Image: Jonah and the whale, Pieter Brueghel .
Forty-five
was like a blow, a slap of wind that brought back the spirit, a large portion of oxygen that reached pure and only for him, nothing more than for him. But it came, was a wind coming pleasant, certainly, but this was not his decision. Julian was young and not so foolish as to ignore the happiness and suffering could be defined by external issues, could-and he knew it-imagine that such a situation which afforded him pleasure or displeasure such and such, and actually could feel them , but it was there, on the surface, were not the happiness or suffering itself, they could not decide, but simply accepted. But wanted to have control over the acts that established the beginning or the end of the apparent pleasure. I wanted to be the owner time to do with it as best it so desired, invent it if he wished, exchange it for better or worse, but being in control, knead it at will. No, it was foolish, but a young man, also knew or suspected that chance was justified in the inevitable fate ... If he could not invent a past (actually invent, to be true, not merely a disguise, a lie) and define the future, at least have liked the product would now be his decision. Julian was traveling in third class of Mary Fioravanti, was in the hot night, waiting for the storm, watching the dead did not even know your name, fueling the dreams of his father, back in Italy, which saw him become a man of importance in Argentina, in Rosario, or any place determined by the uncle Francisco. Julian Julian was because his mother bore him and baptized his father, Julian lived this that decided his uncle and gave hope to his father. Julian was not himself, but a reflection of what others expected him to and from. Suddenly he was struck by the absurd notion that, at least, if he had no control over life, I had it on its end, death.
And in this I, Julian, was beginning to be very foolish. ***
There was a violent flash and immediately heard the roar of lightning, miraculously, the sea and chose the mast of the ship to explode. Lugo had a second, more distant, and a third, this time it fell full on the arrester Maria Fioravanti. It started to rain. The deck was soon empty. Giovanni Lucio and went to thirty; Francisco warned that followed. Liberato was already in his bunk, Giovanni's Bible in his hands, reading in the dim light of a candle and almost no oil. Antonio returned to thirty-five, Francisco saw him close the door, he believed that Julian also be there.
- We smoke? "Suggested Lucio.
Francisco agreed, invited. Giovanni
Liberato approached and, without saying so in words, but so clear in his eyes, sat on the edge of the bed to wait for the boy read aloud what kept him so far, so absent, so happy. Liberato understood, and as the ship began to shake violently in the storm at last free of all the ropes that kept the hint, started reading, arranging the book in the light whimsical, raising his voice so that the water on the walls , the wind slipping between the cracks of the door and thunder ever closer, it will blind the words:
- "... And they said every one to another, Come, and let us cast lots, to find out who has been this bad. They cast lots and the lot fell on Jonah. Then he told them: Explain to us why it has been this bad. What is your occupation and where are you? What is your land and how people are you? And he answered: I am a Hebrew and I fear the Lord God of heaven, who made the sea and land ...
In Spain I thought Francisco, and only men fear, ignorance of peers who have been unable, Moreover, I think as I think, to that fear, I automatically imprentero, a free man at heart, just that and, on second thought, nor even that it is not fear, is boredom. They love to be slaves, it is so easy to be a slave and not fighting to be free ...
- "... He replied," Take me and cast me forth into the sea and the sea will quiet you, because I know that for my sake this great tempest is upon you ...
Suddenly, with the same timelessness that he showed at the start, the wind dropped. The rain persisted
powerful, yet so little without the drive stormy vengeful Poseidon.
I was not, after of everything I thought it was not Francisco. He lit his pipe, smiled, and passed the snuff to Lucio. Lucio accepted, rolled a cigarette fat, full and looking down towards the bottom of the cabin as he exhaled the first puff, the walls he wanted the stomach of a whale. Suggestion, he thought pure suggestion, made a crack to the cheeks and the smoke cleared without forms, absurd, very white. No matter, he thought.
And really did not matter.
Forty-six
took up Jonah, and cast into the sea, and the sea ceased from her raging ... As his mouth came words automata, Liberato thought it could write most fascinating stories and fantastic than those dwellers of the holy book ... But the Lord had prepared a great fish to swallow Jonah in the belly of the fish three days and three nights ... Without writing a single word, I knew I could spend a lifetime writing, yet he feared pass writing life ... The waters surrounded me to the soul, the abyss rodeóme ... Life could not be the boat, travel, immobility, Antonio indescribable, Giovanni anti-hero, himself, a reader of empty phrases, voice repeating meaningless phonemes without managing to understand the meanings, and without meaning, it is clear that there was nothing ... They that observe lying vanities forsake their own mercy ... The words were noise, vibration covering the reborn serenity in the soul of migrants ... Note what I promised. Salvation belongs to Jehovah ... Each thought of something, someone, everyone on our stuff, and nobody but Giovanni could be listening to the reading, not him, who just guessed the act of speaking in the tickle in her throat ... And the Lord commanded the fish, and land vomited out Jonah ... You may speak and, in extension, telling, was not to describe events, environments, attitudes, but what He then warned as the top of that, the thought. It is thought that was where everything was saying, where things were reasonable explanations, sublime, almost divine, and then trying to take them outside sounds absurd finished form, no less poignant stories, like this, these, the Holy Book everybody admired it, why, why, why ...
... And the word of the Lord Jonah the second time, saying, Arise, go Nineveh, that great city, and in it the preaching that I bid thee ...
... For some lie, "said Francis is probably because someone inconceivable in the stock frame was responsible for the dogmatic literalism of the Bible, even though she had to find other things, other posts, valid, of course, but they were less than those of the Thousand and One night ... Nineveh was an exceeding great city of three days' journey. And Jonah began to enter the city, a day's journey, and proclaimed saying ... The magic was so subdued ... Nineveh shall be overthrown ... Magic, silly hope that the suffering of mankind based anxiety of existence, could change in a blink of an eye, in a meeting with a burning bush, in a word heard coming summer; Nobody heard the words of his soul? Did no one knew he had a soul and that soul was part of ...?... And God saw what they did, they turned from their evil way, God repented of the evil which he said that they had to do, and did not ... No, not that he was willing to admit Francisco, at least not for now, but that was what he admired about the Christ, the Messiah misrepresented: he knew that God lived in his soul, as in the soul of anyone, God was all over and the world was God, he accepted it and so wanted to teach, so he died, so did not mind dying, he did believe he, a man, the condition most commendable attitude. But Francis does not think much, but would have needed a protective father, Francisco, the only thing that could occur abruptly, was the destruction ... But it displeased Jonah exceedingly, and he was angry ...
... Life was somewhere else, his life was to write, do not stay in town working the clay with his father ... now, O Lord, I pray thee, kill me, because death is better for me than life ... His life was elsewhere, and searching delayed the start of the history and life was slipping around the edges ... E there made him a hut, and sat under it in the shade to see what the city would ... is that life was elsewhere. Nobody told you what to do or say, no one ran away, much less of God, perhaps inertia ... And the Lord God prepared a gourd ... He wanted life, writing style, the substance of his words, the reason for his thoughts he wanted to find the origin of life without realizing that in itself was life, origin, and the seed that would give continuity of the species, men seekers of life, ideas, words with any sense in any language but with respect, why not in the universal language, which was willing to take ... But God prepared a worm when the morning ... I wanted to live: in America, in Nineveh, in Atlantis, where necessary to arrive, I wanted to live ... thou well to be angry about the vine? ... Liberato wanted to live, and was willing to do anything to live, because only by living could write and write only I could live ... Much me angry, even unto death ... I felt the strength, the will and did not realize I was living and was already writing ... T uviste you pity on the gourd, in which no work .... The Maria Fioravanti was the whale's belly, its lifeline. Everyone's. The
all.
To the poor Don Guido, with two bronzes for the eyes.
... "And I will not have mercy on Nineveh I ...?
The violence of the storm was over, but the front had not been withdrawn, and still remained some lightning, distant thunder, judging by the slow and weak. When Antonio entered, Liberato stopped reading, closed his eyes ... And he began to think about it one of the substances.
Francisco Antonio moved and let sit, then he too closed his eyes and thought, thought, thought in the words of the book, he was also, in its way, a prophet, a propagandist for an idea, the materialization of an idea that he recanted the ideas he was the voice guidance of leaders rejecting dogma and guides, as he was the other, the man was still there somewhere else, thinking that their words were also like those prophecies, and that they might not be met. I hated this fear and so I refused. Knew and refused, because he was a prophet, and prophets can not guess or invent or directed, or misrepresented or speculated, the true prophets said of an inevitable future. Jonah was not a prophet, was a poor fool, a liar who invented God to conceal his error. Nineveh was not destroyed Nineveh was not destroyed Nineveh was not destroyed, and please, nobody asked you to believe in the bellies of whales, or ...
- And your nephew? - Antonio distracted him.
- was not with you in the hood?
-No.
- Julian!
Francisco ran out of the cabin. Antonio, now leaning back, looked at Lucius as asking his fellow "and that, what bug bit him?" Lucio opened her eyes and deepened his gesture of nothing, which implied, "What should I know? Liberato, equally puzzled, hesitated between staying or leaving lying on deck shrugged his shoulders and stood, returned the book to Giovanni. Giovanni received the Bible, still enthralled with the story just heard. No, not with history but with the voice I had imagined reading it, the story itself, for he had no more sense than a man to whom God entrusted with a task and, sooner or later, by hook or by crook, will comply, but later results are inconsistent with the reasonable to the task, and end up facing the unknowable God ... For him, it made more sense ... and it was absurd, coming from him, a layman. Preferred to evoke the other voice but think in history, think of Mary more than God. Mary was, after all, the motive of his life, his moment of that trip he undertook to fulfill a dream itself, it is true, but a dream to be met if he wanted Maria to be happy. How happy could make his own if he was not happy before? How can I tell you that life was wonderful, if he was not sorry, if so many nights as Jonah prayed to God to send him death? Giovanni Maria was behind, and behind Mary, the promise of happiness. That was all. Thought so. And coming from him, it seemed absurd.
Giovanni opened the book at random and imagined in each word the voice of Mary. Liberato wondered if it could teach him to read, if you still would be time to learn. He wondered if his voice, whether the direction of his voice, if the story you narrate his voice and sense, it would be narrating voice and the meaning of Mary. Liberato "could teach him to read with the same spirit in which it was Mary? Perhaps it would have been desirable to be patient and learn from it, but it was impossible to admit their laziness, or, conversely, pretend not to see their laziness to inexperience. Mary insisted many times, and many times refused Giovanni. The same with all which inevitably had to happen, everything, absolutely everything in his life, always delayed, coming after what had had to be before, not a whim of God, but a fool rejection of Giovanni, by doubt, fear, that forced him to divert course to minor issues, or misleading, or simply circumlocution to reach the same fate that had been obtained to take the shortcut or the appropriate path, even. Always the same with everything, with every decision, delaying, denying when he had had to accept, when it should have been required to accept more. It was always, and the destination is responsible for returning it by hook or by crook, with whales or docile boats but always prosecute the work to be finished, so, like Jonah.
"The nonsense I think," he said, and kept the book at the bottom of the trunk. Lucio
lit a cigarette, this time too conscious of the words she thought as to warn that he had almost no snuff. In the darkness broken only by a faint glow of the moon, appearing shy in a gap between gray lumps, Lucio could see those words. It was not the case, but its sound, its meaning would be wrong to say he heard a voice, then, as has been said, Lucio saw that voice, and the vision was stark and disconcerting. There were pictures people, perhaps their parents, or Pietro or some other friend, but certainly that of Alma, and had the words, the vision of words, of which one was Love And from there arose the confusion. Lucio was trying to say is that he loved his wife, and said it seemed to say, and saw the voice saying it, and saw the object of words, but not sorry. He was just an observer of what is represented, moreover, so as corny and trite. Was stunned by the effort made to prove that indeed he loved, but mostly for the obvious futility of the effort. Knowing that he loved but not feel it was a slap so powerful that even the good smoke would able cushion. Such was the submission of Lucio to that day when I was at the end of the evening, during this period that was to end with a dream, a limit to the new day, unconsciously, with the cheeks, he formed a perfect circle of smoke .. . and knew no warning. The ring amounted to half of the cabin and stayed there, turning, involving a Saturn invisible, lying on the dim moonlight, oblivious to the wishes of Lucio for being an equal to it. Knowing that you love and not feel, he said, and immediately revived the image of Alma and the momentum he felt that day to meet her, and talk, to get closer, momentum, with the same momentum, disappeared behind the smoke. Was that love? If something remembered feeling was that by Alma, a feeling isolated in time and space. Perhaps the problem was there, in time and space, for a few days ago but not seen, and the real distance between them even inconceivable, Alma seemed like a dream, a mockery of their desires, their longings to marry, raise a family and procreate, Lucio felt (this I felt) it was still a boy of fifteen years of life on the edge of the road. So subtle was the love? So ethereal reason? However, Lucio knew I loved ...
The breaststroke cigarette burned his fingers; released him stifling a scream, fell just a foot, even shoes, and with the heel turned it off. It said it would be best to sleep and not think. Do not think of anything, neither in life nor in death, or the love that reason. ***
There you are, smiling, and here I am, unable to bear your anguish. Maybe not me, maybe not you. There is the way, here I am, in the middle of a path very well known, a goal that extends infinitely, as the goals must be extended, but even with all my desire, even with all my desire to reach you, I know my wings are no longer useful, that I have wasted, that I wasted forces on the ground walking. Look at my wings, are as gray as the sky, are my wings of a dove vulgar, instead you are radiant ... but cold, almost ... almost ... no, I dare say the word. I dare not, Luna.
Do you think of me? Do you expect my comfort? What to do with you, Hope? What should I do with my wings?
47 - Final