…you must say words, as long as there are any, until they find me, until they say me, strange pain, strange sin, you must go on, perhaps it’s done already, perhaps they have said me already, perhaps they have carried me to the threshold of my story, before the door that opens on my story, that would surprise me, if it opens, it will be I, it will be the silence, where I am, I don’t know, I’ll never know, in the silence you don’t know, you must go on, I can’t go on, I’ll go on.
What is home: it is the shade of trees on my way to school before they were uprooted. It is my grandparents’ black-and-white wedding photo before the walls crumbled. It is my uncle’s prayer rug, where dozens of ants slept on wintry nights, before it was looted and put in a museum. It is the oven my mother used to bake bread and roast chicken before a bomb reduced our house to ashes. It is the café where I watched football matches and played—
My child stops me: Can a four-letter word hold all of these?
There are dogs and dogs. I was among the chosen. I had good papers and wolf’s blood in my veins. I lived upon the heights inhaling the odors of views: meadows in sunlight, spruces after rain, and clumps of earth beneath the snow.
I had a decent home and people on call, I was fed, washed, groomed, and taken for lovely strolls. Respectfully, though, and comme il faut. They all knew full well whose dog I was.
Any lousy mutt can have a master. Take care, though — beware comparisons. My master was a breed apart. He had a splendid herd that trailed his every step and fixed its eyes on him in fearful awe.
For me they always had smiles, with envy poorly hidden. Since only I had the right to greet him with nimble leaps, only I could say good-bye by worrying his trousers with my teeth. Only I was permitted to receive scratching and stroking with my head laid in his lap. Only I could feign sleep while he bent over me to whisper something.
He raged at others often, loudly. He snarled, barked, raced from wall to wall. I suspect he liked only me and nobody else, ever.
I also had responsibilities: waiting, trusting. Since he would turn up briefly, and then vanish. What kept him down there in the lowlands, I don’t know. I guessed, though, it must be pressing business, at least as pressing as my battle with the cats and everything that moves for no good reason.
There’s fate and fate. Mine changed abruptly. One spring came and he wasn’t there. All hell broke loose at home. Suitcases, chests, trunks crammed into cars. The wheels squealed tearing downhill and fell silent round the bend.
On the terrace scraps and tatters flamed, yellow shirts, armbands with black emblems and lots and lots of battered cartons with little banners tumbling out.
I tossed and turned in this whirlwind, more amazed than peeved. I felt unfriendly glances on my fur. As if I were a dog without a master, some pushy stray chased downstairs with a broom.
Someone tore my silver-trimmed collar off, someone kicked my bowl, empty for days. Then someone else, driving away, leaned out from the car and shot me twice.
He couldn’t even shoot straight, since I died for a long time, in pain, to the buzz of impertinent flies. I, the dog of my master.
Now we will count to twelve and we will all keep still for once on the face of the earth, let’s not speak in any language; let’s stop for a second, and not move our arms so much.
It would be an exotic moment without rush, without engines; we would all be together in a sudden strangeness.
Fishermen in the cold sea would not harm whales and the man gathering salt would not look at his hurt hands.
Those who prepare green wars, wars with gas, wars with fire, victories with no survivors, would put on clean clothes and walk about with their brothers in the shade, doing nothing.
What I want should not be confused with total inactivity. Life is what it is about; I want no truck with death.
If we were not so single-minded about keeping our lives moving, and for once could do nothing, perhaps a huge silence might interrupt this sadness of never understanding ourselves and of threatening ourselves with death. Perhaps the earth can teach us as when everything seems dead and later proves to be alive.
Now I’ll count up to twelve and you keep quiet and I will go.
When I went out to kill myself, I caught A pack of hoodlums beating up a man. Running to spare his suffering, I forgot My name, my number, how my day began, How soldiers milled around the garden stone And sang amusing songs; how all that day Their javelins measured crowds; how I alone Bargained the proper coins, and slipped away.
Banished from heaven, I found this victim beaten, Stripped, kneed, and left to cry. Dropping my rope Aside, I ran, ignored the uniforms: Then I remembered bread my flesh had eaten, The kiss that ate my flesh. Flayed without hope, I held the man for nothing in my arms.
Edge of Atlantic 