The Day I Found You Read online

  you’re so beautiful that it’s you who calms the betrayal that pains me in you,

  no truth has the right to end with a moment like that, I tell you that I am crazying you, I invent the verb to crazy so as to love you better and so for a few seconds, with that smile you give me, you grant my conscience a little reprieve,

  but I swear to God I love you to the very depths of my days.

  You are the woman of my life but I am weak in all my life,

  and I know that deep down you don’t deserve a man like this, those other women,

  how many were there after all?,

  in between us and you believing in a perfect love, you may not believe it but I do, I love you with all the innocence in the world and the treacherous body isn’t what’s going to change that,

  where have you ever known the concrete to have anything to say about the divine?,

  and I continue to respect you more than myself,

  morals were invented by somebody who didn’t know the dimensions of love,

  I make you happy and that’s enough for me,

  but I swear to God I love you to the very depths of my days.

  You are the woman of my life and you had no right to mess with my things,

  we always respect privacy and that was the only reason I was careless, the cell phone put down and forgotten about, and your curiosity, all that’s left are the tears that stop me from breathing,

  I ask your forgiveness, I kneel just like in the movies, but you don’t address a single word to me, you gather up half a dozen things and you leave,

  your eyes on the floor and a pain interrupting my life,

  and I sit at the window to smoke my first cigarette without you, I see you leave,

  so many minutes in the stationary car,

  you’re trying to find the strength that I didn’t have to confess my humanity to you,

  but I swear to God I love you to the very depths of my days.

  So many homeless people,

  and yet the deficit is down and the economy’s growing,

  today I fell asleep thinking about a new book, a novel with people who don’t exist and who are already beginning to populate me, it may well be a pathology but I make art of it,

  we have to make the most of what we’ve got, right?,

  but I ended up falling asleep thinking about the good fortune of being able to fall asleep thinking about a book and not about being hungry, or about how I’m going to eat the next day, or even my kids’ torn clothes and worn-out shoes,

  what the hell is the point of a book if you haven’t got a piece of bread?,

  and literature isn’t much when faced with life, I do very little to change the world, I just sit in this comfortable chair, facing the sea,

  you have to look at reality from a distance for it not to hurt, isn’t that right?,

  and I write words that sometimes I don’t know where they’re heading, like these, for example, where deep down all I want to do is clear my conscience of not doing more for those who are worth as much as I am but who haven’t found the same space, the same path,

  sometimes a comma is enough to change a life, isn’t it?,

  people write because they’re cowards, there are so many useful things to be doing out there, help a little old man over the crossing,

  yesterday this brat wanted to give up his seat for me on the bus and I told him to go to hell and I wasn’t far from giving him a smack across the gob,

  where have you ever seen a child giving up his seat for another, right?,

  or cleaning the beaches, or the ocean, working like billy-o, as my grandfather used to say,

  how many houses did you help to be born?, and myself none at all,

  I’m so useless, I should be helping the world to grow, I dunno, but I’m a coward and I write some bits of rubbish or other, I came to believe that I was making a difference, I imagined a woman on the edge of the abyss and a few words from me pulling her back up,

  the best literature is the kind that saves lives but it’s only the stuff that kills that wins prizes, have you thought about that?,

  and I’m so incapable of having courage, of yelling out, of devoting myself to activities that are happy, dancing, singing, telling jokes, even making a child,

  I’ll always be the son, never the father, isn’t that so?,

  and the worst is that I never stop writing the same book, one comma more or less, one pronoun more or less, with more or less style, I hang around writing only one book and it’s the only thing that satisfies me,

  how do you fall asleep with a whole book to write and only one life to live?,

  and in spite of it all how do they do it, those people out there?,

  my God, living is so badly paid,

  we need to turn soup into a banquet, perhaps, how I’d like to be out there, yelling at the bastards that there was no way, that there’s no country without people, or numbers without anyone to count them, but instead I write and that’s where I get my satisfaction,

  I’m weak and I hope my weakness makes someone else strong, isn’t that right?,

  there’s a woman in trouble down there and it’s time to take off my glasses, what you don’t see you only feel, I’m really sorry,

  there are more and more people wrecked on the streets,

  and yet the deficit is down and the economy’s growing.

  He came down the bannister so as to love more quickly,

  will you play with me, will you please?, the whole nursery available and his eyes on the way she picked up the Lego, he wanted to play with her, he doesn’t know why, he can’t guess why, but something draws the little boy to the little girl,

  there’s always something that draws us towards the smallest things in the world, and they are the things that make us great, isn’t that right?,

  the teacher smiles, she would quite like never to forget this image, his tenderness as he takes her hand, love is beautiful from the moment it begins, a vast house to be built in blocks of every colour, every size, she looks at him fearfully, then gives a little smile, hands him another piece,

  here, it’s for you,

  and manages to produce the purest declaration of love a human being is capable of,

  here, it’s for you,

  he accepts and builds, even if the two of them are building already,

  will you play with me, will you please?,

  and she said no, and she did.

  He came down the bannister so as to love more quickly,

  read with me, will you please?, a desperate happy request, only a child can manage a state of happy desperation, they’re the first letters they write and they should be, if they knew how to draw an ‘l’, for example, I love you, but they aren’t, they still aren’t, soon enough perhaps, for now they are simpler words, him beside her, he doesn’t grab her hand and doesn’t show her the path of the ‘a’ because he can’t do it, the teacher says he can’t, but they’ve already looked at each other seven or eight times in the last few minutes, nothing was left unsaid, it never is,

  do you want to come with me to the end of the ABC?,

  read with me, will you please?,

  and she said no, and she did.

  He came down the bannister so as to love more quickly,

  discover with me, will you please?, they touched gently in the hallway, her left arm against his right arm, or maybe it was the other way around, his left arm against her right arm, no one knows who touched whom, only that the two of them felt the touch as though they were suddenly discovering the beginning of their skin, two or three millimetres, half a second, no more, and the veins dilated more than ever, the high school can’t imagine it but two people have just been born here, there are parts of the body that appear from nothing, absurd mental stimuli, a philosophical conclusion only within the reach of geniuses, or of fools,

  the direction life travels is from me to you,

  nobody says it but they both hear it, many people spend years waiting for
a revelation like it, the hallway is full, the groups, pimples, nerves, panics, inventions, distresses, the absurd fear of a life ahead,

  discover with me, will you please?,

  and she said no, and she did.

  He came down the bannister so as to love more quickly,

  live with me, will you please?, they’re grown-ups and they want to be big, to love like grown-ups, a house, just a room for starters, it could even be in a university hall of residence, the parents won’t find out, and to hell with it if they do, they’ve spent their whole lives waiting to wake up together and fall asleep together and it’s time, no one’s going to stop them, he’ll get himself a job, something part time at McDonald’s or whatever’s suitable, she’s already asked the friend of a friend of the owner of a perfume store to arrange a shift for her, soon they’ll be together whenever they are at home,

  when you wake up wake me up so I can watch you waking up, OK?,

  they know that living like this is transient, that feeling like this is transient, but they also know that living like this is eternal, that feeling like this is eternal, they are young and irresponsible and they don’t know what the future has in store for them, no one does, but each has the other in store for them and after all that’s a good start,

  live with me, will you please?,

  and she said no, and she did.

  He came down the bannister so as to love more quickly,

  marry me, will you please?, it wasn’t the most romantic setting, an office in the centre of town, and her not knowing how to answer, a government secretary can’t simply embrace one of the heads of the creative department just like that, there are already colleagues with sidelong glances, she has to disguise her happiness, and he who will once again forego the elevator so as to reach her more quickly felt a tightening in his chest, the sweat running but that didn’t matter, he looked at her lips waiting for them to move, an inexplicable tension in the air, someone has already got a coffee and sat down, all they need is the popcorn or with a bit of luck not even that because the new machine is ready to use now,

  all you have to do is sign and love me for ever, it’s only the signing bit that’s new, right?,

  two or three people cover their mouths so their laughter can’t be heard, their jealousy, she doesn’t cover anything but nor does she answer, she smiles like she can’t stop smiling when he says these things, and the truth is he’s the only person who says these things, or it’s only him from whom she can hear these things, which might seem the same but it isn’t,

  marry me, will you please?,

  and she said no, and she did.

  He came down the bannister so as to love more quickly,

  die with me, will you please?, the hospital elevator smells of loss, he rejected it as he has always rejected elevators, even the stairs, he had to reach her more quickly and his old age would not prevent his courage,

  before you were ill my back was giving me pain and now it’s only you who’s giving me pain, thank you,

  the white bed, white skin, some white liquid going into her veins, such big tears to cry and a smile coming out,

  you have all the episodes of the soap recorded for you to watch, when will you drop everything and come away?,

  she stretches out her lips as best she can, she still can, when she sees him she really can, she even says a few words, she still believes in the possibility of for ever, he closes his eyes to swallow his tears, takes a deep breath, thinks she can’t see but she sees everything, an insoluble knife piercing the breast, to love is to have the certainty of one day taking an insoluble knife to the breast, and not much more, and yet everything,

  die with me, will you please?,

  and she said no, and she did.

  He came down the bannister so as to love more quickly,

  (…)

  but there was no bannister.

  ‘I like your clothes. But I’m sure I’m going to like your skin even more.’

  She had just seen him for the first time and already she had loved him for ever. Love is so easy when nobody complicates it.

  ‘Give me five minutes to have known you for years.’

  The problem with people is that they think that for something to have meaning it has to be difficult, that to be true it has to be protracted, and that was probably how he looked at her, his eyes moving in search of the world, an inveterate worldomaniac, incapable of being alive without loving.

  ‘I don’t know you from anywhere but I’m yours for ever.’

  All declarations of love are premature, and this was no exception, he still wasn’t talking but there was the body, the gestures, the way he moved while waiting for afterwards to happen, you don’t need a name to love someone.

  ‘I’d like to get to know you better and I can’t think of a better place to do that than my body.’

  A lot might have been lacking from what they said but there was no lack of urgency, they didn’t have time to know who they were but they had time to know what they wanted, around them people danced, people drank, people sang, lights flashing, the music loud, heavy beats, her looking at him and him looking at her, there are too many meanings when you look in that way.

  ‘I’ve travelled the world but I’ve never seen anywhere more beautiful than the coastline of your shoulders.’

  The bathrooms were also made for loving, the washbasin is the right height, the wall is comfortable, the graffiti might even be exciting, all you need is people who love each other for a space to be made for loving.

  ‘I want to marry you and maybe this is the moment for you to tell me your name.’

  Two strangers joined together in matrimony, there will be difficult discoveries, there are so many things he won’t like about her, there are so many things she won’t like about him, there will be arguments, difficulties, bills to pay, frequent tears, but they will always return to the territory of those shoulders, names will be forgotten, papers torn while the bodies last, love requires two strangers united by what makes them love, and courage.

  ‘We were so happy that night, and we still are.’

  Love is so easy to understand.

  And so I started loving you for your feet, I was working in the shoe shop in the shopping centre,

  or the mall, I dunno what the right term is for it,

  and you arrived, your smile, you were in a hurry but you wanted the perfect shoe, I immediately liked that way you had of showing that you were demanding but doing it with the least possible effort,

  life is too small for us to waste energy on something that doesn’t involve love,

  you had the most beautiful feet in the world and I felt like a king serving you, a shoe shop really can be a kingdom when I’m at your feet,

  it didn’t take long for you to find what you wanted, some green shoes that weren’t too flashy and which only served to make you more impossible, and you left,

  were you aware that I felt the space between me and the world growing as you went?,

  I waited for you to come back another day but it took you four or five weeks, your feet once again, my happiness once again, but it wasn’t long before I understood that your feet were no longer enough for me, I wanted more of you, to climb up you,

  how do we invite God to be our lover?,

  I could even have asked you out, for a drink, talked to you about myself and about loving you already, but I preferred to change stores and in less than a week I was already at Andreia’s boutique ready to wait for you,

  there were no clothes that weren’t made with your body in mind, you came at least once a week, here you opened up more and I was now allowed to look at your body,

  not that I wasn’t still in love with your feet, you do understand, don’t you?,

  you particularly liked short dresses, not too short,

  I’m young enough to be beautiful but not to be a hooker, you said many times to Andreia and such envy I felt towards her,

  one day I’m going to have my own store just to be
able to call you by your first name,

  I was addicted to you, to your feet, to the way the clothes touched and loved your body, but I only started loving your face slowly, I was moving up your outside and I just needed to improve what was seeing you,

  I could even have asked you out, for a drink, talked to you about myself and about loving you already, but I preferred to change stores and in less than a week I was already at the make-up store on the first floor ready to wait for you,

  as you can imagine it was no picnic, far from it, a man doing make-up isn’t easy to take even nowadays, but a quick course at the job centre, a couple of friendly words here and there, and I’d done it,

  and your face was a kind of eternity, and I only say a kind because I don’t believe eternity is really that unending,

  you would come on special occasions,

  I only don’t do my own make-up when there’s an important event, a party or something, you’d explain, which meant you did exactly the opposite to everyone else, you put on your make-up to go to the bathroom, to your parents’ house, but never for a party,

  it was here that I really started to touch you, look at the goosebumps I’m getting just from the memory, see?,

  your skin didn’t exist however much I touched it, if I had any doubts that you came from a cloud they’d be finished here, at the moment when for the first time your cheekbones, your forehead, an unforgivable light filling the store, not to mention your lips, you always chose the most discreet lipstick, and when you left I’m sure even the food court stopped to look at you, it was my good fortune to be able to appreciate your lips from the outside but there was an urgency in me to know them from within,

  it was a complicated mission but I got there, people saw me as the crazy employee and they were right, I was well aware of how hard it would be to move again to some other store but I had to try, I convinced Dona Laura that I was an expert in candies and actually I was,