After my siesta I shall go back into town. I should like to visit the Faculty of Letters. But it seems unlikely. I have a special affection for this Faculty and for Marly de Oliveira: a great poet and one of the most cultured women I know. I want to go into town but I feel drowsy. I must drink some Coca-Cola to wake me up. It was Joāo Henrique who taught me that Coca-Cola with coffee helps to keep you awake. He assured me that long-distance lorry drivers drink this concoction. Joāo Henrique taught me many things. I am eternally grateful to him. I now seem to remember that Miriam Bloch told me the same thing.
I finally went into town. Crowds had gathered on the streets. I inquired what was happening. They told me the police were looking for a rapist who had stabbed six women before escaping into the bush. I was horrified. I am afraid of dying. Death is so awful.
For some strange reason I found myself heading for the Faculty of Letters. I was not interested in visiting the library. I am not cultured. The nun in charge was unable to give me any information. There was a lecture that evening on the History of Art. I felt no inclination to attend. I have heard quite enough about art even though I am something of an artist myself. It makes me feel almost ashamed to be a writer. Such a meaningless word. And it gives the impression of something much more intellectual than intuitive.
It is beautiful when the sun goes down in Nova Friburgo. I can also hear loud singing coming from the general store where they sell alcohol, which keeps the men cheerful. Here everything is cheerful, except for those attacks on women. I wonder if the police have caught the rapist yet? Let us hope so.
Nature is so indolent. The horses go on grazing. Now they are neighing. I can also hear crickets. Someone is playing the flute. Music by Bach or perhaps Vivaldi. It is four o’clock in the morning and all is silent. Only now can I hear the toads croaking. I have already drunk my coffee. Now I am smoking a cigarette. There are no pictures on the walls in this house. Unlike the place where I stayed in Cabo Frio which had some excellent paintings by Scliar, João Henrique and José de Dome. Scliar has a weakness for ochre. João Henrique likes green while José de Dome prefers a paler yellow. But there is a very attractive soup tureen on the dresser. What I miss most of all is my typewriter. I have two at home: an Olivetti and an Olympia. I prefer the Olivetti which is stronger and can withstand the constant pressure of tapping fingers. Everyone is asleep. Everyone, that is, except me. There is a horseshoe hanging on the wall to bring good fortune. The little birds outside are chirping with hunger. Everything here seems too good to be true. I am reading a thriller by Simenon. I adore his books. They read much better in French than in any translation. Let me give you a brief quotation: ‘Falling across the room, a broad beam of light revealed fine particles of dust. It was as if that light were suddenly exposing the intimate life of the atmosphere.’ Don’t you find that splendid?
BUYING A PIG IN A POKE
— Have you ever mistaken cat for sucking pig? I was once asked in a moment of distraction.
I replied:
— I’m forever mistaking cat for sucking-pig. Out of foolishness, distraction, ignorance. And sometimes even out of courtesy. People offer me cat and I thank them for the sucking-pig and when the cat starts miaowing, I pretend not to hear. Because I know the deception was intended to please me. But I am not quite so forgiving when I know the offer was made in bad faith.
The variations on this theme could fill an encyclopaedia. Such as, for example, when the cat imagines itself to be a sucking-pig. And because one is dealing with a cat which is obviously unhappy with its condition, then I indulge its fantasy. After all, a cat has every right to want to be a sucking-pig.
And there are even instances where the cat genuinely wants to be a cat but cochon de lait oblige, and then things really do get difficult.
Some people even refuse to admit that they enjoy eating cat meat and try to persuade us they are eating sucking-pig. And we keep up the pretence just to keep them happy.
In a treatise on the subject, an expert on melancholia would claim to have passed off many an alley cat as sucking-pig. An expert in irascibility would say something unprintable.
I feel really ashamed when I refuse sucking-pig because I suspect it might be cat. (There is a proverb which says: Better to be cheated by a friend than to mistrust him.) This is the price of mistrust.
But truly, when I mistake a cat for a sucking-pig, the one who comes off worst is the person who offered it to me. The only mistake on my part was to have been gullible.
I am enjoying writing this. A number of sucking-pigs have been miaowing on the nearby roof-tops and now I have had my chance to miaow back. For cats, too, can be rabid.
WHAT IS ANGUISH?
A teenager asked me this difficult question. Much depends on the person suffering from anguish. Some people use this word freely, as if anguish somehow improved their status: that in itself is yet another form of anguish.
Anguish can also be having no hope in hope. Or conforming without resignation. Or refusing to confess even to oneself. Or never being oneself, should one ever know oneself. Anguish can be the misery of being alive. It can also be not having the courage to suffer anguish — and escape is yet another form of anguish. But anguish is part of life: all that lives, simply by being alive tends to recoil.
This same teenager asked me: Don’t you find there is a frightening emptiness in everything? Yes, there is. Meanwhile one waits for the heart to understand.
THE OBEDIENT (I)
What follows is straightforward, something to be related and forgotten.
But I have been imprudent enough to pause for a moment longer than I should have done and now find myself compromised. From the moment that I, too, put myself at risk — for I have identified myself with the couple I am about to speak of — from that moment it is no longer simply a fact to be related and for this reason words begin to fail me. By now I feel at quite a loss. The fact ceases to be a simple fact and its widening repercussions have become much more important.
Those repercussions have been delayed and suppressed far too long and it was almost inevitable they should eventually explode.
And now they have finally exploded on this Sunday afternoon, when there has been no rain for weeks and the dessicated beauty of flowers and fruits persists, arid and shining and empty. In the presence of this disquieting beauty I become solemn, as if standing before a tomb. But what has happened to the initial fact? It has merged with this aggressive Sunday. Unable to cope with this afternoon, I hesitate before also becoming aggressive or retreating slightly wounded. The initial fact is suspended in the sun-drenched dust of this scorching Sunday filled with solitude. Until, finally summoned to the telephone, I go rushing off gratefully to lick the hand of this person who loves me and frees me.
Chronologically, the situation was as follows: a man and a woman had been married for twenty-five years without any children.
The moment I discovered this I was intrigued. I was obliged to think, however irksome. And even if I were to say nothing more and end the story with this discovery, I should have already compromised myself with my most impenetrable thoughts. As if I had seen a pen-drawing against a white background, a man and a woman tied to each other. And my eyes are glued to this white background and find much to observe there, for every word has its shadow.