A General Theory of Oblivion

THE DEATH OF PHANTOM

Phantom died in his sleep. In his last weeks he had been eating very little. To tell the truth, he had never eaten much — there wasn’t much to eat — which perhaps explains how he had lived so long. Laboratory experiments show that the life expectancy of mice increases considerably when they are given a low-calorie diet.

Ludo woke up, and the dog was dead.

The woman sat down on the mattress, opposite the open window. She hugged her thin knees. She lifted her eyes towards the sky, where, bit by bit, pink, light clouds were forming. Chickens clucked on the terrace. The crying of a child rose up from the floor below. Ludo felt her chest emptying. Something — some dark substance — was escaping from inside her, like water out of a cracked vessel, slipping down onto the cold cement. She had lost the only creature in the world who loved her, and she had no tears to cry.

She stood up, chose a piece of charcoal, sharpened it, and attacked one of the walls, which was still clean, in the guest bedroom:

Phantom died tonight. Everything is so useless now.

The look in his eyes caressed me, explained me and sustained me.

She climbed up to the terrace without the protection of the old cardboard box. The day was unfurling itself, a warm yawn of a day. Maybe it was Sunday. The streets were almost deserted. She watched a group of women walk past dressed in pristine white. One of them, spotting her, raised her right hand in a joyful greeting.

Ludo drew back.

She could jump, she thought. Step forward. She could climb out onto the ledge, so simple.

The women, down there, would see her one moment — a feather-light shadow — hovering a second and then falling. She stepped back, went on stepping back, cornered by the blue, by the vastness, by the certainty that she would go on living, even with nothing to give life any meaning.

Death circles around me, shows its teeth, snarls. I kneel down and offer it my bare throat. Come, come, come now, friend. Bite. Let me go. Oh, you did come today and you forgot me. _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ Night-time. It’s night-time again. I’ve counted more nights than days. _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ The nights, then, and the clamour of the frogs. I open the window and see the lagoon. The night that has split in two. _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ It rains, everything overflows. At night, it’s as though the darkness were singing. The night rising up in waves, devouring the buildings.

I think, once again, of that woman to whom I returned the pigeon. Tall, prominent bones, with that slight disdain with which very beautiful women make their way through reality. She walks through Rio de Janeiro, along the bank of Lagoa (I’ve seen photographs, I found several illustrated books about Brazil in the library). Cyclists pass her. The ones who let their gaze linger on her never come back. The woman is called Sara, I call her Sara.

She looks like she’s out of a canvas by Modigliani.