The Dreamseller: The Calling

by Augusto Cury

  It wasn’t long before the dreamseller prodded us.

  “Anyone who doesn’t develop the art of observation is missing the fullness of life. He may be a warehouse of information, but he will never construct great ideas.”

  I remembered that the day before I hadn’t seen the complex human being hidden behind Solomon’s rituals. I was a terrible observer. I saw what every “normal” person acknowledged. Edson and Dimas also didn’t know what to write. Bartholomew hummed to summon up inspiration, but none came. He looked up, then to the sides, and remained inert. Minutes passed without our observing anything interesting. Solomon was the only exception. He calmed his compulsions and began writing ceaselessly. He was excited, saying frequently, “Hmm . . . Wow, amazing . . . Fantastic . . .”

  He was writing, and I was stumped. The dreamseller gave me a nudge.

  “You will develop the art of observation only if you learn the most difficult art of the human intellect.” And he didn’t provide the answer.

  “What is it?” I thought.

  “The art of calming the mind,” he said eventually. “Minds that once were brilliant have lived a mediocre life because they didn’t calm their thoughts. Great writers, notable scientists, magnificent artists have shattered their inspiration because they had a cluttered mind. The thoughts, mental images and fantasies that can make our creativity take flight can also clip its wings, if excessive, robbing us of our intuition and ingenuity.”

  “That’s my problem,” I thought. My mind was a dark cavern of disturbance. Thinking foolish thoughts was my specialty. Silence was always my enemy. But for the dreamseller, I tried to silence the voices within. It wasn’t easy; I was inundated with images racing through my mind faster than the cars on this street. My thoughts were choked by intellectual pollution.

  My friends were also lost. But little by little we entered the infinite world of silence. Starting at that moment, our perception was heightened. I began to make out the sharp songs of a bird. It strummed a beautiful melody with unbelievable fervor. I jotted it down. Then another bird sang a mournful song. Moments later, a dove performed a courtship ritual with a female.

  I observed more than ten extraordinary birdsongs. They had little reason to rejoice in that concrete jungle, I thought, but unlike me they were celebrating life. I observed and noted the resilience of the weathered tree trunks, which, despite the impermeability of the soil and a shortage of water, survived in an inhospitable setting—bravery that I never had shown. More than ten million people had passed by those trees since they were planted, and maybe ten, at the most, had actually stopped to observe them in detail. I was beginning to feel like a privileged person in a societal desert.

  Bartholomew, who wouldn’t normally notice an elephant in front of his nose, also began to have more luck. He contemplated five multicolored butterflies dancing across the sky. Unlike them, he noted, he only danced when drunk. Edson noted various types of sounds produced by leaves rustling in the wind, humbly applauding passersby, unlike him, who sought applause. Dimas analyzed insects that worked tirelessly preparing for winter, something he had never done. He stole and, like all thieves, was a terrible manager, believing that life was an eternal springtime.

  After this gratifying exercise, we spoke one of our favorite phrases: “How I love this life!” Never had doing so little meant so much. I had never imagined that nature was present in such a meaningful way, right here, in the middle of the city. How could a specialist in society never have done this exercise? For the first time, I truly loved silence, and in that silence I discovered that I had not had a childhood.

  I don’t remember any pleasant experiences as a child. Maybe I’ve become a rigid adult because I didn’t know how to relax as a child. Maybe I’ve grown into a paranoid man because I’d never experienced the innocence of childhood. Maybe I was a chronically depressive and ill-tempered grown-up because I hadn’t lived my first years of life joyfully. The losses in my life made me into an adult very early, a young man who thought a lot, but felt nothing.

  As I was recalling my childhood, the dreamseller seemed to be studying me. Taking a deep breath, he commented on the death of childhood in our time, one of the things that bothered him the most.

  “The Internet, video games, computers—they’re all useful, but they’ve destroyed something invaluable: childhood. Where is the pleasure of silence? Where is the fun of playing outside? Where is innocence? It pains me so deeply that the system is creating unhappy, restless children—better suited for psychiatric care than happy, carefree lives.”

  All of a sudden, the dreamseller acted in a way I’d never seen before. He turned to watch as several parents passed us, taking their seven- and eight-year-old children shopping. The children were dressed at the height of fashion, every accessory matching their outfits, and they were each carrying cell phones. But they were clearly disillusioned with life. Some whined and complained and caused a scene for a new dress or a gadget. To simply keep them quiet, the parents gave in.

  The dreamseller looked furious and he confronted those parents.

  “What are you doing to your children? Take them to know the forests. Have them remove their shoes and let them walk barefoot on the ground. Let them climb trees, and encourage them to invent their own games. The human species has shut itself inside a bell jar of selfishness and materialism. Instead, teach them about animals and let them learn a new way to behave.” And he paraphrased Jesus’ words: “Children do not live by shopping centers alone, but by all the adventures of childhood.”

  I was impressed by his boldness in the face of strangers. Some of the parents considered his words. Others reacted brashly. One said, “Isn’t that the crazy guy we saw in the papers?”

  Another, an intellectual and probably, like me, seething with pridefulness, was more arrogant: “I’m a professor with a doctorate in psychology and I won’t stand for this invasion of privacy. Let me worry about my children.” Looking us up and down he told his friends, loud enough for us to hear, “What a boorish bunch.”

  Honeymouth heard the insult and couldn’t stifle his compulsive urge to talk. He seconded the dreamseller:

  “Listen, pal, I’m not a ‘doctorate’ of anything,” he told the professor. “But let your children be immersed in nature. Let them play and get dirty. That way, none of them will turn out to be a crazy, no-good drunk like me.” He made a gesture, asking for patience and added, “But I’m getting better, chief.”

  He turned to the children and said, “Anybody who wants to fly like a butterfly, raise your hand.”

  Three children raised their hands, two remained indifferent and three hid behind their parents and answered, “I’m afraid of butterflies.”

  Offended by the forwardness of the strangers, several parents called the security guards at the entrance to the large Megasoft department store they were about to enter. The guards quickly ushered us out.

  “Get out of here, you bums.”

  But, before leaving, the dreamseller turned to the parents who had argued with him and said, “I ask your forgiveness for my actions and hope that one day you won’t have to ask your children’s forgiveness for yours.”

  For some of the parents, the dreamseller’s ideas didn’t fall on barren ground. Some, even while angry, began to realize they needed to work on their relationship with their children. Their children had received the best possible educations under the existing system; they had become experts in consuming products and using computers, but they were perpetually dissatisfied. They didn’t know how to observe, feel and draw conclusions. These parents realized that nature may not be as important to the mental survival of the human race as it was to its emotional survival. They began to frequent forests, zoos and urban gardens.

  Nature is a more invaluable teacher than all the other educational theories for expanding the mind’s horizons.

  I was moved at seeing the dreamseller’s and Bartholomew’s tenderness with children. I had never thought too much about th
em. I was too busy criticizing society in the classroom. I didn’t understand that the true educational material was the student and not the information. I was only concerned that they keep quiet and pay attention in class.

  That same afternoon, we passed through a residential district. We came upon a large, gloomy building. The garden was overgrown with tall grass. Enormous trees cast looming shadows, preventing the low plants from flourishing. The old building with its arches was beautiful, but its paint had faded. The wooden window frames were rotting and seemed painted in the green moss. Plaster was peeling from the filthy white walls. It was a nursing home, but definitely not a pleasant place to live out the last years of one’s life.

  Many elderly people went there not because their families had abandoned them, but simply because they had no close relatives. The majority of those residents had only one child or at most two. When an only child died or moved to a different city or couldn’t physically or financially care for his aging parents, the elderly were sent to these institutions for their medical and daily care. They fled from the suffocating trap of loneliness to these nursing homes.

  Looking at the building, the dreamseller told us, “Behold a good setting for dreams. Go and bring joy to the people who live there.”

  In our “holy” prejudice we thought, “Dreams? In a nursing home? Those people are bored and depressed. What could possibly excite them anymore?” We had been in the world of children, and now we were entering the world of the elderly. Worlds so far apart yet so alike. The problem was that the dreamseller took a step back. We were waiting for him to at least guide us with some instruction, but he simply said he was going for a walk. Before the dreamseller left, Dimas, who began stuttering and blinking uncontrollably, expressed his uncertainty:

  “Make . . . the . . . the old folks hap . . . happy? How, dreamseller? They ha . . . have one foot in the grave.” He knew how to pick old people’s pockets, how to worry them half to death, but he had never cheered up or had a deep conversation with one of them.

  “Dimas, prejudice will age you more than the passing of time. Inside, you’re older than many of them,” the dreamseller said.

  “If it were up to me, I could solve their problems in about two minutes,” Bartholomew added. “I’d give ‘em a couple quarts of booze and get the party started.”

  He immediately apologized. Edson and Solomon also didn’t know how to achieve the miracle of happiness. We were all at a loss.

  Before we realized it, the dreamseller had already set off for some unknown destination. The group gathered, each one explained his ideas, we formulated a strategy and went in search of materials, returning two hours later.

  Honeymouth was wearing a long wig and dark glasses and was chewing gum. Excited, he told us, “Guys, I’ve got it! We’ll pretend we’re normal.” We all burst out laughing.

  We headed for the nursing home. Before I could say anything, Bartholomew again took the lead. He made up what sounded like a pretty good story to get us in.

  “OK, here’s the deal. We’re a professional band of musicians and we want to put on a show for the people here. For free. We don’t need money but any donations are welcome.”

  When he mentioned donations, I poked him. That wasn’t in the script. Dimas was wearing a red hat and dark Ray-Ban–type glasses. I had on a long pigtail wig. Solomon sported thick sideburns like Elvis Presley’s. Edson had a red ribbon on his head and a long collarless T-shirt. We borrowed the outfits saying we were putting on a fund-raiser and had promised to return them afterward.

  The nursing home staff looked suspiciously at our costumes, but since young people rarely came to visit the elderly, the staff wanted to see what we had in store. I said to myself, “What are you doing here? This isn’t going to work.” An impromptu audience was arranged. More than a hundred retirees sat down quietly in front of our so-called band.

  We had two battered guitars. The Miracle Worker, who claimed to have learned to play in his church band, played way out of tune. And Solomon, who had the other, wasn’t much better. I blew into a sax, trying to recall the handful of notes I had learned in a few classes with my grandfather. Dimas had a double bass and didn’t know what to do with it. Honeymouth was—what else?—on lead vocals. But he assured us that he could carry a tune and said he used to sing in nightclubs when he was more or less sober.

  We played our first piece of music, a rock ballad. But we were nervous and stiff. Honeymouth’s voice was a disaster; he couldn’t keep up with the music and it probably would have been better if he had just danced along—not that he realized how awful he was. Our audience just watched us. We thought maybe things should be livelier. We stopped halfway through the first song and broke into a heavy metal jam. Oh, what a ruckus we made. We were really worked up, shaking our hips, jumping around the stage, but from the old folks? Nothing. Not even Honeymouth’s verbal gymnastics with that off-key voice drew a laugh.

  I thought: “We’re toast. We’ve just made these people’s depression worse.” Bartholomew broke into his anthem, a samba, and we just tried to keep up: “I drink, yes I do, I’m livin’, there’s folks who don’t drink and are dyin’, I drink, yes I do.”

  And he repeated the refrain, looking at the old people, believing a little alcohol in some form would get them moving.

  But no one sang. Or clapped. Or smiled. Or so much as moved. Instead of selling dreams, we were selling embarrassment. We looked at the nursing staff and saw that they were motionless, too. Like us, they thought the elderly had one foot in the grave and were just waiting for death. Just when the afternoon was looking like one of the worst since we started following the dreamseller, he returned. When they saw him, several of the old men and women rushed to hug him passionately. That was when we realized that he was a frequent visitor here.

  The dreamseller handed out our instruments to the audience, though they could barely hold them. We thought they wouldn’t even realize what a guitar, saxophone or double bass were, much less be able to play them. To our surprise, three of the men, Mr. Lauro, Mr. Michel and Mr. Lucio, took the two guitars and the double bass, positioned them correctly, and began to play in tune. The sound that emerged made us tingle. We couldn’t believe what we were hearing.

  A woman picked up the saxophone and put on a show. I was speechless. “Wait,” I thought, “isn’t this supposed to be a warehouse for old people awaiting death?” We were shocked—and humbled—to realize this place was a prison for full, rich, gifted people with incredible repressed potential.

  The dreamseller delighted in hearing them. Then he took Bartholomew’s microphone, and gave it to a much older gentleman, who could barely walk. But when he breathed into the microphone, his voice was unrivaled even by Frank Sinatra.

  Then the dreamseller called the elderly who could still move about to the floor and began to dance with them. Even I started to dance. It was a riot. These old folks turned that nursing home upside down. Smiles sprang onto their faces and they felt like people once again. Of course they had looked at us like we were idiots. We had underestimated them and given them our worst, thinking that just because they were old—that their muscles were weak, their memory failing—they would swallow whatever pathetic show we put on.

  Many of them had enjoyed a wonderful childhood, much better than mine. And now, the child within awakened from its slumber. Later, the dreamseller would tell us he had sent us to the nursing home not with the intention of our selling them dreams but so we could buy dreams from them. He showed us there is no such thing as a person without worth, only someone who is grossly undervalued.

  Upon hearing these words, I realized another mistake I had made. My grandfather, Paulo, was fun and sociable. He died almost fifteen years after my mother, but I never let myself into his world. I had felt rejected by my uncles and cousins, and so I ended up rejecting my grandfather. Every victim bears the scars of a hostage. I had admired my grandfather’s ability to play instruments, but had never asked about his tears and his fea
rs. I never valued his great sense of humor and his lifetime of experiences. I missed out on enjoying such a surprising human being.

  That day, the dreamseller wove together thoughts that still echo in my mind:

  “The time between youth and old age is shorter than you can imagine. Whoever doesn’t delight in reaching old age isn’t worthy of his youth. Don’t fool yourselves: A person doesn’t die when his heart stops beating. He dies when the world tells him he’s no longer of any value.”

  The Temple of Electronics

  THE EVENT THAT OCCURRED IN THE NURSING HOME CAME to light not because a journalist was present but because a nurse photographed it and gave the information to a newspaper. Ever since our visit to the nursing home, our days were filled with commotion. As the days went by, our group became ever stronger. We formed close ties despite our bickering. We held lively outdoor round tables to discuss our own stories and what we’d seen in society.

  At least once a week the dreamseller invited new people—bricklayers, painters, sculptors, gas station attendants, mechanics, garbage collectors—into our expansive “home” to sit on fruit crates and tell us about their lives. They were delighted at the invitation. And we had never had as good a time communing with our fellow man, listening to stories of their real difficulties and expectations, dreams and nightmares, passions and disillusionments. It was a unique sociological experience, a magical apprenticeship.

  Meanwhile, the dreamseller’s fame was growing. He had become a mythic figure in the city. People in cars would point at him and tell one another, “Isn’t that the guy who stopped traffic near the San Pablo Building?” “Isn’t that the same one who shook up an old folks’ home and a wake?” Judging by how “normals” like a spectacle, they’d soon be saying he raised the dead.