Guilt makes you sick

 

I looked at myself one last time in the mirror before putting on my gray jacket. The collar of my white shirt revealed the abrasion on my neck, the habit of, invariably, always having been that white shirt, the witness of my greatest social acts, whether they were of legal commitment or faith.

My trimmed white mustache. No belly. I learned to take care of myself, inside this boarding school, where for the last four and a half years, I have endured the vicissitudes of life, my mistakes, my temples that, when I get hot, due to impotence or restriction, I rest against half a dozen white hospital tiles, above the sink in my room.

Herminia will be outside, waiting for me, tomorrow. At the end of all this, I will miss these walls and even this dull mirror that I often look into.

I go back to the fine comb, brushing the narrow, straight mustache. And I run my fingers through my short white hair again. I feel closer to the end. And my inner voice screams at me to open the door and throw myself into the last hours, into ultimate freedom. I take the jacket. Loose and antagonistic images now live within me. Because part of me wants exile. The other part, no. And if I get lost in these musings, I believe I will be late for the commitments I always made a point of keeping.

I leave and close the bedroom door, but something inside me continues to wander through images and thoughts, between situations from the past and my present of constant learning. I slowly go down the flight of three stairs, at the end of which I see Agent Martins and Agent Fonseca. I greet them, I hear them talking to me, but the message doesn't get through. They want to make me happy, but inside me, joy has been on hold for over a month. Everything comes to me slowly, as if life itself and its teachings were attacking me with the rush of all the clocks. I nod yes to your nonsense. They are my friends. I know so. I have become accustomed, since I have been there, to seeing everyone as a master, and my humility has also become accustomed to me. I measure the day by the light that enters from the hallway. They must be fourteen thirty. The hearing was scheduled for three o'clock. In just under half an hour, I will be facing the end of this page of my life which, due to good behavior, ends before the expected sentence time. I look at my wristwatch and fix my hair once again. I feel the vein pulsate between my sinus and my neck. I get into the van that is waiting for me outside. One of the guards is Ulisses and the other guy who is the driver, will be someone else I don't know. I had time to get to know the institution, its employees, its habits, the system and those who operated behind it.

Since I left the hearing, where I signed my name, aware of my actions and duties, of my agreement, in the face of my social responsibilities, in the eyes of those who looked at me, I became a new man. And I find myself forced to agree with such an assessment. I am this new man, different from the one who came in there on November 17, nineteen eighty-one. If things went well, it would come out in the nineties. Everything was fine. He would have to serve an eight-year sentence, increased, for accepting bribes, for the illegal practice of buying and selling cattle and pimping. Only one of these crimes was proven. Hermínia knew almost everything. I didn't know what, in me, would be more serious, that I was running the risk of losing her fidelity as a wife and friend. I told the whole truth, two months after reporting to prison, which to this day, I still call college.

I communicate through the lawyer that I want them to come and pick me up in my car. The next day, at nine in the morning, Jerônimo, Dulce and Hermínia will be waiting for me in the lobby, I will see my old car, I will be able to drive again. But until nine o'clock arrives, and while I organize my few and valuable possessions on the bed, I am getting upset about the weight of seeing myself free, again, facing all those who knew that I had been condemned and deprived of my freedom and little sense, at the time. An unmeasured ambition. I couldn't blame my parents, that was the last thing I needed. I had a modest childhood, but inherited the intelligence from my mother. I had served my sentence. However, the shame that I had made my wife and children feel could not be removed from their faces, much less from their hearts. I never received any judgment from my children and from her, from my Herminia, the only question had been: But why, Simão?

If I was already devoted to Our Lady of Fatima, I became even more devoted to Christ, to the Lord Jesus Christ, to whom I had turned several times during those years spent there. After the hearing, I went to say goodbye to those I wouldn't see the next day, at mealtime, everyone hugged me, everyone wished me good luck, that to leave that place and return to society I needed a lot of good luck. I agreed and thanked them. I didn't feel ready to abandon the solitude to which I had been converted. I had come to like it, to need it. I found peace in it. I had discussed this subject many times with the chaplain who visited us. Who had become another master for me. I looked at the books, the Bible, full of pictures, of my children, of two grandchildren who were little when I was arrested. I put the same books inside the brown bag that Dulce had brought me, taking out the photos first and putting them in my jacket, inside my wallet. I piled up my worn nightgowns, robe, and pajamas. The underwear, shoes and bedroom slippers, leaving out only the clothes chosen for after my daily bath, which had been chosen as the day of my social freedom. Navy blue pants and a jacket of the same color. A beige shirt and a blue-gray tie, which had been a gift from Hermínia when my eldest son got married. The shoes were polished. I had said goodbye to the barber and the nurse. Of everyone who had been my family in these last years of my life. I put the bag of books on the chair, the toiletry bag, with my personal creams, I left on the sink. I left the cologne on top of the little table that served as my dresser and also as my desk. That would be the last time I used that cologne, I was going to leave it to be given to Mendes who was another guard like me, who had been arrested before me, for other reasons more harmful than mine. And he would still continue serving his sentence. Unfortunately, I had learned to understand and like that human being from the North, from the land of my grandparents.

There was no fear as the only reason for this grief, it was not just the shame of facing relatives and other loved ones. There were several points that came together and grew from within. Leaving the friends i had made there, where i had been well treated and where i had treated everyone with politeness and kindness. And humility, because humility was learned there. It was also about abandoning my solitude and, mainly, my habits. I was a man of habits and routines. And when I was late for one of those habits, I could notice my wristwatch going two minutes faster or slower, if my peace of mind was disturbed.

Of course I imagined arriving at my house, seeing the furniture arrangement again, what I remembered, revisiting my notebooks and all the rubbish I wrote about the world there. Even that had been turned upside down when I was arrested.

My lawyer, a trusted man of my late father, had instructed me with passion and care: Innocent means under the presumption of innocence. Guilt tarnishes the defendant's papers and the soul of his family. Do you understand, Fermentelos?

The guilt weighed on me and he knew it. There are those who carry it lightly, as if it were just another Monday, or an added responsibility that recreates an illness here, another pain there, hiding a shadow here and another there. The doctor of interference emphasized: Oh man, you are innocent, for the soul of your father, Fermentelos, may God have him! And I would hold his hands as he delivered my favorite speech and repeat to him, Doctor you are a saint! And when he tells me about my father, it's like Jesus Christ himself touches me and blesses me from within! And while he gave me a hug of pity and distance, he repeated again, with his arms raised and his gaze passing through the ceiling of that room, worthy of a cinematic Oscar, Fermentelos, your son is innocent, he has eyes that never knew how to lie!

In fact, I really had my father's eyes, and his devotion to Our Lady of Fátima, but the way, the cleverness and the quickness of mind were my mother's, may God rest her in eternal peace. A man is whatever he is, but without a father and mother he is much more of a man, because he can no longer be a boy. In that absence that I had never overcome, I had dedicated myself in those four long years to searching for them in the dark, in the silence, always leaving the door of the living ajar for my deceased parents. I longed for answers, such was my thirst for understanding what life was and how it would continue. And i had had nightmares, so many that only Mendes could repeat them, who would believe him or his nightmares, who would want to spend time with a bitter man resigned to his misfortune? They described him as a taciturn man. Not with me. Mendes understood me, as much as I understood the reason for his crime and confinement. And so what I feared most was finding myself more alone in society than there, in that cocoon where I anointed myself with peace and simplicity, in my small bed, at my little table where, along with my books and notebooks, my visions of the future and the mistakes I made along the way were piled up. Where my sheets were changed daily, my hair and mustache trimmed by the private barber, the food was always tasty and healthy, yes, there they cared about our diet. We did physical exercises. We could go to mass, read, play or be alone, walking in the courtyard that had half a dozen trees and a few kilometers of barbed wire and a desert of people around. That place of learning that I called college, where I had a doctorate in human sciences, was also my luxury hotel, which prevented those who wished me harm from getting close, keeping the devils away from my body and spirit. It was all this that I was rehearsing saying goodbye to. Mendes knew this, Hermínia suspected.

I abandoned that way of life when I was sixty-three years old. For seven years I have found myself free and surrounded by my children and grandchildren. Mendes died in prison. I found out two weeks later through the doctor, my late father's lawyer. He committed suicide. Every Sunday I have a mass said for him. Every Sunday, I give half a dozen large alms to the priest in the town where I attend mass. Result of my messes, which I'm not proud of. Every day I ask Jesus Christ and my parents for forgiveness. I ask forgiveness for myself and for all sinners. For Mendes and the lawyer. For two years I continued to be supervised by the police. They were certainly afraid that I wouldn't adapt socially and would want to return to the golden days of compulsive learning. As I am a man of habit, I soon learned to like having Hermínia around, my Dulce and the girls, Jerônimo and his son. I am adapting to the idea of ​​the end of the line and I have to always keep the conversations up to date, with God and Jesus Christ as witnesses. I am a new old man. New, because by accepting my shadow companions, I changed my way of being, old, because despite all my victories and failures, I feel more tired every day and with each passing day, more ready to leave.

My therapist, who sees herself as being ethical, advises me to take some measures to reduce my anxiety and protect the well-being of my descendants. I trust her, just like the priest or Mendes. I know that what they tell me is not meant to comfort me, but that it reflects their values. And what more can a man ask for, if not the truth, when he needs it?

In the last two years, I have completed the investments. I sold two properties to pay the very high taxes on all the others I own, from Alvarenga to Moita, from Caldas da Rainha to Évora Monte. In Alpiarça, I turn on my heels and lean over the well. At the back, there are still notebooks and newspaper packages sealed with fishing line. On the Corredoura wall, which doesn't even belong to me, but I have the right of preference, other packages are kept there. Mendes remained silent forever. It was for him, if he had withstood all the loneliness he experienced, after I left. In fact, as I am a man of habit, but weak, I never went back there and told him before I left. I also told him that I was waiting for him at home as long as he was alive. He is the one who is no more. Hermínia, after being diagnosed with emphysema and undergoing treatment, decided to return to her family's homeland. There was Albertina there, the younger sister. That she was tired of the humidity and loneliness. I hugged her and understood and even told our children and grandchildren to leave her alone. That they would visit her, as I would. And so it was. I left three letters, duly addressed. To each of the children and to the wife.

At the end of that hot summer night, I had already turned seventy-two and returned from Tavira, after having sealed the envelopes in the office drawer, I went to the garage. I always thought that dying in November should be my destiny, but my conscience is heavier than any reconciliation with God. I took the Winchester that belonged to my late father. I carried it. A golden bullet. And I blew out my brains, which, there on the floor and with God as my witness, had just fried me, I was so tired of my habits, especially this one of lying to feel better about myself. The smears ended there. Ambition had destroyed the old man and, despite my habits, I had never felt worthy of the freedom I had achieved, unjustly.