Selected Cronicas

DIES IRAE

I wake up in a rage. I am thoroughly dissatisfied with this world. Most people are dead without realizing it or they live like charlatans. And instead of giving, love makes demands. Those who show us affection expect us at least to satisfy some of their needs. Telling lies brings remorse. And not to lie is a gift the world does not deserve. And I am not even capable of smashing crockery like the semi-paralysed little girl when she took her revenge. I am not semi-paralysed. Although something deep down tells me that we are all semi-paralysed. And we die without so much as an explanation. And worst of all — we live without so much as an explanation. And having maids, whom we might as well call servants, is an offence to humanity. And to be obliged to be what is described as presentable irritates me. Why can I not go around in rags like those men I sometimes see in the street with beards down to their chests and a bible in one hand, these gods who have transformed insanity into a means of understanding? And just because I have done a little writing, why do people assume I must go on being a writer? I warned my children that I had woken up in a rage and advised them to ignore me. But I am in no mood to ignore anything. I should like to do something once and for all to burst this straining tendon which sustains my heart. And what about those who give up? I know a woman who gave up. And she seems quite contented: her way of coping with life is to keep herself occupied. But no occupation satisfies her. And nothing I have ever done satisfies me. Anything I did with love ended up in pieces. I did not even know how to love, not even how to love. And now they have set aside a Day for Illiterates. I only read the headline but refused to read the text. I refuse to read the text of the world’s affairs, the headlines are enough to make my blood boil. There is always some commemoration or other, some war being fought every five minutes. A whole world of semi-paralysed human beings. And everyone waiting in vain for a miracle. And those who are not waiting for a miracle are in an even worse state and ought to start smashing crockery. And the churches are full of those who fear God’s wrath. And of those who plead for mercy which is the opposite of wrath.

No, no, I do not feel sorry for those who die of hunger. What I feel is rage. And I can see no harm in stealing to eat. — I have just been interrupted by a telephone call from a girl called Teresa who was delighted that I actually remembered her. I remember: she was a stranger who used to come and visit me in the hospital where I was a patient for almost three months after getting burned in a fire. She would sit down at my bedside, saying little or nothing. And then suddenly depart. And now she was telephoning me to express her frank opinion: that I should not write columns or any such thing for the newspapers. That she was not alone in hoping that I would give up my weekly column however well paid. That lots of people were buying my books in the hope of finding the same topics I dealt with in the newspaper. I kept saying yes because I would have liked it to be yes, and partly to show Teresa that I am not semi-paralysed and can still say yes.

Yes, dear God. To be able to say yes. Yet at that very moment something strange happened. I was writing in the morning when the sky suddenly became so dark that I had to switch on the light. Then the telephone rang once more: a call from a friend in a state of terror who wanted to know if the sky was dark here too. Yes, as dark as night and at ten o’clock in the morning. It is the wrath of God. And if this darkness should turn to rain, may the great flood return but without Noah’s Ark. For we have failed to make a world fit to live in and afflicted with paralysis we do not know how to live. For if the flood should not come back, Sodom and Gomorrah will return and that would solve the problem. Why allow two of each species to enter the Ark? At least human couples have produced nothing except children, but not the other non-existent life which made me wake up in a rage.

Teresa, when you visited me in hospital, you saw me bandaged up and immobilised. Today you would find me even more immobilised. Today I am paralysed and mute. And if I try to speak, all that comes out is a mournful growl. So it is not only rage? No, there is sadness as well.