Lord

by João Gilberto Noll

  I arrived at the great hall and sat down. Many people were standing, looking up at departure times and platforms listed on the brightly lit elevated displays. I shivered as I realized that the trip to Liverpool was really happening. The train left at seven in the morning. I was surprised that it was already five-thirty. I looked outside: true, it was getting light. Time seemed to speed up to win me over. I had just spoken with the actor who castrates himself on stage each night, and now, suddenly, it’s dawn. I decided that in Liverpool, I would become a Spartan warrior, exercising every morning and timing each movement. I wouldn’t let myself get distracted. I’d get in sync. The entirety of the movement and its necessary duration. I would try to master time, make a friendly arrangement with the day, from the moment I awoke until the moment I fell asleep, thus allowing sleep to serve as the time of my independence, until one day it would come to stay forever. This idea made my left foot shake. As I bent to rub the foot and soothe it, I felt the urge to rise—it was now or never, I could not wait any longer. Many passengers were hurrying through the station, and I chose one. I walked toward him. I only had eyes for the chestnut velvet collar of his unbuttoned brown overcoat. That velvet collar will always be engraved in my mind. He was well off, which is what I noticed immediately: I bumped into him; in an instant I’d insinuated my forefinger and thumb into his overcoat, into the top inside pocket over his heart, right there, and I took his wallet and put it into the hip pocket of my own coat, all in one absurdly quick movement. I did it, giving all those excuses the English use when bumping into someone, but I said it all so much more emphatically, because this was a collision provoked by someone like me, who should never touch a gentleman. Ever.

  I stood in the middle of the crowd, stock still and trembling. Instead of leaving the scene of the crime, I followed the velvet collar of the gentleman whom I had just stolen a sum from out of the corner of my eye—I was still unaware of the exact sum. Still standing there, I could see the man’s chestnut velvet collar as absolute proof that my subtraction would mean nothing to him, even if it was too much by my own standards—and that was the hope I cultivated as I stood there for a while longer, as if delaying the pleasure of knowing the amount and incorporating it once and for all into my financial vocabulary. Let’s hope! I shivered in the cold. The notes of a nocturne came to my mind, played by a fine pianist, and still hearing its evasive cadence I went looking for a restroom. I found it and entered a stall. I pulled out the wallet, opened it: it held all the money I would need for a long time. New pound notes, as if they had been freshly withdrawn from the bank. That man was lucky. I was luckier. The stall smelled bad and all, but to be there: away from the camera’s eye, worshipping the new life I could now have for a while, counting and recounting the bills that were so fresh from the mint that they crackled as they became my property… Ah, that feeling negated any fetidness I smelled—any imperfection, disaffection, or incomprehension.

  I was careful to keep my promise and not look in the mirror while I washed my hands. If I looked at myself in the mirror, I’d be breaking the spell I had cast with such grace at Euston Station. I asked for a seat on the next train to Liverpool. Preferably next to the window so I could admire the famous English fields. The fat clerk didn’t like my requests and gave me a blank stare. But having the ticket in my hand was what really mattered. What really mattered was to liberate myself from that secretive situation in London. And to be able to go, to go wherever, and leave everything behind, even if my everything was little more than nothing. To let go of fear, even if my fear of being persecuted by a shadow power in the city only existed in my head. With ticket in hand, I stood in front of the brightly lit displays where so many others also stood as if in some pre-trip ritual, and I saw that the train to Liverpool departed from platform 7. I hurried. I still believed there would be a plainclothes officer at the door of my car ready to ask for my papers and then interrogate me in a room at the station. I got on the train like any other passenger. It was cozily warm inside. I was not going to see any English countryside, no sir, what I needed was to curl up and fall deeply asleep. I woke up to a female voice announcing Liverpool station. It was a bright morning, unlike any I had seen in London. A sky so clear…without a single cloud. Ah, but even though it was the end of winter, it was still very cold. It was windy with the force of a port city—a river, and also the sea. Out on the sidewalk, my cap was constantly blowing off of my head in the wind. I clung to the walls, sometimes afraid of being dragged away in a real typhoon. Until I came across a grand hotel. It was similar to Hotel Gloria in Rio. It was called the Britannia Adelphi Hotel. The Adelphi, I later learned, was what they called it locally. I was told it had hosted kings and queens. That on the Beatles’ first return to their hometown, now universally acclaimed, they stayed at the Adelphi and waved to the crowd from the hotel’s grandest window. I didn’t know any of that at the time. I was leaning against the wall of a nearby building, and all I saw was a fortress, safe enough to shelter me from typhoons, at least for my first few days there. I went into my room and it was all true. It had a big bed with a satin quilt that I rolled on as soon as I saw it. Just one problem: too many mirrors. I grabbed sheets and pillowcases, and with my eyes closed like a child playing alone, I covered them up, so they would not tempt me to the point where I would no longer be able to resist. But I didn’t forget to wash my face thoroughly before I went out into the city for the first time. Just passing through the lobby was a feast of gilded friezes and chandeliers. I was staying in a palace and I had the money to afford it for a few days. I hadn’t forgotten to ask for a map of Liverpool at the front desk. I ordered ravioli Bolognese from a red-headed boy at a restaurant on the corner. I asked him where the Cavern was, the first place, according to legend, the Beatles had performed. He asked me if I had a map. I opened it up on the table. He immediately found the spot and made a little circle around the famous pub, not far from there. I began to notice that many people on the street were wearing green T-shirts and hats. And that the pubs had live bands playing old Irish songs as the crowds sang along. In that hell of cold wind, girls wore miniskirts and T-shirts with their sleeves rolled up to the shoulders, and the guys didn’t have coats on, several of them even wore shorts. They were all dancing like people did during Carnival in Brazil, but with a lasciviousness that outdid even the revelers in Rio. I asked around—oh yes, it was March 17—Saint Patrick’s Day, the patron saint of Ireland—which was the reason for all the parties and the sounds of Irish music imprinted upon the city. But I drifted away from the loudest pubs, drifted away from the most animated crowds on the sidewalks, drifted away until I found the Cavern. I went down three floors. It was indeed a cave. It was impossible to believe that four boys were able to fit on what they called a stage that looked like it could barely fit two. It was dark; only two or three tourists. Is it really here? I asked the waiter. It is… Do you want a beer? I do, I answered. Then I remembered that I hadn’t put alcohol in my mouth for nine years. I sat at a table at the bottom of the tilted floor in front of the stage in pitch darkness. Only the bar and the stage were dimly lit. The beer came. I drank it all at once. A bit of alcohol seemed necessary to withstand the typical harbor winds of the English north. And some drinking buddy would know when to put his hand on my arm to make me stop. Looking at the stage, I didn’t see the Beatles, but myself with a face I no longer expected to have. A marble statue, the head tilted to the side, grossly disproportionate—Me! If it were still possible to remember my real past. The head occupied almost the entire stage and I drank, hidden in the dark in front of it. A sort of shame was making me die a little in the dark. I couldn’t die too much, because there was Liverpool and the new life it promised. I would not let go of that, whether I liked the city or not. I was going to go out to buy clothes now, basic necessities: soap, toothpaste, scissors, whatever. No hidden dissidents from any English institution would catch me here. I would begin again, do everything over from the start; I would depend exclusively on my ow
n skills, of which I would blow at every dormant ember.

  I bought some stuff I needed. I got in lines at mini-marts, I felt at home thanking the clerks for the change. Everything had the neat smell of being itself: the cleaning products, personal hygiene items, fruits, vegetables. Everything seemed ready and waiting for me. As I thanked the owner of an establishment, I looked at the other people in line: good humor reigned. On my way back to the hotel, I saw long lines of young people in summer clothes waiting to enter the pubs. The security guards, usually black, mostly wore black jackets and tried to keep order at the entrances to these parties. The young people walked in groups, shouting words that I no longer understood properly because they were so drunk. Even though the calendar verified we were living in the agony of winter, the sun was shining in the late afternoon. Spring was announcing itself, that was it, buds were ready to burst on a few trees. Even though parts of the city were ugly, decayed in fact, everything came to me as dawning beauty, and with a barbarous, primitive air; a particular beauty that was hidden from the eyes of the tourists—nourishing itself from an era when Europe hadn’t yet become a myth. I felt so grateful that I hugged the groceries instead of holding the bags by their handles. I even came to a halt and wondered if life after death couldn’t be possible. I thought of nonsense like that. I walked into the Adelphi feeling at home. I put the groceries on the bed and looked out the window. How was it possible I hadn’t looked out here before? I wondered. Then the phone in the room rang. Who could it be in a city where I didn’t know anyone? A professor at the University of Liverpool, who spoke Portuguese with a European accent, wanted to see me. I found it funny that she said the name of the local university in Portuguese: Universidade da Cidade de Liverpool. She was waiting for me in the lobby. I made a move to go to the mirror and remove the cloth that covered it—more than anything to just check myself out. But I resisted the temptation. Then I went downstairs. And when the elevator door opened on the ground floor, a porter stood in front of me and said, She’s the one waiting for you. The professor was a young woman, in her thirties, if that. She seemed cautious. She said she had seen me on the street and recognized me as the author she used to read and study with her students. She’d decided to enter the hotel and ask if I was indeed a guest. And she didn’t want to wait—she asked them to call me. For a specific reason: they were in urgent need of a Portuguese teacher—not of literature, she stressed, but of the Portuguese language—for next semester. And when she saw me going into the hotel she asked herself: Who’s a better master of Portuguese than a writer of so many books in the language? I could leave all the practical stuff to her, the papers and everything else I’d need from Brazil. I quietly responded that I could give it a try, since, in my head, I spoke Portuguese all the time. Gradually, I began to get excited and cite numerous grammarians who came to mind, pondering their theses on various aspects of the Portuguese language—until I took a deep breath and fell into an armchair in the lobby. I will apply for the position, I said firmly. And she replied that I was the man, there was no other. I remembered that I had begun my life as a Portuguese teacher, and that syntax was my favorite area. At last I sighed, beaten into submission by the good winds that had brought me an invitation from this young Englishwoman.

  The next morning I put on my new coat and went up the hill to the university campus, near the hotel. The Englishwoman introduced me to the head of the department, a Portuguese professor, bald, in his sixties, a specialist in medieval Iberian studies. He could speak for hours about the Larvos, a group of wanderers who swept across the region in the twelfth century announcing the forgiveness that had not previously been granted for man’s eagerness in charging his steed against nature. We went out to talk, walking around the cold, overcast, terribly foggy campus. Both of us had our hands held behind our backs. I played with the idea of comparing myself to the Larvos; me, who had left one decaying port in southern Brazil for another—in almost identical condition—in the northwest of England, so I could at last, on the cusp of old age, establish a home, make myself a cocoon with a fireplace, and tie the aforementioned steed to the same favorite tree forever. Along the paths, we laughed comfortably, and right then I felt already that I’d indeed be the one chosen to occupy a chair in the Portuguese Department at the University of Liverpool. Of course, I was not interested in literary theories, the exegeses, the metaphors, the palpitations in the souls of great writers. I was more interested in knowledge of the Portuguese language, how it had formed and with what face and dynamics it was presented today. Why we linked one word to another assembling phrases that were either sumptuous or dry, sinuous or direct, crude or subliminal. If what we said with such phrases had an immediate connection to real things or if it only served as a type of discharge from our incomprehensible neurons. And if this last hypothesis prevails, why don’t we just shut up, even if that act would cause me to lose my job as a teacher of the delirium called the Portuguese language? We could then form a new department at the university, one for the canons of Silence; yes, with a capital S indeed, and in this department we could evoke what we have forgotten to expose and echo until now. In the beginning, it would be the only chair at the university, the new Theology, from which myriads of others and their many ramifications would emanate. I shook hands with the Portuguese professor and went down the hill, down to the pubs where I would find my future students binge drinking, where the stores called to me to buy more odds and ends to fill my room at the Adelphi. Should I put my hope in you? I asked the blowing wind. Should I wish to undo your enigma and embark upon finding your voice? Then I exploded into laughter with these supposedly age-old ruminations of mine, with which I entertained myself with nothing, or rather, with only the insignificant smiles of petty falsehoods. I—ready to become a Portuguese language teacher at a foreign university—was being overtaken by a thirst for nothingness. Then let me run to the pub, let me start drinking again, even if only a little, and let me undo, yes, my deal with the angels.

  At the foot of the hill, very close to the Adelphi, I saw a pub with an ornate façade called the Beehive. I went in. It was already crowded. Did I even know what time it was? All I knew was that I was employed as a Portuguese professor, with students who mostly spoke English. This would be a good place to stay, since, free of my worries about London, I didn’t want to leave the country anymore. It wasn’t for nothing that I had attached myself to this island. I had been summoned by an indecipherable Englishman from Brazil, that’s not a lie, but he did not reveal the truth behind his actions or what he in fact represented until his last days, and the only thing I knew for certain were the initials of an institution that, in my view, was fraudulent. And that’s all right, but I had to admit that the Englishman had somehow given me an opportunity to see what I needed: a new country, whether it was this one or another… But—since they had given me a plane ticket to come here, and this nation, so far, hadn’t really rejected me to the point I felt the need to leave—look at where I was now: soon to be a tenured teacher at the University of Liverpool. Even if I had been crazy to exile myself from Brazil, I now had my cause: the Portuguese language to disseminate—don’t forget, don’t forget, I repeated, looking into my mug full of that very dark beer that makes a man who knows when to stop drinking it a true gentleman. Well…not quite yet…it’s just the first beer, and I was standing—there wasn’t a counter to lean against and The Beehive was a true hornet’s nest of humans; I sweated endlessly. Then a man sitting alone at a table called me over. He was a bit stocky, not as old as me, and he had called out to me. As soon as I sat down I took off my new overcoat. He had already cast off his coat, and wore a shirt with the sleeves rolled up. I saw he had a tattoo on his arm. A sun with many rays emanating from it. He had been a deckhand on a cargo ship, but now, with widespread unemployment at the port, he had opened a small hardware store. He didn’t want to emigrate, as many of his colleagues at the docks had. He lived in Liverpool, because he was born and raised here and he liked it. He knew what
to do on Sundays and holidays. Those days, he didn’t open his shop, he went down to the sea instead. To listen to seabirds. The seabirds I had heard on my way here as I walked down the hill. I told him I was being hired by the University of Liverpool to teach Portuguese. Brazilian? he asked. Yes, I answered emphatically, as if I wanted to start teaching immediately. Is Brazil as big as they say? Much bigger, I answered. Are you going to miss it? No, I’m not. And you think you’ll like it here? If you teach me how. And right there I noticed he was that drinking buddy who would put his hand on my arm when I had asked for one glass too many. The urgency in the environment was intense; it was necessary to speak many decibels above normal. I liked the guy and he liked me. There was a loneliness in him that could meet with mine…I don’t know. It was mano a mano, no one could interfere with our already established fate. I ordered another beer, my second, but that was not what was making me so sure. The fact that he had a small business and I was a future Portuguese professor in the city and we had met in such a manner…everything had a way of coming together and nothing that was merely human could disrupt it. I had found my city, my home, my man, and even if I asked for a third glass of beer nothing would crumble. I said I was staying at the Adelphi for the time being. He laughed, laughed a lot, I don’t know why he was laughing so much. Perhaps he was rebelling against the bourgeois condition. If he only knew that my lodging and everything had only been possible because of… I didn’t know what he’d think. I didn’t even want to know. All I know is that we ordered another beer and “La vie en rose” by Piaf was playing. And still tasting the last drink in our mouths, we went to the Adelphi. So he could see my room, its splendor without equal. Truly. Ver-da-de, I said in Portuguese, pura verdade.