by André Costa
Whenever he thought of the latter, John Buckley was filled with pride that he had been present at the inauguration of the life-sized statue of the poet at The Square a few years before. On occasion, he had hung a steel sign above the door to the toilets in his pub with a quote from his favorite Hartnett poem, “Anatomy of a Cliché”: (…) For I have nothing or nothing the world wants; I love you: that is all my fortune.
David was mainly exhausted at the end of his shift when his uncle invited him to share half a bottle of South African red wine.
“You must know this Pinotage,” he said, gesturing for his nephew to sit down.
“A lovely old lady introduced me to it, Uncle.”
“And I see that another lady, much younger, caught your attention this afternoon…”
“If we’re going to talk about it, I’ll have to tell you all about my trip to Namibia,” David challenged.
“I have plenty of time.”
The contents of the bottle only lasted the introduction. David told Buckley every detail of his experience, moment by moment, from his arrival in Windhoek to his departure. Contrary to what he had feared, speaking about his stay in Namibia was not difficult; from topographical descriptions to his ventures into the universe of his soul, the words left his mouth quickly, but clearly. By the end of his story, there were no more empty tables in the pub, and the ambiance had been taken over by the night regulars. John Buckley’s attention had, however, been wholly abducted from his surroundings.
“David, have you lost your faith?” Buckley asked.
“No, Uncle John, I have faith, no doubt… but it’s different now. I have faith in everything and nothing in particular… I can’t fully grasp it nor label it.”
“You or Father Callaghan?”
David either had not expected or had not wanted to hear that question. He looked at the wine glass and grabbed it like a life jacket. He drank and then sighed. “I fear neither one, Uncle.”
“Maybe that foreign girl from earlier today could help you. If she caused you so much upset simply because her physical traits are so similar to your… Marie… then your destiny may not be here, son. Neither in an apron nor in a cassock.”
“But what’s the meaning of destiny? Would you tell me? If that’s something we can’t fight against, as most people say, then I still prefer to put it in God’s hand.”
John Buckley raised his eyebrows and dropped his glass.
“It’s clear to me now that I’ve made that trip to Africa not because I had lost my faith in God, but in us. But just when I saw my priestly life and its allegorical ritual meaningless, the kindness of the hunter-gatherer people made me experience humanity as I had never before. You’d be amazed, Buckley… There was no hierarchy, except when it came to respecting elders… And would you guess why they live in harmony, even though they don’t have chiefs with political power?”
Buckley now bowed his head out of respect for David’s rhetoric, but honestly doubted whether he had anything to learn from the much less complex social organization of the San.
“Because their society protects its harmony by being relentlessly vigilant against the individual manifestations of egotism. That’s right, Uncle. San communities recognize the manifestations of the ‘ego’ as the snake that poisons any social interaction. So they cut off its head as soon as they feel its presence. Can I give you an example?”
“Why not?”
“If a hunter returns with the body of a Kudu capable of satisfying his entire clan and shares the meat equally among the members of the community, he is still insulted and despised. I found that astounding. And this doesn’t mean that the society does not value hunting; on the contrary, it’s regarded as a very worthy activity among the San. But he is not allowed to feel pride for his skills and dexterity, and thus he doesn’t believe that he is better or more important than the other members of the clan.”
“That sounds rather incredible to me, David.” Buckley’s surprised expression was sincere.
“Observing a behavior like that, it’s almost inconceivable that we were all like them in the distant past… But at least for a tiny part of humanity today, there was no expulsion from paradise, Uncle.”
“It may be so, David, but there’s no way back anyway. How many nomadic hunter-gatherer tribes still exist out there?”
David had poured a few demons over Buckley’s broad shoulders, but it was the right moment, he thought. Maybe the confessional should even be brought there, where humans gather around tables with an unbeatable willingness to understand each other’s actions, inactions or reactions… Understanding, rather than forgiveness, was a definite sign of mutual validation.
Buckley was not an affectionate man, especially in public, but he was sensitive and, despite all, an artist. For brief seconds, the old man’s eyes drifted away, and David felt sorry that his uncle had given up his dream of being a musician. For that reason, David had even offered to take care of not only the kitchen but the rest of the business as well, so that Buckley could retrieve his old guitar and let his voice loose on stage again. It was useless. Although Buckley dreamed about it, he chose to remain awake with his memories.
After getting up, he kissed his uncle’s forehead to say goodbye and waited for an objection. There was none; instead, Buckley leaned back in his chair like a cardinal. David scanned the room, taking in the flickering light of the candles on the tables, the glasses waiting to be filled, the conversations in low and inquisitive tones, the strong scent of alcohol and concluded that the objects of worship were everywhere; the pub was a sacristy.
“Don’t you want to wait for the results?” John Buckley asked, nodding towards the television hanging on a top corner.
An enigmatic smile followed by a deadpan look were enough to answer the question; and ten minutes later, David arrived at home. As soon as he opened the door, however, he hurried to his office like a child who had been given a gift. David stood in front of the computer screen with an excitement that had been entirely absent that morning, maybe because neither his opinion nor his vote brought him any enthusiasm. Now it was different; he would soon know what was going on in the minds of his people, and that was at least a bit exciting.
The expression of individual consciousness, the subjective mathematics full of contradictions and useless concepts, finally manifested itself in absolute numbers on the screen. About sixty-two percent of voters had said yes, and the approval of the Thirty-Fourth Amendment to its Constitution made Catholic Ireland the first country in the world to legalize same-sex marriage by popular vote.
With his fingers still on the keyboard, he thought of immediately giving the news to Jack, but by an impulse that sent his emotions beyond what the victory of tolerance had evoked, he allowed himself to succumb to a curiosity with far more devastating consequences. Into the search engine, he typed MARIE STEENSEN.
Chapter IV
He had not heard from her in almost a year and had no idea where she was. Marie had answered only one message, in a friendly and generic tone, on the morning David had left Windhoek. Since then, it was as if all electronic communication to her was automatically redirected to a black hole.
For too long, David bore a trace of bitterness that only left his chest during his morning runs. With time, however, meditation and cooking eased the pain. He seemed to have his nerves under control until the sight of the charming Scandinavian tourist had thrown him off balance. The encounter, coupled with the excitement of the referendum, left no doubt in David’s mind as to who he wanted to share the moment with.
From a long list of search results of similar names, David, with faith and intuition, clicked on the third page of results. There, right under the curser, was a link to a recently posted video. He clicked on it and the recognizable soft, hoarse voice, speaking comfortably on a talk show, filled his ears and pulled the muscles of his heart. The shorter hair and more r
ounded face than the one he had seen in the pub erased all doubt. It was his Marie.
“Doctor, in your book Hunters and Foragers: The Children of Eden, you say that the nomadic societies of the Kalahari have a ‘Peter Pan complex,’ and that adults are eternal children. What do you mean by this?” the interviewer asked.
“I mean that entering adulthood does not happen for the San like it happens in the more complex societies that we live in,” Marie said. “In the hunter-gatherer societies, individuals go through puberty without losing their passion for or curiosity about the simpler things and questions of everyday life, of their immediate surroundings. Adults live intensely in the present moment and are satisfied with it, something we observe only in young children in our industrial, post-modern society.”
“It’s as if they perpetuate the playful vision of childhood,” added the interviewer.
“Exactly. And this playful vision can be found even in laborious tasks, such as hunting and gathering fruits. Everything is a sort of game or play. Even adults—whose brains are completely formed, and whose executive functions of the prefrontal cortex, which separates reality from imagination, are already fully developed—perceive it this way.”
“That means they live in Eden?” interrupted the journalist.
“When in their original habitat, without being acculturated and living in poor suburbs of westernized society, for example, I believe that the San are one of the peoples on Earth who live in the most complete state of abundance. They will rarely go to sleep hungry or unsatisfied. Their desires, which are few, are fully met. In modern societies, this hardly ever occurs; a third of the world’s population suffers from hunger, with individual incomes at less than two American dollars a day. If a Garden of Eden ever existed or still exists, it’s the ground upon which the hunter-gatherers walk or once walked.”
“In one of the final chapters of your book, you recommend that the modern homo sapiens rethink their trajectory and perform a ‘reboot’ on their convictions in order to prevent them from bringing about their own end. Do you truly believe that we can go beyond science and religion, as you suggest in your book?”
“I’m not suggesting that we dwell on the historical misconceptions produced by these two paradigms; nothing can come of it. What’s important is to understand the limitations of both in answering the fundamental questions of our existence. Science uses two instruments to reach the truth: logic and reason. Now, considering the vast number of fundamental questions still unanswered, such as, ‘Is the universe finite or infinite? Why do things exist? Why do we exist? Or what was there before the Big Bang or before existence itself? Then we see that logic and reason are poor, almost useless tools. On the other hand, religions, often devoid of reason and logic, but rather based on belief, face an equally enormous constraint: ‘What existed before God, before creation? Or why are humans important?’ I know it sounds strange coming from an anthropologist, but it puzzles me how humans can find themselves special in a world inhabited by more than eight million other species. And we also have to cope with the certainty that it would have been good for all of them if we had already disappeared.”
“What would the alternative be, doctor?”
“I doubt anyone not related to those two paradigms can give you a concrete answer,” Marie burst out laughing. “I just emphasize that religion and science are the two most important cultural and intellectual constructs that we know, and that they are constantly at war precisely because they are similar. Both are founded on beliefs, and so they cannot learn from each other.”
“Seeing as how you will be a mother soon, do you have a recipe or any advice for raising children in such a challenging world?”
“I believe that the best thing for my child—I’m having a boy, by the way; he will be called David,” Marie opened a long smile, “…but for all children as well, is to grow up away from rigid and entrenched belief systems. This will give them the modesty they need to intensely love the world around them, or better yet, to merge with it; praising nature and expecting to be blessed in return. In short, I’d like to see all children as the ‘prodigal son’ returning to mother nature and making amends for the tragedy we’ve made.”
Epilogue
I feel the ground melt beneath my feet. My hands tremble without command, and my heart races. I want to re-watch the last part of the interview. Instead, with no air in my lungs, I abruptly shut down the computer and run to the window. I look for a breeze to rescue me.
I lean over the parapet almost every evening around this time. It’s the moment I watch the dark silence enveloping my street. From there, my thoughts start to ease at the very first blow of the night wind on my face. It’s not only refreshing; it always has the power to lull my fears and invite me to bed.
Not tonight. My habit proves ineffective, and somehow the air won’t fill my lungs. So I decide to perform breathing exercises under a long cold shower. In, out. In, out. Slowly, and again and again. After countless liters of wasted water, when the anxiety is finally overcome by fatigue, I feel victorious for not having resorted to numbing myself with the by now expired medication left by my mother. I take the following thoughts to my bedside in this sequence: Every belief in an absolute truth should also contain a validity period; once outdated, a reassessment of the state of the soul, much like a follow-up medical appointment, is necessary. If the soul appears calm and serene, the prescription is repeated. Conversely, if it’s shaken and hopeless, the treatment is ceased immediately. An overdose of belief should be avoided at any cost, as it is as deadly as any other drug...
What a thought! I should have counted sheep instead. I know these animals hate to be alone and I should have counted them up to one thousand at least. I need a night’s sleep longer than the night, but it doesn’t happen. I watch each hour in its turn as it creeps by slowly, listening to the ticking of the grandfather clock in the hallway. At some point, however, I get lost in its rhythm, and by sunrise, as the clock strikes seven, I decide that it’s time to get up.
I look out the window and I see Elizabeth O’Brien, my incorrigible garden-keeper, tending to the cornflowers. She must have arrived shortly after six. I rub my eyes and watch the old lady as if for the first time. She murmurs to the plants, feeds them with organic fertilizer, and, as she kneels, I’m sure she praises nature’s efforts in the last days of spring. I have the impression that she is repeating one or two actions, but it might just be my heavy eyelids. The truth is that she’s been following her ritual with one eye on the plants and the other on the window.
Before my trip to Africa, she would enter my house without asking permission and surprise me with a generous breakfast. But with my cassock in storage, she probably thinks it’s inappropriate to enter a single man’s house without knocking. I’m a stranger to my old friend.
No, it isn’t the effect of a sleepless night. Elizabeth is indeed repeating her movements. Crouched in that position, her varicose veins must be begging for a truce. The plants, so energized by now, might actually survive a whole summer without any extra attention. Or perhaps they have been so overwatered, that they will wither before temperatures reach their peak. My friend finally turns and looks up. I wave at her, deciding not to make her wait any longer. I put on a robe over my pajamas and head downstairs.
“Mrs. O’Brien, I didn’t know you were coming today. I’d have woken up earlier.”
“Oh, David, this routine work of mine doesn’t require ceremonies. I gladly come in and leave without notice. But don’t worry; I’ve just arrived.”
“I hope you have time for a cup of tea, then. I need to tell you something.”
Resting my hand softly on Elizabeth’s right shoulder, I guide the smiling widow into my house.
“Tea will have to wait for another time, David. I really need caffeine this time,” she says, not allowing me to prepare it for her and naturally stepping back into the kitchen and the routine o
f the old days.
She returns to the living room with a tray holding two cups of coffee, a milk jug, a pot of sugar, and toast, and sits down beside me. As she pours milk into her cup and stirs in a generous spoon of sugar, her eyes scrutinize the furniture and the objects around it. It’s possible that after a year without visiting it, the room seems frustratingly the same to her, or perhaps she is happy to find the environment immaculate. I can’t quite grasp her gaze, so I believe she expresses a bit of both.
“It was a difficult night; my mind didn’t stop racing for a second,” Elizabeth said.
“Your uneasiness relates to the result of the referendum, doesn’t it?”
“But by the Lord Jesus Christ, of course, David!”
“If it’s any consolation, Elizabeth, my night was equally restless. Please don’t be so upset, my dear friend, because, in practice, nothing will change.”
“But how could it not? Everything will change: our beliefs, our traditions…”
“What I mean is that a change in the law doesn’t change any reality; it never has and it never will. One exists before the other,” I say it softly in an effort not to upset my friend more than the circumstances already have. “If today’s reality seems unfamiliar and distant from the traditions you recognize, then it’s because they already changed some time ago, and you and I, my dear, just didn’t realize it. The emergence of a law is only the recognition of a new set of values within society. And this only proves that…,” I lower my voice to an almost complicit whisper so as not to wound her to death, “…by ego or ignorance, Elizabeth, we have somehow refused the truth. One way or another, it’s totally irrelevant, isn’t it?”