Compass II

 

The only cardinal point is you. I tremble with expectations when I look at this old portrait. It seems to me that I cannot forget you. And I insist on turning my eyes, chasing your gaze that smiles at me. It's not you, just the memory of who you were. And I hear you in my thought, saying something like, girls don't want to be sad and that's why I'm going to get you the clown, but it's my imagination winding up the worn images, of the sepia that can't show the color of your hair, of my swirled dress, of your pants where my hand rests. Nor the color of your hope that prevented the pains of the world, all of them. Near you, there were no fearful children, hungry animals, around you only the chimney of your cigarette drew abstracts that I gave shape to, and you saw sadness and I guessed other worlds invented in the fog of your addiction. The color of the worn armchair was green, but only you and I knew it and who took the portrait from us. The curve of the carpet still showed the mosaic where it had grown. The curtain was lacy. It is collected to let in the daylight. And the stillness came to an end at dinner. My rest in your embrace and your tiredness. My love for you and your permanent absence. Like me, after you, the rag horse, the clown and the rag doll, in a corner. Even the Ritz stopped being sold. I believe because of you.

Your books were left open, when you sat me on your leg and told me stories, thinking that I might belong to the group of sad girls who needed clowns to laugh at. You never wanted to see me sad and I was never sad. Until you leave.

The cassettes of Grândola Vila Morena, the reels and the machine are colorless. All around without color. Life without color. The evenings of good mood, I could listen to them, repeat them with my eyes closed, the sheet on the wall, the projection and you guided the reels and spent once again, the moments on the beach, when none of us were sad. We were eternal children. And you are an immortal hero. High. You were the tallest of men, of fathers, of heroes, and also the most beautiful. Your eyes moistened and glowed dark and small like lakes at night, and then you played, everyone laughed, adults and children, thinking they would have you forever. I always believed in your books but even they didn't have happy outcomes. And I looked for you in that red library, Tolstoy was responsible for your departure and I studied every paragraph, thinking I could save you from him. You remained for me more than the angels who accompanied me, you remained when you left. So did he. It's on the shelf. I haven't picked it up for a long time. Heavy and guilty! On page 232 "Now, look at what happened!" And he began to count: one, two, three, four, imagining that if the bomb exploded on an even number, he would be alive, but if it was odd, he would die. "It's all over! I'm dead!" he thought, when the bomb exploded (he no longer remembered if it was an odd or even number), and felt an impact and an excruciating pain in his head. "Lord, forgive my sins!" But I was the one who didn't forgive him.

Nothing guarantees me that it wasn't this impact that took you, that tore you away from me. And I heard the stories later that your anxiety, when your mother found out that you had bought a nightclub in partnership with Germano, that anxiety was what had ended you. Tolstoy seems to me to be more guilty. Your tenderness still pours towards me. I wore out the portrait, but tenderness is liquid and they remain in reserve when I revisit you. I still climb you on your back and hold me in your arms, you give me back the blue and white dragon tube, from fcp to go to the games and throw water on the fans of the other rival clubs. And you smile because you think I'm funny, insolent, going beyond the instructions you gave me. And when it was a goal, joy, you were filled with genuine childlike joy, as if you were still a teenager and you were the one to mark it in the opponent's goal. And in the end, you greeted rival friends, win or lose, and you kept my empty tube in your pocket and there we went to Velasquez Square to buy cotton candy. The square lost its colors, even on game days. Even in the summer. You continue to color, your clothes are still colorful, your hair, your words and your smile, dad, pouring tenderness and lap every day I look at you. If you see me lost, why don't you take me? I have asked you so much, in these years, come and get me and you don't hear me, I don't see you, only when I look at the worn portraits. Give me a sign, I asked you and I still ask you all these years and the only sign I have is that the pain that lodged me in your departure has no end. I cry out for you: - Dad! I'm going to get you a Ritz, ask me, ask me! and I go back to being a child and jumping into the arms that support my world, I give you back the Ritz, while you help me unwrap the chocolates and I smear you all over and I always believe that you only died in a nightmare. Because I don't want to know this damn thing that stole you!