I let it ring for a while. I always do. I enjoy that song. I like listening to the hysterical screams of the girls. The multi-orgasmic shouts. The onomatopoeias of pleasure they let out every time John Lennon opens his mouth or moves his head from side to side. I always wonder what the Beatles must have done after they left the Ed Sullivan Show with that retinue of groupies who were only too willing to be the star of some sorrowful, melancholy chord. The title of a song named after some woman who acts as the pillar of a long-drawn-out chorus. Daisyyyyy, Maryyyyyy, Caaaaarry…
The mobile almost fell on the carpet. These contraptions do what they like. Technology and all that shit on the evolution of man. I sometimes think all these methods for lengthening life, all these evolutionary spasms that try to make our daily routines more simple by means of moisturizing creams, applications that teach you to fry an egg or what colours go together on a sunny day, are going to lead us down the road to extinction. Cause us to disappear without even realizing. To be slowly diluted. That’s right. Solutions for lifting your bum off the seat as little as possible. All this goes against the natural law. All this leads to an accident with ambulances breaking the night’s silence and a procession of hearses heading straight for the cemetery. An enforced diversion of existence. We have enslaved our own nature – restrained it, chained it, fucked it – and now it’s working for us on the basis of lashes and a crust of bread each day. That’s not good. One day, we’ll go back to the forest, to our original state. We’ll go back to instinct, impulse… I’m sure of it. I like to ponder these things when I’ve had a few drinks and am endeavouring in a cluttered room to provide the answers to some existential questions. What the hell are we doing here? I’m afraid of technology. That’s the truth. I’m afraid of falling asleep and waking up in the Matrix.
“Yes?”
“Gonçalves?”
“Yes, what’s happened?”
“Murder. Four people dead. All members of the same family. The lighthouse house on Gothard Island. See you there in thirty minutes.”
I remembered him. “Four people dead.” I couldn’t help it. “Members of the same family.” I remembered his cynical smile before I shot him. I remembered that look that conveyed horrifying messages: “I killed her. I fucked her. She enjoyed it. Your whore enjoyed it. I killed her.” I listened to all of that before pulling the trigger on that white afternoon. White because of the mist on the cliff that gave the landscape a terrible appearance. I could see his poisonous words twirling around me as if they formed part of some ritual. “Gothard Island.”
It couldn’t have been anywhere else. No. It had to be Gothard. That accursed remote island. No outsider is welcome on Gothard. Gothard and its law. Gothard and its popular trials. More and more shit.
I had a bad feeling. A bolt ran through my body. It left my feet and exploded in my brains. Booooommm! I was hot. Then cold. Perhaps it was all just some ruse on the part of my subconscious to make me light up for the first time that morning. So I grabbed the lighter and blew out the cigarette smoke while lying in bed. From the pillow, I watched as the smoke, slow and thick, drew shapes. There was a horse. I exhaled. Then an eagle. I exhaled. A horse again. “I see it’s all about animals.”
I didn’t want to get up. I wanted to sink into the sheets. For them to swallow me up until I achieved a pleasurable death. Can death be pleasurable? Yes, it can, why not? It’s been years since I came up with a different alternative. That’s right. Death as the solution to the problem. I have been withheld by my loss and, although the door to my cell is open, I don’t want to go out. I’m not searching for freedom, I’m just waiting for time to pass in this damp corner of the world. Waiting and waiting. Destroying myself. Loss. Oh, yes, loss is hard. Very hard. Anne Marie. Death.
These kinds of crimes used to excite me. The blood, the mutilated bodies, the stab wounds… I was possessed by a sense of curiosity. Then came an anxious wish to impart justice. To do the same to the one who had committed the crime. An eye for an eye. The Code of Hammurabi. Had they let me, God knows what I would have done. Anne Marie changed everything. After that, nothing was ever the same again. Blood was no longer an elixir. Violent scenes chased ecstasy away. The wolf turned into a sheep. Now it’s as if the sentiments have reached their maximum form of expression. Before that, they were made of iron, now they’ve gone soft and turned to liquid, and I think about the victims, their past, the fact they’re no longer going to be able to fulfil their dreams, everything they’ve left behind. I think about the fact they’re dead, the cruelty of that. They no longer exist. And then I cry. It’s an unavoidable impulse. The cosmos turns off the lights, and I drink myself into a stupor.
I decided to abandon my lazy exile, the siren’s voices being emitted by a far too comfortable mattress, and to head to Gothard. The thought of crossing the long bridge to the island gave me the shivers. I pulled out one of Freddie Hubbard’s records. Nothing like a bit of slow trumpet to give the cold, grey morning a bit of ambience. Jeans, white shirt, blue tie, checked trousers and black shoes. Squatters in a half-empty wardrobe. The record was turning to the rhythm of this fucked-up world when I shut the door. I could still hear the sound of Freddie as I waited for the lift.
