Paulina Pinsky nasceu em 1948, filha de sobreviventes do Holocausto cujas famílias – cônjuges e filhos, inclusive – foram assassinadas pelos nazistas. Teve uma infância itinerante, mudando-se da Alemanha para Israel, Itália e Bolívia, antes de finalmente se estabelecer no Brasil. Em 1967, Paulina passou um ano no Kibutz Brur Chayil e, após seu casamento (em São Paulo, em 1970) com Moises Pinsky, passou vários anos estudando e lecionando em Israel, antes de retornar ao Brasil, onde vive até hoje. . Em 1988, depois de ter passado muitos anos como professora de inglês e designer de interiores, Paulina voltou-se para a pintura em busca de realização emocional e espiritual. Sem formação, ela começou a pintar cenas simples de uma maneira refrescantemente inocente e infantil, entrando assim no mundo mágico da arte ingênua. Paulina Pinsky – uma artista indelevelmente influenciada por suas origens europeias e tradições judaicas – é a ingênua brasileira como nenhuma outra.
Dan Chill, October 2004, GINA Gallery of International Naïve Art
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Paulina Pinsky was born on 1948 to Holocaust survivors whose families – spouses and children, included – had been murdered by the Nazis. She had a peripatetic childhood, moving from Germany to Israel, Italy and Bolivia, before finally settling in Brazil. ln 1967, Paulina spent a year at Kibbutz Brur Chayil, and, after her marriage (in Sao Paulo in 1970) to Moises Pinsky, spent several years studying and teaching in Israel, before returning to Brazil, where she has been living to this day. In 1988, after having spent many years as an English teacher and an interior designer, Paulina turned to painting for emotional and spiritual fulfillment. Being without training, she began painting simple scenes in a refreshingly innocent, childlike manner, thereby entering the magical world of naïve art ln Paulina Pinsky – an artist indelibly influenced by her European origins and Jewish traditions – is the Brazilian naif like none other.
Dan Chill, October 2004, GINA Gallery of International Naïve Art
Elvira Levy Periodista y poeta. Residió durante casi veinte años fuera de su país: Barcelona y Madrid (1973 a 1986), y Jerusalén (2001 a 2007). Poeta, narradora, ensayista y crítica, coordinadora de talleres y seminarios literarios y de artes plásticas. Cofundadora de la Asoc. Prometeo de Poesía de Madrid; miembro de SEA (Sociedad de Escritoras y Escritores de Argentina) y de AIELC (Asoc. Israelí de Escritores en Lengua Castellana); miembro de jurados, panelista y participante de congresos de literatura, en los que ha presentado y publicado ponencias. Ensayos publicados: Aspectos parciales de la obra de Octavio Paz (1983, con José Luis Crespo), y Los judíos y el descubrimiento de América (1992, Premio “Jerusalem 1990/91”, con Alicia Casais. Poemarios: Eva y el espejo (1981), Crónica de una ausencia (1988), Hablando con Borges (1998), Bifurcación de la memoria (Tel-Aviv, 2005).
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Elvira Levy ArgentineJournalist and poet. She lived outside his country for almost twenty years: Barcelona and Madrid (1973 to 1986), and Jerusalem (2001 to 2007). Poet, narrator, essayist and critic, coordinator of literary and plastic arts workshops and seminars. Co-founder of the Prometeo Poetry Association of Madrid; member of SEA (Society of Writers of Argentina) and AIELC (Israeli Association of Writers in the Spanish Language); member of juries, panelist and participant in literature conferences, in which he has presented and published papers. Published essays: Partial aspects of the work of Octavio Paz (1983, with José Luis Crespo), and The Jews and the discovery of America (1992, “Jerusalem 1990/91” Prize, with Alicia Casais. Poems: Eva and the mirror ( 1981), Chronicle of an Absence (1988), Talking with Borges (1998), Bifurcation of Memory (Tel-Aviv, 2005).
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Poemas de amor y otros/Poems of love and others
Es temprano aún
Es temprano aún,
Me dicen,
y vuelvo la mirada hacia atrás
Y veo pedazos de vida
Aquí y allá, dispersos, exhaustos.
Tienes el blanco y el negro en tus manos,
me dicen,
y miro hacia delante
y una impávida oscuridad
cubre la luz tenebrosa.
Las palabras nacen y caen en el papel
sembrando frases ilusorias.
Apenas suenan en los oídos
perdieron su ritmo interno.
La música murió en el tumulto.
El aroma de la flor se extravió
en el laberinto de las especias.
Mas es temprano aún,
me dicen,
y crece la incertidumbre
ante las horas que llegan.
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It is Still Early
It is still early,
they tell me,
and see pieces of life,
here and there, scattered, exhausted.
You have black and white in your hands,
they tell me,
and I look forward,
and an unflinching darkness
covers the tremulous light.
Words are born and fall on the paper
sowing illusory phrases.
They barely sound in your ears:
They have lost their internal rhythm.
The music died in the tumult.
The flowers aroma got lost
in the labyrinth of spices.
But it is still early,
they tell me,
and uncertainty grows
before the approaching hours.
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Paulatinamente
Paulatinamente,,
el amor nace,
crece en mí.
Al fin estalla,
Rebasa los límites de mis manos
Mas, inútil fruta madura,
Queda en mí.
La soledad vela fuegos insomnes.
Y así pertenezco,
con la constante tristeza del presente,
aguardando un gesto, un llamado.
Oh si fuera capaz
mataría el amor,
las palabras que siguen vibrando,
volvería a la luz.
Pero no,
desde la inquietud de las sombras,
Desde la impotencia de nacida del todo,
aún espero.
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Gradually
Gradually,
Love is born,
it grow in me.
Finally it explodes,
exeeeds the limits of my hands
but, unless ripe fruit,
remains with me.
Loneliness watches over the sleepless fires.
And so I remain,
with the constant sadness of the protest,
awaiting a gesture, a summons.
Oh if I were able
I would slay love,
in the words which continue vibrating,
I would return to the light.
But no,
from the restlessness of shadows,
from the impotence born of reality,
still I hope.
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La blanca ausencia
Y aquí también esa desconocida
y ansiosa y breve cosa que es la vida.
Jorge Luis Borges
Rápida,
ferozmente,
un monstruo de metal
destruyó tu vida.
Y allá, en el Sur,
en una calle de Buenos Aires,
comenzó a florecer
la blanca ausencia.
La lluvia cayó sobre la ciudad.
La tristeza empapó la tierra,
rodó por las avenidas,
llegó a los ojos.
Se perdieron nuestros pasos en el camino
y vos,
te quedaste sola en un campo de verde silencio.
Multitud de hojas empezaron
a borrar la huella de tu cuerpo,
mientras sólo crecían lágrimas entre la hierba.
Y vinieron las horas,
las sombras sobre las sombras,
los rumores se extendieron,
la luz abrió de nuevas sus alas:
La vida recobró la muerte
tendida en el asfalto.
Todo eso sucedió,
hermana,
pero aún continúa lloviendo en Buenos Aires.
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The White Absence
Y aquí también esa desconocida
y ansiosa y breve cosa que es la vida.
Jorge Luis Borges
Rapidly,
ferociously,
a monster of metal
destroyed your life.
And there, in the South,
on a Buenos Aires Street.
the white absence began to flourish.
The rain fell on the city.
Sadness soaked the dirt,
rolled down the avenues,
arrived at the eyes.
Our steps were lost along the way,
and you,
stayed alone in a field of green silence.
A multitude of leaves began
to erase the traces of your body,
while only tears grew between the grass.
And the hours came,
the shadows on the shadows,
the sounds spread out,
the light opened its wings again:
Life recovered death
Stretched out on the asphalt.
All that happened,
sister,
but it still goes on raining in Buenos Aires.
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Tienes miedo de mí
y huyes.
Conmovido, penetras en la lógica de las telarañas.
Ya no existo en ti.
Sin embargo,
¿quién mecerá tus noches vacías de olvido?
¿Quién oirá la música
que nace del incendio de tu carne?
¿Quién te dará más vida
que mi misma vida?
Un silencio iracundo te rodea,
corroe los hambrientos pasadizos de la ausencia,
los anillos perdidos renacen en tus dedos.
Tu cuerpo arde. Se quemará
sin que nadie presencie el esplendor de las llamas.
Entonces,
¿quién saciará tu sed,
después de apagar la hoguera?
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You Fear Me
And you flee.
Moved, you penetrate the logic of the spider webs.
I no longer exist in you.
Nevertheless,
who will rock your nights empty of forgetting?
Who will hear the music
that is born in the fire of your flesh?
Who will give you more life
than my life itself?
An angry silence surrounds you,
corrodes the hunger passageways of the absence,
the lost rings are reborn on your fingers.
Your body burns. It will be burnt,
without anyone witnessing the splendor of the flames.
Then,
who will satiate your thirst,
after extinguishing the bonfire.
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Poema Preliminar
Ayer viajé a Egipto y me dirigí a la corte del faraón.
Allí pedí hablar con José y, postrándome ante él,
urgí que interpretara mis sueños,
mas como le habían cortado las orejas,
no pudo oírme.
Sólo alcanzó a ver el insomnio en mis ojos.
Fue entonces que me preguntó:
“¿Por qué la vigilia de tus noches?,¿cuáles son tus secretos?,
¿por qué deliras por las naves que se alejan?,
¿por qué aún sientes el cosquilleo de una hormiga en tus manos?
Tal vez hay algo diminuto en el aire que te perturba:
¿Una mota de polvo?,¿una gota de lluvia?,¿un murmullo?
Dime ¿te atreverás a buscar las respuestas?
Recuerda que Aleppo está cerca.
Y tus ancestros podrían ayudarte en la búsqueda,
y cuando el insomnio te abandone,
sueña, sueña…
Recuerda que alguien dijo:
De toda la memoria sólo vale
el don preclaro de evocar los sueños.”
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Preliminary Poem
Yesterday, I travelled to Egypt, and I went directly to Pharoah’s Court.
There I asked to speak with Joseph and prostrating myself before him,
I pressed him to interpret my dreams.
However, as they had cut off his ears,
he couldn’t hear me.
he only was able to see the insomnia in my eyes.
It was then, that he asked me:
“Why do you make vigil at night? What are your secrets?
Why do you rave for the ships that go away?
Why do you still feel the tickling of a bug in your hands?
There is something very small thing in the air that perturbs you:
A speck of dust? A drop of rain? A murmur?
Tell me: do you dare to seek the answers?
Remember that Aleppo is nearby.
And your ancestors would be able to help in your search,
And when insomnia abandons you,
Sleep, sleep…
Remember that someone said:
Of all memory is only valuable
The illustrious gift to evoke dreams.”
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El cardón
(Trichocereus Terschecckii)
Yo, cactus, ocre vegetal que anida en los cerros, me declaro inocente.
Perdón por mi apariencia. No tengo voz ni voto para decir al mundo que mis espinas ocultan albor y ternura. Crecí en soledad como la piedra y el hombre. Entre zozobras y la emoción de ser amado intenté sembrar hallazgos, y solamente obtuve ausencias.
Perdón por mi apariencia. Abran mi pecho. ¡Miren la flor que brota de mi tronco, mis brazos que se elevan a Dios!
(La lluvia me ha olvidado. Un día se asomó y me enamoré de ella.)
Yo, cactus, seco ermitaño de sierras y quebradas, sé que la ciudad de luz y colores desdeñosamente me observa, poseedora de lluvia.
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The Large Cardon Cactus
(Trichocereus Terschecckii)
I, cactus,
vegetable ocher, rare in the mountains.
declare myself innocent.
Excuse me for my appearance.
I don’t have even a voice nor a vote to say to the world,
that my spines hide dawn and tenderness.
I grew in solitude,
like rock and man.
Between anxieties
and the emotion of being loved,
I intended to plant discoveries,
and I only obtained absences.
Excuse my appearance.
Open my chest.
Look at the flower that sprouts from my trunk,
My arms that raise themselves to God!
(Rain had forgotten me.
One day it appeared, and I fell in love with it.)
I, cactus,
dry hermit of mountains and gorges,
I know that the city of light and colors
observes me with distain,
possessor of rain.
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La pasión de creer en un destino único
La pasión de creer en un destino único
ángulo verdesur de la tierra-
cambió por crueldad
La inocencia de un pueblo.
La risa se convirtió en muecas.
El óxido corrompió
el brillo de los eslabones.
Negra cadena que enlutó su historia
porque crecieron apetitos
y vientos siniestros soplaron
desde el poder y las calles.
Tánatos venció a Eros.
La avidez de los hombres coronó la muerte.
¿Cuándo se inició el espanto?
¿Los días breves, el soliloquio?
¿Cuándo volverá a sonreír el poeta,
transformando el aire?
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The passion of believing in a unique destiny
The passion of believing in a unique destiny-
Green-south angle of the earth-
changed by cruelty
the innocence of a people.
Laughter changed into grimaces.
The rust corrupted
The brilliance of the steps.
Black chain that grieved its history
Because appetites grew and winds blew
From powder and the streets.
Thanatos defeated Eros.
The avidness of men crowned death.
When was shock initiated?
The brief days, the soliloquy?
When will the poet smile again,
transforming art.
Translations by Stephen A. Sadow
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Poemarios de Elvira Levy/Poetry Books by Elvira Levy
Víctor Perera, escritor guatemalteco. Nacido en Guatemala de padres judíos sefardíes que habían emigrado de Jerusalén, Perera emigró a los Estados Unidos a los doce años. Educado en Brooklyn College (B.A., 1956) y en la Universidad de Michigan (M.A., 1958), se convirtió en reportero, escritor y editor del New Yorker, New York Times Magazine, Atlantic, Harper’s y muchas otras revistas. Sus artículos, cuentos y ensayos, que a menudo tratan sobre América Latina y temas judíos, se destacan por su sensibilidad y perspicacia. A su primera novela, La conversión (1970), le siguieron obras de no ficción, entre ellas Los últimos señores de Palenque: los mayas lacandones de la selva tropical mexicana (con Robert D. Bruce, 1982), Ritos: una niñez guatemalteca (1986), y Promesas rotas: la tragedia guatemalteca (1991). Recibió la beca de escritura creativa NEA (1980), el premio de ficción sindicado PEN (1986) y el premio de escritura Lila Wallace-Reader’s Digest Fund (1992–94). Su último proyecto fue un libro sobre ballenas. Sufrió un derrame cerebral en 1998 y nunca se recuperó por completo.
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Víctor Perera, Guatemalan writer. Born in Guatemala to Sephardic Jewish parents who had emigrated from Jerusalem, Perera immigrated to the United States at age twelve. Educated at Brooklyn College (B.A., 1956) and the University of Michigan (M.A., 1958), he became a reporter, writer, and editor for the New Yorker, New York Times Magazine, Atlantic, Harper’s, and many other magazines. His articles, stories and essays, which often deal with Latin America and Jewish themes, are noted for their sensitivity and insight. His first novel, The Conversion (1970), was followed by nonfiction works, including The Last Lords of Palenque: The Lacandon Maya of the Mexican Rainforest (with Robert D. Bruce, 1982), Rites: A Guatemalan Childhood (1986), and Broken Promises: The Guatemalan Tragedy (1991). He received the NEA Creative Writing Fellowship (1980), the PEN Syndicated Fiction Award (1986), and the Lila Wallace-Reader’s Digest Fund Writing Award (1992–94). His last project was a book about whales. He suffered a stroke in 1998 and never fully recovered.
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From: Rites: A Guatemalan Boyhood. San Francisco: Mercury House, 1996.
Este capítulo fue escrito en inglés. Por eso, aparece primero/This chapter was written in English. That is the reason it appears first.
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“Mar Abramowitz”
Soon after my tenth birthday, Rabbi Toledano warned Father that he had neglected my religious education and said that I was in danger of growing up a godless heathen. Alarmed, Father looked up from his ledgers and registers and say that Rabbi Toledano was right. His first-born and only son, three short years from Bar Mitzvah, could not read a word of Scripture. This was hardly my fault. Our lingual tender at home was a secular hash of native slang and Ladino Spanish: “Manga tu okra, ishto: ‘scapa ya tus desmodres” (Eat your okra, animal, enough of your foolishness). Hebrew was for off-color jokes and adult secrets.
Father’s alarm grew when he learned that his only male heir was a renegade who stole visits inside the cathedral, whose best friend was a mestizo goy of scant scholastic attainments—a male heir, furthermore, who gaped imbecility when you quoted Talmud at him or asked him to recite the Commandments.
Father’s first step was to teach me a Hebrew prayer that I was to repeat every night before retiring. The second was more drastic. After years of getting by as three-holiday Jews, we began to observing Sabbath. At dusk on Friday evenings, Father took me to the synagogue, where he tried to teach me my Aleph-Bet. But his patience was short, and his mind would drift continually to business matters. If I did not pronounce the strange syllables on my second or third attempt, he would snap his prayer shawl in my face or slam the book shut, which instantly slammed my mind shut and turned my tongue to lead. After a half-dozen lessons, I succeeded in memorizing the blessing to the Torah, which ends: “Baruch attah Adonai, noten hatorah” (Blessed art Thou, oh Lord, who giveth the Torah). On the following Sabbath Rabbi Toledano called me to the altar and I recited the blessing before and after, pretending to read a passage from the scroll, moving my lips to Rabbi Toledano’s words like a ventriloquist’s dummy.
Father’s lessons lasted only through Yom Kippur, after which the Christmas rush set in and he had to be in the store late on Friday evenings and all day on Saturdays. He gave up trying to teach me himself and engaged for my religious a Polish war refugee, Mar Israel Abramowitz.
Mar Abramowitz did not attend service in our temple. With a dozen or so Ashkenazi refugees from Eastern Europe, he worshiped in a tiny downtown loft that was said, by those who had never been inside it, to smell of rancid butter and pickled herring. Only on the High Holidays were the Poles and the Litvaks allowed to defile out synagogue, and they had to sit toward the rear, next to the women.
Although I did not learn Hebrew for another two years, I was very early inculcated with the gospel of the Sephardic caste. If all other Jews were Chosen, we were the Elect. We Sephardim were sole heirs to a remote but glorious Golden Age whose legacy we could batten on, without any effort on our part, until of the Day of Judgment. At the end of the Golden Age, we had nobly suffered the Inquisition, which resulted in the Expulsion from Spain and resettlement in a place called Diaspora. One day we would all reunite in the Promised Land, Eretz Israel, and begin an even more glorious second Golden Age, with God’s blessing.
My earliest remembered “proof” of our legacy cam at Yom Kippur. Toward the middle of the liturgy, before the blowing of the ram’s horn that signaled God’s presence among us. Two men were summoned to the Ark: chin-less, rail-thin Eliezar Cohen, a failure at business, and fat, famously hen-pecked Sholomo Kahan, whose names identified them as the priestly elite, first prayed in unison before the Ark. At a signal from Rabbi Toledano, they draped their prayer shawls over their homburgs and turned to the congregation faceless. They were instantly transformed into hieratic mummers, impersonators of God’s mystery, as they swayed from side to side with both arms raised, chanting His words in antiphonal responses.
Of course, it never occurred to me that Ashkenazim might have their own Cohens and Kahans to communicate God’s blessing.
Mar Israel Abramowitz had been a successful lawyer in Warsaw before the Nazis came. Father said that he had spent years in a concentration camp, but Mar Abramowitz did not talk of this, and I never thought to ask him. I was not at all certain what a concentration camp was, and I had no special curiosity to find out. I only knew that it was a place where Jews suffered.
Suffering seemed to be Mar Abramowitz’s chief occupation. He was a thick-set man in his middle fifties, with tufts of gray hair at either side of a squarish head. His bifocal glasses magnified a hollow look of grief in his eyes. His breath stank most of the time; nearly all his remaining teeth were black stumps. He had an ingrown right thumbnail, which he continually stroked. It was several sessions before I understood the sighs and moans punctuating our lessons had no connection to me.
Mar Abramowitz managed to teach me enough Aleph-Bet so I could read a little Hebrew, but his suffering got the better of him before we could start on comprehension. I soon learned to take advantage of his infirmity. If his breath smelled especially rank and he stroked his nail more than usual, I knew I could get out of doing the drills and coax him into telling Bible stories instead. I liked these exotic tales, which Mar Abramowitz delivered with a heavy Slavic accent and his usual grieved expression. As soon as he got into them, however, his eyes would soften and he would grow almost eloquent, despite his poor Spanish. The Old Testament stories seemed to ease his suffering as much as they enhanced my tonic sense of truancy from serious study.
I my youthful wisdom, I knew they were mostly fables. I lent no more credence to a talking snake, the burning bush, the parting of the Red Sea than I gave the prince who turned into a frog, or to Billy Batson’ instant metamorphosis into Captain Marvel with the magical word Shazam. The fighting and the killing, on the other hand, I understood perfectly: David and Goliath, Holofernes and Judith, the Canaanites, and the Babylonians, these made eminent sense. The battle between the forces of good and evil, as I realized and Kit Carson and Buck Rogers and President Roosevelt, I realized was unending—and part of man’s natural estate.
There was a custom on our temple of auctioning of ritual honors on the High Holidays. Rabbi Toledano or his sexton would pass up and down the aisles, chanting the bids aloud in Hebrew (while keeping the score on the fringes of his shawl) so they sounded to my ears indistinguishable from the liturgy: “I have thirty-five to open the Ark from Isaac Sultan in praise of the Lord…Forty…forth-five from Lázaro Sabbaj in praise of the Lord bids fifty qetezalim to open the Ark in praise of the Lord, blessed be his Name…”
On Simchat Torah, in reward for the scant Hebrew phrases Mar Abramowitz had dinned to my head, Father brought me the bearing of the Scroll from Ark to the Bimah. I crept along the aisle with the red velvet Torah—junior size—hugged to my chest as the worshipers crowed around to kiss it. The Scroll was weighed down with a chased shield, chains, silver horn, and other ornaments, each separately bid for by the congregation. My fear of dropping the Torah and profaning the Holy Scripture caused my feet to throb inside corrective boots I wore for fallen arches.
My performance of this ceremonial honor evidentlyassuaged Father’s conscious, for he never bought me another.
One week Mar Abramowitz if noy did not show up for our lesson, because Mother said he wasn’t feeling well. (She used the Ladino hazino to dignify his unwellness.) But I guessed ha was only suffering. I pictured him crouched in a corner of his room, breathing his foul breath, stroking his ingrown toe bail, the grief-stricken sunk deeper than ever in their sockets. He failed to come the following week and the week after that. When he finally arrived, I hardly recognized him. He had shrunk from a corpulent middle-aged man to a wizened gnome. The sag of his shoulders inside the loose-fitting jacket gave him the derelict look of a tramp. Only his sunken black eyes had life. The bifocals exaggerated what I recognized even though as the haunted, pinpoint gleam of madness.
Mar Abramowitz had come to excuse himself that he could no longer keep up my lessons because of his illness. His apology was rambling and disconnected and went on long after Mother assured him that she quite understood, and he was forgiven. Then, to my immense shame, Mar Abramowitz began to moan and cry aloud, right in our hallway, so that the sounds reverberated throughout the house. Mother fetched her handbag and placed int Mar Abramowitz’s bony hand a folded bill. Brushing his eyes, he executed a courtly bow, pocketed the bill, and kissed Mother’s hand before he shuffled out the door.
Three years later, on returning from the States, we learned that Mar Abramowitz had hanged himself.
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Mar Abramowitz
Poco después de mi decimo cumpleaños, el rabino Musan advirtió a papá que su descuido de mi formación religiosa amenazaba con convertirme en un hereje ateo. Alarmado, papá alzó la mirada de sus registros e inventarios y comprobó que el rabino tiene razón. Su primogénito y único hijo varón, a tres años de bar-mitzvah no sabía leer una sola palabra de Torah. Esto no era del todo culpa mía. Nuestro medio de comunicación hogareño era una olla podrida de vernáculo indígena y judeo-español: “Mangia tu okra, isto: escapa ya tus desmodres”, gritaba mamá”, siendo ésta una de sus idiosincrasias que me inculcaba con gestos amenazantes. (“La letra con sangre entra” reza uno de los dichos consagradas por nuestros ancestros.) En casa, el hebreo lo usaban mis Papás para chistes sucios y secretos entre ellos.
La alarma de Papá creció al enterarse que su único hijo heredero varón era un renuente que se colocaba clandestinamente en la catedral; cuyo mejor amigo era un goy mestizo de escasos méritos académicos—un heredero varón, para colmo. Que le miraba boquiabierto como un imbécil cuando le citaban el Talmud o le pedían que recitara los diez mandamientos.
La primera medida que tomó Papá fue de enseñarme una oración en hebreo que yo debía recitar cada noche antes de acostarme. La segunda medida fue más drástica. Tras años de identificarnos como “judíos de las tres fiestas” comenzamos a celebrar Shabbat. Los viernes en la tarde al ponerse el sol, Papá me llevaba a la sinagoga, donde pretendía enseñarme el aleph-bet. Pero él no derrochaba demasiada paciencia conmigo y su atención acababa por desviarse hacia asuntos de la tienda. Si yo no pronunciaba las sílabas extrañas con exactitud en mi segundo o tercero intento él me rozaba las narices con la punta de su talit o cerraba el libro violentamente, lo cual cerraba mi cerebro con cual violencia y me emplomaba la lengua. Después de cinco o seis sesiones logré memorizar el rezo al Torah que concluye: “Baruch attah Adonai noten hatorah” (Bendito seas Señor que nos das el Torah). El Shabbat siguiente el rabino Musan me llamó al bimah y recité la bendición antes y después de fingir leer un trozo del Torah, moviendo mis labios síncronamente con los del rabino como muñeco del ventrílocuo.
Las lecciones de Papá duraban solamente hasta Yom Kippur, cuando los inventarios prenavideños lo obligaron quedarse en la tienda los viernes y el día entero del sábado. Papá renunció a enseñarme personalmente y contrató para mi instrucción religiosa a un refugiado de guerra Mar Israel Abramowitz.
Mar Abramowitz no asistía a los servicios de nuestro templo. Él y una docena de correligionarios askenazíes de Europa Oriental rezaban en una pequeña galería citadina de la cual se rumoraba, por personas que nunca habían entrado en ella, que olía a mantequilla rancia y arenque curtido. Únicamente durante las fiestas importantes se permitía a los polacos y los litvaks acudir a nuestra sinagoga, además se les obligaba a sentarse detrás de las mujeres.
Aunque no aprendí hebreo hasta que pasaron otros ocho años, de muy niños fui instruido en el evangelio de la casta sefardí. Si todos los judíos eran electos, éramos la élite de los electos. Nosotros los sefardíes éramos herederos únicos de una lejana pero gloriosa Edad de Oro, de cuyo legado podíamos alimentarnos, sin mejor esfuerzo de nuestra parte, hasta el día del Juicio Fina. Al final de la Edad de Oro habíamos sufrido con insigne nobleza la Inquisición, que culminó con la Expulsión y nuestro consiguiente reasentamiento en un lugar llamado la Diáspora. En un día ya señalado habíamos de reunirnos todos en la tierra santa, Eretz Israel, donde emprenderíamos nuestra segunda y aún más gloriosa Edad de Oro, con la bendición de Dios.
La primera prueba primicia de nuestro legado se manifiesta durante Yom Kippur. En el momento álgido de la liturgia, poco antes de que sonaron el shofar o cuerno de carnero que indicaba la presencia de Dios entre nosotros, dos congregantes comparecían delante del Arca: el flaquísimo y sin-quijada Eliezar Cohen, y el gordo famosamente cornudo Shlomo Kahan, cuyos patronímicos los identificaron como miembros de la élite sacerdotal, empezaban rezando en voz delante del Arca. A la señal del rabino los dos hombres se cubrían los sombreros con sus talit o mantos de rezo y se enfrentaban a la congregación con rostros tapados. Al instante se transformaban en intermedios sacerdotales, encarnaciones vivientes del misterio de Dios; meciéndose al unísono con los brazos enarbolados, recitaban las palabras de Adonai en frases sonoras y altisonantes.
Por supuesto, jamás se me ocurrió que los Ashkenazim pudieran hacer gala de sus propios Cohens y Kahans para comunicar la bendición de Dios.
Mar Israel Abramowitz había sido un abogado exitoso en Varsovia antes de que fuera invadida por las Nazis. Papá dijo que había estado en un campo de concentración, pero Mar Abramowitz evitaba mencionar este tema y nunca se me ocurrió preguntarle. Yo no estaba del todo seguro de qué era un campo de concentración, y me flaqueaba la curiosidad de averiguarlo. Lo que sí sabía es que se trataba de un lugar donde los judíos sufrían.
El sufrimiento parecía ser la vocación primordial de Mar Abramowitz. Era un hombre grueso y cincuentón, con penachos blancos a ambos lados de su cabeza cuadrada y calva. Lentes gruesos de doble enfoque magnificaban sus ojos negros y brillantes de penitente angustiados. Su hálito era maloliente la mayoría de las veces, y su dentadura de apariencia negruzca y deforme. Además, Mar Abramowitz no cesaba de sobarse la uña de su pulgar derecho. Transcurrieron varias semanas antes de convencerme de que los gemidos y suspiros que marcaban sus lecciones no tenían nada que ver conmigo.
Mar Abramowitz logró aleccionarme en el Aleph-bet hasta que pude leer algo de Las Escrituras, pero su sufrimiento se apoderó de él antes de iniciarme en la comprensión. No tardé en aprender a tomar ventaja de sus vulnerabilidades. Si su hálito hedía más que de lo usual y se sobaba la uña del pulgar sin cesar, yo sabía que podía zafarme de los ejercicios y persuadirlo que en su lugar me contase historias de la Biblia. Me gustaban estos cuentos exóticos que Mar Abramowitz pronunciaba con su acento eslávico y su aspecto trágico y afligido. Según se adentraba en el tema, sin embargo, sus ojos amansaban y su voz crecía en elocuencia a pesar de su castellano escaso. Las historias del Antiguo Testamento evidentemente mitigaban su sufrimiento a la vez que alimentaban mi afán de delincuente al saberme absuelto de estudiar en serio.
Como joven sagaz que yo mismo me consideraba, reconocía que la Biblia trataba mayormente de fábulas. No le prestabas ni más ni menos credibilidad una serpiente que hable con la gente, o a un arbusto que arde espontáneamente o a un Mar Rojo cuyas aguas se dividen para dar paso a los israelitas, de la que prestaría al príncipe que se convirtió en sapo o a un Billy Batson capaz de transmutarse en el Capitán Maravilla con la simple mención del rubro mágico “Shazam”.
Las guerras y matanzas, por lo contrario, no necesitaban de racionalización alguna. David y Goliat, Holofernes y Judit, las canaanitas y los babilonios, todos ellos me resultaron perfectamente comprensibles. Las batallas encarnizadas entre las fuerzas del bien y del mal—esto era algo que sabía igual que lo sabían Tarzán y Kit Carson y Buck Rogers y lo reconocía nada menos que el Presidente Roosevelt—eran interminables, pues pertenecen al legado primordial de la raza humana.
Existía la costumbre de nuestro templo de hacer subasta de los honores rituales durante las fiestas altas. El rabino Musan o su asistente se pasaban por los pasillos, recitando las ofertas en hebreo—y llevando la cuenta con las hebras de su talit—de manera que a duras penas se diferenciaban de las sílabas litúrgicas: “Tengo treinta y cinco para abrir el Arca de nombre de Isaac Sultán en bendición del Señor…cuarenta…cuarenta y cinco de Lázaro Sabbaj en bendición del Señor. Shemuel Benchom ofrece cincuenta quezalim para abrir las puertas del Arca en bendición del Señor sea su Nombre…”
Para Simjat Torah, en recompensa por las escasas frases de hebreo que Mar Abramowitz logró implantarme en el cerebro sin pena ni sangre, Papá me compró el honor de transportar el Torah desde el Arca hasta la Bimah, o Altar. Me deslice por los pasillos del temple con el pergamino forrado de terciopelo rojo aplastado contra el pecho co un escudo acanalado, cadenas de plata y otros ornamentos pagados por miembros de la congregación. Mi temor atroz de dejar caer el Torah y profanar la Escritura Sagrada me hacían temblar los pies dentro de las botas ortopedas que usaba para corregir mis plantas planas.
Mi complemento de este honor ceremonial evidentemente calmó la conciencia de Papá, pues resultó el único que me compró.
La semana siguiente Mar Abramowitz faltó a nuestra lección porque—según me dijo Mamá—no se sentía bien. (Ella usó el modismo judeo-español “hazino” para dignificar su padecimiento.) Pero yo adiviné que de lo único que padecía era de sufrimiento. Lo imaginé acurrucado en un rincón de su habitación, exhalando su hálito maloliente y sobándose la uña del dedo pulgar. Los ojos angustiados hundidos en las cuencas. Mar Abramowitz tampoco se presentó la semana siguiente ni la que seguía. Cuando al fin compareció, apenas lo reconocí. Se había transformado fe hombre corpulento y maduro en un anciano encorvado. Los hombros caídos por debajo de su chaqueta mal tallada le deban el aspecto abandonado de un mendigo. El único rasgo de ser viviente estaba en el brillo de sus ojos negros y consumidos. Los lentes de doble enfoque exageraban lo que supe identificar aún entonces como la mirada fulgurante y fantasmal de un demente.
Mar Abramowitz había venido a excusarse por no poder continuar nuestras lecciones debido a su enfermedad. Sus excusas eran incoherentes y se prolongaban aún después de que Mamá le aseguraba que comprendía perfectamente y que lo había disculpado. De repente, Mar Abramowitz empezó a gemir y llorar en voz alta en medio de nuestra antesala, causando reverberaciones en toda la casa que me llenaron de congoja. Mamá buscó su cartera y puso en la mano húmeda y huesuda de Mar Abramowitz un billete plegado en cuatro. Restregándose los ojos se embolsó el billete, inclinándose para besar la mano de Mamá antes de dar la vuelta y salir a la calle con su paso lento y encorvado.
Tres años más tarde, al regresar de un viaje a los Estados Unidos, supimos que Mar Abramowitz se ha degollado.
Aclamado como um pioneiro da moderna literatura judaico-brasileira, Samuel Rawet escreveu contos e romances que exploraram temas de alienação e deslocamento. Nascido perto de Varsóvia, na Polónia, Rawet fez do Brasil, país católico romano, o seu lar adoptivo, mas a sua escrita revela um forte sentido de alteridade dentro desta sociedade mais ampla. Rawet mudou-se para o Brasil aos sete anos. Engenheiro formado, morou no Rio de Janeiro até 1957, quando se mudou para a nova capital nacional, Brasília, para ajudar a projetar e construir sua infraestrutura. Sua vida foi isolada; o escritor morava sozinho e raramente viajava. Sua primeira coletânea de contos, Contos do Imigrante, é considerada um marco. As histórias de Rawet não apenas introduzem temas da experiência judaica no Brasil, mas também usam esses temas para desafiar a ideia comum do Brasil, ou mesmo de toda a América Latina, como uma entidade cultural única. Como observou seu tradutor inglês Nelson H. Vieira, ” Rawet” questiona o comportamento demonstrado em relação a alguns ‘outros étnicos’, que não refletem a cultura predominantemente cristã do Brasil e seus costumes tradicionais. Em outras palavras, no nível estrutural profundo, as histórias de Rawet abordam as dificuldades de conciliar as crenças e a cultura judaicas com as normas nacionalistas e culturais brasileiras.”
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Hailed as a pioneer of modern Brazilian-Jewish literature, Samuel Rawet wrote short stories and novellas that explored themes of alienation and displacement. Born near Warsaw, Poland, Rawet made the Roman Catholic country of Brazil his adopted home, yet his writing reveals a strong sense of otherness within this larger society. Rawet moved to Brazil at age seven. Trained as an engineer, he lived in Rio de Janeiro until 1957, when he moved to the new national capital, Brasilia, to help design and build its infrastructure. His life was isolated; the writer lived alone and rarely traveled. His first collection of stories, Contos do imigrante, is considered a landmark. Rawet’s stories not only introduce themes of Jewish experience in Brazil, but also use those themes to challenge the common idea of Brazil, or even all of Latin America, as a single cultural entity.As his English translator Nelson H. Vieira noted” Rawet “questions the behavior shown toward some ‘ethnic others,’ who do not reflect Brazil’s predominantly Christian culture and its traditional mores. In other words, on the deep structural level, Rawet’s stories address the difficulties of reconciling Jewish beliefs and culture with Brazilian nationalist and cultural norms.”
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“O Profeta“
Toda as ilusões perdidas, só lhe restara mesmo aquele gesto. Suspenso já o passadiço, e tendo soado o último apito, o vapor levantaria a âncora. Olhou de novo os guindastes meneando fardos, os montes de minérios. Lá embaixo correrias e fugas estranhas. Pescoçoa estirados em gritos para os que o rodeavam no parapeito do convés. Lenços. De longe o buzinar de automóveis a denunciar a vida que continuava na cidade que estava agora abandonando. Pouco lhe importavam os olhares zombeteiros de alguns. Em outra ocasião sentir-se-ia magoa do. Compreendera que a barba branca e o capotáo além do joelho compunham urna figura estranha para eles. Acostumara-se. Agora mesmo ririam da magra figura toda negra, exceto o rosto, a barba e as mios mais brancas ainda. Ninguém ousava, entretanto, o desafio com os olhos que impunham respeito e confiavam um certo ar majestoso ao conjunto. Relutou com os punhos trançados na remora a fuga de seu interior da serenidade que até ali o trouxera. Ao apito surdo teve consciência plena da solidei-o em que mergulhava. O retomo, única saída que encontrara, afigurava-se lhe vazio e inconsequente. Pensou, no momento de hesitação, ter agido como criança. A ideia que se fora agigantando nos últimos tempos e que culminara com a sua presença no convés tinha receio de vela esboroada no instante de dúvida O medo da solidão aterrava-o mais pela experiencia a querida no contacto diário coma morte. Em tempo ainda de em o passadio, por favor, de em!…
A figura gorda da mulher a seu lado girou ao ouvi ou ao julgar ouvir, as palavras do velho.
-O senhor falou comigo?
Inútil. A barreira da língua, sabia-o, não ilhe permitiria mais nada. O rosto da mulher desfigurou-se com a negativa e os olhos de súplica do velho. Com exceção o recurso mesmo seria a mímica e isso! hei acentuar a inutilidade que o dominava. S6 então percebeu que murmurara a frase, e envergonhado fechou os olhos.
-Minha mulher, meus filhos, meu genro.
Aturdido mirava o grupo que ia abrasando e beijado, grupo estranho (mesmo o irmão e os primos, na fossem as fotografias remetidas antes ser-lhe-iam estranhos, também), e as lágrimas que então rolaram não e de ternura, mas gratidão. Os mais velhos conheceram-no. quando crianças. O próprio irmão havia trinta anos e pouco mais que um adolescente. Aqui se casara, tive filhos e filhas, e casara a filha também. Nem recolhido as molas macias do carro que o genro guiava cessaram de correr as lágrimas. As perguntas em assalto respondiam com gestos, meias-palavras, ou então com o silencio. O corpo magro, mas rijo, que apesar da idade produzira trabalho, e garantira sua vida, oscilava com as hei situações do tráfego, e a vista nenhuma vez procurou paisagem. Mas parecia concentrar-se como que respondendo a avalanche de ternura. O que! hei ia por dentro seria impossível transmitir no contacto superficial que iniciava agora. Deduziu que seus silêncios eram constrangedores. Os silêncios que se sucedi aquesto rio sobre si mesmo, sobre o que mais terrível experimentara. Esquecer o acontecido, nunca. Mas como amesquinhá-lo, tirar-lhe a essência do horror ante urna mesa bem-posta, ou um chá tomado entre finas almofadas e macias poltronas? Os olhos ávidos e inquiridores que O rodeavam não teriam ouvido e visto bastante para também se horrorizarem e com ele participar dos silêncios? Um mundo só. Supunha encontrar aquém-mar 0 conforto dos que como ele haviam sofrido, mas que0 acaso pusera, marginalmente, a salvo do pior. E conscientes disso partilhariam com ele em humildade o encontro. Vislumbrou, porém, um ligeiro engano-o apartamento ocupado pelo irmão ficava no último andar do prédio. A varanda aberta para o mar recebia a noite o choque das ondas com mais furor que de dia. Ali gostava de sentar-se (voltando da sinagoga após a prece noturna) com o sobrinho-neto no colo a balbuciarem ambas as coisas não sabidas. Os dedos da criança embarcavam-se na barba e as vezes tenteavam com forca urna ou outra mecha. Esfregava então seu nariz duro ao. arredondado e cartilaginoso e riam ambos um riso solto e sem intenções. Entretinham-se até a hora em que o irmão voltava e iam jantas.
Nas primeiras semanas houve alvoroce o e muitas casas a percorrer, muitas mesas em que comer, e em todas revoltava-o o apecto de coisa curiosa que assurgia. Com o tempo, arrefecidos os entusiasmos e a curiosidade, ficara só com o irmão. Falar mesmo só com este ou a mulher. Os outros quase não o entendiam, nem os sobrinhos, muito menos o genro, por quem principiava a não trair antipatia.
Aí vem o “Profeta”!
Mal abrira a porta, a frase e o riso debochado de genro surpreenderam-no. Fez como se não tivesse no do o constrangimento dos outros. Atrasara-se no caminho da sinagoga e eles já o esperavam a mesa. De ré! céu, percebeu o olhar de censura do irmão e o risco do de um dos pequenos. Só Paulo (assim batizaram neto, que em realidade se chamava Pinkos) agitou as más num blá-blá como a reclamar a brincadeira perdida. Mudo, depositou o chapéu no cabide, ficando só coma preta de seda. Da lingua nada havia ainda aprendido. Mas, observador, se bem que não arriscasse, consegue por associação gravar alguma coisa. E o “profeta” que o riso moleque lhe pespegara a entrada, ia-se tornando familiar. Seu significado não o atingia. Pouco improva, no entanto. A palavra nunca andava sem um o irónico, urna ruga de riso. No banheiro (lavava as mãos recordou as inúmeras vezes em que os mesmos sons foram pronunciados a sua frente. E Iigou cenas. Do fundo boiou a lembrança de coisa análoga no templo.
O engano esbozado no primeiro dia acentuava-se. A sensação de que o mundo deles era bem outro, de que não participaram em nada do que fora (para ele) a noite horrível, ia se transformando lentamente em objeto con. ciente. Eram-lhe enfadonhos os jantares reunidos no. quais ficava a margem. Quando as crianças dormiam outros casais vinham conversar, apalermava-se com a toda palestra, as piadas concupiscentes, as cifras sem jogadas, a propósito de tudo, e, a vezes, sem nenhum.
A guerra o despojara de todas as ilusãos anteriores e afirmara-lhe a precariedade do que antes era sólido. Só ficara intacta sua fé em Deus e na religião, tão arraiga da, que mesmo nos transes mais amargos conseguira expulsar. (Já o tentara, reconhecia, em vão.) Nem bem se passara um ano e tinha a sua frente numa monótona repetirão o que julgava terminado. A situação parasitária do genro despertou-lhe ódio, e, a muito custo, dormitou-o. Vira outras mãos em outros acenos. E as unhas não tratadas e os anéis, e o corpo roliço e o riso estúpido e a inutilidade concentravam a revolta que era geral. Quantas vezes (meia-noite ia longe) deixava-se esquecer na varanda com o cigarro aceso a ouvir numa fala bilíngue risadas canalhas (para ele) entre um cartear e outro.
– Então é isso?
Os outros julgariam caduquice. Ele bem sabia que não. Omonólogo fora-lhe útil quando pensava endoidar. Hoje era hábito. Quando só, descarregava a tensão urna que outra frase sem nexo senão para ele. Recordava-se que um dia (no início, logo) esborrara em meio a alguma conversa um tênue protesto, dera um sinal fraco de revolta, e talvez seu indicador cortasse o ar em acenos carregados de intenções. O mesmo na sinagoga quando a displicência da maioria tumultuara urna prece.
– Esses gordos senhores da vida e da fartura nada tem a fazer aqui – murmurara algum dia para si mesmo. Talvez daí profeta. (Descobrira, depois, o significado.)
Pensou em alterar um pouco aquela ordem e principiou a narrar o que havia negado antes. Mas agora não parecia interessar-lhes. Por condescendência (não compreendiam o que de sacrifício isso representava para ele ouviram-no de as primeiras veres e não faltaram lágrima nos olhos das mulheres. Depois, botou-lhes aborreci-me tão, enfado, pensou descobrir censuras em alguns olhar e adivinhou frases como estas: “Que quer com tudo só? Por que nos atormenta com coisas que não nos d’ rem respeito?” Havia rugas de remorso quando reco davam alguém que ilhes dizia respeito, sim. Mas era rápidas. Sumiam como um vinco em boneco de borracha. Não tardou que as manifestações se tornassem abetas, se bem que mascaradas.
-O senhor sofre com isso. Porque insiste tanto calou. E mais que isso, emudeceu. Pouca veres Ilhe ouviram a palavra, e não repararam que se ia colocam numa situação marginal. Só Pinkos (ele assim lo chamaba) continuava a transitar sua barba, esfregar o nariz, contar histórias intermináveis com seus olhos redondo. Inutilidade.
O mar trazia lembranças tristes e lançava incógnitas. Solidão sobre solidão. Interrogava-se as veres, sobre sua capacidade de resistir a um meio que não e mais o seu. Chiados de ondas. Um dedo pequeno me grulhado em sua boca e um riso ao choque. Riso sacudi do. Poderá condenar? Não, se fosse gozo após a tormenta. Não, não poderia nem condenar a si mesmo se por qualquer motivo aderisse, apesar da idade. Mas os ou três? Cegos e surdos na insensibilidade e autossuficiência! Erguia-se então. Caminhava pelos cómodos, perscrutando no conforto um contraste que sabia de antemão não existir. Aliciava argumentos contra si mesmo inutilmente. E do fundo um gosto amargo, decepcionante. Os dias se acumulavam na rotina ele há era penosa a estado os sábados na sinagoga. O livro de orações aberto (desnecessário, de cor murmurava todas as preces) fechava os olhos as intrigas e se punha de lado, sempre de lado. No caminho admirava as cores vistosa das vitrinas, os arranha-céus se perdendo na volta do pescar o .incessante arrastar de automóveis. E nisso tudo lhe pesava a solidão, o estado de espírito que não encontrara afinidade. Soube ser recente a fortuna do irmão.
Numa pausa contara-lhe os anos de! uta e subúrbio, e triunfante, em gestos largos, concluía pela segurança atual. Mais que alaotaras sensações essa ecoou fundo. Concluiu ser impossível a afinidade, pois as experiencias eram opostas. A sua, amarga. A outra, vitoriosa. E no mesmo intervalo de tempo!? Deus, meu Deus! As noites de insônia sucederam-se. Tentou concluir que um sentimento de veja carregava-lhe o ódio. Impossível. Honesto consigo mesmo entreviu sem forcas essa conclusão. E suportou o oposto, mais difícil. As formas na penumbra do quarto (dormia com o neto) compunham cenas que não esperava rever. Madrugadas horríveis e ossadas. Rostos.de angústia e preces evolando das cinzas humanas. As feições da mulher apertando o xale no último instante, onde os olhos, onde os olhos que mudos traíram o grito animal? Risada canalha. Carteado. Cifras. Olha o “profeta” aí! E caras de gozo gargalhando do capote suspenso na cadeira. Impossível.
Gritos amontoados deram-lhe a notícia da saída. Olhou o cais. Lentamente a faixa d’água aumentava aos acenos finais. Retesou todas as fibras do corpo. Quando voltassem da estação de águas encontrariam a esta sobre a mesa. E seriam inúteis os protestos, porque tardios. Aproveitara a duas semanas de ausência. O suporte de turista (depois pensavam em tomá-lo pernente) facilitara-lhe o plano. O dinheiro que possessgotou-se a compra da passagem. Regresso. A empegada estranhou um pouco ao vê-lo sair com a mala. juntou o fato afigura excêntrica que no início! Ihle dirá um pouco de medo. Planos? Não os tinha. La a nas em busca da companhia de semelhantes, semelhe-te, sim. Talvez do fim. As energias que o gesto e agiu esgotaram-no, e a fraqueza trouxera hesitações. E te o irremediável os olhos frustrados dilataram-se na sia de travar o pranto. Miúda, já, a figuras acenando. O fundo montanhoso, azulando num céu de meio dia. Blocos verdes de ilhotas e espumas nos sulcos dos lanchãoes. (Há sempre gaivota. Mas não conseguiu lá.) Novamente os punhos cerrando e trançando, as te porás apoiadas nos brazos, e a figura negra, em for de gancho, trepidando em lágrimas.
All illusions lost all, all he had left was that gesture. With the bridge already suspended, and the last whistle having sounded, the steamer would raise the anchor. He looked again at the cranes moving bales, the piles of ore. Down there, strange runs and escapes. His neck stretched out in yelling to those around him on the deck railing. Scarves. From afar, the honking of cars denouncing the life that continued in the city that he was now abandoning. He didn’t care much about the mocking looks of some people. Another time he would feel hurt. He understood that the white beard and the overcoat above the knee made for a strange figure for them. He got used to it. Right now, they would laugh at the thin figure, all black, except for the whiter face, beard and hands. However, no one dared the challenge the eyes that commanded respect and gave a certain majestic air to the whole. With his fists tightened and braided in remorse, he resisted escaping from his inner serenity, that had brought him there. At the dull whistle he was fully aware of the solidity he was diving into. The return, the only way out he had found, seemed empty and inconsequential. He thought, in the moment of hesitation, that he had acted like a child. The idea that had been growing in recent times and that had culminated in his presence on deck was a fear of a shattered sail in the moment of doubt. The fear of loneliness terrified him more because of his experience in daily contact with death. There’s still time to get to the walkway, please, get to it!… The fat figure of the woman at his side turned as she heard, or thought she heard, the old man’s words.
-Did you speak to me?
Useless. The language barrier, he knew, would not allow him anything else. The woman’s face was disfigured by the old man’s denial and pleading eyes. With the exception of the resource itself would be mime and that! I will accentuate the uselessness that dominated him. He then realized that he had mumbled the phrase, and in shame he closed his eyes.
-My wife, my children, my son-in-law.
In the first weeks there was excitement and many houses to visit, many tables to eat at, and in all of them he was revolted by the appearance of some curious thing that appeared. Over time, as his enthusiasm and curiosity cooled, he was left alone with his brother. Talk only to this person or the woman. The others hardly understood him, not even his nephews, much less his son-in-law, for whom he began to show no antipathy.
Here comes the “Prophet”!
As soon as he opened the door, his son-in-law’s mocking laugh and statement surprised him. He acted as if he didn’t care about other people’s embarrassment. He was late on the way to the synagogue and they were already waiting for him at the table. Back up! Heaven, he noticed his brother’s look of reproach and the risk of one of the little ones. Only Paulo (that’s how they named his grandson, who was actually called Pinkos) made a fuss about it, as if to complain about the lost joke.Mute, placed his hat on the hanger, keeping only the black the silk kippah. He had not yet learned anything about language. But, as an observer, although he didn’t take any risks, he manages, by association, to record something. And the “prophet” that the kid’s laughter had spit out at him at the entrance, was becoming familiar. The kid had caught him at the entrance; it was becoming familiar. Its meaning didn’t reach him. It was hardly surprising, however. The word was never without an ironic edge, a laugh line. In the bathroom (he was washing his hands) he remembered the countless times he the same sounds were uttered in front of him. And he saw scenes. From the background floated the memory of a similar thing in the temple.
The deception outlined on the first day became more accentuated. The feeling that their world was very different, that they had not participated in anything in what had been (for him) the horrible night, slowly transforming into a conscious object. aware. Diners at dinner were boring to him, the limit of what he could take. When the children were asleep, other couples came to talk, they were amazed by all the talk, the concupiscent jokes, the numbers without plays, about everything, and, sometimes, about none.
The war had stripped him of all previous illusions and confirmed the precariousness of what was once solid. Only his faith in God and religion remained intact, so deep-rooted that even in the most bitter moments he didn’t manage to expel it. (He had already tried, he admitted, in vain.) Barely a year had passed, and he had in front of him a monotonous repeat of what he thought was finished. His son-in-law’s parasitic situation aroused hatred in him and, at great cost, put him to sleep. Turn other hands in other waves. And the untreated nails and the rings, and the plump body and the stupid laughter and uselessness concentrated the general revolt. How many times (midnight was long gone) would he let himself forget on the balcony, with a lit cigarette listening to scoundrel laughter (for him) in bilingual speech between one card game and another.
– Then that’s it?
Others would judge it as obsolete. He knew better than that. The monologue had been useful when he was thinking about going crazy. Today it was habit. When alone, he released the tension with just another phrase, meaningless except for him. He remembered that one day (at the beginning, of course) he had blurted out a faint protest in the middle of some conversation, he had given a weak sign of revolt, and perhaps his index finger cut the air in waves full of intentions. The same in the synagogue, when the negligence of the majority had disrupted a prayer.
– These fat lords of life and plenty have nothing to do here – he had once muttered to himself. Maybe hence prophet. (I later discovered the meaning.)
He thought about changing that order a little and began to narrate what he had previously denied. But now it didn’t seem to interest them. Out of condescension (they didn’t understand what a sacrifice this represented for him), they heard it the first time they saw it and there was no shortage of tears in the women’s eyes. like these: “What do you want with everything alone? Why do you torment us with things that don’t give us any respect?” There were wrinkles of remorse when they recognized someone who concerned them, yes. But they were quick. They disappeared like a crease on a doll. It wasn’t long before the demonstrations became loud, albeit masked.
– You suffer from this. Why do you insist so much? And more than that, he was silent. Shortly after one am, they heard the word, and didn’t notice that they were putting themselves in a marginal situation. Only Pinkos (as he would call it) continued to groom his beard, rub his nose, tell endless stories with his round eyes. Uselessness.
The sea brought back sad memories and raised questions. Loneliness about loneliness. He often questioned himself about his ability to resist an environment that was no longer his own. Waves hiss. A small finger stuck in his mouth and a shocked laugh. Shaking laughter. Can you convict? No, if it was joy after the storm. No, he couldn’t even condemn himself, if for any reason he joined, despite his age. But the others? Blind and deaf in insensitivity and self-sufficiency! Then he stood up. I walked through the rooms, peering into the comfort of a contrast that I knew in advance didn’t exist. He vainly encouraged arguments against himself. And underneath, a bitter, disappointing taste. The days accumulated into a routine. and it was painful to spend Saturdays in the synagogue. The open prayer book (unnecessary, he mumbled all the prayers by heart) closed his eyes to the intrigues and set himself aside, always aside. On the way, I admired the eye-catching colors of the shop windows, the skyscrapers getting lost in the fishing lane and the incessant dragging of cars. And in all, this he was weighed down by loneliness, by a state of mind that he had not found affinity with. He learned that his brother’s fortune was recent.
During a pause, he told her the years in suburbia, and triumphantly, in broad gestures, concluded for current security. More than shouting sensations, this one echoed deep. He concluded that affinity was impossible, as the experiences were opposite. Yours, bitter. The other, victorious. And in the same time frame!? God my God! Sleepless nights followed one another. He tried to conclude that a feeling of seeing was carrying his hatred. Impossible. Being honest with himself, he saw this conclusion without force. And he endured the opposite, more difficult. The shapes in the dim light of the room (he slept with his grandson) composed scenes that he did not expect to see again. Horrible, bony mornings. Faces of anguish and prayers rising from the human ashes. The woman’s features tightening her shawl at the last moment, where the eyes, where the mute eyes betrayed the animal scream? Bastard laugh. Carded. Figures. Look at the “prophet” there! And happy faces laughing from the coat suspended on the chair. Impossible.
Loud yelling gave him the news of his departure. He looked at the pier. Slowly the strip of water increased into the waves. It tensed every fiber in the body. When they returned from the water, they would find it on the table. And the protests would be useless, because they are too late. He had made the most of his two weeks away. The tourist support (later they thought about making it permanent) made his plan easier. The money he had was used up to buy the ticket. Return. The waitress was a little surprised when she saw him leave with the suitcase. put together. The fact appears eccentric than at the beginning! I say a I’m little scared. Plans? I didn’t have them. There you go in search of the company of others, similar to you, yes. Maybe from the end. The energies that the gesture and action had exhausted him, and the weakness had brought hesitations. And the hopelessly frustrated eyes widened in an effort to stop crying. Girl, the shapes lighting up.The mountainous background, blue in a midday sky. Green blocks of islets and foam in the wakes of the boats. (There is always a seagull. But he didn’t make it there.) Once again, his fists clenched and braided, he placed them on his arms, and the black figure, like a hook, trembled in tears.)
