The Day I Found You Read online

  The Day I Found You

  The Day

  I Found You

  Pedro Chagas Freitas

  Translated from the Portuguese

  by Daniel Hahn

  To Bárbara.

  To Benjamim.

  Because everything.

  A Note to the Reader

  With more than 1.3 million followers, Pedro Chagas Freitas is something of a Facebook sensation. One day, he asked his fans to suggest sentences to him, and in return pledged to use those sentences to create a story. It was through this challenge that The Day I Found You came into being – an unforgettable book that promises fundamentally to change the way we write and read about love.

  It is not just the story behind the book that is original; The Day I Found You also has a unique and experimental style. The author chose not to follow grammatical rules, as he is a keen inventor of new things, whether it be unusual sentence structures or the radical use of a punctuation mark in a text, a new children’s game or a concept for a television programme. In fact, Pedro Chagas Freitas truly believes that a life without creation would not be a life worth living. And so for him, every day is about discovering something new; a value that shines through very clearly in this remarkable book.

  I started loving you the day I left you.

  Those were his words, ten years later, when he happened to bump into her in the café. She smiled, she said ‘hello, I love you’ to him but her lips said only ‘hi, you OK?’ They talked for hours, until he, for it was always him who became shameless however ashamed he was for what he had done (how could I have left you? how could I have been such an idiot not to realise you were everything I wanted?), until he told her just as natural as anything that he wanted to take her to bed. She first considered slapping him and then loving him all evening and all night long, and then she considered running away from that place and then loving him all evening and all night long, and finally she decided to say nothing at all and, slowly, keeping her tears hidden in her eyes, she walked away from him just as a decade earlier he had walked away from her. It was not a revenge, nor even a punishment – she merely understood that she was so lost in what she felt that she needed to go far away in order to come back into herself. She thought this was probably what had happened to him on that distant day when he had left her, alone and flooded with pain, on the floor, never to return.

  Of all the things I love it’s you I fall in love with most.

  Those were her words, a few minutes later, when he followed her, stubbornly, down to the bottom of the road during rush hour. They were standing facing each other, with everybody walking past not realising that in this very place the future of the world was being decided. He said: ‘I married another woman so that I could love you in peace.’ She said: ‘I married another man so there would be a noise to silence you in me.’ In truth neither one of them said any of these things because neither one was a poet. But this was what his words (‘I love you like a madman’) and her words (‘I love you like a madwoman’) were really saying. The road stopped, then, confronted with their embrace. There is no memory for anyone, on any day, who thought that their embrace was an embrace of betrayal between two married people. Everyone understood, right there, that the only betrayal would be not embracing that embrace, however much there may have been documents proving the contrary. They never married, never divorced. They didn’t want to waste time on unnecessary papers. The only papers they signed, every day, were the ones with the poems that they left for each other, religiously, in the most secluded and secret places in the house. They were not great works, and they always ended without any possible variation, always in the same way: ‘I love you’. They never received the praise of a literary critic, at which they were distinctly irritated. They learned, years later, that the whole of society had renounced them. They called them the runaways, even. And they, at that moment, agreed entirely. Both knew that they had run away for ten years. And it had been too long.

  I do.

  Those were his words when she, at the registry office as it needed to be, asked him if he agreed to never marry him.

  I used to be nearly a millionaire, did you know that?,

  when I had your grandmother in my life,

  the most beautiful woman in the world, no one should doubt that, did I ever tell you I’m certain God only took her away because He was jealous?,

  and our house, a whole life ahead of us, so many dreams

  and I believed one day I’d get to the Moon, mind you, and I wasn’t far off, if you want to know the truth, but I’ll tell you that story tomorrow, not today,

  and I worked in the finance department and people needed me, they came knocking on my door, they asked me to bring the tax form, such and such a document, and sometimes I’d bring it, and sometimes I wouldn’t, I never crossed a line,

  except at the wheel, I’ll admit, I got up to 120 on that straight stretch of road with the petrol pump on, in my Mini, don’t tell your father as I drummed it into his head to go slowly, it’s our secret, OK?, cross your fingers and promise, go on,

  then Afonso was born, a gorgeous young lad, my boy, when I first held him in my arms I believed in eternal life, mind you, I thought something like that could never end, and perhaps it never did end, it’s the things all around that changed,

  fifty years working, I was never late once, I was the first in and the last to leave, if you could check with one of those computing things you’d see that I missed work twice in two years, one time when I had a car accident, no big deal, a scratch, the other because I forgot to change my watch to summertime and then I was too ashamed to arrive late,

  where’s shame to be found nowadays?, we’ve gained so much, cell phones, the internet, and we’ve lost shame, but who is it that has won?,

  my father died on me,

  death enters our eyes like an invisible powder, you can understand that already, a person has someone else and then he doesn’t, the drama of life is having lives installed in ours, we’re a merging of various pieces and losing someone is like an amputation, can you imagine finding yourself suddenly missing a hand?, it hurts more than being left suddenly without your Chocapic cereal, just to give you an idea,

  and even then I didn’t stop going in to work, I buried my father and went back to finance, I believed in the richness of service, in responsibility, I was an exemplary professional, an exemplary head of the family,

  when your father was born I felt like a king, and isn’t that how all fathers should feel?,

  and this house so full of life, the sounds, the smells,

  your grandmother was the best cook in the world, no one should doubt that, did I ever tell you I’m certain God only took her away so He could eat well?,

  and you see that chest of drawers next to you?, I bought it for her as a surprise, I’d just received my holiday bonus and I wanted to be happy,

  and I still do, you know?, the worst thing of all is that we never stop wanting to be happy and there are more and more things we find ourselves without, but I’m not going to talk about sad things, if you want sad you’ve only got to look at the face on that teacher of yours, to hell with any woman who doesn’t laugh, isn’t that right?, but don’t go telling your father I said that, OK?, there’s that pedagogy thing nowadays says you can’t say things like that, what do they know about bringing up children anyway?,

  your father was taught by me and just look at the man he became, nothing but mumbo-jumbo all this pedagogy, what’s important is to love, and I love you very much, Dioguinho, have just one more little spoonful and I’ll tell you some more stuff, OK?,

  and so I brought the chest of drawers and the whole house was full and she was pleased with me, Afonso and your father helpe
d me to set it up, three really wonderful hours, make the most of them whenever you can, you promise?,

  which is all just to say that I used to be nearly a millionaire, all you need is a full house for you to want for nothing, that’s just what a millionaire is,

  a millionaire’s someone who has everything he wants, isn’t that right?,

  and I did have, when I close my eyes I still do, but sometimes we do have to open them, like now,

  my job, my wife,

  the best wife in the world, no one should doubt that, did I ever tell you I’m certain God only took her away so He’d have somebody to marry?,

  your father’s arrived, and I was just about to tell you about what came after I was nearly a millionaire and now you’re already going, there’s some meeting and he’s got to go, I understand, but it’s not easy, don’t tell him, there’s a meeting at seven and he’s still going to leave you at some friend’s place on the way,

  I never left him with anyone, there were so many times I took him with me to the department and he adored it, he’d play around with the computer, he asked me what money was and what was it for, between you and me I’d have liked him still to have those doubts today, maybe staying here with us a little longer, me, you and him at this table, the hearth lit, it would be good to ask him about life, what he does, what he feels, what he dreams of,

  but I know nothing about what your father wants, I even suspect I don’t know anything about what he is, so many years have passed since I last told him I love him,

  I love you, son, do you love me back?,

  and he’s gone now and you’ve gone now, and the whole house, so quiet, the chest of drawers gathering dust, even the chest of drawers misses you, my princess, my queen, where did we go wrong to end up like this?, you dead and me alone, so which of us died first then?,

  and I just keep going, I have Dioguinho here sometimes, did you see him leaving a moment ago, he’s a man now, isn’t he?, Carlinha hasn’t been in weeks, she’s already in third grade, can you believe it?, but time doesn’t exist, they tell me, and I believe it, I have to believe it to keep on going, you know that,

  you were the best person in the world, no one should doubt that, did I ever tell you I’m certain God only took you away in order that He might be a better creature?,

  I used to be nearly a millionaire and time began to take it all from me, first you,

  I love you, my wife, do you love me back?,

  then the boys, their time, at least, then they reformed me and killed me a little, and mind you, they’re now taking a few euro from me at the end of the month, I don’t know if I’m going to be able to pay for the medication,

  you never got to end up as an old woman, such luck, life isn’t measured in days, I know that now, life is measured in chemists’ shops,

  there’s a government that wants to lower the deficit,

  and you don’t want to know what that means and nor do I, it basically means taking from the poor to give to the rich, and this coming from me who doesn’t understand anything and who’s just an old reactionary, bad people don’t change, do they?,

  and so lowering this deficit they take what I had left, I don’t want to ask Afonso for money, or Carlos, God preserve me with some dignity yet, I’ll figure things out as best I can, if there isn’t enough for me to eat steak I’ll eat soup, as I heard a lady say the other day on TV, I don’t even like steak all that much, except yours, of course,

  I used to be nearly a millionaire and now I’m nearly dead, it hurts a lot but it’s bearable,

  what scares me most are the secrets in the darkness, which is why I go out to put an end to the silence,

  out on the street there’s noise enough to cry without anybody noticing, will you come walk with me?,

  you are the best companion in the world, no one should doubt that, did I ever tell you I’m certain God only took you away in order to have somebody to walk with?

  Why should I love you,

  you ask,

  and I speak to you in the noise of the wind in the window when you hold me tight, your head in the mystery that is between arms and shoulders, I hide my fingers in your hair and I hear you breathing, people like us don’t look for explanations but survivals.

  We should learn to love slowly,

  you venture,

  and yet I have already placed my lips on yours, your scent is unbearable if I cannot touch you, we would be whole if there were only words, and the most absurd thing is that we don’t even need to talk, people like us don’t look for eternity but for feelings,

  Every moment deserves an orgasm,

  I make this up,

  trying to prove to you that poems are made of flesh, never of lines of verse, strangely you do not reply and you allow yourself to be looked at, I spend more than an hour just seeing you and it’s everything, I ask you to assume every kind of position, there must be some angle or other that isn’t entirely yours and your almost-heaven smile, but I don’t find it, people like us don’t look for skin but the knife,

  There’s a certain dignity in the way we abandon ourselves,

  I say goodbye,

  I dress slowly while I love you at last, life doesn’t feel sorry for any more than we have, we could try the possibility of a routine, and who knows, perhaps the calm adrenaline of a family, a morning kiss and another at night, a bed not only for sex, even talking that has some objective that isn’t pure pleasure, but I don’t know if it’s love that turns me on, people like us don’t look for peace but for fear,

  Tomorrow or some other day or how about never,

  you declare,

  and I understand then that you have given me the most profound declaration of love, tomorrow or some other day or never, and I consent with no hesitation, people like us don’t look for promises but still they never fail each other.

  There was once a boy who dreamed too much, and one day he dreamed there was a special sheet of paper, so special that it made everything that was written on it come to life and be real, the boy loved the idea and went off to tell his parents

  ‘you’re crazy’

  but the boy was a boy who dreamed too much and he didn’t give up on dreaming, and instead of giving up on the idea he made the idea grow, that’s the advantage of being a boy and dreaming, when if you’re a boy who dreams and instead of stopping at the dream you make the dream expand, you dream even bigger, bigger still

  ‘and what if instead of a sheet of paper it was a whole notebook?’

  and the boy ran off to the bookstore, asked for two sheets of the cheapest paper they had, dreams don’t need to be expensive and the boy knew it, after all the best toys he had weren’t toys at all, a ball made of rags, a screw that to him is the Eiffel Tower, a block of wood that he’s transformed into a car

  ‘vroooom’

  him and the blank page, that first experience of magic, here he can invent anything he wants because he has invented the magic sheet of paper, just write it down and it happens, he doesn’t know many letters or many words, he’s only lately started school, he writes what he knows and what it is he wants deep down

  ‘dad’

  then he looks at it and likes it, he rubs out one mark or another, he makes it just right so it all works out perfectly, so the magic happens the way it should, he looks again, it’s perfect now, just one word and maybe the magic will happen

  ‘mum’

  now tear out the page and the magic will happen, now is when he’s going to test out his invention

  ‘dad’

  ‘mum’

  and they arrived, the boy tore out the sheet, he read the words several times, and they appeared, perhaps concerned about him, perhaps not knowing what has happened, but the truth is that it happened, the boy explains to his parents once again that he’d invented the magic sheet of paper first and then the magic notebook after that, his parents take a deep breath first and then reprimand him

  ‘don’t scare us like that again’

  th
e boy didn’t understand, what’s wrong with dreaming?, and he went on with his invention that would change the world, simply write and the world would change, imagine what could be done with that, he thought of a thousand and one things to write, a thousand and one things to invent, but he understood then that he didn’t know how to write and he needed to know how to write for the sheet of paper to do its job, he could cry and be like all those other boys who don’t get what they want and they cry and then stop, but this boy was different like that and when he had a dream he didn’t cry but did

  ‘please teach me writing till the cartoons start’

  his older sister laughed but she didn’t refuse, and at the end of the day, when they returned from school, off the two of them went to the bedroom, nobody knew what they were up to, they said they had work to do and they did, but the boy alone was fighting for his dream, his sister liked playing teacher and taught him everything, all the letters, and twenty or thirty days later the boy who just wanted to dream already had all the tools to create his dream

  ‘there was once’

  that’s how it started because it seemed to him that was how dreams always started, and he went on writing, line by line, invention by invention, and bit by bit he began to understand that his notebook was even more magical than the one he had invented, you didn’t even need to tear the sheet out for it to exist, he went on writing and as he wrote he felt everything happening, the prince who wanted to fly, the princess who wanted to be saved, the boy wrote and all of it happened, he saw it right there, in front of him, inside him, even inside him, every emotion, he laughed, smiled, even cried, would you believe it

  ‘how can you say it doesn’t exist if it makes me cry?’

  and many years later when there were hundreds of adults and children from a primary school sitting in front of him, he was introducing one more of his books, and he decided to offer each of them a special gift