Incompatible

by Mauricio R B Campos

  “Hi.”

  Fermin seemed to be older than sixty years of age, with scarce hair at the top of his head, but plenty in the nape, curly and grayish. He used a manicured beard; his nose and ears were big, and his eyes were expressive. He used a crude cotton shirt, linen pants and leather sandals. The visitor did not know exactly what to expect from a wizard, but definitely the idea he made of a wizard did not match what he would see in that man. The raw cotton and the sandals made him remind of an apostle, even more after having come across the man of captivating smile and sincere look.

  “Hi, I’m Mercedes’ friend.” Arthur answered, without knowing much well what to say.

  “Sure, you are, what’s your name?”

  “Arthur.”

  “Come in, Arthur, welcome.”

  The Brazilian man handed the cold beers to the Galician and looked at the large hall, all made of stone; by one side there was a wooden hatrack and by the other, a trimmer. In front of him, there was a livingroom with a set of sofas and a coffee table. The decoration was modern and clean: leather, stainless, straight lines. No esoteric object or mystic trinkets. Perpendicularly a snail stair of wood would go up to the second and the third floors. The host closed the door and led him through this stair, from where they only looked at the dining room in the second floor and reached the third one in a corridor that led to the bedrooms and the verandah.

  They crossed the corridor heading to the large verandah, with two sets of tables and a minibar. From the verandah it was possible to see the coast forming and arch heading to the south. Down there the sea shocked against the big wall that protected the city from Neptune’s anger. Fermin indicated a lounge chair and they sat, by staring at the panorama of sky, sun and sea above

  The beers were open, and a toast sealed the beginning of the conversations.

  “Mercedes is Daniel’s mother, isn’t she?”

  “Actually, I don’t know; as I said on the phone, we had contact in the way of Santiago. We exchanged some words, no more than that.”

  “Ah! It’s true” the magician confirmed, at the moment when the black cat appeared and began to skim the legs of his owner. “You know what, this Mercedes is such a type. I helped her son and since then she has had these enigmatic cards about me and delivers them to unknown people as if I was a kind of oracle.”

  “This is the word she used.”

  “If I am an oracle, what have you come here for?”

  “I have taken a degree in Stanford, as planned by my parents. The next step is assuming the administration of the family businesses, as my father and my grandfather have predicted, probably before my birthday. I think there’s something wrong in this determinism, as if this future that was prepared for me as a present has become for me a kind of prison. I feel that I’m an actor playing the role of the main character in a play written by another person.”

  “As Oscar Wilde Would say, the world may be a stage, but the crew is a horror!” They smiled whilst they observed the seagull that were fishing, away from the play that was played around them.

  “Are you by chance looking for something you don’t know what is, but you search to find it even though?”

  “How do you know?”

  “Because this is what everyone is looking for, as human beings. The mystery of existence is this search, and all the beauty and wisdom of life dwells in it.”

  The cat sat on the lap of its owner and stretched for a cuddle. Arthur took one more sip of the colorada and confessed one more thing:

  “I have my situation, but...” he hesitated. “I don’t feel that I belong to this world...”

  When the wizard stood up to observe a ship that drew his attention, the cat jumped from his lap and disappeared through the corridor.

  “If you feel that you cannot find your place in the world, there’s only one way to find it, it’s a technique as old as the wind. When I went to Singapore, my master in the way of Daozang showed me ways to amplify our self-knowledge, but it’s a difficult way” he said, sitting again and staring at the visitor in the eyes.

  “Our soul comes to this world and is exposed to prejudices, pervaded with pre-conceived ideas and concepts that are transmitted to us by the family, the school, the TV” he continued. “And in your case, because of what you told me, even more. I’ve already talked to many rich people and the experience of responsibility that is thrown on their backs is astonishing, and in your case, what seems to have happened is a projection of a series of values and expectations about what one expects for your future. This projection reached such a high threshold that, as you yourself have said, it’s become a prison. It’s natural that the families, for projection, end up imposing a future for their children, but what happens in most of the cases is that at some moment, those plans of manipulation of the future are faded to ruin, because it’s very difficult to control all the variables of the life of a person, especially if you have no money. But in your case, since your family’s got resources, their power of manipulation on your life is much higher, actually, it may be complete.”

  Arthur took another sip of beer. He did not know what kind of wizard that was or how he could have a reading like this of his life only after having drunk some sips of beer together, but he became impressed. And the most impressive was that there was no stiltedness in his words, even that all of them came full of meaning. He had not thought in such way. Yet actually was not it what he had said? Had not he been built since he was born to become the ideal heir of an empire created with the sacrifice of his ancestors? Had not been contained when he appeared rebel? Had not he been rewarded when he appeared obedient? Yes, he was a grown-up man, in charge of his character and for the construction of his actions, but what was the limit of his free choice? Until what extent was, he able to change his future? How many problems could he solve in his life? The idea of being stuck to a project that took his liberty to think, the liberty to decide, the option to search for other perspectives within a range of options disturbed him.

  “Do you mean they could only mold my choices because they had money?”

  “No. You said this.”

  Arthur bent his eyebrows.

  “Do you believe in destiny, Arthur?”

  “No. I think not. Should I?”

  “We’re all prisoners of our destinies, but perhaps you are too young to understand this.”

  “So, I have to accept this destiny of being basically the same thing as my father was.”

  “No. I didn’t say this.”

  “You say we’re all stuck to our destiny, so...”

  “If your destiny is to break this tradition that is transmitted from father to son, then nothing in this world will be able to make you stand in your father’s shoes.”

  “And how can I know what my destiny is?”

  “This is the one-million-dollar question. But the fact you’re confused about your future is probably because you only know the life style you’ve had until today. The Sufi mystics dominated several secular professions in addition to their hidden studies, because someone who can think, believe or do any of half a dozen things is freed and freer than someone who’s confined to only one activity. What you need is to force yourself to develop other talents, contemplate human beings who never had or will have the opportunities as you had, share live with them, and find other forms of human beings.”

  The sun went down over the ocean in a gig of colors that stained the panorama of the coast of Vigo like a painting, giving red, yellow and orange to the minimum things. Arthur stared at his interlocutor.

  “And how can I do this.”

  PART III — CROSSROAD

  “Each new way of deliverance is intended to become another way of slavery to most of those who follow it”

  – Peter J. Carroll.

  CHAPTER 16

  When the car departed, leaving Lara de Alencar in front of her house, the sensation she had was that of walking on the clouds. The afternoon at Nunes de Mendonca’s family’s farm was not what
she expected: it superseded all of her expectations. Arthur appeared as a polite, elegant and delicate man in a way she had never thought of knowing anyone. He was exactly the opposite of Cesar Del Manto, her last boyfriend: a chaff who used her to pay for his bills like a cheap gigolo while he betrayed her with any bitch who nodded at him, even Bia, her best friend. If he showed always lack of politeness and touch, Arthur was a real gentleman.

  At the moment the Architecture Office where Lara worked tasked her to show the project to Arthur, even that she was the youngest architect, and even that the project was the most important of the company, she presumed what was at stake was not her capacity, but her power of seduction. From the moment she decided to abandon her own convictions to embrace that hypocrite life style, that in her view the society demands from its members, she started to use her power of attraction.

  She had never achieved the point she did with Arthur, she had not yet had love with someone for advantage. In this case a great advantage: manage to get the contract with the main private educational organization of the city. It was an idea she despised, that prostitution for power, that reduction of the feminine role to a piece of meat. Try to be united with everything you normally reject. And the commandment by Peter Carrol and his shameful Liber Null and the Psychonauth was being tested.

  A lost voice in her mind accused her to use that as a simple excuse to get involved with Arthur. She had to admit that she was not fully uniting to what she would normally reject. The heir of the Educational Group Nunes de Mendonca would draw her attention even if it was the college’s cleaner. But the fact of selling herself like that was actually something she rejected. But was not it what the world expected from a woman? Is not the world always oscillating between a feminine standard of cult to the body and a banal sexuality, in which the abject passions serve for the pragmatism?

  This has always been the world from which she tried to get around since she was a little girl. A hypocrite world where to gain the bread everything is forgiven, everything is admitted, where ethic is nothing more than a Greek word lost in the dictionary. She escaped from all that and when she felt she was running to the right side her life came undone once. She had managed to work for one of the most important tattooists of São Paulo; she worked for odd figures at their houses, her talent was recognized, and her art was valued. She loved to tattoo. Getting away from tattoo was what mortified her the most since she decided to anamatemize her ego. Tattoo was something forbidden at the moment; she started looking for things that she hated; what she loved had to be despised, or, otherwise, ignored completely.

  Lara tried to ignore her tattoos at most. Now she would only see her flying dragon and the black carp during the bath, when her right arm was exposed. In the rest of the day, she used long sleeves, no matter the heat of the day or of the night. That is why she asked Arthur to turn off the lights. Thanks to this, she lost the sight of the well-defined body like the one she had felt under her touch in the darkness of that farm room. However, she worked for a major purpose; when all had finished, when the last piece of her identity had been smashed, fragmented and annihilated, she would find the truth about herself and her ashes, and there would be a revival.

  Every day when she left office for lunch, in the way to the restaurant, she passed in front of a tattoo studio, Alexandrina Tattoo. The name was a tribute to the street in the downtown of the city where it was. At such moments, she released a long look at it. When she was alone, she walked slowly, tasting each detail of that world she had banned from her life — but, when she was accompanied, she tried to disguise. Apparently, her look of elegant woman on high heels and within a tailleur would make her invisible for the studio’s workers. Their main customers must be the students of USP and UFSCar. This taught her to try to look beyond the appearances; for the sole absolute truth is that no one knows what goes in the mind of another. Those who would see her playing the role of a successful architect could imagine she would lack the scent of ink, the noise of the needle, contemplating the work at the end?

  Nevertheless, she entered her house that night still with the perfume of Arthur on her skin; missing his lips, his touch, his captivating smile. Even knowing that afternoon may not have represented anything for him, she still clangs to the thought that perhaps it would not have been so, perhaps he still remembered her when he woke up the next day.

  “La vérité vaut bien qu'on passe quelques années sans la trouver” – Renard[24].

  CHAPTER 17

  The blue and cloudless sky promised a beautiful sunny day. Arthur went on foot by the winding dirt road that cut the pastures and plantations and limited the sieges and farms. The sun had appeared in the horizon for about one and a half hour; the temperature was pleasurable; the scent of dew evaporating under the hot sun gave a sensation of refreshment to the environment. In the rural silence, the sounds of his steps scratching the little stones and the dust united to the whisper of the insects and the birdsongs. But in his mind, a screaming still echoed from the night before.

  He did not expect his decision would be received so untimely by his parents. He communicated to them he had taken a decision well thought and rethought after his trip to Santiago de Compostela. The last two years had been exhausting and he concluded that he needed some time for himself; therefore, he was informing them about his decision to take a sabbatical year.

  At the first moment, his parents tried to discover the real reasons that led him to take that radical decision, certainly to try to discourage the idea, but faced with his constant unspoken attitudes to show his real intentions, the spirits started changing. So, there was all of a scene in which they had to be taken up to the limits to understand Arthur’s decision was irreversible.

  The wizard did not explain how he should proceed; he only informed that it was up to him to decide how to conduct his life. The first thing he decided while he drew that new plan was to renounce to money. All the facilities of his life and the way he had led it until then were a reflex of his economic condition; if something was bothering him, the first reason was the plenty of resources. The idea was to have a backpack and a minimum of money; only the basic for his livelihood. Fermin had said the Sufi mystics dominated several secular professions in addition to their hidden studies; because someone able to think, believe or do any of half a dozen things is freed and freer than someone confined to only one activity. This meant he needed to learn other kinds of professions and have contact with different people from those with whom he usually had contact. And he believed a place would provide him with everything he needed for such an undertaking:

  Tibiriçá Ecovillage.

  He had taken a look at the website of the ecovillage in São Carlos and later in a conversation with a friend he had had more details, and, if everything went right as he had informed, it would be perfect for what was programmed in his sabbatical year.

  He arrived at the entry of the ecovillage with a backpack containing some clothes, mobile phone, charger, an e-books reader with dozens of books about Taoism in his virtual library. He stared at the sign high at the entry gate of what had been a farm some day: TIBIRIÇÁ

  ECOVILLAGE — EARTH WATCHMEN’S SOCIETY. He crossed

  the little entry that cut a preservation area, enjoying the cold temperature of the wood, whose tree crowns surrounded the top of the little road, protecting the sun traveler.

  He crossed an open land which probably some day was used as a cattle pasture; so, he passed by three large ditches open on the dirt that were full of rain water; and he had the slightest idea of what that was. He passed by the plantation of something he did not know exactly what was, but the seedlings were planted differently: they were not parallel but following a spiral pattern and forming a large circle. Two people riding bicycle appeared contouring the entry that led to the other end of the agricultural property.

  They were both without shirts, wearing shorts dirty of dirt, and slippers. They looked between twenty to thirty years old; one of whom was black, with
a hair forming large beams of dreadlocks that went through his waist. The other one was a long-haired white man looking like a surfer. It was the latter one who first said:

  “Hello, did you come to visit?”

  “Actually, I’d like to try to spend some time here. I’ve heard you have a lodging.”

  “Do you know permaculture?” the black man asked.

  Arthur smiled:

  “I’m really crazy to learn about it.”

  They looked at one another and the surfer asked him to follow them. They went in silence through the way that led to the large community kitchen and the ecovillage’s living area. In the way he could see some houses afar, among trees. When they arrived at the kitchen, there were many people having breakfast. The children approached Arthur altogether, thrilled with looking at a different face in the community and they asked him a lot of questions: who he was, where he came from, how long he intended to stay, if he was married, single, if he had a sister, an older brother and many other questions. Surrounded by children, he could only answer he would like to stay.

  A red long-haired man approached and touching the children with fun, stretched his hand to the visitor: