Of the fall of figures

 

Not to mention that we always have all our fingers left over when we don't wait to see a soul, due to the immense time it takes for it to disappear within us, and on the contrary, due to our own forgetfulness of the people and places we move in, if we are not in the same circumference, established by the comfort zone that some seem to suffer from and others to escape. Without wanting to, or even expecting it, I found him there, in front of me and I recognized the figure by his back, slightly arched now, due to the weight that events and the passing of the years impose upon us. I didn't hesitate to touch him on the shoulder, although that gesture seemed to have taken a long time to be made, like in rewind, at a slow speed. To anyone else, it might have seemed studied. There was no doubt, no imprecision, just surprise.

- This world is a neighborhood! - I said to him, as soon as my finger reached his shoulder blade and I saw his smile widen.

- Is there really no mistake, Laura?

- I don't think so, Mr. Figueira!

He left the ATM queue and we shuffled through the line of people that paraded between the ATM and the large terrace and that was where we sat down! He was smiling and wearing sunglasses and I was smiling, but without my glasses! The waiter came over who had known us both for many years, to the point that he himself called himself a VIP card client of the establishment and I myself had started going there, perhaps before him.

So, Mr. Figueira?

I ask you the same thing, Laura. I see your family regularly, but I confess that I haven't seen you for maybe fifteen years!

Not that long, but it must have been a long time, because today I passed by my high school teacher's door and didn't see him. Only his jeep, parked in the same hall and, by coincidence, at least I believed it was, I saw a car with a young boy leaving the yard next door, at Daniel's house. I had the audacity, which for me means nothing more and nothing less than being me, curious and nostalgic, to knock on the window in the place of the dead man and ask about Daniel.

- It was Jorge, but of course, you don't remember him, he was a kid and now a man! I nodded, I only recognized him when I looked into his eyes, while I heard him say that Daniel had died 3 years ago, curiously, but he amended the word, replacing it with another that would give him more strength for what he said next, I don't know if everything is already written, Laura, although you assure me that it was years ago and I even find it a bit funny, my Carolina died two months before Daniel!

- Oh! I'm sorry Mr. Figueira!

The words escaped me. A couple so close and complicit and so, I deduced in a slow and painful internal analysis that it had been that weight of events that had rounded his back and figure, for sure! A life planned to be translated into the pleasure of summer holidays and the famous PPRs that would allow them to do what they had not done, dedicated to each other, but to their daughters while they were both growing up. He was left with the PPRs, each day more overwhelmed by the conformism of accepting that everything was already written, with no possibility of editions or re-editions, amendments or referendums. Life imposed itself, and it was up to us, to accept it in moderation. That was what was added to him, not only in his general appearance, but more specifically, in his distant gaze that probably wandered between the distant past and the distance of the days that made up the three years of the absence of his life partner and his accomplice friend!

He told me things he had never dared to tell before, about his early youthful prudishness that had continued, with great apologies, to everyone, to his difficulty in identifying with the system, having been the "only" child of four brothers, having been born out of term, fourteen years younger than the youngest, and being treated like a nobleman, whom everyone excused and pampered. Of course, it was a slang word in the mouths of some and even in his own. Life had been kind to him, and at twenty-seven, while still studying Law in Coimbra, he met Carolina, his girlfriend and future wife, the daughter of illustrious lawyers, but she was studying in an area outside the law, and, as she had rightly called herself, was an outlaw for the closest member, her own father. He never finished law. He. They decided to pack up their bags after a trip around Europe as a prize for completing his degree in Philosophy, and he would go on to teach his entire life, far from the legalities of his parents. He had gotten out of the way without much need for arguments, proving that it was his passion for contemporary issues and thought that drove him. He had applied for the position of manager at the bank, thanks to his knowledge of law accumulated during his years in Coimbra, and had gotten the job, but ambition is a premature daughter that is always slow to break through the veil, and Carolina had often told him, Zé, if you are not doing well there, apply for another position. Through his father-in-law, he had managed to get an interview with another bank, and it was there that he was happy to arrive and get in. Jardim Gonçalves was the one conducting the interview, and there began what would become a powerful influence on his interbank stage climbing.

I looked at him and lowered my gaze. The greatest risk for an idealist, any idealist, is to see that in the accounting of ideals, the hippies, almost all the ones I knew, secretly wanted to become yuppies. With each story you tell, there is then the personal risk of letting people fall from their pedestals, people who never fit on pedestals, who rarely begged for anything, in fact, exuded social projection and power. Very well drawn. The now fragile figure, perhaps with some remorse, of course, which is part of the life of all of us, seemed to me to come along with a bit of shame in the confession. On my part, too. We should not idolize figures. Make them impossible to access and charismatic, aligned with possible reality; rectitude, verticality, in the skirmishes of competitiveness would eliminate ideals and bring, yes, benefits and privileges secretly desired, as long as our discourse was, invariably, that of rectitude and bravery, of success and effort.

It seemed to me that the story had ended there, but I didn't want to be rude to the man I had learned to respect decades ago and who, now, as he got older, suggested to me how wrong I always was when I put up bars and gradients, excusing the divine human being. From my grandmother Giselda, I remembered the saying that opportunity makes the thief, and when opportunity marries ease, and comes lined with opacity and privileges, the gears allow for continuation. He continued, although his lip trembled, while he held the coffee cup, while he cast his eyes to the floor, like mine, which were now resting in brief pauses, between the table and the floor, allowing me to be distracted by the surroundings, I couldn't help but be even more surprised. The mechanisms of facilitated astonishment, excuse the redundancy, still haunted him and in a pertinent way. He had been involved in a controversy involving an investor, a partnership that had earned him millions of escudos, which he could not now enjoy alone, without Carolina. The projects they had designed together had been divided after some time of secrecy due to his wife's ability to mention his neoplasia, after discovering that he himself had a work partner whom the sexist society called his lover, and she, Carolina, knowing that her left breast would be removed and then her right breast as well, had taken refuge in her sister's house and begged: Adélia, please don't tell.

So, her sister had not said a single word about her neoplasia and, with or without the knowledge of her close friends and family, without plausible justifications, Carolina had started sleeping at her sister's house, leaving her husband alone, in the family home, her daughters already living their own lives in the big city. Added to this was the need to keep up appearances for her daughters, not wanting to worry them, and when she knew they were ready to visit their parents, she would return to the house where only her husband lived, in apparent order. One of these days, Carolina was tidying his clothes in the bedroom, after Helena, the oldest, had left through the door, and Carolina heard a thud. Against the living room furniture. Her husband had fallen, moaning something that sounded like a plea for forgiveness. His wife had grabbed the landline phone and called Inem. Soon, José Figueira was undergoing surgery, in a short time, no more than fifteen days, thinking about returning home and, still in the hospital room, without serum, with his blood somewhat rejuvenated and his tortoiseshell glasses being pushed up while he read the newspaper and waited for Carolina to be discharged, the news reached him that his Carolina was dead. More dead than he was at that moment in the living room, asking him to forgive him for his mistakes, for the breakdown of the complicity and loyalty that had kept her married. And after that, there was only the idleness of pain, which is the worst, which remains glued to the dermis, wondering if she had forgiven him or if she had left, without waiting for his discharge, without the forgiveness necessary to accompany him in his age, in the days of challenge, in a pitiful agony, that man almost two meters tall, emaciated by time and perhaps by the lack of answers that had never come to him. Loneliness doesn't fit in the living rooms, it bursts into the bedrooms, it lies down next to us, in bed, on the sofa, it doesn't stay silent, it just shouts nonsense and in his head, there was the hope that, by telling me, he could, in some way, feel relief, or forgiveness to forgive himself, and for me, it was really hard to say, to let the words come together in the closing sentence that I said to him, but I needed to see that pain diminish and so I broke the silence, stirring the empty cup with one hand and the untouched packet of sugar with the other:

- Everything was written in that inaccessible book, Mr. Figueira. And remember, the fig tree is only impossible to redeem if it does not bear healthy fruit. In that regard, we have to agree, you have borne fruit, the fig tree is not sterile. Write about it, if it helps you, but do not punish yourself in this way, postponing life. Why not take a solo trip, fulfilling the plans you had with your wife?

I saw, not by divine miracle, but by human circumstances, his smile widen, as if I had truly said: you are forgiven, man. The ghost of guilt left him at that moment, for a moment, and I could see hope cover his face and he broke out into an open smile of tolerance with himself.

- You know, I have been beginning to believe what you have been saying for many years, if everything is written, who knows, by going on the trip we did not take, I will find her, or, perhaps, myself, the forgiveness that I seem incapable of giving birth to. It was very good talking to you today. There are really no coincidences!