‘Sometimes I like stopping still with you just to look at what we are.’
Opposites compact and no scientist has ever understood love, the stars go on, a stray cat rummages in the trash in search of one more day of life, he lights a cigarette, his lips tremble and squeeze the filter as though squeezing fear, tomorrow the day will return, and in the silence he tries to find the importance of the words, what can you do when you’ve loved too much?
‘Today all I want from your mouth is a kiss.’
Neither did the windows close nor the words continue, he yielded as he always did, she only had to hesitate for him to comply, to dictate to somebody is to be loved by somebody, and she didn’t want to dictate or be dictated to, she just believed in the perfect state of what is unexplored, she preferred what was left unsaid, to retain the hope that what’s not in view is better than what there is to be seen, and when the bodies were tired out she fell silent and moved away, many people would think it coldness but to her it was love, she used what was perfect to save herself from tears: and she cried.
‘Tomorrow I swear I’ll want you for love but today I want you for survival.’
Those were his last words in the early hours of that morning,
and all those others that came after.
the worst part of all isn’t even the crying, it’s not that at all, crying makes you suffer but it also calms, what hurts dissolves into water and everyone knows that, you have to wet the thing that cuts so that the cutting hurts less, and
the worst part of all isn’t even the crying, I say again, I know you’re asleep and you can’t hear me, I preferred to stay awake to try and understand how your eyelids close, the round shape of your eyes when you sleep deeply, and touch your skin lightly and thank the good fortune of this bed and us, your legs on mine, so heavy that they hurt and I bear it, better the pain of your weight than your absence weighing me down, resting my head on your arm and your shoulder, hearing you breathe, and finally breathing, and
the worst part of all isn’t even the crying, I don’t know if I’ve mentioned this already, when I wake up I seek you out with my arms, perhaps even before I wake up, my body asleep and already homeless, as though it wanted to guarantee its survival even before being born, you’re sleeping and you don’t know it but I love you with my body too, a muscular love, you might call it that, and when you went to sleep and straight after said three or four times ‘I love you, Carla’, I understood that love’s like that and that’s why we love, so that not even sleep will stop us loving, and in this we are the same, we love even while we’re asleep, and it’s so beautiful having such a great love, and
the worst part of all isn’t even the crying, this is the last time I’m going to tell you, I promise, because the worst part of all isn’t even the crying, it’s that there’s nobody to see our tears, the world in a state of collapse and everything around us as though it were happening, the worst part of all, I’m actually going to tell you one more time, isn’t even the crying, it’s crying alone, our tears and nobody with them, homeless tears, and
the worst part of all is nobody being there to see your tears,
and my name not being Carla, of course.
‘I need one euro to go on not needing any money.’
There’s a strange peace in a person who doesn’t have a roof over his head, the tramp who asks me for a euro smiles without my being able to understand why, he has nothing and he smiles and I who have so much find it hard to believe, maybe he’s here because he wants to be, he doesn’t look like a junkie, he looks good and he’s happy, but nobody gives charity to someone who looks good and is happy, charity is only given to those who need it and someone looking good doesn’t need it, that’s the law of appearances, ninety percent of the world is appearances and the other ten looks bad.
‘I used to be a lawyer then I grew up.’
What must the price of freedom be, probably the price of a house, a career, when I imagine this happy wretch in a suit and tie standing in front of a judge it doesn’t stop me feeling sorry for him, what’s the use of money if not to obstruct, I don’t know if I should give him a euro or my whole life, my clothes, my car, all that I am, what is this preposterous temptation?
‘The problem with money is that it’s not made of chocolate.’
He sits down next to me, me and the tramp next to the car I’d left in his park, and the two of us look up at the size of the sky, there are more stars than yesterday, and without even realising it I’m understanding the value of money, or at least of chocolate money, he offers me a five-euro note that’s nice and sweet, and in a moment I stop understanding why the piece of paper I have in my pocket is worth more than this piece of chocolate, his hand patting me indulgently on the back, which of the two is a poor wretch, the one who works to have pieces of paper in his pocket or the other who spends his life with pieces of chocolate in his mouth?
‘I stopped believing in science when they told me I had to die.’
And off he goes, he apologises for having to go but the perfect wave is just about to arrive, he picks up a piece of wood that’s leaning on the wall and he doesn’t even say goodbye, the perfect wave is just about to arrive, and there I stay, an important meeting ahead of me, dozens of ties and professional gentlemen, schedules and salaries, I go into the office building and I still have time to see him in the distance, the perfect wave hasn’t yet arrived but he doesn’t need it to be able to feel it, the science of life is feeling above all what doesn’t exist, and when I arrive late to the meeting I just say that I’ve been looking for myself.
‘Would you give me just a moment and I’ll be back never again.’
And they did.
‘If one day I’m not here, look for my words.’
The basis of humanity is syntax, he added, it was in the word that he saw the beginning of the world, whenever he met someone he didn’t want to know who they were, what they were like, what they had, he wanted only to understand what they said, the perfect woman was one who used the perfect words, and however inadequate all the rest was, words were enough for all the rest to happen, and then she arrived and said
‘In you I see the beginning of the world.’
At a different time it would have been the ideal subject for an ideal debate, he would say with the full force of his convictions that it wasn’t him but the word where everything began, then he’d give examples of great poems that changed the geography of the world, then he’d open one or two books and read two or three lines and within moments whoever heard him would understand that, yes, it had to be yes, hearing those lines changes the whole world, and finally there was an embrace and the certainty of having managed to convert more people, and the only thing we’d need would be the word, always the word, without words we are animals, he’d repeat again and again till nobody could forget it, but now she spoke and he didn’t reply, he was looking at her and hoping she’d talk more, even the silence before a word beginning is a kind of word, he would have said were he not silent and unable to stop being silent, what back alleyway does language come from?
‘The basis of humanity is your skin.’
When she approached she had already touched him all over, but hands count too of course, especially when they grab hold of a body, pull it towards her, there was also the mouth, hers on his, the tongue, the woman consuming him and him without a word and all the same everything making sense, what the hell is this that says everything and doesn’t even need to speak?
‘Tell me now or disappear for ever.’
There are moments when people have to be spoken, he knows this before anybody else, more than anybody else, but he doesn’t say it, he wants to say it but he doesn’t, he just looks at her, standing there in front of him, their bodies asking for the right word, the right phrase, and nothing, nothing comes out of his mouth apart from a desire to kiss, to press his mouth against hers, she’s far away, more than a metre away and still waiting for his words, this man who is a specialist in sile
nt words, all her veins unable to understand the syntax.
‘If one day I’m not here, look for my words.’
That was what she said before leaving, it was in the word that she saw the beginning of the world, and when she met someone she didn’t want to know who they were, what they were like, what they had, she wanted only to understand what they said, the perfect man was one who used the perfect words, and however inadequate all the rest was, words were enough for all the rest to happen, and then he arrived and said.
‘When I see you with open eyes you can absolutely kill me as I’ll be dead already.’
And you made me that promise, yes, you’d kill me, people might even be interesting but they do have the problem that they exist, I’m interested in what does not exist, and that’s where you come in, the least possible person in the world, there’s no way of explaining you and hence the reason for everything I’m looking for.
‘I spend the whole day in search of you when I have you by my side.’
That was what he was always telling her, the two of them arm in arm and him explaining to her that he wasn’t interested in anything that you could see with your eyes, then he introduced her to a theory according to which it’s only with your eyes closed that you could see what mattered, he even offered a few examples, orgasm, adrenaline, even fear, everything worthwhile you couldn’t see with open eyes, when you can see there’s a non-life, a half-baked little life, and he took her everywhere except home just so as to avoid the end of what kept him alive.
‘Your body is always for the first time.’
Today they are in a motel which is not to be recommended but yet to be discovered, he only loves her as if she were new, his eyes closed and him on her, the legs, between the legs, the mouth, inside the mouth, sometimes he opens his eyes just to see where he is but it’s when he closes them that he finds himself, and she doesn’t know what she’s seeing, looking at him with all her eyes, with all herself, her sweaty body telling her she exists.
‘Close me in your eyes so you can love me.’
She believed in love at first sight, she asked him every day to look at her with his eyes open, to love her with his eyes open, they had opposite ways of loving and that was how they managed to love each other, until one day he understood that he was wrong, that she deserved to be looked at, no one knows how many years it took for this to happen, but it did, he found her so many years later, after so many years of loving her and finally he looked at her.
‘I was blind when I didn’t want to see you.’
That was what he said, but suddenly he felt a knife being plunged into the middle of his chest, a physical knife, at least it hurt like a physical knife, the pain spreading right across his body, an empty pain, a pain that didn’t hurt except through a lack of something, a pain that resembled the loss of a finger, perhaps a whole hand, him looking at her and being sure that he loved her but at the same time being sure he’d seen too much, seen what he should not have, all the illusions on the sharpened blade of a knife inside him.
‘Loving is the inability to open your eyes.’
I wanted to be inadequate, I wanted to try and see you and not be able to, my eyes always closed, but now I saw too much and now you exist, and if there’s anything that is not loved it’s what exists, if it exists it can be explained, there’s a science to support its existence, its shape, everything it is, if there’s a science to explain it then it can no longer be what I love, either it can be loved or it can be explained, you can’t love what science comprehends, I see you so much and not even like that can I love you.
‘I love you completely and it feels like so little.’
This is what he’d say before saying goodbye to her, there was a promise to be kept, and she would never fail to keep her promise, he would definitely understand, it was only the police who wouldn’t.
Staying still is intolerable. Not changing. Bearing-up. Surviving. Remaining. Even if there’s not very much, even if there’s not enough. Keeping everything the way it is just to avoid running the risk of its getting worse. Not forgiving, not acquiring, is intolerable. It’s just criticising, just pointing, just attacking. And not creating, not remaking, not imagining. Not believing is intolerable. What isn’t marvellous is intolerable, what isn’t delicious, what isn’t fantastic, monumental, blessed, miraculous, astonishing. Waking up to the day only to refuse the day, that’s intolerable, or not wanting the day, not fancying the day, not thinking about the thousand and one ways of making it unforgettable. Leaving it be. Not moving, not wanting the wound if it’s through the wound that you come to the cure. Being cautious, forewarned. Everything that isn’t exaggerated is intolerable, that isn’t disproportionate, that doesn’t seem prohibitive. If it doesn’t seem prohibitive it’s unbearable. I don’t want it. I won’t allow it. I won’t allow myself. Repetition is intolerable. Today as an exact replica of yesterday and as an exact replica of tomorrow. The same things, the same words, the same actions, the same movements. Always identical. Always the same. Going on for the sake of going on, that’s intolerable, continuing for the sake of continuing, living for the sake of living. What’s normal is intolerable, what’s regular. What never killed anyone but also never changed anyone’s life. What doesn’t mess with your guts. The text that doesn’t stir you up, the decision that doesn’t transform you, the kiss that doesn’t make you tingle, the sex that doesn’t make you moan, cry out, leap. Not being in love, that’s intolerable. With a woman, with a man, with a cat, with a dog, with a smell, with a sun, with a job, with a house, with a skin, with a taste, with a dream, with a job, with a path, with a desire, with a sin. In love. Like a lunatic. In love. Recklessly, frantically. Unceasingly. In love. With all your veins in search of passion, with all your body in search of pleasure. What isn’t extraordinary, that’s what’s intolerable. And extraordinary things don’t demand extraordinary actions. Extraordinary things only ask for easy moments. As ordinary as cuddling a blanket, sharing a dessert, having a dip in the sea, stealing oranges from the neighbour’s tree, spending the afternoon telling jokes, listening to your parents’ stories, going to the park with your kids, sharing a table with your friends. Extraordinary things demand nothing extraordinary of you. And that’s precisely why they’re extraordinary. Like extraordinary people. Oh, those extraordinary people. I’m addicted to extraordinary people. To those who manage incredible feats. Like making me happy, for example. My wife is extraordinary. So beautiful I can’t even tell you. And she loves me. How she loves me. How she wants me. How I want her. And she’s more extraordinary every day. Pity on me if she weren’t. And the hardest thing is sustaining passion. Avoiding the intolerable. The intolerable replicating, the intolerable keeping going, the intolerable bearing-up. The intolerable gerund. Carrying on living is the same as carrying on dying. What’s normal is intolerable. I demand the extraordinary. And all those I love are extraordinary. Oh God, I’m such a happy man. So happy. Even when I cry, even when I hurt, even when it’s tough, even when everything I am, everything I need, seems so little. I’m so happy. It’s such an extraordinary feeling, so extraordinary to want like this, to exist like this. Until the ends of your guts, to the depths of your bones. Not suffering, not struggling, they’re intolerable. What isn’t too much. And only what isn’t too much is a mistake. Making no mistakes, that’s intolerable, I’m sure about that. But the most intolerable thing is not to love. I love you excessively, I’m sorry. But the really intolerable thing, I may have mentioned this to you already, is not to love.
What I have been hurts me so nearly,
legs opening slowly to death, you know?,
the worst thing is the body that life’s got to put up with, we’re made of junk and we just have to bear it, it’s in the small gestures that old age happens, when I have to bend myself over to pick a piece of paper up from the floor, when I have to go down the stairs and my knees ache, when even my arms as I write show me that I will end,
when I was twenty I had forty years till
I’d turn sixty and now that I’m sixty I was twenty just a month or two ago, at most,
time happens to our whole selves, and the worst thing of all is that we remember perfectly what we used to be able to do, it’s so appalling,
all memories have the precision of a target,
when I was a child, old people were the strangest creatures, the most distant figures, absurdly mysterious, I was as far away from them as I am now from myself, in truth, but I need a body to live, that’s the biggest injustice of all,
have you seen what we’d be capable of if we had no need of flesh, skin and bones?,
it isn’t what must be that has great strength, it’s what can no longer be,
only an idiot can have invented photography,
what possible happiness could come from pictures of what has already died in us?,
once upon a time it’s already in the past, the best way for an old man to suffer is to believe in what doesn’t exist within him, like the poor guy who lives opposite, a month in the hospital because he wanted to compete on a fucking bicycle, if he’d just been able to swap bodies the old man would have won, I’m sure,
swapping bodies would be enough for us to keep going, it seems simple enough for a God who’s invented all this, doesn’t it?,
an old man is a library, and how wretched mine is, I just wanted to learn and I have to content myself with teaching,
The Day I Found You Page 28