in my skin, the voices of the stadium fade. Bit by bit, the sounds of the city begin — a team of horses held by the bridle, which almost take fright as we pass, which take a couple of nervous steps; the engine and the horn of an enthusiastic motorcar; dogs barking angrily; children
after work, I’d already gone out to train, I’d already come back home after my training, I’d already run water under my arms and down my neck, I’d already been sitting by the fire for quite some time, when my mother asked me to go and call my father from the taberna. I looked at my mother lit up by the
Kilometre one
oil lamp. I said nothing. I put on my jacket and left. It was night-time, it was cold, it was February. I walked in a lot of nights like this. I knew what would be waiting for me — I’d go into the taberna, the gaze of all the men, and one of them saying: look, he’s come for you already. And my father unable to let them be right. When I was smaller I’d pull at his arm saying: mother sent for you. And the other men would laugh and he would laugh, too. Later I stopped doing that. I didn’t want the word mother spoken there. I didn’t want my mother, lit up by the oil lamp, to be named there. That’s why I would just go in. My father and all the men knew why I had come in, without saying good evening, without looking anyone in the eye, walking towards my father. I didn’t have to say anything. They laughed, they offered me wine and I didn’t accept. Once one of the men, as a joke, held a glass of wine to my lips. My father pushed his arm and the glass broke on the floor. My father was looking at him, very serious. He looked away, fearful. There was silence until one of the men said: ‘Oh, what a waste of wine!’ And everyone laughed. After a beat my father laughed, too. Sometimes my presence would hurry him up. At other times it seemed he’d only leave when he wanted to leave. At other times we’d be the last to leave and I’d have to carry one of his arms over my shoulders, or had to grip him by the elbow, or had to walk behind him to stop him falling. And I had to listen to him. I had to reply to him. I had to wait for him if he wanted to throw up. That night, even before I reached the taberna, I stopped to listen. It was my father talking. With his voice moulded by the wine, he said: ‘As soon as he was born, I knew right away what my Francisco was capable of.’ He said, ‘Listen carefully to what I’m telling you, that boy will be capable of great things.’ Then someone started talking about something else. I hoped they’d forget the moment when those words were spoken. I went in. The gaze of all the men — look, he’s come for you already — and I don’t remember if we went home early or late that night, what I could never forget were the words my father said, that he never would have said to me directly, but which are repeated again and again in my memory. Whenever
to another street, to other houses. I run faster so that time will pass faster. The colour of the tall houses. The roofs of the houses. My breathing. I don’t want to focus on my breathing. The colour of the houses — toasted yellow, orange nearly brown, clay-coloured
this permanent sun, this heat, I feel a fresh breeze coming from the water which appears with the sudden recollection of a winter’s day, with the memory of the day my father died.
of my father lying under the light of the candles. Me looking at his dead face and remembering only his living face.
that the rhythm of the running shoes on the road becomes faster. I overtake a runner who, feeling me getting closer, turns his head to watch me pass
father’s face covered by a transparent tulle cloth. I looked at him, white, still, and the natural thing would have been for him to open his eyes and say my name, for him to look at me and say, ‘What are you waiting for, lad?’ The cold black echo of the chapel. I looked at him and found it hard to believe his voice would never be heard again.
even faster and I know that that’s why people age more quickly, they die, children are born. There is only one runner ahead of me. Each pace of mine is bigger or faster than two paces from this frightened runner, who still
my father dead, white, still, and I tried to retain the image of this sadness that destroyed me because I knew it wouldn’t be long before I didn’t even have this, didn’t have anything. They would take my father away and I would have to live my whole life without ever seeing him again.
going forwards, and the runner is getting closer and closer. The nearer I get the faster I want to run to overtake him. I keep on
for my sister Maria and my mother. They were together, sitting in chairs. The happy absence of my sister Marta was there, too, still recovering from the birth of Hermes. My brother Simão’s absence was there, too. Ever since the night when it happened, that thing we will never forget, Simão and my father never saw one another again. My father, his arm shaking, pointing at the door shouting: ‘Out!’ Shouting, ‘Out!’ Simão shouting, ‘You’ll never see me again!’ Shouting, ‘I’m never setting foot in this wretched house again!’ Then, years of silence. We didn’t talk about it, but we wanted to believe that on that day Simão would still appear. He was our father. Our only father, who had died. We wanted to believe that he might still appear. He didn’t. And we had no words, only hurt. My mother was next to Maria and had her head in her hands. My sister looked at me with dark eyes. There at the back I saw the face of the piano-tuner. I went towards him. His head tilted towards shadowy corners, towards the surface of the roof or towards empty chairs. He recognised me by the sound of my footsteps. In silence, in my hands, I took the hand he held out to me. The tuner had known my father for many years. His blind face was old and hurt. We looked at one another, as though we were exchanging secrets. And again, the echo of my footsteps — and I approached my father again — my father
I see the runner’s body ahead of me
the tips of my fingers lifting the cloth that covered my father’s face
I launch myself forwards and begin to overtake the runner
I leaned over my father
I overtake the runner now
my lips touched the icy skin of my father’s cheek
time stops. Time has stopped. What exists are our two breathings and a group of people suspended on the side of the road. A cool breeze. Colours smudged. A cool breeze
Kilometre two
as much for my mother, as for Maria, as for me. We’d already left the hospital, we were walking towards the exit — we knew the streets were enormous — when she came running. My sister and my mother didn’t see her. They were walking ahead of me, two frail shapes continuing on their slow way. She took my arm and held my father’s watch out to me. Her face wasn’t a smile, nor was it just serious, it was precisely the face required at that moment — her gaze under a fringe combed to one side, wavy hair. She placed the watch in the palm of my hand, then let the chain slip and fold and settle — a nest — in the palm of my hand. Then it was her voice, going through me, suddenly made of velvet, kindly. As though whispering, she said it would be better for me to take the watch with me, she said that someone might take advantage of my father’s condition to steal it. I thanked her, and I noticed her, but I barely noticed her. It wasn’t till I came back
by time. My mother couldn’t come into our house, the empty corridors weighed down on her. In Maria’s house, Ana was two years old and my mother looked after her with slow steps and few words. Ana was asleep, Maria and her husband were working and my mother was sitting in an armchair. The afternoon was reflected in the windowpanes — my mother’s eyes reflected the relief image of the windowpanes. Nobody could know what she was thinking, but there were whole years inside her, unrepeatable laughs and unrepeatable silences. On those afternoons my mother believed that, in a single instant, everything could be transformed into nothing. She believed in silence
with the gentleman from the undertaker’s, when we arrived at the morgue, that I really noticed her. The whole sky was falling in grey rain on to the city. On the pavements people ran from door to door. Then we were at the morgue — the thick walls. Water streamed from my hair, on to my coat, down my skin. She approached me, and as though we knew one anoth
er well she gave me her condolences. It seemed to me then that her voice carried images of some other time. I looked at the walls of the morgue, at my hands, and it was only on the surface of her voice — as on a river — that I was able to relax. Her choosing words and silences to console me. And me managing even to find comfort in that voice, closing my eyes to listen. And me, faced with my dead father, feeling guilty for being able to find comfort in the sweet memory of that voice — fragile grace. In the weeks that followed I would come back just to hear it. She later told me what time she left, and on other days I would return at that time and accompany her to her front door. On the way I heard tales from the hospital. They were told unhurriedly, as though they had no end. Her voice was serene. The nights — the moon, the city, the stars — imitated her. Weeks passed. She began to smile at me. I began to smile at her. And before falling asleep I began to hear her voice inside my head. I fell asleep listening to her. The house was immense. Night filled the house. The walls were undone by this absolute night, and yet the darkness was all made up of many walls, one over another. I tried to live. As I lay down, as I waited to fall asleep, her voice was the calm world in which I forgot everything else. In the mornings and the afternoons, I tried to see only the planks of wood I carried on my shoulders and which I laid out in front of me, on the carpenter’s bench, I tried to see only the tools, only the lines where I imagined cuts, only the points where I imagined nails stuck in, but in spite of myself I still expected, always expected my father’s voice to sound at some indistinguishable moment. Which was why in the morning or the afternoon I’d go into the piano cemetery when I wanted to hear only her voice in my memory, when I wanted to rest. Before going off to train I’d stop by Maria’s house. I told myself that I was going to check that everything was all right, but even before knocking at the door I knew that I’d find my mother with her voice dismayed, Ana running around me holding out her arms for me to pick her up, Maria tired and her husband, on his tiptoes, his face raised towards me, trying to interest me in some subject which didn’t interest me even remotely. And I’d run round the streets at maddening speed — the air leaving me heavily. I’d come back home to wash, and in the mid-evening I’d get to the hospital entrance, combed, when she would smile at me and I’d smile at her. She was the best moments
utterly. My mother’s sadness also got into Maria, but never to the point where it was shared completely, because only my mother knew the time and the secrets of that sadness. Perhaps that was why there were moments when Maria couldn’t understand her or what troubled her. More than a week after the burial of my father, Maria managed to convince my mother that they should go and visit Marta and meet Hermes. On the days that followed the burial of my father Maria wandered round the house and said nothing to her. She’d say to her: ‘Come and eat something.’ She’d say to her: ‘Then why don’t you go and lie down?’ But she said nothing to her because these were the tiniest of words, they were silence. After a few days Maria began to sit down in chairs to talk to her. She said, ‘We’ve got to go and see Marta’s boy.’ She said, ‘Tomorrow we’ll go and see Marta’s boy.’ My mother responded with a nodded yes, but on two occasions as the time to set off approached she was taken ill. It was more than a week after the burial of my father. Maria’s husband didn’t want to go, and at one end of the corridor he held Maria by the arm and, shouting whispers at her, shook her. At the other end of the corridor my mother and Ana waited by the door — hand in hand. They went by train. On her mother’s lap, Ana leaned her whole body up against the glass of the window. Only her gaze — all of it — managed to get through it. On the front seat, my mother’s silence was more invisible beneath the sound of the train on the tracks. It was still morning when they arrived at the land where Marta had gone to live. The sky
Kilometre three
was shining. It had a grey shine that filled the puddles of water with light. On the streets people stood watching my mother, Maria and Ana pass. My mother walked as though she was moving forwards on her own and no world existed. Maria and Ana went hand in hand. Maria pulled her arm and hurried her. Ana raised her head, and with her neck she turned it from side to side. It was still morning. They arrived at the little iron gate
a cool breeze. This breeze is coming from within the stones of the houses. It comes from within memory. It comes from the depths of the waters. When we were at the party on the boat, my fencing teammate told me that in winter these waters freeze over completely. He told me that if you want to you can walk on them. I found it hard to believe. My companions had come to take part in the track races, the Greco-Roman wrestling and the fencing. Their hands are clean and soft. They have white shirts. They have property and education. I call them ‘sir’, they call me ‘Lázaro’. Sometimes, before they laugh at something, they say, ‘Good old Lázaro.’ Next to them I’m a brute. I don’t know things. That’s why my companions like to joke around with me, and that’s why I found it hard to believe. But it might even be true. At least it’s true that at that point we were on a sailing boat I’ve not seen many like in Lisbon, lovely, there was still the lightness of daytime, and we’d already had dinner and it was already nearly eleven o’clock on that night that was still day. I’m sure of that because I saw the time on the watch that was my father’s and which, ever since I’ve had it in my pocket, like for all the years it was in my father’s pockets, never ran a single minute fast. I was sure that time respected the numbers on the watch. I was sure that the numbers on the watch were the secret and the lie that we all use in order to believe in simple things. But this teammate told me that Sweden is a very big country, and that in the north the sun shines at midnight as though it were midday. At first, I thought he was teasing me. I said to him, ‘Hey, come on. .’ He looked at me, his face still, but we had already had dinner and it was almost eleven o’clock on my watch and I ended up believing him. And it was only then that I understood that not even numbers could bring certainty. Time exists between the numbers, it crosses through them, and confuses them. Many numbers can exist between each number. More numbers might exist between one number and another than between that one and the next. It is time that determines the numbers, that stretches them out or shrinks them down, that kills them or allows them to exist. There is nothing numbers can do when faced with time. Here, this breeze on my face makes me think he was being serious. These waters really do freeze over in the winter. At least, this breeze is all of a piece with those January mornings that chill your ears and make the frost grow
of my days. She was a single world. At that time, when we were together — it was night-time and we walked the streets — I knew that my mother’s black sadness was very far away, as though it didn’t exist, the cold of the lone house was very far away, almost as though it didn’t exist. As we took these steps her voice would tell me I had the right to some peace. And we walked the streets, passing through shadows. Sometimes our elbows touched. I focused all the strength of my senses on that point where my elbow, for a moment, touched her. And in her voice, telling stories from the hospital — lads coming in the door to the emergency room, disoriented old women in the wards, broken men lying on stretchers — I could make out a slight change in tone when our elbows touched. Like me, she also felt these wordless moments that illuminated, blossomed, caught fire. At that time neither of us would have been capable of using words to speak of those moments or of the waves that washed over us. At that time we reached the door to her house and stopped, not knowing what to say or how to move. We lowered our gaze, our faces filled with shadows, and from the invisible insides of those shadows we laughed, pretending to laugh, because we didn’t know what to say or how to move. Then, to say goodbye, we would reach out a few fingers to one another. It wasn’t a handshake, it wasn’t anything, it was us reaching our arms out to one another, it was our open hands and the tips of our fingers touching in the air, as our hands began already to lower and part. Then there was a night when we kissed cheeks. I closed my eyes when my lips felt the s
kin of her face, the smell of inside her wavy hair. Then there were other nights. The moment wasn’t planned, the moment when I didn’t make that move I knew just how to make — that I merely had to let my neck make it — and in which our lips met. Our lips burning. My hand holding the nape of her neck — the weight and shape of her head. When our lips parted, her eyes didn’t leave mine. My eyes fleeing, and hers, serious, seeking them out. My eyes no longer able to flee — a smile. Her eyes seeing me and smiling, too. After that night, we started always walking hand in hand.
Kilometre four
from Marta’s house. No sooner had Maria opened the gate than Ana let go of her hand and went in on her own. The dogs ran round her, giving little leaps, wagging their tails and licking her. Happy, Ana shouted or laughed. Maria scolded the dogs — settle down. My mother, forgotten for a few moments, continued in her silence. Elisa came out of the front door at full tilt and ran over. She approached Ana and waited to be hugged. The dogs circled round them, high-stepping, impatient. Elisa, well-behaved, gave two little kisses to her aunt and grandmother. Ana was already heading for the door and Elisa followed her. In a straggling line, the four of them walked down the corridor. At the entrance to Marta’s room, Maria was frozen mid-word by the silence and by the sight of Marta lying in bed, in a white nightshirt, her hair falling over her face. And Ana, and Elisa behind her, ran to the crib. Ana still didn’t reach the top of the crib, so she rested her forehead against the wooden bars. When Hermes woke up my mother started walking. Maria went between the bodies of Ana and Elisa to lift him out of the crib. Moved, she said something — oh, so very tiny — and showed him to my mother. In that silence my mother felt a shapeless emptiness that was like flames tearing through her and she only cried when she took him in her arms. Innocent. Hermes looked out at the whole world and no one could imagine what his eyes saw. Marta took him from my mother’s arms. The light weakened as it came through the curtains and mingled with the shadows. All-knowing, Marta took a breast from inside her nightshirt and brought the nipple to Hermes’s little lips. And Ana remained in silence, in wonder. Elisa had already seen her mother breastfeeding her brother many times, but she too was still, she too was silent, wearing the same expression as her cousin. Maria continued to be moved. My mother remained in a silence so absolute that her body almost disappeared. That morning, Marta was already very fat. Her shoulders were thick in her nightshirt, her arms were thick, her belly was a high, round bulk under the bedclothes, her legs were thick. On that morning, and in everything that was known at the time, it was impossible to imagine that Marta would continue to get fatter to the size she is today, to the size she was the night before I left when I went over to say goodbye. Be careful out there with abroad, she said. Hermes wanted to play. Leave your uncle be, she said. When it was time to go back to the station and wait for the train, I opened my arms out wide to try and encircle her and the most I could do was rest my wrists on each shoulder. But that morning no one thought of this and everyone — even my mother — paid attention to the suckling boy. It was a gentle time. The morning
The Piano Cemetery Page 8