The Complete Stories (42 page)

Where Were You at
Night

(“Onde estivestes de noite”)

Stories have no conclusion.

—Alberto Dines

Th
e unknown is addictive.

—Fauzi Arap

Sitting in an easy chair, mouth full of teeth,
waiting for death.

—Raul
Seixas

What I shall present is so unheard of that I dread
lest I have all men as enemies, so much do preconceived notions and doctrines
take root in the world, once they are accepted.

—William Harvey

The night was an exceptional possibility. Well into a moonless
night of a scorching summer a rooster crowed at the wrong time and just once to
announce the start of its ascent of the mountain. The crowd below waited in
silence.

He-she was already there atop the mountain, and she was personalized in
the he and he was personalized in the she. The androgynous mixture created a being
so terribly beautiful, so horrifically stupefying that the participants couldn’t
take it all in at once: as a person adjusts little by little to the dark and
gradually starts to discern things. Gradually they discerned the She-he and when the
He-she appeared before them in a brightness that emanated from him-her, they
paralyzed by the Beautiful would say: “Ah, Ah.” It was an exclamation that was
allowed in the silence of the night. They gazed upon the frightening beauty and its
danger. But they had come precisely in order to suffer danger.

Vapors wafted from the swamps. A star of enormous density guided them.
They were the contrary of the Good. They climbed the mountain mingling men, women,
elves, gnomes and dwarves—like extinct gods. The golden bell tolled for the
suicides. Besides the great star, not a single star. And there was no sea. What
there was atop the mountain was darkness. A northwest wind blew. Was He-she a
beacon? The worship of the damned was about to proceed.

The men wriggled on the ground like fat and spineless worms: climbing.
Risking everything, since they were fated to die one day, perhaps in two months,
perhaps seven years­—this was what He-she was thinking inside them.

Look at the cat. Look at what the cat saw. Look at what the cat thought.
Look at what it was. At last, at last, there was no symbol, the “thing” was! the
orgiastic thing. Those climbing were on the verge of the truth. Nebuchadnezzar. They
resembled 20 Nebuchadnezzars. And in the night they disbanded. They are awaiting us.
It was an absence—a journey outside of time.

A dog howled with laughter in the dark. “I’m scared,” said a child.
“Scared of what?” asked the mother. “Of my dog.” “But you don’t have a dog.” “Yes I
do.” But then the little child also laughed while crying, mingling tears of laughter
and fright.

At last they arrived, the damned. And they gazed upon that eternal
Widow, the great Solitary Woman who fascinated everyone, and men and women couldn’t
resist and wanted to get closer so as to die loving her but she with a gesture kept
them all at a distance. They wanted to love her with a strange love that vibrates in
death. It didn’t bother them to love her while dying. The cloak the She-he wore was
an agonizing shade of violet. But the mercenary women of the feasting sex tried to
imitate her in vain.

What time could it be? no one could live in time, time was indirect and
by its very nature forever unattainable. Their joints were already swollen, their
excesses rumbled in their earth-filled stomachs, their lips swelling yet
cracked—they climbed the slope. The shadows were of a low and dark sound like
the darkest note from a cello. They arrived. The Ill-fated, the He-she, before the
worship of kings and vassals, gleamed like a gigantic illuminated eagle. The silence
swarmed with panting breaths. The vision was of mouths parted in the sensuality that
nearly paralyzed them, so crude was it. They felt saved from the Great Tedium.

The hill was a scrap heap. When the She-he stopped for an instant, men
and women, surrendering to themselves for an instant, said to themselves fearfully:
I don’t know how to think. But the He-she was thinking inside them.

A mute herald proclaimed the news with a strident clarinet. What news?
about bestiality? Though perhaps it was this: starting from the herald every one of
them began to “feel himself,” to feel his own self. And there was no repression:
free!

Then they began to murmur but inwardly because the She-he was scathing
when it came to not disturbing one another during their slow metamorphosis. “I am
Jesus! I am a Jew!” the poor Jew cried in silence. The annals of astronomy have
never recorded anything like this spectacular comet, recently discovered—its
vaporous tail will drag millions of miles through space. Not to mention time.

A hunchbacked dwarf was hopping like a frog, from one crossroad to
another—the place was full of crossroads. Suddenly the stars appeared and were
gems and diamonds in the dark sky. And the dwarf-hunchback kept leaping, as high as
he could to reach the diamonds that awakened his greedy desire. Crystals! Crystals!
he cried in thoughts that bounded like his leaps.

Latency pulsated light, rhythmic, ceaseless. All were entirely latent.
“There is no crime we have not committed in our thoughts”: Goethe. A new and
inauthentic Brazilian history was written abroad. Furthermore, domestic researchers
complained about the lack of resources for their work.

The mountain had volcanic origins. And suddenly the sea: the crashing
revolt of the Atlantic filled their ears. And the salt smell of the sea fertilized
them and tripled them into little monsters.

Can the human body fly? Levitation. Saint Teresa of Avila: “It seemed as
if a great force was lifting me into the air. This put a great fear in me.” The
dwarf levitated for a few seconds but enjoyed it and was not afraid.

“What’s your name,” the boy said mutely, “so I can call you for the rest
of my life. I’ll shout your name.”

“I have no name down there. Here I have the name Xantipa.”

“Ah, I want to shout Xantipa! Xantipa! Look, I’m shouting on the inside.
And what’s your name during the day?”

“I think it’s . . . it’s . . . it seems to be Maria
Luísa.”

And she shuddered as a horse bristles. Then fell bloodless to the
ground. No one was killing anyone because they had already been killed. No one
wanted to die and indeed no one died.

Meanwhile—delicately, delicately—the He-she was using a
certain emblem. The color of the emblem. For I want to live in abundance and would
betray my best friend in exchange for more life than one can have. That seeking,
that ambition. I scorned the precepts of the wise men who counseled moderation and
poverty of the soul—the simplification of the soul, in my experience, was
saintly innocence. But I struggled against temptation.

Yes. Yes: to fall until hitting abjection. That is their ambition. The
sound was the herald of the silence. Because none could let themselves be possessed
by That-nameless-he-she.

They wanted to revel in the forbidden. They wanted to praise life and
didn’t want the pain that is required to live, to feel and to love. They wanted to
feel dreadful immortality. Because the forbidden is always the best. They at the
same time were not bothered by possibly falling into the enormous pit of death. And
life was only precious to them while they were shouting and moaning. To feel the
strength of hatred was what they most wanted. I call myself the people, they
thought.

“What must I do to be a hero? Because only heroes can enter the
temples.”

And in the silence suddenly his howling cry, hard to say whether of love
or mortal pain, the hero smelling of myrrh, frankincense and resin.

He-she covered his-her nudity with a cloak that was beautiful but like a
shroud, a purple shroud, now cathedral-red. On moonless nights She-he became an owl.
Thou shalt devour thy brother, she said in the thoughts of others, and at the savage
hour there shall be a solar eclipse.

So they wouldn’t betray themselves they ignored the fact that today was
yesterday and there would be a tomorrow. A transparency wafted through the air the
likes of which no man had ever breathed. But they sprinkled pepper on their own
genital organs and writhed in ardor. And suddenly hatred. They weren’t killing one
another but felt such implacable hatred that it was like a dart launched at a body.
And they rejoiced damned by what they felt. The hatred was a vomit that released
them from a greater vomit, the vomit of the soul.

He-she with seven musical notes achieved the howl. Just as with the same
seven notes one can create sacred music. They heard inside themselves the
do-re-mi-fa-sol-la-ti, the “ti” soft and extremely high. They were independent and
sovereign, despite being guided by the He-she. Death roaring in dark dungeons. Fire,
scream, color, vice, cross. I remain vigilant in the world: by night I live and by
day I sleep, elusive. I, with a dog’s sense of smell, orgiastic.

As for them, they carried out rituals that the faithful execute without
understanding their mysteries. The ceremonies. With a light gesture She-he touched a
child striking it down and everyone said: amen. The mother let out a wolf howl: she,
completely dead, she, too.

But it was in order to have super-sensations that people went up there.
And it was a sensation so secret and so profound that jubilation sparkled in the
air. They wanted the superior power that has reigned over the world through the
centuries. Were they afraid? They were. Nothing could substitute the richness of the
silent dread. Being afraid was the accursed glory of the darkness, silent like a
Moon.

Gradually they adjusted to the dark and the Moon, previously hidden, all
round and pale, had smoothed their ascent. It was pitch dark when one by one they
had climbed “the mountain,” as they called the somewhat elevated plain. They had
leaned against the ground so as not to fall, treading on dry and rugged trees,
treading on prickly cactuses. It was an irresistibly attractive fear, they would
rather die than abandon it. The He-she was like their Lover. But if anyone was
ambitious enough to dare touch her he was frozen in place.

He-she told them inside their brains—and everyone heard her inside
themselves—what happened to a person when that person didn’t heed the call of
the night: what happened was that in the blinding light of day that person lived in
open flesh and with eyes dazzled by the sin of the light—that person lived
without anesthesia the terror of being alive. There is nothing to fear, when you
have no fear. It was the eve of the apocalypse. Who was the king of the Earth? If
you abuse the power you have conquered, the masters will punish you. Filled with
terror of a fierce joy they prostrated themselves and amid shrieks of laughter ate
poisonous weeds off the ground and the echoes of their laughter resounded from
darkness to darkness. The air was heavy with the suffocating scent of roses, roses
damned in their strength of nature gone mad, the same nature that invented snakes
and rats and pearls and children—the mad nature that now was night in
darkness, now bright day. This flesh that moves merely because it has a spirit.

From their mouths drooled saliva, thick, bitter and slick, and they
urinated on themselves without feeling it. The women who had recently given birth
violently squeezed their own breasts and from their nipples a thick black milk
gushed. One woman spit hard in the face of a man and the harsh spittle slid down his
cheek to his mouth—eagerly he licked his lips.

They were all unleashed. The joy was frenetic. They were the harem of
the He-she. They had fallen at last into the impossible. Mysticism was the highest
form of superstition.

The millionaire was shouting: I want power! power! I want even objects
to do my bidding! And I’ll say: move, object! and it will move all by itself.

The old, disheveled woman said to the millionaire: want to see how
you’re not a millionaire? Well I’ll tell you: you do not own the next second of your
life, you could die without knowing it. Death will humiliate you. The millionaire: I
want the truth, the absolute truth!

The journalist working on a magnificent story about raw life. I’m going
to be internationally famous like the author of
Th
e Exorcist
which
I haven’t read so it won’t influence me. I’m looking directly at raw life, I’m
living it.

I am a solitary person, said the masturbator to himself.

I’m waiting, and waiting, nothing ever happens to me, I’ve already given
up on waiting. They were drinking the bitter liquor of the rough weeds.

“I am a prophet! I see the beyond!” a boy was shouting to himself.

Father Joaquim Jesus Jacinto—all J’s because his mother liked the
letter J.

It was December 31, 1973. Astronomical time would be harmed by atomic
clocks, which are off by a mere second every three thousand three hundred years.

The other woman was prone to spitting, one glob after another, nonstop.
But she liked it. The other woman was named J. B.

“My life is truly a novel!” cried the failed writer.

Ecstasy was reserved for the He-she. Who suddenly underwent a bodily
exaltation, at length. She-he said: stop! Because she was falling under the demon’s
sway by feeling the ecstasy of Evil. All of them through her were coming: it was the
celebration of the Great Law. The eunuchs were engaged in something it was forbidden
to watch. The others, through She-he, were shudderingly receiving orgasms in
waves—but only in waves because they weren’t strong enough to, without
destroying themselves, take it all. The women painted their mouths violet like fruit
crushed by sharp teeth.

The She-he told them what happened when someone didn’t become initiated
into the prophesying of the night. State of shock. For example: the girl was a
redhead and as if that weren’t enough she was red on the inside and on top of that
colorblind. Such that in her small apartment was a green cross on a red background:
she mixed up the two colors. How had her terror begun? Listening to an album or the
reigning silence or footsteps from upstairs—and there she was terrified.
Afraid of the mirror that reflected her. Across from it was a wardrobe and she got
the idea that the clothes were moving around inside it. Little by little she began
shrinking the apartment. She was even afraid of getting out of bed. The feeling that
they’d grab her foot from under the bed. She was emaciated. Her name was Psiu,
*
a red name. She was afraid of turning on the light in the dark and
finding the cold gecko that lived with her. In agony she felt the gecko’s clammy
little white toes. She eagerly scanned the newspaper for the crime reports, news of
what was going on. Frightful things were always happening to people, like her, who
lived alone and were attacked at night. On her wall was a picture of a man who
stared her right in the eyes, watching her. She imagined that figure following her
through every corner of the house. She had a panicked fear of rats. She’d rather die
than come into contact with them. Yet she heard their squeaking. She even felt them
nibbling at her feet. She’d always bolt awake, in a cold sweat. She was a cornered
animal. Normally she’d talk things over with herself. She’d weigh the pros and cons
and the one who lost was always her. Her life was a constant subtraction of itself.
All because she didn’t heed the siren’s call.