Springtime in a Broken Mirror

by Mario Benedetti

  from my neighbour’s watch I know I slept more than an hour/ now I can think more clearly/ I feel fresh and decide to go to the toilet/ unbelievable this freedom to go to the toilet as often as you like/ my first piss as a free man/ here’s to you

  the man on my right is reading time and on my left is the aisle/ I wonder how I’ll find the world’s state of mind the formation and deformation of the world/ it would be too much bad luck that just when I get out the world explodes

  my little beatriz what a party we’re going to have/ the fact is I have no real idea what to expect/ obviously there’s a problem I know there’s a problem/ in her last letters graciela isn’t the same but that doesn’t mean I have to read between the lines/ sometimes I think she’s sick and doesn’t want to tell me/ or maybe the girl but I don’t even want to think that beatriz what a party we’ll have/ even dad has become enigmatic at first I thought it must be the censorship but not now

  five years is a long time/ graciela is wonderful but exile is a gulf that grows deeper by the day/ graciela is wonderful and we have a lot of shared past and that counts/ of course I love her how wouldn’t I but this slightly crazy doubt doesn’t encourage love what’s most likely is that I’m being unfair

  dad replied in code when I told him about emilio/ he was intelligent but logically also a bit obscure although I get the impression that he really did understand and I’m better now I don’t dream about the emilio of leapfrog or jacks any more/ aníbal talked a lot about him without knowing any of the details of course/ he suffered directly at his hands/ it seems he was a monster through and through

  so nice a sound the humming bees/ ladies and gentlemen I’m flying the stewardess smiles at me I smile at her/ maybe my beret startled her but I’m not going to take it off not on your life/ what would the old lady have thought of all this/ perhaps it’s best she didn’t see or sense it/ she didn’t talk a lot but she did talk to me/ between her and the old man there was a no man’s land but occasionally they crossed it sometimes it was him and sometimes her/ the old man was always a bit taken aback and with good reason but she used to tell me in strict secrecy how much she loved him/ always making me swear never to open my mouth about it/ lovely old lady my old lady I still miss her after these five years of winter no one is going to steal the spring from me

  springtime is like a mirror but mine has a broken corner/ it was inevitable it wasn’t going to stay intact after this pretty full five years/ but even with a broken corner the mirror is useful spring is useful

  that canny neruda once asked in one of his odes/ now spring tell me what you’re for and who you’re for good job I remembered/ what you’re for/ I’d say to rescue us from any deep well/ the word itself is like a childhood ritual/ and who are you useful for well in my humble opinion you’re useful for life/ for example simply by saying spring I feel viable courageous alive

  it seems I must have moved my lips when I said spring because the passenger on my right is looking at me terrified/ poor guy/ I get the impression he only knows how to say winter/ and anyway I could have been praying/ people still do that on planes

  a broken mirror/ maybe the new graciela broke it the distant graciela but that must be a crazy idea and she’ll be waiting for me at the airport with little beatriz and dad/ everything will start up again normally naturally even though the springtime mirror is broken yes of course it must be

  as soon as I can I’ll buy myself a watch

  the stewardess hands me the tray with the meal on it and given my evident poor post-dungeon state I ask only for a coke not as an ideological concession but because it’s free/ salad with cockles-steak-peaches in syrup/ my mouth fills with disbelieving saliva/ the little knife is pretty I’d like to keep it and feel I am a common criminal

  thinking it over it’s not such a bad thing that in her last letters graciela has been withdrawn and distant/ I’ll bring her close again/ first off I’ll kiss her/ how often we used to have slanging matches and say really stupid and harsh things to each other and then we’d stare at one another in amazement I’d go over and kiss her and the world would be back in its place/ order would return to the world or rather a splendid disorder/ but even so for a long time while her mouth was covered by mine she would still be reproaching me for something or other but increasingly more gently and more softly until it was nothing more than a murmur and finally she would return my kiss/secondly I’ll kiss her again/ the fact is I haven’t kissed in five years/ that in itself is enough to drive anyone mad

  five years two months and four days are probably too high a price to pay for a mistake/ that’s almost an eighth of my life up to now/ I err therefore I exist saint augustine the mistaken/ I sometimes wonder what would have happened to me if I’d been a worker rather than a conspicuous member of the much-insulted third sector/ I’d have been put away just the same/ that’s blindingly obvious/ but maybe I would have adapted better to let’s say the food/ not to the machine because no one gets used to that/ let’s see what difference there is between my class consciousness and a proletarian’s class conscience after all I work as well but of course there’s almost a tradition a family background/ aníbal is a prole and jaime too/ for the military they were numbers just the same as us/ they don’t know the difference/ at least they should be taught that there are arabic numbers and roman ones/ by making us all equal we all learned and we really did become equal

  it’s obvious that a prole is always more secure and won’t allow himself to be driven to the mental contortions we writhe around in/ but we can all be loyal when it comes down to it/ say I or so I think/ them maybe more naturally more modestly while we on the other hand provide a complicated explanation of the supposed sacrifice and pull out of our sleeve all the principles we have accumulated along the way/ going on and on about all the honourable reasons there are for staying silent proles don’t complicate their lives so much/ they suffer that’s all/ they stay silent and ciao

  to return is a must but to what country to what uruguay/ that will have a broken corner as well and yet it will reflect more realities than when the mirror was intact/ we have to return but to what springtime/ it doesn’t matter what a disastrous state it’s in but I want to recover my springtime/ they buried it under dry leaves with televised snow a sweating santa claus with the students of mitrione with the world cup won and the world cup lost with under-developing consultants but what they don’t know is that beneath those layers of shit the old and new springtime is still there maybe with a broken corner but with wheat fields and ombú trees and prohibited and authorized tangos and comrade artigas and songs of freedom and trade unions and flocks of sheep and revolts and provisional regulations and grass-roots committees and ungovernable people and the milky way and university autonomy and bitter maté and the plebiscite and the football terraces/ we have to return/ naturally/ and uruguay in a broken mirror will show without vanity that stump we have inherited and the world will listen will understand will respect it

  they’ve cleared away the tray and now my knees are hurting a bit/ what a state I’m in if I’m even pleased my knees are aching

  graciela’s legs graciela’s thighs graciela’s little bush

  what can my folk over there be doing now

  while the gentle drowsy buzz of the bees continues the man with time has fallen asleep on my shoulder/ I thought I deserved a better fate/ fortunately the young girl to his right sneezes opportunely and loudly/ my neighbour wakes with a start and straightens up muttering sorry/ his time falls on my side and I hand it back to him/ in prison we could read claudia how big of them I don’t know what the red cross is complaining about/ I ought to sleep but hope I don’t rest on my neighbour’s bony shoulder

  I can’t/ now it seems I can’t get to sleep/ the thing is my beret itches but I swear I’m not going to take it off

  I’ll have to start again from zero like a new-born babe which I am/ the daring little hairs pushing up under the beret are like new-born babes

  let’s see what
would I like to have/ time to be frank/ top priority a watch/ then a pen that works/ then how shameful embarrassing a table tennis set with a net and everything/ how we used to play in solís with silvio and manolo with maría del carmen as well she was really good that girl/ she always used the chinese grip and gave the ball a terrific spin/ not rolando/ rolando would look on condescendingly from the side and always come out with the same refrain/ I don’t know che how such stupid and dialectical people can take that bit of celluloid crap seriously/ and between serves silvio would remind him look mao is a ping-pong champion/ that’s why I could never be a maoist rolando would say/ don’t distraaaact me maría would shout you have to concentrate at this like you do in chess/ like in chess and in coitus interruptus said rolando, blowing out smoke/ pig you faat pig maria would yell again don’t distraaact me skinny stan laurel here has already won five points off me/ but neither silvio nor I could ever beat her by more than twenty-one to nineteen

  and I also want to talk and listen and talk and listen/ no more of those interrupted dialogues with aníbal or esteban that sometimes lasted two months split into four half-hour sessions/ thirty minutes every fortnight during the exercise period

  rolando’s a great guy/ with his tangos and his conquests/ always gadding about until he became politicized or rather we politicized him but then he was rock solid/ he called himself a convinced bachelor/ who knows if he’s still undefeated/ he’s going to fall going to fall/ how can I describe him /elegant lumpen / a crazy gent/ manolo used to say he was a duke fallen on hard times and in the end we all called him duke and whenever he got airs and graces he would order endive salad or niente so silvio completed his title and from then on he was the duke of endives/ he used to love it/ once in el chajá he was presented to the recently imported wife of a norwegian diplomat he kissed her hand and murmured very politely despite being in tattered shorts and rope sandals the duke of endives at your service madame although for the poor scandinavian woman it could have been pure chinese

  my knee is still hurting/ it must be the threat of rheumatoid arthritis again/ but now I’ll do gymnastics and after the six square metres I’ve been in any pigsty will be a palace

  I’m happy/ I don’t know if it shows but I’m happy/ I hope it doesn’t show/ the man on my right will think I’m a pirate a mid-air hijacker/ I’m a landlubber mister don’t worry a landlubber/ how strange the only pirates who’ve become completely anachronistic are sea pirates/ sandokanfn1 incorporated and associates

  the friends for heaven’s sake/ silvio never again but I’ll find rolando and manolo/ well it seems the duke is in mexico/ fantastic/ manolo in gothenburg/ he’s split up with tita/ they’re probably both right/ they’re not to blame/ it’s this earthquake that has shaken us all/ and besides exile saps your strength grinds you down/ exile is a torture machine as well/ you have to put the blame for all the frustration and anguish on somebody and of course the person who gets it is the one next to you, whoever is closest/ I hope graciela and I

  I’d also love to see the sea

  when all’s said and done I came out better than when I went in/ that first little week/ ok that’s enough enough enough/ I’m the same but am another person too/ and this other person is better/ I like this other person that I’ve become

  springtime isn’t yet within my reach/ spring will not arrive tomorrow but perhaps the day after/ reagan with his neutron bomb and stubborn as a mule but he won’t be able to prevent spring arriving the day after tomorrow

  that armpit smell isn’t coming from me

  a profound thought/ right now latin american unity is driven by two essential things/ reagan and the letter zed/ from the rio grande down to tierra del fuego we reject the dummy and we don’t pronounce the zed/ so we don’t despize him we despise him

  ah but the other unity the one that isn’t a joke/ of course being in jail unites puts an end to all cracks/ but that can’t be the ideal formula/ it seems to me

  sometimes I was afraid why deny it/ a fear whose howls I had to silence/ not one but many fears/ the fear of despising myself of preferring to die to give up on the world/ with no world and no balls/ the fear of ending up a wreck/ it’s horrible to feel so afraid but even more horrible to have to silence your howls

  afterwards the fear abated and it seemed incredible to have even brushed against it/ I could feel myself to be so brave and stoical afterwards/ and I was so transformed I could even feel a certain disdain/ for someone else who was afraid and had to swallow his howls/ someone who at some point if they didn’t howl would get beyond that shitty moment and feel so brave and stoical they could even sense a certain disdain towards another person who in the jaws of his fear had to swallow his impulse to howl, and so on and so on

  fear is the worst abyss and you can only get out of the pit by seizing your own hair and pulling upwards/ gradually you learn to lose fear of fear/ very gradually/ if you face it fear slinks away

  the stewardess with the pale pink nails comes round offering headsets for those who want to see the film/ but they’re not on the house/ they cost two dollars fifty cents and I’m stony broke or a broken stone it’s the same/ and I say no as if I only wanted to sleep/ maybe I do

  sadness is to be feared as well/ not merely your own but other people’s/ what to do for example with a cellmate a big burly guy who all of a sudden shudders and sobs in the midst of the eternal darkness of night in prison/ how can you know what he’s remembering or missing or regrets or is withstanding/ this fraternal sobbing soaks you like a persistent drizzle it’s impossible to shelter from/ and as soon as you’re bone-drenched your own personal sadnesses start to kick in/ sadnesses are like cocks/ one of them starts to crow/ and all the others follow suit/ and its only then you realize how enormous the collection is and that you even have some that are doubles

  the film is about pianists/ it must be something about an international competition for promising young musicians/ with no sound it doesn’t look like music but gymnastics/ both of them are pianists/ the neat and tidy girl and the dishevelled young man/ in the first half she’s the one who dominates and they give each other neat little kisses but in the second he dominates and they give each other dishevelled ones/ and here am I who hasn’t given anyone a neat or dishevelled kiss in five years/ of course the film is north american but one of the pianists in the competition must be soviet because she’s always accompanied by two of those actors of scottish ancestry who used to play nazis and now are russians and besides the young girl’s teacher scandalously asks for asylum even though this means she has to put aside the tremendous affection she feels for her pupil prodigy who due to the malign influence of marxism–leninism is a robot with tresses/ the final is incredibly hard-fought but victory goes to the western christian keyboard/ piano piano

  the silent concert has made me sleepy/ it’s incredible to see how on the small screen they’re pounding away at the instrument and meanwhile you’re deaf as a post/ there’s no one so deaf as the one who wants to hear

  there’s also the idea of death/ it comes and goes/ sometimes it coincides with fear sometimes it doesn’t/ in my case it usually didn’t/ in the end pain creates more fear than death/ you can even see death as the

  definitive analgesic but there’s always some corner of springtime that resists

  I really want to sit down for a week to chat with dad/ I want to talk to him about everything I didn’t say in earlier years/ to hear what he has learned over these years and also for him to know what I’ve learned/ we think differently about many things but finding out about those differences is also a way to reduce them

  for five years the most encouraging thing was the sun

  how distant are childhood secondary school student struggles work wages/ they seem to belong to someone else/ sometimes I can even remember all the details but as if someone had told me them one foggy night

  it was in buenos aires when little beatriz couldn’t yet talk it was in buenos aires when graciela said I can’t imagine not havi
ng you/ one rainy evening walking down calle lavalle snuggled together to take advantage of the only umbrella when a flood of argies came out of the cinemas

  to me the only proof of god’s existence are graciela’s legs

  in prison many of them turned their hand to writing verses/ not me/ what I did was sing tangos with the volume off quiet quiet in complete silence and how good they sounded not a single wrong note

  in order not to betray never to give in you have to raise a stockade and be aware that even suffering even fearful even vomiting the stockade has to be defended to the death/ thank you john ford

  when you are free and anxious you suddenly feel imaginary pains and think they are real/ in prison its different/ when you feel a real pain you have to think its imaginary/ sometimes that helps

  outside to feel solidarity you have to bring together a thousand people and collect funds and denounce abuses and human rights/ inside on the other hand solidarity can be the size of half a cracker

  when its the corporals or sergeants who are looking through the slit to keep an eye on us I never wake up I don’t pay them any attention/ I only wake up with a start when after those two its the officers who sneak a look at us

  what if I reach the airport and there’s nobody waiting for me/ no none of that/ best start again/ let’s imagine that graciela and dad and little beatriz will be there

  to play a game of volleyball or football was as important as founding a dynasty or discovering the law of gravity

  altogether I was kept in solitary twenty days/ from there in other words from the famous hole you come out either crazy or stronger/ I came out stronger but the problem is I didn’t discover the method

  the stewardess moves so silently among the passengers that almost all of them wake up and say they’re sorry and glance down nervously at their flies/ in some countries they call it a zipper/ the young woman who’s on the right of the man on my right is literally sleeping sprawled out and from a pocket of her pretty jacket I can see half of a fork/ a common criminal