BÊTE BLANCHE

Those days passed without emotions, nor adventures with schoolgirls or other women. I was distracted, trying to get on with my life, but still under the influence of that story in the book. This state of apparent lethargy, the lapses and the way I woke up confused and without remembering anything, brought consequences; some funny ones - like when I ordered whiskey at the bar and forgot I had ordered and drank it thinking it was beer and the time I woke up next to Carol without remembering that I had spent the night with her, and some serious ones like when I almost put the car in one tree coming back from the bar at 2 am on a Friday, drunk, of course. Luckily I came to myself before the imminent collision. Driving while drunk was one of the things I did best, after teaching and fucking schoolgirls. I made my way to college on foot, as I did every day. As I lived only two blocks from work, I saw no reason to use the car, except when I knew I would have a date later or when my mother called asking to see me. The sidewalk that morning was impassable. People ran into each other and cyclists shared space with pedestrians. The reason for the excitement, I later discovered, was the opening of a studio on Alfaiates street. One of those unemployed people who pamphlet on the streets gave me a pamphlet inviting for the store to opening, which said:

OPENING OF ATILIÊ BÊTE BLANCHE, AT 7 PM, WITH DINNER AND MUSICAL PRESENTATIONS. DO NOT MISS IT! It was a well-made pamphlet, with an ice bear sculpture and large blue letters like crystals. I knew how to recognize and liked to admire good advertising. I kept the paper in my pocket and continued on my way thinking about the exhibition. My hours at night, because I also taught in the morning, started exactly at 7 pm, but maybe I could get things done with Daiane to replace me. She is an incredible teacher, much better than me, because… well, it's simple, she has a special way, she gets along with everyone, unlike me, that I am more opportunistic and I only relate well with those who interest me . I attended her class once, it was amazing. I tried to pass it on to my students, in my own way, it was a disaster. I stopped at the bar just ahead, on the corner. It was where I always went for coffee or made appointments with some annoying, nerdy friend. I asked to use the phone and closed the door. The device was in a small room, separated from the bar by a folding door and at that time the place was packed.

- Come on, Daiane. Just drop that bore today. How fun it is to spend the morning on the couch watching TV with your big ass boyfriend, if you can pass on all your extensive knowledge of philosophy to students eager to learn. - I made a drama in that last part, forcing my voice to sound ironic. I knew she was going to end up accepting it. I know her well. -You'll get rid of it when I need it, huh? I will charge, you irresponsible. - If you are not supposed to meet Arnaldo's goon, ok. By the way, when are we going out again? - I asked. But she replied, "I'll call you," and hung up on me. Something she always did, because the guy besides being annoying was jealous and didn't leave her alone.

Everything arranged, I walked. I said something to the owner of the bar, like, "No time now," I don't remember. It was too late. I didn't realize the time. Excited I taught as never before. I promoted a heated discussion in the room by mentioning Friedrich Nietzsche, who separated students between atheists, moderates (on the fence) and religious (those most convinced in defending their ideals). Just be there and see them arguing with each other, wanting to be heard, not wanting to hear. Refuting the opinions of others with his magic cards that they always had to take from their sleeves, even if they didn't use sleeves, he gave me a philosophy class as I couldn't even imagine. We had a world there, acting, reacting, forming. The exhibition was very well organized. I arrived on time and there were about six people with an air of intellectuals analyzing the sculptures and photographs. I exchanged ideas with some interesting people there and others not so interesting. I searched with my searching eyes for human souls, souls in photographs. All photographed in the harsh icy lands of the North Pole. Landscapes of a contemplative, maddening whiteness, if you looked at it for a long time. Does white really bring that intention with him? Why are the walls of hospices white? Crazy, I had been flirting with her for some time already. But Eskimos brought peace to my heart. They were friendly, superstitious and simple people. The villages gathered there gave us the idea of ​​what man could be like in his early days. Happiness in front of photography. Children sharing their toys, most of them made of bones by skilled artisans, others made of wood. They endured the cold, the hunger. Six months by day, another six by night. The view hurt a little with the light from the panels below and over each frame and the plunge into the white of the most open and desert scenes. Was the vision blurred? The champagne that they kept serving and that I didn't refuse? This picture! My God! This picture! The couple, here, Nubky and Gurnyeva, embraced, happy, immortalized in the portrait. My legs went weak and my head started to rotate. I didn't realize when that woman approached me. Tall, thin and red-haired. The green eyes shone together with the teeth that the smile showed.

She supported me by the arms and asked me if I was feeling well. I said yes and immediately changed the subject. I asked about the portrait, what did she think? To my amazement, she said she was the photographer's great-granddaughter. - My great-grandfather was the scientist Aldous Conrad. One of the few at the time to fund a trip to the North Pole to protect and care for the Eskimo people. He loved those people and did so much for them that he forgot his own family. I only remember him from photography. This exhibition is in his honor. It took me twenty years to collect these photos, from magazines, newspapers and friends that he had spread around the world. The woman, her name was Ellen, spoke a lot. I won't remember everything she said. I don't even know if she said exactly those words that day. What I remember is having the conviction that I recognized those two in the photo. The text, those letters that came together in words and words that came together in sentences, were an electromagnetic magnet that pulled you and launched you to whatever they described on the damn paper they were written on. I took her home that night. I had to be convincing. She didn't want to. I said I didn't get involved with customers, even though I hadn't bought any of her work. When I woke up and didn't find her beside me in bed, I was upset. I thought I might have left and after drinking a glass of water in the kitchen I could see a black shadow rising from the sofa in the living room. Similar to a bride wearing a long veil that molded her head like a wrapper, the shadow swelled superbly and imposingly. I switched on the light in the corner on the desk where I used to work. Ellen didn't move. I approached and saw her with the damn book in her hands. His eyes were wide and fixed ahead, his mouth was open from where a white drool dripped. She was in shock. I took the book out of his hands carefully and waited to see if he woke up. I was having one of the lapses that the book causes.

Finally she opened his eyes, saw me, mouth open, eyes fixed on me, but vague. She got up and walked to the balcony. She was going to jump, stopped her by holding her arm in the involuntary moment of protection. She stopped, stepped back and woke up from the trance. "I came to drink water," she said and kissed me back to the room. I stood there for a few minutes, stopped, trying to assimilate all that. I held the manuscript in my hands, feeling that vibrant energy rush through my veins, boosting my blood and releasing adrenaline. Looking down from the balcony, I didn't have the urge to launch myself into space like Ellen, but the book. Like a Yanks hitter, I bent my left knee to the chin and my arms like cranes moved together from right to left like throwing a cannon ball, such an effort I made to make sure the book would fly through the air and no longer reach me. I thought about the well episode and how that inanimate object became alive and aggressive. I went in and closed the window door as quickly as I could after getting rid of it. I poured myself more drink at the bar. I took some salted peanuts and olives from the refrigerator and watched TV and thought about all the absurdity that my life had become. The light emitted by the TV seemed stronger and noises that until then I hadn't noticed started to sound loud. A hiss that seemed to come from the TV. A crock, crock on the walls. Termites? Or rats? And the TV lights began to flash by like flashes and in each beam a memory. The ambush in the alley, with Aline. The fall in the well. The dark stories of the damn book. There was no doubt that evil had settled in, moved out of my suitcase and gutted and left out everything that had been part of me. Not that this, this disjointed and relaxed bartender, who doesn't even put his shirts inside his pants, was a big deal. But I was shit, yes, but shit with personality. I think the drink is starting to act.

That self-deprecating and syrupy side is not very mine. I should remain lucid, sober, because that being the case, I no longer trust my psychological integrity, let alone thrown on the couch like a stupid nobody, clinging to a bottle of whiskey in half. The weather outside looks ugly. The French window starts to flutter, hitting one leaf against the other and the hiss of the sneaking wind foreshadows a fear that is still unknown to me, which immediately transports me to the book, without reason. Out of control I throw the glass against the window pane, but instead of shattering and smashing everything, the glass disappears and my attention is diverted to this bizarre phenomenon. The open book was pressed against the glass, rotating clockwise so fast that it would barely be possible to observe it if at first I had not seen it standing still. I wanted a hole to open up on that floor and be able to throw me, being transported to another plane. A parallel world perhaps. I think that only death can put an end to this. Even if you suspect you're already dead. The book is breaking up. Its pages loosening and being sucked in through the cracks. Each page that hits me hurts me like a sharp metal blade and the newly opened cuts burn and bleed. Lying on the couch, I turn the forgotten bottle over and let what's left of the scotch flow down my throat. I don't know what comes next.