Nuno Ramos translated by Adam Morris

Geology Lesson

There’s a layer of dust covering things, protecting them from us. Dark sooty powder, fragments of salt and seaweed, tons of grainy matter that goes crossing the ocean and transforms itself into transparent fibers deposited little by little to preserve that which remained underneath. Almost nothing has been thought about this phenomenon. It’s probably all an enormous camouflage operation, of equalizing a remote signal that we’d easily perceive in the absence of this mountain of tiny accretions. Something inside of things is being disguised, hidden at whatever price, and even this extract of stone, earth, and dry lava where we walked, built our cabins and birthed our children seems to be there to wrap something that tends toward the center. The endless aggregation of Gravity, of mass falling upon mass, matter embracing matter ... Read More »]]>

Nuno Ramos
translated by Adam Morris

Geology Lesson

There’s a layer of dust covering things, protecting them from us. Dark sooty powder, fragments of salt and seaweed, tons of grainy matter that goes crossing the ocean and transforms itself into transparent fibers deposited little by little to preserve that which remained underneath. Almost nothing has been thought about this phenomenon. It’s probably all an enormous camouflage operation, of equalizing a remote signal that we’d easily perceive in the absence of this mountain of tiny accretions. Something inside of things is being disguised, hidden at whatever price, and even this extract of stone, earth, and dry lava where we walked, built our cabins and birthed our children seems to be there to wrap something that tends toward the center. The endless aggregation of Gravity, of mass falling upon mass, matter embracing matter with constantly renewed appetite, comprises the most evident expression of this principle. It’s as though a primordial being, in the midst of an ancient howl, perceived a slit in its body or pus in its eyes, a plumage of strange color in its fur or even a malformation in one of its limbs. Before descending into despair, ashamed by what it saw, it still managed to cover itself with what lay nearby, snatching up everything that had escaped it, and so the material with which it was now dressed had until then formed part of its perfect body — the dust and the earth, the foliage and the plumage, the explosive fire of the stars and the frozen darkness. A giant moving spiral, concentric, curling like a fetus, into which this divinity retracts itself, incapable of self-understanding, of wholly including itself, showing to time and space that until then they were inside it, they were it, its basic behavior—collapse, jolt, suspension; sand, matter, enigma. It’s hard to understand how this attitude of reclusion and shame has irradiated throughout things. Matter, in fact, is perhaps nothing more than the first expression of this escape. Inverse to the explosive affirmation deriving from a complete nothingness, all Physics would have for its starting point the negation and occlusion of some perceived thing, the disguise of a defect, a protective spiral around an identity full of aversion. The expansion of the universe, according to this point of view, should proceed only until the coverup is complete, thereafter becoming unnecessary. But if the flux of dust and lava in our planet continues, if the light diverges from its spectrum toward red, indicating the progressive distancing of stars already so distant, it’s because the ashamed body still couldn’t cover itself completely. In fact, the movement by which the heated gases turn, the collisions of polar masses with the lighter and warner tropic air, the condensation of storms over the ocean, all the salt thrown into the atmosphere, the struggle of membranes and gills, the very suffering of human aspirations, dragons spreading their sequins and scales, shorn lives, chunks of shipwrecked wood, eyes veiled by cataracts, basins where the sargasso dwells, everything that turned grey and later flourished in the spring, everything that the autumn equalized with silver and monotony, the soft pink of sunset, air that fills the chest with joy, seem in fact to be part of a wisdom, furtive gestures that we don’t comprehend, resulting from an enormous and defective body that uselessly tries to conceal itself, to flee beneath appearances. The motive of its failure, probably, is due to the fact that the matter with which it covers itself is itself a part of it, sharing in its deception—it also wants to hide itself, reproducing infinitesimally the movement that ought be restricted to the core of its origin. Through mimicry and resemblance it ends up playing the role that was assigned it during the long litany of existence, turning its face inward, neutralizing its factions, parading slowly. Perhaps it’s a curious contradiction that the thing which makes such at attempt to hide itself should require witnesses like us, that contemplate, admire, and moreover, find it beautiful. Such is all the progressive extinguishing, the periodic nebulization from which it could sprout it riotous flowers, the monotony of a language that ought to be flesh, a mathematics which ought to be of trunks and of marble, yes, the whole lagoon of possibilities that the fragile ambition of our organs never truly rises to desire, gains its imprimatur, its documentation in terms of need—we embrace that which flees from us, we invert its very aversion and refusal, we judge this ashamed and defective nature to be perfect, we adhere, in the end, forlorn and forever to that which seems beautiful, because we have gotten used to obeying love.

* *

Ash

If the fire comes from the forest, we’ll have our ditch. If it comes from inside one of the houses, there’s earth all around them to prevent it from spreading. It if blooms in the big hut, then here’s to its destruction. Perhaps it will be a bolt that strikes us. We know that the fire will come because we all have the same dream. A blue flame and light smoke. The sweet smell of burned flesh. The flight of the survivors among coals, all the way to the dry lagoon. Our calcified carcass beside that of two lions. Later the new trees growing, the new houses, the big hut. Later the same dream and dissipation, all over again.

* *

Wasp

They told me that it was the neighbor lady who said it, that they came after me shrouded in hoods. I was submerged. They ransacked the whole room in search of the ticket. The whole room and the ticket. The sofa sinks. The walls are limp. I would have rather they found me later. I’d have rather it all stopped and they let loose the wasp on me. She’s imprisoned in the sugar pot now, gorging herself. They told me, it was the neighbor lady who said it, that this is exactly what they were going to do.

* *

Moonband

The last strong rain tore up the earth above them. They went about in bands. They followed the moon. It’s been proven they don’t transmit our diseases, but we delight in the final howl. We make soap. We make boneflour, hot fur and blood. Afterwards I wash myself with it. This animal thing. Man’s best friend flees from man. It’s there drying on the asphalt with a limp paw, moribund.

* *

I Take Care Of Them

Since the arrival of the highway I take care of them. I only need a spade, a bit of lime, a bucket, and a bicycle. I don’t even need to pedal much. I hang the bucket with the bottom full of lime from the handlebar. Every morning there’s another dog. At least one. I size him up. Sometimes a few pieces of asphalt come along with it, crags of tar hardened in fur. I try to remember what each was like. I take note of the size, the pattern of spots, the place where the car struck him and the date. If anyone comes to ask me I’m ready. Later I cover them with dirt from my yard. I need to exhume the oldest ones to make room for the newest. I’d like to know their names. When I meet the owner, I ask.

* *

Her Only Chance

I doubt it will work. The hatch will close first. They’ll shoot first. I doubt she speaks German. I doubt they’ll ask me anything. Maybe she’ll pull her documents from her purse before they ask her name. I doubt she knows. They’ll shoot first. Before she can move, murmur. I doubt she’ll know how to say naturally why she’s here. Maybe they’ll want to know. It’s their right. I think for me there’s no risk. I speak German well. But I doubt my German will come out. I also doubt they’ll ask me. They’ll want to know about her, specifically. They’ll ask like this: how can you have such alabaster skin if you come from such a faraway country? How can you walk around there, with your light skin under an overcoat? Don’t you see that everyone’s wanting?  And so then one turns to me, but I doubt anyone would do that. One turns to me and asks, in his sly German: where’d you find her? Is she your bitch? He makes a big deal of being rude. Where do you keep her? You guys fuck? You fuck her ass? And so on, but I doubt anyone would speak to me like that. Maybe she’ll be able to run fast, but I doubt she’d do that. She’ll get a cramp, but it would be her only chance. She’ll stand there looking down the barrel of the gun, but it would be her only chance. That hatch is low, I think she’d be able to jump it, but I doubt she’d do it.

* *

Against the Light

Here the earth endures our weight and provides us with crabs. We want to return to the earth, to inside the earth, but above us the sky remains, escaping the tips of the dry trees. Here it is only the wind that stays, balancing the ignoble ball of light, by which we are disgusted. Here we are disgusted by the light.

* *

It Won’t Work

Return the wrinkled skin. Return the toothless mouth. Return the mutilated mixture, inheritance that won’t work. Return to the moon, and take. Spread out your ashes. Now that the light doesn’t watch over this cortege—carnival, silence—close your own eyes. Close them for yourself.

* *

Image: Nuno Ramos, “Untitled” (2005). O pão do corvo was published by Editora 34.

Bernardo Carvalho translated by Max Seawright

1.

He haggles over fish at the wharf. He’s done it since before his tenth birthday. His mother makes him. It’s no accident he grows up not liking anything about business or commerce. Day after day he plays a part in the same scene. Mother and son walk down a dusty road next to the river, wearing jellabiyas and simple shoes. She’s dressed in black from head to toe and walks like she’s headed nowhere in particular on a sunny Sunday. He’s so small and so resistant that, despite his stained jellabiya dragging on the ground, he looks like he must be dressed for a special occasion. She rests her elbow on the railing at the top of the stairs that connect the road to the river. She waits, apathetic, for the fisherman to climb ... Read More »]]>

Bernardo Carvalho
translated by Max Seawright

1.

He haggles over fish at the wharf. He’s done it since before his tenth birthday. His mother makes him. It’s no accident he grows up not liking anything about business or commerce. Day after day he plays a part in the same scene. Mother and son walk down a dusty road next to the river, wearing jellabiyas and simple shoes. She’s dressed in black from head to toe and walks like she’s headed nowhere in particular on a sunny Sunday. He’s so small and so resistant that, despite his stained jellabiya dragging on the ground, he looks like he must be dressed for a special occasion. She rests her elbow on the railing at the top of the stairs that connect the road to the river. She waits, apathetic, for the fisherman to climb the stairs with plastic bags in their hands. The boy looks around, at the road, at the city. He avoids eye contact with the tourists arriving on boats. They’re the only witnesses to his humiliation. The locals don’t notice a boy who doesn’t want to be there, who doesn’t have a choice. The boy understood he didn’t have a choice even before his father died, when his father couldn’t get out of bed. The local men won’t demean themselves by talking to a woman, and someone needed to bring food back to the house. While he waits with his mother at the top of the stairs, the boy dreams of the day he’ll go down the river to Cairo, like his brother, and never come back.

Three men start up the stairs, pretending they don’t notice the woman at the top, dressed in black, leaning on the railing. Each man carries a small plastic bag. She watches them. When they reach the top, without saying word, without so much as a glance, one fisherman leaves a plastic bag at her feet. He goes to wait with the other two on the opposite side of the stairs. He talks, his back to the woman, still acting like he hasn’t seen her. She opens the bag, examines the fish inside, tries to say something from across the stairs. The man talks to the other two, pretending he hasn’t heard her. It’s a sign. Her offer is too low. She insists, says something louder, that the fish won’t do, something to justify her offer. In the end the only effort the man makes is a rude one, threatening to take back the bag and leave. It’s always like this. She doesn’t dare go near them. Even though it’s a normal enough scene according to local custom, the boy feels humiliated. He’s on the wrong side of the stairs, with his mother, not with the men. But it’s the looks the tourists give him that are truly humiliating. It won’t be like this when he grows up and goes to Cairo.

When his mother and the fisherman finally reach a deal, it’s time for the boy to perform his role. She gives him the money and a push. He goes to the opposite railing begrudgingly, where the men are, and gives one of them the money. The boy waits for change. It never comes right away. The man patronizes the boy, patting his head. The mother’s reaction from the other side, her saying something that wipes the grin from the fisherman’s face, finally makes him give the change to the boy. Then the boy goes back to his mother, back home, with a bag of fish. The men retreat, counting the money and laughing.

This scene replays with minor changes until the day, at fifteen years old, the boy goes with his uncle to visit his older brother, who is imprisoned in Cairo. It’s his first time in the big city. He’s ecstatic despite the reason for the trip. The uncle usually goes alone. At home no one talks about the brother in prison. The mother cried about it for two years, then stopped and never brought it up again. When the father died, the uncle became the head of his brother’s family. His small fabric store has helped pay the bills since the older brother went to prison and stopped sending money. Now that the boy is fifteen, it’s time for him to visit his brother.

The boy is impressed. The prison itself doesn’t match what he imagined the city would be like. He thinks the prison, in its own way, is much worse than a clay Nubian house on the outskirts of the desert. The brother is ill. He has bruises and cuts all over his body. The guards tell the uncle that the injuries are from a fight that happened a month ago, that his oldest nephew barely escaped, that he’s lucky to be alive. They talk about death, but the boy doesn’t understand what they mean. The brother is still in prison. He doesn’t know what luck and death have to do with prison. The older brother doesn’t say a word, but as soon as the guards are distracted, he asks his uncle to take his younger brother to someone’s house and tells him the address. He says it so quietly and so close to his uncle’s ear that the boy can’t hear a thing.

When they leave the prison the uncle takes the boy through a web of streets to the center of the city. He asks the boy to stay put, to wait, to not take one step from a chaotic intersection filled with street merchants and the commerce he dislikes so much. The uncle tells the boy to avoid temptation. He says he won’t be long. He has an appointment nearby. He doesn’t say where the appointment is or what it’s about. He wants to see the place where the older brother asked him to leave the boy.

Waiting in the street, the boy hears music and quickly forgets his uncle’s inctructions. He moves closer to the sound, curious, noticing a strange commotion inside an old building with mashrabiya coverings on its windows. He goes in. On the patio inside a group of men dressed in white are whirling, endlessly, to the sound of hipnotizing music. He doesn’t understand what they’re doing, but he doesn’t need to. The five men spin and spin, in a phrenetic cadence. They’re synced with four musicians, hidden in the shade, whose rhythm speeds toward an explosion that never arrives. The boy doesn’t move to the sound of the hypnotizing music, his eyes are glued to the circle of men. He wants to dance, but can’t move his feet. He can’t define what he feels. It’s more than his own will. It’s something that sooner or later he won’t be able to resist. He’ll have to dance, like the men; dance until he falls to the ground. The men whirl, each in their own orbit, like planets. The boy hasn’t experienced anything like it, but he can imagine it, like it were always inside him, waiting for a chance to come out. All of the sudden the cadence cools and the men slow their spinning. It’s in this moment that one of them unexpectedly grabs the hand of the man next to him and kisses him on the mouth. The others continue in the their orbits, more slowly than before, indifferent to what’s happening around them. Their eyes are closed, but the boy’s are wide open. The two men step away from each other and re-enter slow, closed-eye orbits as if nothing happened. The boy doesn’t know what he’s seen, what to think. He stays there, still, until he’s lifted from his lethargic state by a violent tug at the shoulder from his uncle. The uncle asks what the boy’s doing there, why he didn’t wait where they’d agreed. The boy doesn’t know what to say. He could simply state that he heard the music and wanted to see, which was true, but it all scared him as if he’d been caught red handed for a crime he hadn’t yet committed. He doesn’t know why he’s so embarrassed, while his uncle yells at him and forcefully pulls him away, until he notices the group of tourists giving him the same look he always got at the wharf, haggling over fish with his mother.

2.

When he turned fifteen he was given a collection of Cavafy’s poetry and he never stopped dreaming of the sea, of men, of the East. He wanted to see the “beautiful bodies of those who died before growing old.” It was the same book his father later ripped from his hands after he said he still hadn’t decided between history and archeology (but that he certainly wouldn’t go into medicine, the family profession, like his father, brothers, uncles and cousins). Months later, strained by financial trouble, his father would throw the same book against the wall, yelling that it’d be just his luck if his son were a fairy.

When he turned eighteen his mother paid for a trip to Alexandria, so he could see the places where the poet lived and loved. A man who suffered internal cataclysms without some external event, pouring them into extraordinary poetry: “New Lands you will not find, you will not find other seas. The city will follow you …” Even though the boy lived in and loved Rio de Janeiro, thousands of miles away, under different stars, on another sea, he wanted to know the places his poet loved, where he lived. At night, thinking of Cavafy in Alexandria, he walked around Rio looking for young men. When he found them and started talking about the poet, reciting lines, they soon left him with his poems. The only thing to do was continue spinning around the city, alone, to the hypnotizing sound of little infernos. His city could follow him wherever he went, he wouldn’t mind, but in new lands and on other seas he hoped to at least find someone to seduce with poetry.

3.

After his uncle took him to Cairo he never saw his house, his mother or the fish again. Following his oldest nephew’s instructions, the uncle left boy in a home that would see to his education. In all the years the boy studied the words of the prophet he secretly searched the streets and alleys, in vain, for men dressed in white, whirling to the hypnotic music he heard the first day he arrived in the city. He could’ve asked someone on the street. He didn’t dare. He worried that God might hear, and that news of his interest in whirling men dressed in white might somehow reach the prison and his brother’s ears. Once, betrayed by his own loneliness, he confided his desires to a friend from school. His confession soon made its way to the prison, as he’d imagined. During visiting hours the next week, the older brother looked on the boy with eyes filled with fire. He spoke to the boy of temptations, of the devil and of foreign jinn, exhorting his younger brother to pray.

And he did. He prayed endlessly for years. Until the day he went into that hotel, at five on a Sunday afternoon, passing through the metal detector with an empty suitcase. He stepped across the unassuming lobby, with its dirtied rugs and water-stained walls, and went to the front desk, where he asked for a room with a view of the square, as expected. That was the code. The receptionist offerred a room on the first floor, a precaution guaranteeing the her innocence if anyone overheard the transaction. The young man said he’d have trouble sleeping with the noise on the first floor. She offerred a room farther from the street, which he also declined. He wanted a room at the front of the building, on a higher floor. After checking the reservations again the receptionist discovered a free room on the fifth floor — oh, what luck! — and asked for ID. He gave her a fake passport, as expected.

At 5:20 he opened the door to the dark room with thin latex gloves, to avoid leaving any trace behind, and prayed once more. The curtains were closed. He opened them, brightening his body with late afternoon light. He was eighteen years old, with his whole life ahead of him. He returned to the empty suitcase he’d left on the bed and, like a real guest might have done, scanned the room, went to the wardrobe and opened it. There was a plastic bag inside, at the back of a shelf, as expected. It was translucent green, like the ones the fisherman left at his mother’s feet, always filled with the worst fish, under the gaze of tourists arriving on boats.

At 6:30 a young foreigner with a backpack arrived at the square and looked for a seat at the café full of tourists in front of the cheap hotel. He was eighteen years old, with his whole life ahead of him. The next day he’d live out his dream of visiting Alexandria, his poet’s city. He sat down, ordered a coke and took an old book out of his bag. He opened it to a bookmarked page and, after glancing at the square and the twilight in the sky, read the first verse of a poem he knew by heart like it was the first time: “What are we waiting for, assembled in the forum?”

At 6:40 the young man with the empty suitcase returned to his room after briefly stepping out. He’d gone to check the stairs to the roof, its access to neighboring buildings, the escape route, as expected. He closed the curtains and took the plastic bag from the wardrobe shelf. He opened the package hidden inside the bag. Sitting on the orange, wrinkled bedspread, he looked at the object in the half-light. He prayed. For a few moments he didn’t move, he didn’t do anything, just like when he stood paralyzed by the endlessly whirling men dressed in white.

Below, the young foreigner read the first verse of another poem he knew by heart: “He’d been sitting in the café since ten-thirty.” Five floors above, the young man finished his prayer and knelt over the object. He stayed that way for a few seconds before he touched it. There was no margin for error. There wouldn’t be a second chance. Any mistake could be fatal. He was doing what needed to be done, he repeated silently, to convince himself. He prayed again. Instead of virgins in paradise he saw men dressed in white endlessly whirling. He handled the object like they taught him to. At 7:00 he carefully took it in his hands and went to the window. Through the curtains he let it fall on the café tables five floors below, where tourists were gathering, and where a young man, finishing his coke, with an open book in his hand, reached the end of another poem he knew by heart.

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Read this in PORTUGUESE

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Images: Sebastian Freire

Bernardo Carvalho

1.

Antes mesmo de ele completar dez anos, a mãe já o obrigava a acompanhá-la até o cais para negociar o peixe que os homens traziam de manhã. Não é por acaso que o menino acabou tomando tamanha aversão aos negócios e ao comércio. A cena é sempre a mesma. Mãe e filho vêm pela rua empoeirada que margeia o rio, ambos vestindo galabeyas muito simples e calçados de alpercatas. Ela vem coberta de preto da cabeça aos pés, caminha como se passeasse sem rumo num domingo de sol. Ele é tão pequeno e está tão pouco à vontade que, apesar da galabeya encardida, com a bainha esfiapada arrastando pelo chão de terra, mais parece vestido para uma ocasião especial. A mãe apóia o cotovelo sobre a pilastra no alto da balaustrada de um dos lados da escada ... Read More »]]>

Bernardo Carvalho

1.

Antes mesmo de ele completar dez anos, a mãe já o obrigava a acompanhá-la até o cais para negociar o peixe que os homens traziam de manhã. Não é por acaso que o menino acabou tomando tamanha aversão aos negócios e ao comércio. A cena é sempre a mesma. Mãe e filho vêm pela rua empoeirada que margeia o rio, ambos vestindo galabeyas muito simples e calçados de alpercatas. Ela vem coberta de preto da cabeça aos pés, caminha como se passeasse sem rumo num domingo de sol. Ele é tão pequeno e está tão pouco à vontade que, apesar da galabeya encardida, com a bainha esfiapada arrastando pelo chão de terra, mais parece vestido para uma ocasião especial. A mãe apóia o cotovelo sobre a pilastra no alto da balaustrada de um dos lados da escada que leva da rua ao rio e espera, como quem não quer nada, os pescadores que em algum momento vão subir com sacos plásticos na mão. O menino olha ao redor, para a rua e para a cidade. Evita cruzar com o olhar dos turistas que chegam nos barcos e que, por serem estrangeiros, são as únicas testemunhas da sua humilhação. Os locais mal prestam atenção no menino que não quer estar ali, ao lado da mãe, mas tampouco tem escolha. Antes mesmo da morte do pai, quando este já não conseguia se levantar da cama, ele entendeu que não tinha escolha. Os homens não se rebaixam a falar com uma mulher sozinha e é preciso levar comida para casa. Enquanto espera com a mãe no alto da escada, ele sonha com o dia em que vai descer o rio até o Cairo, como o irmão, para nunca mais voltar.

São três os homens que sobem os degraus de pedra, conversando, como se não tivessem percebido a mulher de preto no alto do talude, apoiada sobre uma das pilastras da escada. Cada um traz um pequeno saco plástico na mão. Ela os observa. Ao chegar ao alto da escada, um dos pescadores vai até ela, deposita o saco plástico aos seus pés e se afasta sem lhe dirigir a palavra, sem nem mesmo lhe dirigir um olhar. Vai se juntar aos outros dois, que o aguardam do outro lado da escada, junto à balaustrada oposta, conversando de costas para a mulher, fingindo ignorá-la. A mulher abre o saco, examina os peixes no interior e tenta dizer alguma coisa, de longe. O homem, conversando com os amigos do outro lado, finge que não ouve. É sinal de que a oferta foi baixa. Ela insiste, diz mais alguma coisa, mais alto – que os peixes não prestam, por exemplo –, para justificar a oferta, e afinal ele se dá o trabalho de retrucar com um gesto desagradável. Ameaça pegar o saco de volta e ir embora. É sempre assim. Ela não ousa se aproximar dos homens e, embora isso seja natural segundo os costumes locais, o menino sente a humilhação de estar do lado errado da escada, com a mãe, e não com os homens, por força das circunstâncias. É o olhar dos turistas estrangeiros que o humilha. Não será assim quando crescer e for embora para o Cairo.

Quando a mãe e o pescador chegam afinal a um acordo, é a vez de o menino entrar em cena. Ela lhe dá o dinheiro e o empurra. Ele vai contrariado até a balaustrada oposta, onde estão os homens, e entrega o dinheiro ao pescador. Espera o troco, que não vem de graça. Antes, o pescador desdenha dele, passa a mão na cabeça do menino. E é a mãe quem reage de longe, dizendo alguma coisa que faz o pescador fechar a cara e entregar por fim o troco. O menino volta para a mãe e para casa, com o saco de peixes na mão, enquanto os homens se afastam, contando o dinheiro e rindo.

A cena se repete com ligeiras modificações até o dia em que, aos quinze anos, ele é levado pelo tio para visitar o irmão mais velho, preso no Cairo. É a primeira vez que vai à cidade grande, o que o deixa em êxtase apesar do motivo. Nas visitas anteriores, o tio foi sozinho. Em casa, ninguém fala da prisão do irmão. A mãe chorou durante dois anos e depois parou e nunca mais tocou no assunto. Com a morte do pai, o tio assumiu as decisões do homem da casa. É dono de uma pequena loja de tecidos e os ajuda desde que o sobrinho mais velho foi preso no Cairo e deixou de mandar dinheiro. Agora que o menor fez quinze anos, chegou a hora de também ir visitar o irmão.

A prisão impressiona o menino. Não corresponde à imagem que ele fazia da cidade grande. À sua maneira, a prisão é muito pior do que uma casa núbia, de barro, nas franjas do deserto. O irmão está doente, tem hematomas e cortes espalhados pelo corpo. Os guardas dizem ao tio que os ferimentos são resultado de uma briga entre os presos, faz um mês, e que o sobrinho mais velho teve sorte, escapou por pouco. Falam da morte, mas o menino não entende o que querem dizer, uma vez que o irmão continua preso. Não sabe o que isso tem que ver com a sorte. O irmão mais velho não diz nada, mas, assim que os guardas se distraem, pede ao tio que leve o irmão menor à casa de alguém e lhe diz o endereço. Fala baixo, ao pé do ouvido do tio, de modo que o próprio menino nada ouve.

Quando saem da prisão, o tio o leva até um emaranhado de ruas no centro da cidade e pede que não saia dali, que o espere, sem arredar o pé, no meio do caos dos mascates e do comércio que tanto o horroriza, e que evite as tentações. Diz que não vai demorar. Tem um encontro ali perto. Não diz que encontro é esse nem onde. Quer ver antes o lugar e as pessoas às quais deve entregar o sobrinho para cumprir o desígnio do irmão mais velho.

Enquanto espera, o menino ouve uma música que vem de um prédio e se esquece das recomendações do tio. Aproxima-se, curioso, e percebe uma movimentação estranha no interior do prédio antigo com muxarabiês nas janelas. Entra. No pátio interno, um grupo de homens de branco gira sem parar ao som de uma música hipnotizante. Ele não compreende o que estão fazendo, mas tampouco precisa compreender. Cinco homens giram sem parar, numa cadência frenética, que vai aumentando conforme os quatro músicos escondidos na sombra também se inflamam com seus instrumentos, num ritmo que evolui para uma explosão que nunca chega. O menino permanece com os olhos grudados no círculo de homens, ao som da música hipnotizante. Quer girar também, mas não consegue mover os pés. Não sabe definir que sentimento é esse, é mais do que uma vontade, é uma coisa que ele não poderá deixar de fazer mais cedo ou mais tarde. Terá que girar, como aqueles homens, até cair. Eles giram, em roda e em torno do próprio eixo, como os planetas, aproximando-se de um estado que, embora não conheça, o menino pode imaginar como se já o tivesse experimentado, um estado que esteve desde sempre dentro dele à espera de um modo de se expressar. De repente, a cadência começa a arrefecer e os homens vão parando de girar. É nesse instante que, da forma mais inesperada, um deles pega pela mão o que está a seu lado e o beija na boca, enquanto os outros, embora bem mais lentos do que antes, continuam a girar sobre o próprio eixo, indiferentes ao que acontece ao redor. Estão de olhos fechados, mas o menino mantém os seus bem abertos. É tudo tão rápido que ele já nem sabe o que viu e o que imaginou quando os dois homens se separam e, como se nada tivesse acontecido, retomam o movimento, continuam a girar lentamente ao lado dos outros, de olhos fechados. O menino continua paralisado quando a mão do tio o arranca daquele estado letárgico com um puxão violento no ombro. O tio pergunta ao menino o que ele está fazendo ali, por que não ficou esperando onde tinham combinado. O menino não sabe o que responder, poderia dizer simplesmente que ouviu a música e quis ver o que era – o que seria tão mais simples e verdadeiro –, mas tudo o envergonha, como se tivesse sido pego em flagrante de um crime que não chegou a cometer. Ele não sabe por que está morrendo de vergonha, enquanto o tio grita com ele e o tira dali à força, até perceber que um grupo de turistas estrangeiros o observa com o mesmo olhar de quando ia ao cais negociar o peixe com a mãe.

2.

Quando completou quinze anos, recebeu de presente uma coletânea dos poemas de Kaváfis e nunca mais parou de sonhar com o mar, com os homens e com o Oriente. Queria ver os “belos corpos de mortos que nunca envelheceram”. O mesmo livro que o pai arrancou das mãos do filho no dia em que este lhe dissera que ainda não tinha se decidido entre a história e a arqueologia (mas que certamente não seguiria a carreira familiar, não seria médico como o pai, como os irmãos, como os tios e como os primos), o mesmo livro o pai arremessou contra a parede, meses depois, quando passou por dificuldades financeiras, gritando que só faltava o filho ser veado.

Quando completou dezoito anos, o menino ganhou da mãe uma viagem até Alexandria, para conhecer os lugares onde vivera e amara o homem que, sem nenhum evento exterior, sofreu cataclismos interiores, em silêncio, sozinho, e os expressou num punhado de poemas extraordinários: “Não acharás novas terras, tampouco novo mar. A cidade há de seguir-te”. Mesmo assim, ele queria conhecer a cidade onde o poeta vivera e amara, como ele vivia e amava no Rio de Janeiro, a milhares de quilômetros, sob outras estrelas, diante de outro mar. Caminhava pela noite do Rio, imaginando Kaváfis, em Alexandria, à procura de rapazes, mas sempre que os encontrava, e assim que começava a lhes falar do poeta e a lhes recitar os primeiros versos, logo o deixavam só com seus poemas. E só lhe restava continuar girando, sozinho, pelas ruas e depois ao som da música hipnotizante dos inferninhos. A cidade podia segui-lo aonde quer que fosse, mas ele tinha esperança de que pelo menos em novas terras e em novo mar haveria de encontrar quem os poemas seduzissem.

3.

Desde o dia em que o tio o levou ao Cairo, ele nunca mais voltou para casa, nunca mais reviu a mãe nem os peixes. Cumprindo o desígnio do irmão mais velho, o tio o deixou na casa daqueles que, na falta de um pai, deveriam zelar pela sua educação. E, durante todos os anos em que estudou a palavra do profeta, ele procurou, em segredo e em vão, pelas ruas, passagens e becos, os mesmos homens de branco, girando ao som da música hipnotizante que ouvira ao chegar à cidade. Bastaria ter perguntado a alguém na rua. Mas nunca se atreveu. Temia de alguma maneira que Deus o ouvisse e que seu interesse pelos homens que giravam acabasse chegando aos ouvidos do irmão mais velho, na prisão. Uma única vez, traído pela solidão, confidenciou a um colega de estudos a vontade de revê-los, e o assunto, como havia previsto, foi parar na prisão. Na semana seguinte, durante as horas de visita, o irmão mais velho o fitou com olhos de fogo, falou-lhe das tentações, do demônio e dos ímpios estrangeiros, e o exortou a continuar rezando.

Foi o que ele fez. Rezou sem parar, durante anos, até entrar naquele hotel, às 17h de uma tarde de domingo, e passar pelo detector de metais com uma mala vazia. Como fora instruído, atravessou o lobby simplório, com tapetes encardidos no chão e infiltrações nas paredes, e se dirigiu à recepção, onde pediu um quarto com vista para a praça. Era o código. O recepcionista lhe ofereceu um quarto no primeiro andar, uma artimanha para o caso de alguém ouvi-los e depois poder testemunhar, candidamente, a favor da inocência do recepcionista. O rapaz respondeu que tinha problemas para dormir com o barulho. O recepcionista então lhe ofereceu um quarto de fundos, que ele também recusou. Queria um quarto de frente, num andar mais alto. Ao consultar a planilha, o recepcionista descobriu um quarto disponível no quinto andar – veja que sorte! – e pediu um documento ao hóspede, que lhe entregou, como esperado, um passaporte falso.

Às 17h20, ele abriu a porta do quarto escuro, com luvas finas de látex, para não deixar rastros, e rezou mais uma vez. As cortinas estavam fechadas. Ele as abriu e o sol de fim de tarde o iluminou. Era um homem de dezoito anos, com a vida pela frente. Voltou-se para a mala vazia que deixara em cima da cama, como um hóspede de verdade também poderia ter feito, esquadrinhou o quarto com os olhos, foi até o armário e o abriu. O saco plástico estava lá dentro, no fundo de uma prateleira, como combinado. Era um saco translúcido e esverdeado, como os que os pescadores costumavam depositar aos pés de sua mãe, sempre com os piores peixes, sob o olhar dos turistas estrangeiros que chegavam nos barcos.

Às 18h30, um jovem estrangeiro com uma mochila nas costas chegou à praça e procurou um lugar entre as mesas do lado de fora do café repleto de turistas, na calçada embaixo do hotel barato. Tinha dezoito anos e a vida pela frente. No dia seguinte, ia finalmente realizar seu sonho, conhecer Alexandria, a cidade do poeta. Sentou-se, pediu uma coca-cola e tirou da mochila um livro usado. Abriu-o na página marcada e, depois de olhar para a praça e para céu do crepúsculo, leu para si o primeiro verso de um poema que conhecia de cor: “O que esperamos na ágora reunidos?”, como se o lesse pela primeira vez.

Às 18h40, o rapaz da mala vazia voltou ao quarto no quinto andar depois de uma breve ausência. Tinha ido se certificar de que a saída de serviço para o telhado estava mesmo aberta e que, como lhe haviam dito, dava acesso aos prédios vizinhos, sua rota de fuga. Fechou as cortinas e procurou o saco plástico no fundo do armário. Abriu o embrulho malfeito, guardado dentro do saco plástico. Observou, na penumbra do quarto, o objeto sobre a colcha desbotada, cor de laranja, que cobria a cama. Rezou. Por alguns segundos, não se mexeu, não fez nada, assim como, anos antes, ficara imóvel diante dos homens de branco que giravam sem parar.

Logo ali embaixo, o jovem estrangeiro pôs-se a ler o primeiro verso de outro poema que conhecia de cor: “Desde dez e meia, ele esperou no café”. Cinco andares acima, o rapaz terminou a reza e se debruçou sobre o artefato. E assim ficou por alguns segundos, antes de tocá-lo. Não podia errar. Não teria uma segunda chance. Qualquer erro podia ser fatal. Fazia o que devia ser feito, ele repetia em silêncio, para se convencer. Rezou de novo, mas em vez de virgens no paraíso, desta vez viu os homens de branco girando, sempre girando. Manipulou o objeto como lhe ensinaram. Às 19h, tomou-o nas mãos, com cuidado, aproximou-se da janela e, por entre as cortinas, deixou-o cair sobre as mesas do café, cinco andares abaixo, onde se reuniam os turistas estrangeiros no final da tarde e onde um rapaz, terminando sua coca-cola, com um livro aberto na mão, chegava ao final de mais um poema que conhecia de cor.

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VOLTAR

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Imagens: Sebastian Freire

Julián Fuks translated by Sarah Bruni

Call it bookstore anxiety disorder. I know I’m not the first to suffer from this affliction, and I won’t be the last. This particular illness should be described in some list of new pathologies—at once intense and subtle, it can attack anyone wandering amid long shelves of shiny, attractive volumes. Nausea, maybe, an angst whose cause is difficult to name: it’s something in the exaggerated order of the books, their eagerness, something in their obvious hierarchy. The larger the store, the clearer its windows, the stronger the feeling—although even in airport bookstores, this malaise can be unexpectedly intense.

I’m sure that this phenomenon has spread to a hundred countries, but São Paulo is one of its origins. Forced to shop at big chains and impassable megastores, the city’s last remaining literate residents are ... Read More »]]>

Julián Fuks
translated by Sarah Bruni

Call it bookstore anxiety disorder. I know I’m not the first to suffer from this affliction, and I won’t be the last. This particular illness should be described in some list of new pathologies—at once intense and subtle, it can attack anyone wandering amid long shelves of shiny, attractive volumes. Nausea, maybe, an angst whose cause is difficult to name: it’s something in the exaggerated order of the books, their eagerness, something in their obvious hierarchy. The larger the store, the clearer its windows, the stronger the feeling—although even in airport bookstores, this malaise can be unexpectedly intense.

I’m sure that this phenomenon has spread to a hundred countries, but São Paulo is one of its origins. Forced to shop at big chains and impassable megastores, the city’s last remaining literate residents are left without alternatives where they can roam freely between books and browse through their purchases. They have, however, a slight remedy—or a consolation, as the name of the place suggests. Situated under one of the city’s main avenues, “Passagem Literária da Consolação” (Consolation Literary Underpass) offers relief to lungs clogged with glitter, a breath carrying the dust of old forgotten books. No organized inventory, but the disorder of life itself. No striking images and ads, just covers faded by time. No price gouging, just the books’ essential worth going straight into the pockets of a few booksellers who work as a cooperative.

Of course, you won’t find the newest release by the pop writer of the moment there, or the shifting oddities hailed by the critics. Nor is going there a longstanding routine for me: I can’t invent afternoons I spent here, giving in to the pure pleasure of literature, to its indelible instruction. I should be honest: it’s not even one of my usual destinations. But every time I pass through there, I feel something in me unwind, something in me is consoled. I can continue my walk and my day with a greater sense of calm.

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Passagem Literária da Consolação: pedestrian walkway at the corner of Consolação and Paulista Avenue.

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Read this in PORTUGUESE

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Image credit: Julián Fuks

Julián Fuks

Chamemos de mal-estar nas livrarias. Sei que não sou o primeiro a sofrer desse infortúnio, sei que não serei a última de suas vítimas. Em algum inventário de novas patologias há de estar descrito esse desconforto específico, a um só tempo intenso e sutil, que pode acometer o sujeito que vagueia entre longas estantes de volumes lustrosos e apelativos. Uma náusea, talvez, uma ânsia cuja causa é difícil de distinguir: algo na ordem excessiva dos livros, em sua prontidão obediente, algo em sua evidente hierarquia. Quanto maior a loja, quanto mais transparentes suas vitrines, mais forte o sentimento – mas nas pequenas livrarias de rodoviárias e aeroportos o mal pode alcançar dimensões imprevistas.

Estou certo de que o fenômeno se alastra por uma centena de países, mas também de que ele encontra em São Paulo uma de suas ... Read More »]]>

Julián Fuks

Chamemos de mal-estar nas livrarias. Sei que não sou o primeiro a sofrer desse infortúnio, sei que não serei a última de suas vítimas. Em algum inventário de novas patologias há de estar descrito esse desconforto específico, a um só tempo intenso e sutil, que pode acometer o sujeito que vagueia entre longas estantes de volumes lustrosos e apelativos. Uma náusea, talvez, uma ânsia cuja causa é difícil de distinguir: algo na ordem excessiva dos livros, em sua prontidão obediente, algo em sua evidente hierarquia. Quanto maior a loja, quanto mais transparentes suas vitrines, mais forte o sentimento – mas nas pequenas livrarias de rodoviárias e aeroportos o mal pode alcançar dimensões imprevistas.

Estou certo de que o fenômeno se alastra por uma centena de países, mas também de que ele encontra em São Paulo uma de suas áreas endêmicas. Os habitantes ainda letrados da cidade, obrigados às grandes cadeias e suas megastores intransponíveis, quase não dispõem de alternativas para passear livremente entre livros e perpetrar suas aquisições costumeiras. Dispõem, no entanto, de um ligeiro antídoto – ou de um consolo, como o nome sugere. Cruzando por baixo uma das principais avenidas, a Passagem Literária da Consolação oferece um alívio para pulmões entupidos de tanta purpurina, um respiro com a poeira dos velhos livros esquecidos. Nada de ordem mercantil; apenas a desordem própria da vida. Nada de imagens e slogans chamativos; apenas umas quantas capas desbotadas pelos dias. Nada de preços extorsivos; apenas o valor imprescindível aos bolsos de um punhado de livreiros organizados em cooperativa.

Claro, ninguém encontrará ali o último lançamento do escritor pop do momento, ou obscuras raridades apreciadas pelos críticos. Também não chega a ser uma tradição das mais longevas: não posso inventar longas tardes que passei naquela galeria em leitura ininterrupta, entregue às letras e seu prazer impoluto, e sua indelével pedagogia. Devo ser sincero: não é sequer um dos meus habituais destinos. Mas toda vez que passo ao acaso por ali sinto que algo se distende em mim, que algo em meu íntimo enfim se consola, que posso seguir meus passos e meus dias bastante mais tranquilo.

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Passagem Literária da Consolação: passagem de pedestres na esquina entre as avenidas Consolação e Paulista.

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Imagens: Julián Fuks

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BACK / VOLTAR

Veronica Stigger translated by Ramon Stern and Chris Meade

Opalka entered the small room in his son Natanael’s house and walked to the window, under which was a square wooden table, one of its sides pressed against the wall. On top of the table was a legal pad with a hard red cover, closed, a pot of ink—also red—and a pen. He sat down on the straw chair and opened the journal, where the following had been written:

Making an old book a book of voyages with pages that unfold

The story will start in a big city —in a metropolis— or by the sea

It will be the story of a lone man an old man a tired man

The man will be about sixty years old wear a three-piece suit and two-tone shoes and he’ll have a chimpanzee

His chimpanzee will be huge the same size as my character tall and ... Read More »]]>

Veronica Stigger
translated by Ramon Stern and Chris Meade

Opalka entered the small room in his son Natanael’s house and walked to the window, under which was a square wooden table, one of its sides pressed against the wall. On top of the table was a legal pad with a hard red cover, closed, a pot of ink—also red—and a pen. He sat down on the straw chair and opened the journal, where the following had been written:

Making an old book
a book of voyages
with pages that unfold

The story will start in a big city
—in a metropolis—
or by the sea

It will be the story of a lone man
an old man
a tired man

The man will be about sixty years old
wear a three-piece suit and two-tone shoes
and he’ll have a chimpanzee

His chimpanzee will be huge
the same size as my character
tall and strong like a Scandinavian

It will have light gray fur
(and no one come bother me, saying
that chimpanzees don’t have light gray fur

If I want my chimpanzee
to have light gray fur
it will)

Its fur will be smooth and shiny
like a shaggy rug
the kind they only have in the South

It will have slanted eyes
sparkly and blue
like those of my character

The man and the chimpanzee will be great friends
(perhaps lovers)
and sleep in the same room

The chimpanzee will have a double bed
and the man, a conventional single
And there will be no woman in the story

The two will be very attached
will go to the general store together
to the market

to plazas
restaurants
the movies

the dentist
(the chimpanzee will have a gold tooth)
and to the hairdresser

who will care with the same devotion
for the man’s blonde hair
and the chimp’s light gray fur

One day the man will need to travel
He’ll have dreamed that there is a secret
that must be revealed

—the secret of his origins
hidden in a small wooden box
with a mother of pearl lid—

The secret will be on the other side of the country
of this immense country
that he believes to be his

He’ll take a train
—no!—
he’ll take a ship

A Brazil Lloyd steamer
where time will pass slowly
and the man will think he’s drifting toward hell

The chimp won’t be allowed to go
“It will be a long, unpleasant journey
I wouldn’t put you through it.”

But the chimp will not listen
He’ll lock himself in a trunk
without the man noticing

Arriving at his destination
the man will open his baggage
and see the chimpanzee

inside the trunk
doubled over
in the fetal position

head tilted up
eyes closed
mouth open

in its rigid hands
a small wooden box
with a mother of pearl lid

He’ll fall to his knees
beside the trunk
holding the chimpanzee with all his might

His head will fall
over the corpse
of his best friend

His blond hairs will mix in
with the light gray fur—once lovely and alive
now dull and lifeless

The writing—rounded, almost childish, with big letters slanting gently to the left—was suddenly interrupted. A dark red spot spread across the page, forming a strange shape reminiscent of a corpse laid out on the ground. Stunned, Opalka closed the notebook, got up, and left the room.

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Read this in Portuguese

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Image: Marisela LaGrave