured by my advice, it took off and flew away towards the sunset. Just as I was about to turn around and get back down again, I noticed the neighbors were watching me. I paid them no mind and went straight back to my paper dolls. And, again, the same thing happened: the itching, the mirror, the butterfly (this time, it was one of the purple ones), then the window, the roof, the advice. And then neighbors and the paper dolls once again. This went on for a long time.
It was no longer afternoon when I found my first black butterfly. I felt my stomach violently turn just as my thumb and forefinger touched its sticky little wings; I screamed and smashed the closest object I could found — I’m not even sure what it was. I just remember the shattering noise it made, which leads me to believe it was probably a porcelain vase or something like it (I believe that was the moment I remembered the sounds from the nights before: the fringes of a shawl falling over the strings of André’s guitar while we rolled from bed to floor). I wanted to break more things, scream even louder and cry, if I managed to, because I felt sick and never again— when I heard the sound of footsteps through the hallway, and several people broke into the room. When I first looked at those people it was like how I used to look at things before, no white creatures, and I recognized a few of them: the neighbors who were always watching us, the man from the nearby bar, the gardener from across the street, the taxi driver, the landlord of the building next door, the hooker who lived in that white house. But then everything expanded and I couldn’t help but see them in that other way, even though I didn’t want to. I closed my eyes to avoid it, but closing my eyes was like looking inside my own brain — and the only thing I could find was a multitude of black butterflies nervously flapping their disgusting little wings around, jostling against each other to get to my hair. For some time I fought back. Somehow, I still had some hope, despite the many hands that held me down.
When the sun rose today, I had already lost. They called a taxi and brought me here. Before they got me into the taxi I tried to suggest that green place instead, why not, those friendly and helpful and distant people, slightly pale, some of them reading books, others cutting paper dolls. But I knew they wouldn’t allow it: there was no forgiving for someone who had seen what I saw. Besides, I had completely forgotten their language, this language I used to understand so well, a language I then realized was so imbued with lies and confusion, each word meaning so many different things in so many different dimensions. So I gave up on understanding. I could no longer stay in just one dimension like they did: every word extended itself and invaded so many realms that, so as to avoid losing myself, I remained silent, only paying attention to the gurgle the butterflies made inside my brain. When those people left, after filing a bunch of papers, I stared at one of them just like André did to me. And I said:
“One can only fill a bowl up to its brim. Not a single drop more.”
He seemed to understand. I saw how disturbed he got, trying but failing to tell the doctor something. I watched how he lowered his eyes over the pile of signed papers, how indecisive he looked as he crossed over the courtyard just to hesitate at the iron gate, look around, and walk out. Next thing I know, the nurses were bringing me inside, sticking a needle in my arm. I tried to react but they were too strong, one of them kneeling on my chest while the other inserted the needle into my vein. I sank, the white quilt behind me like a bottomless well.
When I woke up I found André staring at me, his expression transformed. Almost like he used to do, but calmer, more intense. Like we were finally sharing the same realm. André smiled. He reached out his right hand towards my hair and, gently, using his thumb and forefinger, he catched a butterfly. One of the green ones. Then he lowered his own head and, my fingers on his hair, I catched another one. This time, it was one of the yellow ones. Because there was no roof, they fluttered around the courtyard as we said all those things — him, talking to my butterflies; me, talking to his. We stayed like that for a long time, until I accidently catched one of the black ones and we started to fight. I bit him many times, drawing blood, and he dug his nails into my face. Then came the men, four of them to be precise. Two of them knelt over our chests, the other two inserted needles into our veins. Before falling down once again over the white quilt well, we still managed to smile at each other, reaching out our hands at the same time so that, very carefully, between forefinger and thumb, each of us could catch a butterfly. This one was so red it looked like it was bleeding.
* Laozi, Tao Te Ching.
