The Tuner of Silences Read Free Page B

concealed in the river?
    â€” But has anyone been there? It’s only what we’ve been told . . .
    â€” Just calm down and be quiet.
    I followed him against the current and we waded our trail through the undulations until we reached a part where the river meandered ruefully, and the bed was carpeted with smooth pebbles. In this calm stretch, the waters were surprisingly clear. Ntunzi let go of my hand: I was to do as he did. Thereupon, he plunged in and then, while totally submerged, opened his eyes and looked up into the light as it reverberated off the surface of the water. I followed suit: from the river’s womb, I contemplated the sparkling light of the sun. And its radiance fascinated me, enveloping me in a gentle daze. If there was such a thing as a mother’s embrace, it must be something like this, this dizzying of the senses.
    â€” Did you like it?
    â€” Did I hell? It’s so beautiful, Ntunzi, they’re like liquid stars, so bright!
    â€” See, little brother? That’s the other side for you.
    I dived in again, seeking to sate myself in that spirit of wonderment. But this time I had a fit of giddiness. I suddenly lost all notion of myself, confusing the depths with the surface. There I was, twisting around like a blind fish, unable to swim up to the surface. I would have ended up drowning if Ntunzi hadn’t dragged me to the shore. Having recovered, I confessed that I had been seized by the chill of fear while underwater.
    â€” Could it be that someone is watching us from the other side?
    â€” Yes, we’re being watched. By those who will come and fish us.
    â€” Did you say ‘fetch us’?
    â€” Fish us.
    I shuddered. The idea of our being fished, caught in the water, drew me to the horrifying conclusion that the others, those on the side of the sun, were the living, the only human creatures.
    â€” Brother, is it really true that we’re dead?
    â€” Only the living can know that, little brother. Only they.
    The accident in the river didn’t inhibit me. On the contrary, I returned again and again to that bend in the river, and allowed myself to dive into the calm waters. And I would stay there endlessly, my eyes astonished, as I visited the other side of the world. My father never found out, but it was there, more than anywhere else, that I perfected my art as a tuner of silences.

MY FATHER, SILVESTRE
VITALÍCIO
    […]
    You lived on the reverse
    Endless traveller of the inverse
    Free of your own self
    Your own self’s widower.
    Sophia de Mello Breyner Andresen
    I knew my father before I knew myself. That’s why I’ve got a bit of him in me. Deprived of a mother’s presence, Silvestre Vitalício’s bony chest was my only source of comfort, his old shirt my handkerchief, his scrawny shoulder my pillow. A monotone snore was my only lullaby.
    For years, my father was a gentle soul, his arms enveloped the earth, and the most time-honoured tranquillities nestled in their embrace. Even though he was such a strange and unpredictable creature, I saw old Silvestre as the only harbinger of truth, the sole foreteller of futures.
    Now, I know: my father had lost his marbles. He noticed things that no one else acknowledged. These apparitions occurred mainly during the great winds thatsweep across the savannah in September. For Silvestre, the wind was ghosts dancing. Windswept trees became people, the lamenting dead and trying to pull their own roots up. That’s what Silvestre Vitalício said, shut away in his room and barricaded behind windows and doors, waiting for calmer weather.
    â€” The wind is full of sickness, the wind is just one big contagious disease.
    On those tempestuous days, the old man would not allow anyone to leave the room. He would call me to remain by his side, while I tried in vain to nourish silence. I was never able to calm him down. In the rustling of the leaves, Silvestre heard engines, trains, cities in