Un ensayo que me aventé... porque aún escribo ensayos...
“Even though she was standing with her back turned towards him, Raymond could feel the powerful aura that floated and drifted all around the old lady. There she was, in her finest white dress, a mother-of-pearl monument standing on that ruin of a roof. The age difference? It was inevitable, and yet, it was Trudi the one who seemed to hold that silent pulse through her veins, the indomitable drink of life pouring all over the insides of her skin. Marianne was different. That night Raymond had seen her standing there singing he couldn’t help but noticing the immaterial qualities about her: she was a black rustle of a blind bird’s wing in some dreamy flash that showed up as a long-forgotten treasure in lonely mornings. In contrast, Trudi stood with the majesty of a woman who knows what is her role in the world: the authority of somebody who has taken dreams by the tail and taught them to become real. The fact that her dress was white only enhanced that sensation: she was the moon, daring dawn to come and take her away, even expecting the sun would not stand up to her.” (Moorfield, p. 152-153).
Elijo este pasaje, bastante largo, para empezar, porque es el que mejor ilustra a donde quiero llegar. Sin embargo, como no es bueno empezar un viaje sin estar seguros del punto de partida, y demasiado temprano ya estoy brincando a conclusiones, los voy a poner en contexto.
The Night’s Asylum es una historia que, como pueden ver, gira alrededor de la palabra “dream”; hay que ver cuántas veces Morgan Moorfield, la autora, usa ésta o sus derivados. (También usa mucho la palabra “derelict”, pero esa es otra historia). En el pasaje que leí, aparecen “dreamy” y “dreams”, y más referencias al mundo onírico, como la luna, y sí, la noche. Todos los personajes que están ahí, en el asilo, o quizá manicomio, viven una especie de existencia inmaterial que se ve trastocada cuando Raymond Bullen, el personaje que proviene de un mundo iluminado por la luz de un día, nublado, pero al fin y cuenta día, llega a convivir con ellos por azares del destino... y de la noche.
La historia es así: Raymond es el hombre perfecto, con la vida perfecta. Él es guapo, es joven, está recién casado y muy enamorado de su joven esposa. Ella comete la franca inocentada de salir a comprar algo para satisfacer un antojo de embarazada, sola, para no molestar a su marido; es ahí cuando la autora, prácticamente sin piedad, decide deshacerse de ella mediante una excusa de películas de venganza: un crimen. Así, Raymond, quien no es héroe de película de balazos, se ve jalado a la noche: todas las escenas posteriores al asesinato de su mujer se llevan a cabo en la noche o en lugares oscuros; incluso cuando es detenido por la policía al estar ebrio en la vía pública, el día está nublado, como ya mencioné. Y cuando queda tirado afuera del asilo, que es cuando Tamara, la encargada, se apiada de él y decide recogerlo, es de noche.
Aunque Moorfield nos permite entrar al asilo desde el primer capítulo, es hasta la llegada de Raymond cuando tenemos una descripción más exacta de cómo está esa ruina de edificio, “the derelict, solitary place”. (Moorfield, p. 5). La “oficina” donde Tamara lee está al lado opuesto de donde da el sol, pues ella lee mejor con luz artificial: “It’s a wonderful invention. I make the most of it. Sometimes I think I prefer it to the sun, even though this is man-made and it’s supposed to be imperfect. But it’s practical and it never fades.” (Moorfield, p. 92). Esta practicidad habla más de Tamara, pero eso lo trataré más adelante.
En cuanto a Trudi, su cuarto es el más alejado de todo: un cuartucho de azotea donde no entra la luz; el cuarto que su mismo hijo pidió, según él, para curarla de su ludopatía: “He thought he could blind me by making me blind to the outside world. Isn’t he silly. One carries the outside world in the insides of the mind; it lives and flowers in the passageways of the heart. But look at me. You may think, like him, that I’m talking shit.” (Moorfield, p. 43). Los otros inquilinos del asilo, la pareja de drogadictos Brittany y Sam, rehúyen la luz así como rehúyen la ayuda: incluso cuando Sam tiene que abrir la ventana para gritarle a su dealer, Brittany se niega a recibir esa luz: “Close it! It hurts my eyes! Just fucking close it!” (Moorfield, p. 24).
El caso de Marianne es más claro. La chica se la vive dormida o inyectándose morfina, encerrada en su habitación; cuando se despierta es de noche y, por lo tanto, nunca se preocupa por abrir las cortinas de su cuarto (tan sólo, significativamente, la mañana de su muerte). Esta clase de vida, silenciosa, ausente, es lo que aumenta la idea de inmaterialidad de la muchacha, la idea que empieza a formar una historia en la cabeza de Raymond: “He wondered, sometimes, if there was a secret life during the daytime for that girl: a secret world of perpetual irreality where she traveled, wild and free, her morphine-closed eyes open to every wonder.” (Moorfield, p. 79). Y es precisamente la calidad onírica de Marianne la que la llevará a la tumba; que se opone a la fuerza de Trudi, la que leí en el primer pasaje. Trudi es fuerza, o, como diría este revelador pasaje, puede ser la verdad:
“’Did you call?’ Trudi’s voice, followed by her presence, interrupted the director and Raymond.
‘Not really, Trudi. We said ‘true’ and that has nothing to do with you. You can go now,’ Tamara answered.
‘It could have been me. You know, True was my nickname when I was a young girl. Some guy I loved very much called me like that.’” (Moorfield, p. 54-55).
Y, sin embargo, la fuerza no será suficiente. El hecho de que Trudi pueda representar la verdad y la experiencia tampoco la salva de la muerte. Quizá porque es también una soñadora, o la propia luna, como dice el primer pasaje; la luna quien ayuda a la gente a tener sueños. Retomando el pasaje con el que abrí esta ponencia, la escena siguiente es ella, bailando con Raymond en la azotea del asilo, escena digna de película, con “Evening Gown” de Mick Jagger de fondo. Raymond escucha la letra de la canción, y al llegar a la parte donde dice “But I can still paint the town all the colors of your evening gown/while I’m waiting for your blonde hair to turn gray” empieza a soñar despierto con su difunta esposa: “Suddenly he was no longer dancing with an old woman with a nickname on the roof of some God-forsaken asylum: he was there, at the party where he had met Muriel, and she was wearing that multicolored gown which had stolen his glance right then and there, and they were dancing, and who cared if Muriel’s hair was already gray? He had just woken up late and found out that many years had gone by, but she was still there, dancing with him, in this neverending night.” (Moorfield, p. 154-155). Tan vívido se vuelve el sueño, que Raymond no duda en declararle su amor al terminar, y ella, tan sabia como la luna, le asegura que no es a ella a quien ama, sino a Marianne.
Desgraciadamente, como ya dije, la noche se acaba con el amanecer: una mañana (sí, de mañana precisamente, aunque sea por un breve momento) Trudi muere mientras el sol sale. Durante el día están los médicos y todo el mundo encerrado en el asilo: el funeral, en un cementerio cercano, se lleva a cabo hasta la puesta del sol, mas, de los internos, sólo va Marianne. Claro que Tamara y Raymond también están ahí, y ahí es cuando Raymond compara a todas las destinadas a morir con imágenes oníricas:
“’Please. Please don’t say that.’
But Raymond was not listening. His eyes were fixed on the grave, that was now being closed by the undertaker. Shovel after shovel, more and more handfuls of earth stood between him and the woman he had thought he loved. The idea of Muriel being the same stung him like a snake-bite right then and there. He had not wished to go to the cemetery after his wife’s death because he hadn’t wanted to face that image; that monument to the impossibility of repetition. […]
‘…What—what is it? Are they nothing but dreams? Are all of them going to fade away when I open my eyes? Are they!?’
[…]
Tamara did not answer again, but her eyes sided to the black car, where, surely, Marianne must have been dozing in the back seat. Raymond guessed the thin line her eyes were tracing, and, for some reason, he wondered that, perhaps he was going to open his eyes any minute now, and Marianne would be gone. Though Tamara would be there.” (Moorfield, p. 172-173).
El hecho de que Marianne desaparezca, pero Tamara se quede, es otra prueba de la calidad onírica de Marianne y su destinada desaparición, mientras que Tamara, como ya mencioné, es más terrenal. Ella es práctica: tiene ganas de ayudar a las personas, tiene buen corazón, pero su naturaleza es más bien pedestre. Basta comparar las ideas del amor que tienen ella y Marianne. Empezamos con el primer acercamiento entre la joven morfinómana y Raymond:
“He was now almost face to face with her. She, for the first time, had just let Morphine’s record keep on playing. The music flowed softly around them, enveloping them as if trying to defend the girl who seemed as if she would break into a fit of trembling right then and there.
He didn’t understand why he did it, but, suddenly, Raymond reached out and touched the girl’s lips […].
How she had run away! There she was, now, all curled up in a corner of the room, as if in deadly danger […].
‘It was death,’ she repeated. ‘And I knew from his first touch. He called forth all the spirits within me. And, once he had set them loose, he didn’t make a move to take them back to their rightful origin.’”
(Moorfield, p. 84-85).
Marianne inmediatamente relaciona el amor y el deseo con algo sobrenatural, con algo que ni siquiera ella puede explicarse. Por eso incluso en el único momento en donde Trudi decide ponerlos a hacer algo tan simple como bailar, Marianne no puede hacerlo. Tamara es diferente. Ella sabe que desea a Raymond, que se siente triste y que necesita contacto. Así, no duda en decirle al personaje principal lo que siente tras la cena en su casa:
“’I would sometimes like to think it has not been the complete failure I feel it has been.’
‘It’s not a failure.’ Even Raymond had to admit he was just being nice. He wasn’t even sure of the asylum was a failure or it wasn’t. He was not sure of anything about the asylum, for God’s sake. But even it didn’t seem as if Tamara had heard him. […]
‘You know why I brought you here.’
‘A little moral push, you said.’
‘Don’t play with me. You know what I’m talking about. You’re lonely, I am lonely. We both need some human kindness. Somebody between the covers. A body to hold on to this world.’”
(Moorfield, p. 96).
Aún así, hay algo de emoción en las ganas de sexo de Tamara. Hay necesidad de calor, de entendimiento. Lo que también se diferencia de Brittany. Ella está aún un grado más abajo en esa escala: su deseo parece ser puramente animal. Su manera de irrumpir en el cuarto de Raymond, sólo en ropa interior, y de pedir las cosas, deja muy en claro esto: “’You’re gonna fuck me! I know you’re gonna fuck me now!’ she was yelling, over and over again, looking rather twiggy in her small, dirty underwear.” (Moorfield, p. 68).
Las cualidades animales de Brittany son tan fuertes que nunca pueden abandonarla. Por eso, al final, la transformación que ella busca realizar en sí misma, su deseo de volverse Marianne, no funciona: se podría decir que es tan disparatado como si Calibán intentara volverse Ariel. La drogadicta se pinta el cabello, y hasta se roba la ropa que Marianne siempre usa, pero no puede ser lo que la morfinómana es. Su manera de pedir pasión sigue siendo agresiva, y basada en la imagen. Ella intenta tener a Raymond argumentando que su aspecto ya es como el de Marianne: “Here! I look like her now, don’t I? So you can want me now, can’t you?” (Moorfield, p. 197). Pero su agresividad es tal que tiene que presentarse armada a la azotea (donde se encuentran Marianne y Raymond) para lograr su cometido. Y junto con ella llegan las primeras señales del día, de un día que, contradiciendo a lo que es tradicional de la noche (agresividad, cosas que no deben verse) es un día violento y que no trae la promesa de una nueva vida, sino del final de los sueños, de una muerte. La navaja que Brittany lleva “it gleamed against the lights like the morning star” (Moorfield, p. 199). Su pelo rubio, que se asoma a través del mal tinte, es un sol traicionero: “Still her hair wasn’t night: some dirty blonde strands showed in small patches, like a cloudy sun, betraying what she was.” (Moorfield, p. 196-197). El sol la demuestra como la criatura casi salvaje, quien al final terminará con todo el sueño: si seguimos con la comparación que usé anteriormente, Calibán se queda, después de todo Ariel es inmaterial y debe desvanecerse. Aunque, al final, todo termina en un justo medio, sin Ariel ni Calibán: Raymond parece quedarse con Tamara, la mujer que no es ni demasiado pedestre ni demasiado etérea. Una mujer que puede vivir en un mundo donde hay tanto sueños como realidades crueles.
Así, el libro se vuelve una travesía a través de la noche hasta el amanecer: el inicio de un sueño hasta su final. El sueño de Tamara, quien recibe el asilo de una mujer que lleva el groseramente revelador nombre de Madame Night, y que bien suena a alguien que no podría existir (algo que se refuerza por el hecho de que una de las indicaciones que le da a Tamara es que debe dejar que la gente del asilo se comporte como quiera): la pesadilla de Raymond, que empieza con la muerte de su esposa y termina con un nuevo día junto a Tamara. El hilo conductor sería Marianne, quien en cada página deja caer pistas sobre su naturaleza efímera; los personajes extraños que a veces vuelven los sueños pesadillas serían el par de drogadictos (a pesar de que Sam es más bien incidental y sirve para mantener al personaje de Brittany en pie) y Trudi la luna, la luna omnipresente, que vela por los sueños de los durmientes.
Este es el truco de Morgan S. Moorfield: la anatomía de un sueño. Y, como un pequeño bono, también hay un juego: todas las canciones citadas en el libro son de grupos con la letra M precisamente por el nombre de la autora, y la canción que rompe el esquema, la de Sophie Zelmani (esquema roto que también es pista de que algo está a punto de cambiar en el asilo; foreshadowing de la muerte onírica anunciada) coincide con su segundo nombre, Sophie, así que no podemos tomar nada por sentado en esta anatomía de un sueño, por la cual Moorfield nos guía. Querer revivir esa noche o no ya dependerá del lector.
viernes, 5 de noviembre de 2010
lunes, 30 de agosto de 2010
Últimos versos
Silueta contra el vidrio: autorretrato.
Expuesta a quienes miran desde afuera.
Mi imagen da a la calle, ella enmarcada,
A la vista de todos: puro ego.
El monumento a esta soledad golfa.
Realismo/ultrarrealismo posmoderno.
Un ánima pulsante en galería.
Prohibido pasar de la línea roja.
Yo personaje, marco mis fronteras.
Un lienzo aún más carne que quien mira,
Artista ganador de la portada.
Mi sangre contra el piso: autorretrato.
Expuesta a quienes miran desde afuera.
Mi imagen da a la calle, ella enmarcada,
A la vista de todos: puro ego.
El monumento a esta soledad golfa.
Realismo/ultrarrealismo posmoderno.
Un ánima pulsante en galería.
Prohibido pasar de la línea roja.
Yo personaje, marco mis fronteras.
Un lienzo aún más carne que quien mira,
Artista ganador de la portada.
Mi sangre contra el piso: autorretrato.
lunes, 7 de junio de 2010
Fortune Teller
Creo que es la primera prosa completa que publico. Nacida de un miedo peculiar. A ver que tal.
“I’m not afraid of the future. My future belongs to the past now.”
-Leonardo Nierman
“So, what keeps you here?”
She shrugged again, just as she had done when I had asked her if she liked her job. She just raised her shoulders and shook her head ever so slightly, but never far away from that vehemence, that aggression which I had noticed right after the first question; a movement as if she was trying to scare something away, something which had just found a nest on her shoulder and had to be driven away, even violently. Maybe she didn’t like her job after all.
The waitress came and asked if we already wanted to order. She went first and I followed:
“Un tamal rojo y un tamal verde con café.”
The waitress left and I could see she was smiling. Her, not the waitress.
“Your Spanish has gotten so much better,” she observed. “You don’t speak with an accent now.”
I wanted to say something to her too. I wanted to tell her that she was crazy because she only ordered the simplest breakfast, the one with toast and coffee. Except because she ordered tea. Tea. It was as if she wanted to distance herself from what I ordered, from what she should order, as if her taste buds already belonged to the Island, the one that does not belong to the Continent. But then again, that is not what I wanted to say to her. In fact, I wanted to tell her that that toast and tea she had ordered were not good for her: it wasn’t enough breakfast. That breakfast simply wouldn’t help her: it wouldn’t light up the pallor of her cheeks and her eyes; it would not wake up the drowsiness of her ballerina arms and of her smile, the smile that is suddenly interrupted by discreet coughs that hide choked sobs. Like some person of yore dying from consumption. Or one of those poets she likes.
“Your English is absolutely wonderful too,” was what came out of my lips, finally. “I’m amazed at how much you’ve improved.”
She smiled again, back at me, as if to take the compliment, though I’m sure deep inside she knew I was lying. Not because her English is bad, but because she must have known I had wanted to say something else. She doesn’t need me—or anybody—telling me her English is very good. She knows so.
In fact, it was her English that had called my attention first. In a school where everybody was trying hard to get the right accent, what surrounded me were masks of voices, pretenders and actors, trying hard to hit the right key in a language that stood there, aloof to them. But not to her. She just spoke the way she knew how to speak English, and that did not only showed me what the sound of her voice was, but what her voice itself was.
And man, her voice was. Deep inside I’m sure she knew the variety of identities her voice had: her voice was Greyhound tickets and Mississippi rumble and shotguns and hotel cheap whiskey hangovers and the sun leaving his trail of gold upon dusty roads in the dusk. In fact, for a second, I felt her voice was my parents—but I couldn’t tell her so.
The waitress came and left our orders at the table. I hadn’t realized how hungry I was until I started digging in. She, in contrast, chose to linger, spreading jam all over her toast and mixing milk with her black tea as if those actions needed the careful steps that a tightrope does. Maybe it was her sleepiness, the fact that she stretched as if she was trying to recover that hour of sleep the sun had taken away from her. Or maybe she just… writes like that. I don’t know.
It was that doubt that led me to the next question.
“You know, there’s going to be another contest. Spanish, of course, but oh well. Are you going to participate?”
The piece of toast stopped right before her mouth and all I could see was her eyes. For a second, I thought she was to hurl it at me. But all the aggressiveness of the action just melted into her response:
“What for? It’s a lost cause.”
I was about to answer Why do you think so? but she must have noticed I was going to say something, for immediately added:
“Really. Think about it. What chances does a short story writer—of short stories in English—has—here?
As she was in her job, as she was fixing herself something for breakfast, as she was folding the warm towels just out from the dryer. She just couldn’t help thinking about it. Perhaps it was the wrong thing to do. Perhaps she should have asked her parents for advice before doing so.
Nah. Maybe you shouldn’t, they would have said. That seemed to be all they said lately.
A chill ran through her spine. She wrapped herself up with a warm towel and sat down, and right away a comfortable somnolence swept through her, making her want to sleep into the towel’s warmth. She wondered why she was so tired of lately. Why her stomach lurched at the mention of almost anything. Why she seemed to be down with some illness she could hardly recognize.
Maybe she should go to the doctor. Or maybe you shouldn’t.
She wondered why nobody wanted her for a wife. Was there anything wrong with her? Was there anything wrong in her maidenly figure, her slow but subtle ways, her face that hid nothing? But then again, maybe you shouldn’t. The safety of married life was a myth: married life was another pitfall.
Just as there was a pitfall in everything she thought. Even in her parents’ Maybe you shouldn’t. Her parents thought they were protecting her from the pitfalls, but they were there, in that decision of not doing anything, and even in the questions the rest of her family asked about her liking her job.
She unwrapped herself out of the warm towel, but wrapped her face in her hands. It was absurd—simply ridiculous—that she should have felt more secure of what she was doing after reading the little papers that came out of fortune cookies with her Chinese to-go.
After her voice, then came that short story about the fortune teller.
She handed it in as an assignment. And it was good—damn good it was. And yet, I could not give it the appreciation it deserved. I mean, of course I liked it, but my comments were more focused in knowing if she had a third eye that could see beyond physical things, rather than criticizing the story.
And she must have known about my deficiency, for she started showing the story around, and that was when it happened. All those congratulations and pats in the back and yeah, you got it, if only there was a contest of English-speaking writers you would win. It was her winning streak. I had been turning the possibility over in my mind of telling her what was the hidden relationship between me and her story, and that was when I decided not to. She didn’t need any extra information to stain what was already so successful.
Though, of course, my life isn’t (or I hope it isn’t) as drastic as her story. The story about a man who is told by a fortune teller that he shall be the luckiest man of town. Emboldened by this premonition he sets out to do everything he has dreamed of, only to find setbacks and heartbreak. So, he goes back to his town, wondering if the fortune teller was wrong, only to find all the people he knew have died and, in that sense, he’s indeed the luckiest man in town.
Neat, isn’t it? That’s her story. It isn’t hard to see why it was considered so good. But, even though it looks like my story, they’re not the same.
My story starts out with me being very little, running into our golden yard ornamented with dry grass and my grandmother watching me. At some moment I interrupted my play, went and hugged Grandma, and told her I wanted to stay there, with her, forever. And Grandma answered, in that tone which foreshadows mystic, supernatural things that only grandmothers know, that my wish would be granted, that I would stay there, at my sunlit home, with my past and my family, forever.
But just a year after, my parents took me away to New York. My whole childhood, until my early adulthood, was spent there. I was educated there. My parents’ voices never lost the flavor of my old sundry town. But mine did.
Yet, I never really noticed it. Not until I came back to my town, in order to achieve that tinsel music dream everybody has there. I was pretty good with a guitar; people told me I was talented. It was the other guys that would pick on me because of my voice. They would say that it was such a shame that a guy born at the town could have the technique, but not the feeling. That it plainly sucked I just wouldn’t have the feeling.
I don’t know why that affected me so badly, but it did, and like my parallel life in a story I hadn’t read just yet, I visited a fortune teller.
She didn’t tell me I would be the luckiest man in town. I’m not that literary-interesting. What she told me was that I should first go, find the feeling, and then come back. As if the feeling was something you could find.
Or, perhaps it is.
Whatever the case, I did what that fortune teller told me, which was just the thing a music teacher or some old bluesman could have told me to do. I did so, and I traveled all around the world. All around the world so I could get just where I am now. In a restaurant, having breakfast with a girl who has her own version of my life, written down in the words my parents gave me for living. And who’s looking at me with big eyes. We have finished eating now, both of us, though with her is no surprise, with that little breakfast she had, and I can’t remember if we talked or not. Then, she lowers her eyes to her empty plate, as if she was surprised it was empty already, and asks for the bill, in such a way that if looks as if she was going to write a story about this moment.
“Hey,” I say, impressed by how she doesn’t leave her writer’s role no matter where she goes. She must have sensed my admiration, for she looks up and asks: “Yes?” with that quality of haughty boredom that I sometimes noticed in her, in some classes. Answering “Yes?” like that when it was time to take the roll only proved she was the best.
She sits down and writes the words in the notebook where she writes the stories. And she writes them down with the same care, the same attention, as if she was trying to write a story with them. The story of her life.
In English, of course. Three words, irregularly divided, look at her from the blankness of the page. Hard work. Success.
She speaks to them in the same language, even though the fortune teller who told her so spoke in Spanish and called her señorita as often as she could.
“Nothing more?”
The voice of the fortune teller, the same one she met, answers to her, in spite of her suspicion the woman couldn’t speak English:
“Nothing more.”
What is next, then. What is what should follow. No clue of a place, no clue of a time, no clue of anything.
Slowly, carefully, she writes down the words, this time in Spanish. And she’s more shocked by the result. Now the words don’t say anything to her. They have alienated her. Or perhaps this is because lately her head can’t seem to think straight. It seems to be forever swimming in a puddle of steaming water, enclosed together by the four walls of the city.
And, when she finally manages to extract meaning from them, she can’t help but feeling they mean something she had managed to shrug off her shoulders a long time ago.
Once, two girls with similar playful strides and mocking smiles came over to me and told me that she loved me.
They didn’t use those same words. They giggled and spoke, one on top of the other, mixing the words as if they were baking a cake. And they baked a story that said something about her secret. About her reasons for being the way she was around me, though I hadn’t noticed anything peculiar in her behavior towards me. How she had a whole box under the bed filled with poems and stories about me. At least that would explain her third eye. But the girls just couldn’t get rid of their mocking smiles and their mocking manners, so everything I got was the fact that she loved me.
Maybe that was why I did what I did next. I paid the bill for both of us, paid for her cheap, small breakfast and led her out of the restaurant with her arm in mine. Some minutes later I pulled her close to me and saw her looking at me with big eyes again. Big eyes that suddenly drifted in the direction of the sun, and over the trees of the park, to the horizon.
She may love me. She may not. Yet, she does love something that I love. Something that has to do with long lost towns wrapped up in dirty roads that she has never known and that I, unlike her, remember too well. With the words that come together with them.
Is there a place in her heart for me, when so many words fill it?
A pigeon flies and stops right in front of us, and I wonder if she loves the word too. Paloma. And suddenly I know that if say that word to her, she will tell me a story of her childhood in Coyoacán, chasing palomas at the quiosco, then going with her father to have a nieve, which will never taste like those American multi-flavored ice-creams. And I realize she loves those words as well, with the family-bond, the bloodline love one owes to parents, to brothers or sisters; the kind of love that cannot be blotted out even with the use of other language or an acquired accent.
It’s the other words she needs to nurture her bond with, as if it was a thing between a man and a woman. Those other words that hold a special meaning for her: a meaning of trips and adventure. Greyhound, six-string, a penny for your thoughts. She loved that expression; she used it many times while talking.
I decided to recreate those beloved words in the language that was rightfully her inheritance, to no avail. An autobús does not belong in dusty golden streets, but rather in the cold streets of the city. A guitarra, not matter how cool it is, will never strike the hard rock note a six-string can. Not to mention the pennies. Hard to think somebody would offer her money for her thoughts in Spanish, and, if they did, she would surely miss the small copper shine of the pennies that would not be in her purse.
I would give her a penny is she would just answer me if there’s a bond between me and her. An alternate version of the mocking story of the mocking girls to match the alternate version of my life. But, instead, I ask again:
“So, what keeps you here?”
When she finally gets home, she has the memory of his arms around her still fresh on her mind and on her body. Yet, they fade away when she lays her eyes on the blank page.
She lied to him when she said she was not trying. Of course she was. She always is.
Or perhaps she’s not. Though she thinks it’s him who has stopped trying and that that is the reason’s he’s going back. The real reason; not fulfilling some prophecy a fortune teller told him, so many years ago.
“Are you not afraid?” she had asked him. “It’s been so long, since you were there.”
“I’m not afraid of tomorrows,” he had answered. “I’ve seen many, enough to know their uncertainties are always the same. I’m not that young anymore.” So he had smiled that pretty smile of his and she had wished to tell him he was not old, not even middle-aged, that at least he wasn’t sick out of nothing as she was; but she had stopped and wondered about how many tomorrows she still had to face.
It was a great phrase. The one he had said, about the tomorrows and the uncertainties and not being young. It would make a great beginning for a story. Too bad it was in English.
But, who cares. There goes. She tried to write the phrase down, but couldn’t. There was another sentence, popping over and over again in her mind, erasing the events of the day:
“So, what keeps you here?”
She had written it down before she could stop her hand. There was it, the question that had been staring at her in the face throughout these days, throughout breakfast, staring at her from the page that was now stained with it.
“So, what keeps you here?”
What did? What prevented her from taking a Greyhound and his six-string and joining him into his past, into a town where words meant something else, to an uncertainty that didn’t belong to her, but to him?
They can be dead, she had told him. They can be dead or maybe they won’t remember you and you will drink your way into the grave. Or get married to a nice sundusty girl and forget all about the dream you had. Or maybe what the fortune teller said will become true. Have you thought about it? Have you thought all about those stories? But he had just smiled again and insisted on not being afraid, on his lack of fear, on his lack of youth.
“So, what keeps you here?”
Maybe she should write the answer down. Or, maybe you shouldn’t.
But, as she did, she could see it all before her; the uncertainty of tomorrow was a fake. She could see their smiles, feel the pats on her back, hear them saying this was just better than the previous one, the previous story; maybe even taste the beer on her lips when her friends decided to go out and toast her: ahora sí, ésta es la buena, ahora sí, con ésta ganamos y nos vamos pa donde quieras. She could even feel her drunken tongue slurring out the words when the party was over and her friends would ask her to read it out loud.
If that wasn’t what the fortune teller meant, then she didn’t know.
Yes; that was it, there was not another way. Not another story; just the new ones she would bring, the next day and many days, to her friends at the job, who would read her and smile at her and cheer at her and prognosticate her success. And she would smile, that same old smile of defiant satisfaction, and shrug off, with her deliberate, but lying, vehemence, the feeling of being watched by a smiling, yet scornful Muse.
“I’m not afraid of the future. My future belongs to the past now.”
-Leonardo Nierman
“So, what keeps you here?”
She shrugged again, just as she had done when I had asked her if she liked her job. She just raised her shoulders and shook her head ever so slightly, but never far away from that vehemence, that aggression which I had noticed right after the first question; a movement as if she was trying to scare something away, something which had just found a nest on her shoulder and had to be driven away, even violently. Maybe she didn’t like her job after all.
The waitress came and asked if we already wanted to order. She went first and I followed:
“Un tamal rojo y un tamal verde con café.”
The waitress left and I could see she was smiling. Her, not the waitress.
“Your Spanish has gotten so much better,” she observed. “You don’t speak with an accent now.”
I wanted to say something to her too. I wanted to tell her that she was crazy because she only ordered the simplest breakfast, the one with toast and coffee. Except because she ordered tea. Tea. It was as if she wanted to distance herself from what I ordered, from what she should order, as if her taste buds already belonged to the Island, the one that does not belong to the Continent. But then again, that is not what I wanted to say to her. In fact, I wanted to tell her that that toast and tea she had ordered were not good for her: it wasn’t enough breakfast. That breakfast simply wouldn’t help her: it wouldn’t light up the pallor of her cheeks and her eyes; it would not wake up the drowsiness of her ballerina arms and of her smile, the smile that is suddenly interrupted by discreet coughs that hide choked sobs. Like some person of yore dying from consumption. Or one of those poets she likes.
“Your English is absolutely wonderful too,” was what came out of my lips, finally. “I’m amazed at how much you’ve improved.”
She smiled again, back at me, as if to take the compliment, though I’m sure deep inside she knew I was lying. Not because her English is bad, but because she must have known I had wanted to say something else. She doesn’t need me—or anybody—telling me her English is very good. She knows so.
In fact, it was her English that had called my attention first. In a school where everybody was trying hard to get the right accent, what surrounded me were masks of voices, pretenders and actors, trying hard to hit the right key in a language that stood there, aloof to them. But not to her. She just spoke the way she knew how to speak English, and that did not only showed me what the sound of her voice was, but what her voice itself was.
And man, her voice was. Deep inside I’m sure she knew the variety of identities her voice had: her voice was Greyhound tickets and Mississippi rumble and shotguns and hotel cheap whiskey hangovers and the sun leaving his trail of gold upon dusty roads in the dusk. In fact, for a second, I felt her voice was my parents—but I couldn’t tell her so.
The waitress came and left our orders at the table. I hadn’t realized how hungry I was until I started digging in. She, in contrast, chose to linger, spreading jam all over her toast and mixing milk with her black tea as if those actions needed the careful steps that a tightrope does. Maybe it was her sleepiness, the fact that she stretched as if she was trying to recover that hour of sleep the sun had taken away from her. Or maybe she just… writes like that. I don’t know.
It was that doubt that led me to the next question.
“You know, there’s going to be another contest. Spanish, of course, but oh well. Are you going to participate?”
The piece of toast stopped right before her mouth and all I could see was her eyes. For a second, I thought she was to hurl it at me. But all the aggressiveness of the action just melted into her response:
“What for? It’s a lost cause.”
I was about to answer Why do you think so? but she must have noticed I was going to say something, for immediately added:
“Really. Think about it. What chances does a short story writer—of short stories in English—has—here?
As she was in her job, as she was fixing herself something for breakfast, as she was folding the warm towels just out from the dryer. She just couldn’t help thinking about it. Perhaps it was the wrong thing to do. Perhaps she should have asked her parents for advice before doing so.
Nah. Maybe you shouldn’t, they would have said. That seemed to be all they said lately.
A chill ran through her spine. She wrapped herself up with a warm towel and sat down, and right away a comfortable somnolence swept through her, making her want to sleep into the towel’s warmth. She wondered why she was so tired of lately. Why her stomach lurched at the mention of almost anything. Why she seemed to be down with some illness she could hardly recognize.
Maybe she should go to the doctor. Or maybe you shouldn’t.
She wondered why nobody wanted her for a wife. Was there anything wrong with her? Was there anything wrong in her maidenly figure, her slow but subtle ways, her face that hid nothing? But then again, maybe you shouldn’t. The safety of married life was a myth: married life was another pitfall.
Just as there was a pitfall in everything she thought. Even in her parents’ Maybe you shouldn’t. Her parents thought they were protecting her from the pitfalls, but they were there, in that decision of not doing anything, and even in the questions the rest of her family asked about her liking her job.
She unwrapped herself out of the warm towel, but wrapped her face in her hands. It was absurd—simply ridiculous—that she should have felt more secure of what she was doing after reading the little papers that came out of fortune cookies with her Chinese to-go.
After her voice, then came that short story about the fortune teller.
She handed it in as an assignment. And it was good—damn good it was. And yet, I could not give it the appreciation it deserved. I mean, of course I liked it, but my comments were more focused in knowing if she had a third eye that could see beyond physical things, rather than criticizing the story.
And she must have known about my deficiency, for she started showing the story around, and that was when it happened. All those congratulations and pats in the back and yeah, you got it, if only there was a contest of English-speaking writers you would win. It was her winning streak. I had been turning the possibility over in my mind of telling her what was the hidden relationship between me and her story, and that was when I decided not to. She didn’t need any extra information to stain what was already so successful.
Though, of course, my life isn’t (or I hope it isn’t) as drastic as her story. The story about a man who is told by a fortune teller that he shall be the luckiest man of town. Emboldened by this premonition he sets out to do everything he has dreamed of, only to find setbacks and heartbreak. So, he goes back to his town, wondering if the fortune teller was wrong, only to find all the people he knew have died and, in that sense, he’s indeed the luckiest man in town.
Neat, isn’t it? That’s her story. It isn’t hard to see why it was considered so good. But, even though it looks like my story, they’re not the same.
My story starts out with me being very little, running into our golden yard ornamented with dry grass and my grandmother watching me. At some moment I interrupted my play, went and hugged Grandma, and told her I wanted to stay there, with her, forever. And Grandma answered, in that tone which foreshadows mystic, supernatural things that only grandmothers know, that my wish would be granted, that I would stay there, at my sunlit home, with my past and my family, forever.
But just a year after, my parents took me away to New York. My whole childhood, until my early adulthood, was spent there. I was educated there. My parents’ voices never lost the flavor of my old sundry town. But mine did.
Yet, I never really noticed it. Not until I came back to my town, in order to achieve that tinsel music dream everybody has there. I was pretty good with a guitar; people told me I was talented. It was the other guys that would pick on me because of my voice. They would say that it was such a shame that a guy born at the town could have the technique, but not the feeling. That it plainly sucked I just wouldn’t have the feeling.
I don’t know why that affected me so badly, but it did, and like my parallel life in a story I hadn’t read just yet, I visited a fortune teller.
She didn’t tell me I would be the luckiest man in town. I’m not that literary-interesting. What she told me was that I should first go, find the feeling, and then come back. As if the feeling was something you could find.
Or, perhaps it is.
Whatever the case, I did what that fortune teller told me, which was just the thing a music teacher or some old bluesman could have told me to do. I did so, and I traveled all around the world. All around the world so I could get just where I am now. In a restaurant, having breakfast with a girl who has her own version of my life, written down in the words my parents gave me for living. And who’s looking at me with big eyes. We have finished eating now, both of us, though with her is no surprise, with that little breakfast she had, and I can’t remember if we talked or not. Then, she lowers her eyes to her empty plate, as if she was surprised it was empty already, and asks for the bill, in such a way that if looks as if she was going to write a story about this moment.
“Hey,” I say, impressed by how she doesn’t leave her writer’s role no matter where she goes. She must have sensed my admiration, for she looks up and asks: “Yes?” with that quality of haughty boredom that I sometimes noticed in her, in some classes. Answering “Yes?” like that when it was time to take the roll only proved she was the best.
She sits down and writes the words in the notebook where she writes the stories. And she writes them down with the same care, the same attention, as if she was trying to write a story with them. The story of her life.
In English, of course. Three words, irregularly divided, look at her from the blankness of the page. Hard work. Success.
She speaks to them in the same language, even though the fortune teller who told her so spoke in Spanish and called her señorita as often as she could.
“Nothing more?”
The voice of the fortune teller, the same one she met, answers to her, in spite of her suspicion the woman couldn’t speak English:
“Nothing more.”
What is next, then. What is what should follow. No clue of a place, no clue of a time, no clue of anything.
Slowly, carefully, she writes down the words, this time in Spanish. And she’s more shocked by the result. Now the words don’t say anything to her. They have alienated her. Or perhaps this is because lately her head can’t seem to think straight. It seems to be forever swimming in a puddle of steaming water, enclosed together by the four walls of the city.
And, when she finally manages to extract meaning from them, she can’t help but feeling they mean something she had managed to shrug off her shoulders a long time ago.
Once, two girls with similar playful strides and mocking smiles came over to me and told me that she loved me.
They didn’t use those same words. They giggled and spoke, one on top of the other, mixing the words as if they were baking a cake. And they baked a story that said something about her secret. About her reasons for being the way she was around me, though I hadn’t noticed anything peculiar in her behavior towards me. How she had a whole box under the bed filled with poems and stories about me. At least that would explain her third eye. But the girls just couldn’t get rid of their mocking smiles and their mocking manners, so everything I got was the fact that she loved me.
Maybe that was why I did what I did next. I paid the bill for both of us, paid for her cheap, small breakfast and led her out of the restaurant with her arm in mine. Some minutes later I pulled her close to me and saw her looking at me with big eyes again. Big eyes that suddenly drifted in the direction of the sun, and over the trees of the park, to the horizon.
She may love me. She may not. Yet, she does love something that I love. Something that has to do with long lost towns wrapped up in dirty roads that she has never known and that I, unlike her, remember too well. With the words that come together with them.
Is there a place in her heart for me, when so many words fill it?
A pigeon flies and stops right in front of us, and I wonder if she loves the word too. Paloma. And suddenly I know that if say that word to her, she will tell me a story of her childhood in Coyoacán, chasing palomas at the quiosco, then going with her father to have a nieve, which will never taste like those American multi-flavored ice-creams. And I realize she loves those words as well, with the family-bond, the bloodline love one owes to parents, to brothers or sisters; the kind of love that cannot be blotted out even with the use of other language or an acquired accent.
It’s the other words she needs to nurture her bond with, as if it was a thing between a man and a woman. Those other words that hold a special meaning for her: a meaning of trips and adventure. Greyhound, six-string, a penny for your thoughts. She loved that expression; she used it many times while talking.
I decided to recreate those beloved words in the language that was rightfully her inheritance, to no avail. An autobús does not belong in dusty golden streets, but rather in the cold streets of the city. A guitarra, not matter how cool it is, will never strike the hard rock note a six-string can. Not to mention the pennies. Hard to think somebody would offer her money for her thoughts in Spanish, and, if they did, she would surely miss the small copper shine of the pennies that would not be in her purse.
I would give her a penny is she would just answer me if there’s a bond between me and her. An alternate version of the mocking story of the mocking girls to match the alternate version of my life. But, instead, I ask again:
“So, what keeps you here?”
When she finally gets home, she has the memory of his arms around her still fresh on her mind and on her body. Yet, they fade away when she lays her eyes on the blank page.
She lied to him when she said she was not trying. Of course she was. She always is.
Or perhaps she’s not. Though she thinks it’s him who has stopped trying and that that is the reason’s he’s going back. The real reason; not fulfilling some prophecy a fortune teller told him, so many years ago.
“Are you not afraid?” she had asked him. “It’s been so long, since you were there.”
“I’m not afraid of tomorrows,” he had answered. “I’ve seen many, enough to know their uncertainties are always the same. I’m not that young anymore.” So he had smiled that pretty smile of his and she had wished to tell him he was not old, not even middle-aged, that at least he wasn’t sick out of nothing as she was; but she had stopped and wondered about how many tomorrows she still had to face.
It was a great phrase. The one he had said, about the tomorrows and the uncertainties and not being young. It would make a great beginning for a story. Too bad it was in English.
But, who cares. There goes. She tried to write the phrase down, but couldn’t. There was another sentence, popping over and over again in her mind, erasing the events of the day:
“So, what keeps you here?”
She had written it down before she could stop her hand. There was it, the question that had been staring at her in the face throughout these days, throughout breakfast, staring at her from the page that was now stained with it.
“So, what keeps you here?”
What did? What prevented her from taking a Greyhound and his six-string and joining him into his past, into a town where words meant something else, to an uncertainty that didn’t belong to her, but to him?
They can be dead, she had told him. They can be dead or maybe they won’t remember you and you will drink your way into the grave. Or get married to a nice sundusty girl and forget all about the dream you had. Or maybe what the fortune teller said will become true. Have you thought about it? Have you thought all about those stories? But he had just smiled again and insisted on not being afraid, on his lack of fear, on his lack of youth.
“So, what keeps you here?”
Maybe she should write the answer down. Or, maybe you shouldn’t.
But, as she did, she could see it all before her; the uncertainty of tomorrow was a fake. She could see their smiles, feel the pats on her back, hear them saying this was just better than the previous one, the previous story; maybe even taste the beer on her lips when her friends decided to go out and toast her: ahora sí, ésta es la buena, ahora sí, con ésta ganamos y nos vamos pa donde quieras. She could even feel her drunken tongue slurring out the words when the party was over and her friends would ask her to read it out loud.
If that wasn’t what the fortune teller meant, then she didn’t know.
Yes; that was it, there was not another way. Not another story; just the new ones she would bring, the next day and many days, to her friends at the job, who would read her and smile at her and cheer at her and prognosticate her success. And she would smile, that same old smile of defiant satisfaction, and shrug off, with her deliberate, but lying, vehemence, the feeling of being watched by a smiling, yet scornful Muse.
jueves, 29 de abril de 2010
La canción de amor de Alfred J. Prufrock (traducción)
No, no, no. O bueno, sí, sí, sí. Empieza paradójica esta entrada. Explíquese, por favor.
Ok: para empezar, si esperaban más rants sobre mi situación romántica basándome en el poema del señor Eliot, la cosa no va por ahí. Digamos que la idea de "mi versión del poema" se acerca más.
Aquí, les presento a ustedes, mi par de lectores, una traducción que me costó sangre, sudor, y lágrimas, pero, sobre todo, porque me costó desmitificar al poeta, una figura que, como ustedes saben, fue (o quizá aún es) de mis mayores influencias (y quizá ni lo desmitifiqué tanto, pues no tomé riesgos ni cambié demasiado el texto, sino que intenté mantener la evasiva noción de fidelidad de una traducción):
La canción de amor de J. Alfred Prufrock
T.S. Eliot
Vámonos pues, tú y yo,
Cuando la tarde se extiende contra el cielo
Cual paciente eterizado en una mesa;
Vámonos, por ciertas calles semidesiertas,
Los refugios murmurantes
De noches sin sosiego en hoteles de paso baratos
Y restaurantes serrinosos con moluscos ya pasados;
Las calles que se siguen cual argumento tedioso
De propósito insidioso
Que te guían a una pregunta irrefrenable...
Ah, no preguntes "¿Qué querrías?"
Vámonos, y hagamos la visita.
En el salón, las mujeres vienen y van.
De Miguel Ángel, seguramente, hablarán.
La niebla amarilla que frota su lomo contra los cristales,
El humo amarillo que frota su hocico contra los cristales,
Le pasó la lengua a los rincones de la tarde,
Se demoró sobre los charcos que están en los desagües,
Dejó caer sobre su lomo el hollín de los hogares,
Se deslizó por la terraza, y de pronto saltó,
Y al ver que era una suave noche de octubre,
Se hizo un ovillo por la casa y se durmió.
Y sí, todo tendrá su tiempo,
El humo amarillo que se desliza por las calles
Frotando su lomo contra los cristales
Tendrá su tiempo, y habrá tiempo
Para preparar una cara para encontrarse con las caras que conozcas;
Tiempo de matar y tiempo de crear,
Tiempo para todos los trabajos y los días de las manos
Que elevan y dejan caer una pregunta sobre tu plato;
Tiempo para tí y tiempo para mí,
Y tendrán su tiempo un centenar de indecisiones,
Y un centenar de visiones y de revisiones,
Antes de tomar un pan tostado con el té.
En el salón, las mujeres vienen y van.
De Miguel Ángel, seguramente, hablarán.
Y, sí, también tendrá su tiempo
El preguntar "¿Si me atreviera?" y "¿Si me atreviera?";
Tiempo para volverme y bajar la escalera
Con una mancha calva en el centro de mi cabeza--
(Dirán: "¡Pero cuán rala está su cabellera!")
Mi cuello firme en la barba, mi levita de etiqueta,
Mi corbata fina y modesta, con un simple alfiler sujeta--
(Dirán: "¡Pero qué delgados están sus brazos y sus piernas!")
¿Y si me atreviera
A perturbar el universo?
En un minuto hay tiempo
Para decisiones y revisiones que revierte un momento.
Porque las he conocido, las he conocido a todas--
He conocido las tardes, las noches, las mañanas,
He medido mi vida con café y sus cucharadas,
Conozco a las voces agonizantes con cadencias lánguidas
Por debajo de la música de una sala más lejana.
¿Así que cómo osaría?
Y ya las he conocido a todas, he conocido las miradas--
Los ojos que te sujetan mediante frases ya formuladas,
Y cuando esa fórmula me desparrama sobre un alfiler,
Que me deja prendido, retorciéndome contra la pared,
Entonces, ¿cómo empezar
a escupir las colillas de mis hábitos y mis días?
Y, ¿cómo osaría?
Y ya he conocido esos brazos, los he conocido a todos--
Brazos con pulseras y desnudos y blancos
(Aunque a la luz de una lámpara, ¡cubiertos de vellos dorados!)
¿Acaso el perfume de un vestido
Me pone así a divagar?
Brazos que yacen sobre una mesa, o se envuelven en un chal.
¿Entonces osaría?
¿Cómo debo de empezar?
¿Debo decir, he andado al anochecer por callejuelas
Y he observado el humo que sale de las pipas
De hombres solitarios en mangas de camisa, que ven por sus ventanas?
Debí haber sido un par de ásperas tenazas
Escabulléndome por los pisos de silenciosos mares.
Y la tarde, la noche, duerme, ¡tan tranquila!
Por unos largos dedos alisada,
Dormida... o se finge enferma... o quizá está cansada,
Extendida en el suelo, aquí a nuestro lado.
¿Tendré, tras el té, el pastel y el helado,
la fuerza para tratar este asunto delicado?
Mas aunque he llorado y ayunado, llorado y rezado,
Aunque he visto mi cabeza (un poco calva) en bandeja de plata,
No soy profeta--ni ésta una cuestión filosófica complicada.
He visto a mis horas de grandeza parpadear con un débil destello,
Y al Lacayo de la oscuridad tomar mi saco, y reírse por lo bajo de ello,
Y, en pocas palabras, tuve miedo.
Y habría valido la pena, después de todo,
Tras las tazas, la mermelada y el té,
Entre la vajilla de porcelana, hablar de tú y yo un poco,
Habría valido la pena,
Terminar el asunto con una sonrisa,
Estrujar el universo, volverlo una bolita
Y rodarla hacia una pregunta irrefrenable,
Decir: "Soy Lázaro, levantado de entre los muertos,
He vuelto a contarles todo, y he de decirles todo."--
Que uno, arreglando una almohada junto a sus cabellos,
Dijera: "Eso no es lo que quería decir, en verdad,
Eso no lo es, en verdad."
Y habría valido la pena, después de todo,
¿Habría valido la pena,
Después de los ocasos, los traspatios, de las calles salpicadas,
Después de las novelas, de las tazas de té, de las faldas que por el piso se arrastran--
Y todo esto, y aún más?--
¡Es imposible decir, en verdad, lo que quiero!
Mas como si una lintera mágica mostrara en su pantalla los patrones de mis nervios,
Habría valido la pena,
Si uno, arreglando una almohada o deshaciéndose de un chal,
Y, volteando hacia la ventana, dijera:
"Eso no lo es, en verdad,
Eso no es lo que quería decir, en verdad."
¡No! En verdad no soy Hamlet, ni estaba destinado a serlo,
Yo soy sólo un asistente, alguien que servirá
Para una marcha real, el inicio de una escena o dos...
El príncipe, sin duda, una buena herramienta,
Feliz de tener un uso, y respetuoso,
Político, cauto, y meticuloso,
Lleno de opiniones, pero un poco obtuso,
A veces, claro está, un poco ridículo--
A veces, casi, el Bufón.
Me vuelvo viejo, me vuelvo viejo...
Subiré la bastilla de mis pantalones frente al espejo.
¿Debo cambiar de peinado? ¿Me atrevo a comer una pera?
Caminaré por la playa en mis pantalones blancos de franela.
He escuchado cantarse, una a la otra, a las sirenas.
No creo que cantaran para mí.
Las he visto cabalgar hacia el mar sobre las olas
Peinándoles sus canas que vuelan hacia atrás
Cuando el viento vuelve el agua blanca y negra al soplar.
En los aposentos del mar nos hemos demorado
Con doncellas del mar coronadas de algas de tonos encarnados,
Hasta que voces humanas nos despierten, y entonces nos ahogamos.
Y tras sangrar traduciendo, viene otro de los momentos estelares de hacer una traducción, o un ensayo: justificar la lectura, que, en poemas como éste... bueno, digamos que la palabra "conflictiva" suele quedarse corta como definición. ¿Es o no una canción de amor, el poema de T.S. Eliot? Gente que respeto y quiero, como Paradoxical Phoenix, y gente que no respeto nada y me gustaría golpear who doesn't matter if they remain nameless or not because I don't even know if they have a blog, dicen que no (Paradoxical Phoenix lo explica bien; los demás sólo repiten ideas): que el título es irónico y que en verdad el poema es sobre la gran pregunta de la humanidad, el significado de la vida. OK, digamos que yo no estoy en desacuerdo con eso, mas, con mi punto de vista, sí es una canción de amor... Y sí, al ser fan del poema me pongo medio fundamentalista al defender mis opiniones y me cae que la universidad me está enseñando a bajarle de intensidad. Pero bueno...
¿Por qué sí es una canción de amor, entonces? Porque yo sí creo que el addressee es una mujer a quien Prufrock ama, y que son precisamente sus indecisiones y su miedo lo que lo lleva a pensar en el porqué de la vida, en su destino, en la vejez, y en toda esa "great-matter". Así, las grandes preguntas se desarrollan paralelas a su historia frustrada de amor, y se originan por la duda amorosa; así como una pregunta que hable de un amor profundo puede romper con todo un universo ordenado, pero superficial, como es el universo donde hay fiestas de té y pláticas vacías sobre arte (no, no estoy pensando en gente de mi fac, ¡no! --denial--), una pregunta sobre cuestiones filosóficas complicadas (mi traducción dixit) como las grandes dudas de la humanidad puede romper con nuestro universo ordenado. Sin embargo, el miedo deja a un lado la posibilidad de conseguir las respuestas, la posibilidad de esa ruptura, y, al final, no hay respuesta, no hay amor, no hay transgresión que crea al héroe, no hay esa oportunidad de ser el único que escuche el canto de las sirenas, porque las sirenas ni siquiera cantarán para él. Tan sólo queda la imposibilidad del lenguaje que siempre ha estado presente: las palabras que no quieren decir nada...
Las palabras en las que yo me apoyé, hace algunos años, cuando sentía las misma indecisíón que Prufrock, cuando pensaba en atreverme y no atreverme... y al final, al rodar el universo hacia la pregunta irrefrenable, como a Julio Torri, como iba dispuesta a perderme, las sirenas no cantaron para mí...
Ok: para empezar, si esperaban más rants sobre mi situación romántica basándome en el poema del señor Eliot, la cosa no va por ahí. Digamos que la idea de "mi versión del poema" se acerca más.
Aquí, les presento a ustedes, mi par de lectores, una traducción que me costó sangre, sudor, y lágrimas, pero, sobre todo, porque me costó desmitificar al poeta, una figura que, como ustedes saben, fue (o quizá aún es) de mis mayores influencias (y quizá ni lo desmitifiqué tanto, pues no tomé riesgos ni cambié demasiado el texto, sino que intenté mantener la evasiva noción de fidelidad de una traducción):
La canción de amor de J. Alfred Prufrock
T.S. Eliot
Vámonos pues, tú y yo,
Cuando la tarde se extiende contra el cielo
Cual paciente eterizado en una mesa;
Vámonos, por ciertas calles semidesiertas,
Los refugios murmurantes
De noches sin sosiego en hoteles de paso baratos
Y restaurantes serrinosos con moluscos ya pasados;
Las calles que se siguen cual argumento tedioso
De propósito insidioso
Que te guían a una pregunta irrefrenable...
Ah, no preguntes "¿Qué querrías?"
Vámonos, y hagamos la visita.
En el salón, las mujeres vienen y van.
De Miguel Ángel, seguramente, hablarán.
La niebla amarilla que frota su lomo contra los cristales,
El humo amarillo que frota su hocico contra los cristales,
Le pasó la lengua a los rincones de la tarde,
Se demoró sobre los charcos que están en los desagües,
Dejó caer sobre su lomo el hollín de los hogares,
Se deslizó por la terraza, y de pronto saltó,
Y al ver que era una suave noche de octubre,
Se hizo un ovillo por la casa y se durmió.
Y sí, todo tendrá su tiempo,
El humo amarillo que se desliza por las calles
Frotando su lomo contra los cristales
Tendrá su tiempo, y habrá tiempo
Para preparar una cara para encontrarse con las caras que conozcas;
Tiempo de matar y tiempo de crear,
Tiempo para todos los trabajos y los días de las manos
Que elevan y dejan caer una pregunta sobre tu plato;
Tiempo para tí y tiempo para mí,
Y tendrán su tiempo un centenar de indecisiones,
Y un centenar de visiones y de revisiones,
Antes de tomar un pan tostado con el té.
En el salón, las mujeres vienen y van.
De Miguel Ángel, seguramente, hablarán.
Y, sí, también tendrá su tiempo
El preguntar "¿Si me atreviera?" y "¿Si me atreviera?";
Tiempo para volverme y bajar la escalera
Con una mancha calva en el centro de mi cabeza--
(Dirán: "¡Pero cuán rala está su cabellera!")
Mi cuello firme en la barba, mi levita de etiqueta,
Mi corbata fina y modesta, con un simple alfiler sujeta--
(Dirán: "¡Pero qué delgados están sus brazos y sus piernas!")
¿Y si me atreviera
A perturbar el universo?
En un minuto hay tiempo
Para decisiones y revisiones que revierte un momento.
Porque las he conocido, las he conocido a todas--
He conocido las tardes, las noches, las mañanas,
He medido mi vida con café y sus cucharadas,
Conozco a las voces agonizantes con cadencias lánguidas
Por debajo de la música de una sala más lejana.
¿Así que cómo osaría?
Y ya las he conocido a todas, he conocido las miradas--
Los ojos que te sujetan mediante frases ya formuladas,
Y cuando esa fórmula me desparrama sobre un alfiler,
Que me deja prendido, retorciéndome contra la pared,
Entonces, ¿cómo empezar
a escupir las colillas de mis hábitos y mis días?
Y, ¿cómo osaría?
Y ya he conocido esos brazos, los he conocido a todos--
Brazos con pulseras y desnudos y blancos
(Aunque a la luz de una lámpara, ¡cubiertos de vellos dorados!)
¿Acaso el perfume de un vestido
Me pone así a divagar?
Brazos que yacen sobre una mesa, o se envuelven en un chal.
¿Entonces osaría?
¿Cómo debo de empezar?
¿Debo decir, he andado al anochecer por callejuelas
Y he observado el humo que sale de las pipas
De hombres solitarios en mangas de camisa, que ven por sus ventanas?
Debí haber sido un par de ásperas tenazas
Escabulléndome por los pisos de silenciosos mares.
Y la tarde, la noche, duerme, ¡tan tranquila!
Por unos largos dedos alisada,
Dormida... o se finge enferma... o quizá está cansada,
Extendida en el suelo, aquí a nuestro lado.
¿Tendré, tras el té, el pastel y el helado,
la fuerza para tratar este asunto delicado?
Mas aunque he llorado y ayunado, llorado y rezado,
Aunque he visto mi cabeza (un poco calva) en bandeja de plata,
No soy profeta--ni ésta una cuestión filosófica complicada.
He visto a mis horas de grandeza parpadear con un débil destello,
Y al Lacayo de la oscuridad tomar mi saco, y reírse por lo bajo de ello,
Y, en pocas palabras, tuve miedo.
Y habría valido la pena, después de todo,
Tras las tazas, la mermelada y el té,
Entre la vajilla de porcelana, hablar de tú y yo un poco,
Habría valido la pena,
Terminar el asunto con una sonrisa,
Estrujar el universo, volverlo una bolita
Y rodarla hacia una pregunta irrefrenable,
Decir: "Soy Lázaro, levantado de entre los muertos,
He vuelto a contarles todo, y he de decirles todo."--
Que uno, arreglando una almohada junto a sus cabellos,
Dijera: "Eso no es lo que quería decir, en verdad,
Eso no lo es, en verdad."
Y habría valido la pena, después de todo,
¿Habría valido la pena,
Después de los ocasos, los traspatios, de las calles salpicadas,
Después de las novelas, de las tazas de té, de las faldas que por el piso se arrastran--
Y todo esto, y aún más?--
¡Es imposible decir, en verdad, lo que quiero!
Mas como si una lintera mágica mostrara en su pantalla los patrones de mis nervios,
Habría valido la pena,
Si uno, arreglando una almohada o deshaciéndose de un chal,
Y, volteando hacia la ventana, dijera:
"Eso no lo es, en verdad,
Eso no es lo que quería decir, en verdad."
¡No! En verdad no soy Hamlet, ni estaba destinado a serlo,
Yo soy sólo un asistente, alguien que servirá
Para una marcha real, el inicio de una escena o dos...
El príncipe, sin duda, una buena herramienta,
Feliz de tener un uso, y respetuoso,
Político, cauto, y meticuloso,
Lleno de opiniones, pero un poco obtuso,
A veces, claro está, un poco ridículo--
A veces, casi, el Bufón.
Me vuelvo viejo, me vuelvo viejo...
Subiré la bastilla de mis pantalones frente al espejo.
¿Debo cambiar de peinado? ¿Me atrevo a comer una pera?
Caminaré por la playa en mis pantalones blancos de franela.
He escuchado cantarse, una a la otra, a las sirenas.
No creo que cantaran para mí.
Las he visto cabalgar hacia el mar sobre las olas
Peinándoles sus canas que vuelan hacia atrás
Cuando el viento vuelve el agua blanca y negra al soplar.
En los aposentos del mar nos hemos demorado
Con doncellas del mar coronadas de algas de tonos encarnados,
Hasta que voces humanas nos despierten, y entonces nos ahogamos.
Y tras sangrar traduciendo, viene otro de los momentos estelares de hacer una traducción, o un ensayo: justificar la lectura, que, en poemas como éste... bueno, digamos que la palabra "conflictiva" suele quedarse corta como definición. ¿Es o no una canción de amor, el poema de T.S. Eliot? Gente que respeto y quiero, como Paradoxical Phoenix, y gente que no respeto nada y me gustaría golpear who doesn't matter if they remain nameless or not because I don't even know if they have a blog, dicen que no (Paradoxical Phoenix lo explica bien; los demás sólo repiten ideas): que el título es irónico y que en verdad el poema es sobre la gran pregunta de la humanidad, el significado de la vida. OK, digamos que yo no estoy en desacuerdo con eso, mas, con mi punto de vista, sí es una canción de amor... Y sí, al ser fan del poema me pongo medio fundamentalista al defender mis opiniones y me cae que la universidad me está enseñando a bajarle de intensidad. Pero bueno...
¿Por qué sí es una canción de amor, entonces? Porque yo sí creo que el addressee es una mujer a quien Prufrock ama, y que son precisamente sus indecisiones y su miedo lo que lo lleva a pensar en el porqué de la vida, en su destino, en la vejez, y en toda esa "great-matter". Así, las grandes preguntas se desarrollan paralelas a su historia frustrada de amor, y se originan por la duda amorosa; así como una pregunta que hable de un amor profundo puede romper con todo un universo ordenado, pero superficial, como es el universo donde hay fiestas de té y pláticas vacías sobre arte (no, no estoy pensando en gente de mi fac, ¡no! --denial--), una pregunta sobre cuestiones filosóficas complicadas (mi traducción dixit) como las grandes dudas de la humanidad puede romper con nuestro universo ordenado. Sin embargo, el miedo deja a un lado la posibilidad de conseguir las respuestas, la posibilidad de esa ruptura, y, al final, no hay respuesta, no hay amor, no hay transgresión que crea al héroe, no hay esa oportunidad de ser el único que escuche el canto de las sirenas, porque las sirenas ni siquiera cantarán para él. Tan sólo queda la imposibilidad del lenguaje que siempre ha estado presente: las palabras que no quieren decir nada...
Las palabras en las que yo me apoyé, hace algunos años, cuando sentía las misma indecisíón que Prufrock, cuando pensaba en atreverme y no atreverme... y al final, al rodar el universo hacia la pregunta irrefrenable, como a Julio Torri, como iba dispuesta a perderme, las sirenas no cantaron para mí...
lunes, 26 de abril de 2010
Misconstructed Sonnet #1
Your love comes and goes like the backwash of the sea.
It scratches and tears at the skin of the world
Leaving but the scars of a fading memory.
Your love comes and goes like the faces of the moon.
It guides its small underlings to their unchanging destiny
That shall finally be unwritten in a plain night sky of gloom.
Your love comes and goes like the dark depths of a dream.
It claws and nestles in the corners of the mind
Till the sun shines over immateriality unfurled.
Your love comes and goes like the promises of time.
It tricks the dancing blind into the abyss of eternity
That withers to the dust of junk swept by a broom.
Tonight, I'll patch the wounds of my old and faded jeans.
Your love comes and goes like the backwash of the sea.
It scratches and tears at the skin of the world
Leaving but the scars of a fading memory.
Your love comes and goes like the faces of the moon.
It guides its small underlings to their unchanging destiny
That shall finally be unwritten in a plain night sky of gloom.
Your love comes and goes like the dark depths of a dream.
It claws and nestles in the corners of the mind
Till the sun shines over immateriality unfurled.
Your love comes and goes like the promises of time.
It tricks the dancing blind into the abyss of eternity
That withers to the dust of junk swept by a broom.
Tonight, I'll patch the wounds of my old and faded jeans.
Your love comes and goes like the backwash of the sea.
miércoles, 10 de marzo de 2010
Heart Spasmodic
Saint mystification
Enveloped in the lonely sound of thunder-stricken
Rainstorms, that have fallen down to Earth since the
Great flood. Wandering out in the street—for
I am nowhere. Every drop in the pavement’s an
Open wound,
A gaping pool of death
Looking at a small soul with an air of
Elevated prophecy. In front of me the statue of
Justice becomes numb,
Arbor-like, its edges cut into the body of the
Night. Whoever feared the moon just
Doesn’t know the gallows of the sun hold their own
Rope: its everlasting eye lays flesh to
Open fire. In darkness, sleepless thoughts, tangled inside the
Mind’s sheets, turn around condemned by insomnia,
Erring when they think they can make it silent—
Noise. It tap-dances and creeps along the bones,
Don’t stop it—it’s the heartbeat. It hammers as if it wanted itself to be shown in
Open flesh. A runaway from temples and from
Zion, no promised land to hold an
Angel fugitive, no place for acceptance and for
Home. The ghost of night stares at it with
Open eyes, the slow-paced
Crimson guest of this world, its skin marked with the signs of inner
Hunger, the undeniable proof of mortal
Malady, that has outrun heart-strings out of their
Axis, left them to fade away as the raven’s empty echo:
Nevermore… oh…
Nevermore.
…
Enveloped in the lonely sound of thunder-stricken
Rainstorms, that have fallen down to Earth since the
Great flood. Wandering out in the street—for
I am nowhere. Every drop in the pavement’s an
Open wound,
A gaping pool of death
Looking at a small soul with an air of
Elevated prophecy. In front of me the statue of
Justice becomes numb,
Arbor-like, its edges cut into the body of the
Night. Whoever feared the moon just
Doesn’t know the gallows of the sun hold their own
Rope: its everlasting eye lays flesh to
Open fire. In darkness, sleepless thoughts, tangled inside the
Mind’s sheets, turn around condemned by insomnia,
Erring when they think they can make it silent—
Noise. It tap-dances and creeps along the bones,
Don’t stop it—it’s the heartbeat. It hammers as if it wanted itself to be shown in
Open flesh. A runaway from temples and from
Zion, no promised land to hold an
Angel fugitive, no place for acceptance and for
Home. The ghost of night stares at it with
Open eyes, the slow-paced
Crimson guest of this world, its skin marked with the signs of inner
Hunger, the undeniable proof of mortal
Malady, that has outrun heart-strings out of their
Axis, left them to fade away as the raven’s empty echo:
Nevermore… oh…
Nevermore.
…
jueves, 4 de marzo de 2010
The Sniper
A minute of shade against the pale skyline,
Stands the chosen wizard, the handiwork of Satan
Untamed upon his hand. He's the owner of now-time,
Him, a snake-charmer, the guardian of the key
To a lake of fire. Every single second means subtraction
Of some unknown, sleepy, foreign heartbeat,
Who drags in its own red-carpet parade
To shake hands with the Maker. But now look!
The crowd, like foaming waves, has begun drifting
And no one has an eye for the astray bird
Who shall shadow the clouds. It is his turn now:
An expert with a dark past of deer hunter
He sets free the swift hawk-eye of the bullet
To fall upon its prey. The last scene is now set:
Already upon the stage, the ultimate tragedian
Turns back; he shall return to his falconer of men.
Stands the chosen wizard, the handiwork of Satan
Untamed upon his hand. He's the owner of now-time,
Him, a snake-charmer, the guardian of the key
To a lake of fire. Every single second means subtraction
Of some unknown, sleepy, foreign heartbeat,
Who drags in its own red-carpet parade
To shake hands with the Maker. But now look!
The crowd, like foaming waves, has begun drifting
And no one has an eye for the astray bird
Who shall shadow the clouds. It is his turn now:
An expert with a dark past of deer hunter
He sets free the swift hawk-eye of the bullet
To fall upon its prey. The last scene is now set:
Already upon the stage, the ultimate tragedian
Turns back; he shall return to his falconer of men.
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