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Then I felt curious about the message from my doctor. To be honest, I didn’t want to listen to any messages or hear anything about the world, but something told me this was no ordinary message. I played it. It mentioned the medication, but it also talked about the pansies she’d left me. A chill ran down my spine. I went to the door, looked outside, and there it was: a white nylon bag containing yes sir yes sir three pots full of plants and flowers. Cursing, I put them outside on the balcony, where they’ll wither and die. I hate the way living, sentient beings are treated like this. I ought to give my doctor a dozen monkeys as a gift and see how she likes looking after them. Chl was due to arrive at any moment, and I was going to have to explain the presence of those flowers. She’s jealous of my doctor, especially because my doctor, besides being my doctor, is also my ex-wife. Chl doesn’t like it at all that I’m still friends with her and still see her. I think there’s a secret, silent war between the two of them, and I’m caught in the middle of it. Yesterday Chl left her tights, with the ends of them wet from the rain, hanging over a chair in the middle of the living room, in full view of anyone who came to visit me. I have to spend all my time looking out for these things. Luckily, when Chl came, if she noticed the pots of pansies on the balcony she didn’t mention it. I don’t think she saw them, but she’ll see them eventually. Women. Even a goddess like Chl has that rotten side they all have, where jealousy festers.
lol
I’m still cutting my reading of Doña Rosa Chacel; now with Beckett, and a book about Beckett, an essay that includes some biographical notes. I found it very interesting, even though essays normally annoy me. But then, I was extremely curious about Beckett, and this book shed light on a few things. I’d already read a really hilarious short story of his called ‘First Love’, and now I’m reading some other stories. Beckett can always make me roar with laughter. I know, of course, that his work isn’t only about humour, and in fact one of my disagreements with the author of the book relates to that. The author doesn’t like it when people look for particular philosophical meanings in Beckett and interpret his work in those terms; I’m entirely with him there. I too think that Art, in general, shouldn’t be judged on its content. But the author, a German, goes a bit far in claiming that the meaning isn’t important at all. He’s guided in part by what Beckett himself says, but everyone knows that authors never tell the whole truth about their work, often because they don’t know it. What I’m trying to say about my disagreement with the German is this: OK, Beckett doesn’t build his work around any meaning or message or ideology, and that’s how Art should be. Great. But my disagreement lies in the fact that having a character called Godot is not the same as having a character called something else. This Godot has a meaning, which evidently relates to God. I agree that this doesn’t explain the work, and nor does it give the work its power or justify its existence; but let’s not deny that there are also meanings in the work. What’s important about literature doesn’t derive from its meanings, but that’s not to say the meanings don’t exist or don’t matter. I’ve often said and written: ‘If I wanted to convey an ideological message, I’d write a pamphlet,’ or something to that effect. But that doesn’t mean my writing doesn’t express ideas, or that those ideas aren’t worth mentioning.
This Saturday ritual is very satisfying; I found three books by Maugham I didn’t know about and one by Len Deighton I hadn’t read, and which I’ve now started, cutting my reading of poor old Rosa Chacel once again. If you ask me, Deighton’s better than le Carré when it comes to spy novels. They have some things in common (the bureaucracy of espionage, for example), but Deighton is much more entertaining. Then a delicious croissant and a delicious coffee in our usual boliche. And, most importantly, spending time with Chl, who’s passing through what looks like the best phase of her life, though she doesn’t seem to realise it; that time in a woman’s life when she’s at her most beautiful and seductive, still very young but with a hint of maturity. In the boliche we talked almost exclusively about Wittgenstein’s nephew and Thomas Bernhard, whom she admires perhaps a little too fervently. I share her admiration to an extent, but I’m not as fanatical. At one point I had to say, ‘I hope that after I die, somewhere in the world two people like us sit in a boliche and talk about me like this.’ That way of living on through art. It was as if Bernhard were there, sitting at the table with us; it was even a bit alarming, because we agreed he must have been an insufferable man (more insufferable than Rosa Chacel), and perhaps even frightening.
sweet
I turned the computer off some time ago; I don’t know where I found the strength. I wavered for a few minutes before I made up my mind, thinking about all the things I could do on it, such as writing this diary and sending some long-overdue replies to emails; many people will be wondering what’s become of me. But I held firm and turned it off. Now I just hope the tiny monster that lives somewhere in my head, or my gut, doesn’t make me turn it back on.
I know, I know; I shouldn’t divide myself in two like this, trying to find someone to blame (‘The cat broke the vase, Mum’); I need to accept that the person who decides to play games and stay up until dawn is me and no one else. But I find it hard to believe my brain could be so obtuse; there must be some unconscious formation controlling my life. Of course, if there is, it would mean the unconscious formation has grown stronger at the expense of my own self, and even somehow with its tacit permission (or rather – so as not to go on dissociating myself from myself and multiplying my fragments – with my tacit permission).
I wondered what pigeons know about death. At one point I had a sense that the widow wasn’t so much mourning as waiting, as if she thought what had happened to the pigeon could be reversed. My suspicions were confirmed, in a way, when the wind started to blow. The widow got excited because it looked like the corpse was stirring; the wing that was outstretched, as if it had fallen there, began to move in a kind of flapping motion. The widow abandoned her pose and started pacing nervously up and down, though she didn’t move any closer to the corpse. She simply walked back and forth in a straight line, shaking her head and looking concerned. When the wind dropped, she returned to her waiting. This happened again, two or three times, with every fresh gust of wind. I kept putting off my breakfast, fascinated by the scene. Then my memory presented me with the key to this tragedy: I suddenly recalled that a few months ago I’d seen a different incomprehensible scene unfold outside my window. On a balcony of the hotel opposite, on a higher floor than my apartment, I’d seen a man, who was neither young nor thin, absorbed in a strange pursuit. The hotel is no longer in use; it’s closed down, and the building is very dilapidated. There are no windows or blinds, and one of the openings that lead onto the balconies doesn’t even have a door. On the floor below there’s always a little window lit up at night; I don’t know who lives there, or even if they’re legal residents. Now and then I’ve seen someone, someone younger and thinner than the other person, drinking mate on the balcony of the floor level with this one. In the strange scene my memory presented me with, the man who was neither young nor thin was firing stones from a catapult, aiming at the street corner diagonally across from the hotel. The man noticed me at the window and launched several stones one after another, apparently at random, and then vanished into the hotel. I thought he’d found a catapult in the street and couldn’t resist trying a few shots. But today I realised something else was going on: that man hated pigeons, and had made the catapult himself in order to kill every single one that came within range. It seems implausible, but I’m sure it’s what happened. I hope the widow is spared.
why is this so moving
Today I don’t feel like writing. I’m low on energy and a bit fidgety and uncomfortable, perhaps because for some reason I got up before I’d had eight hours of sleep. I spent a bit of time reading this diary; I’m going slowly, because it’s tiring. I don’t know if it’s tiring because it’s badly written or because it’s my diary and my brain has to work harder than it would if it had been written by someone else. But even if it is badly written, I think it’s an interesting read. I’ll have to edit the style a bit, give it some substance; it covers so many different topics, and sometimes I try to say too much in a single sentence. And because it only talks about trivial things, if the style doesn’t draw people in there’ll be nothing going for it. Who knows what I’ll do; nothing, for now, besides carry on, one way or another.
A whole day spent programming. Uncalled for. Inappropriate. Inadequate. This won’t do.
lmao
Another day of muscle pain and distraction, or rather what my doctor, who called in late last night, described as [a word I can’t remember right now, a synonym of ‘splitting’; she used a more technical psychiatric term]. Chl came before that. Her PMT was in overdrive, but she’s always a delight. Today her radiant beauty was enhanced by two equally delightful Tupperware containers full of milanesas. My freezer is packed: bread, milanesas, stew. What more could I ask for in life?
sweet
But now I’m rambling. I’ll just mention that the computer was turned on for most of the day. I didn’t receive a single email. I turned one of my Visual Basic programs into another, which will tell me whenever I’m straying from the schedule I set myself for using the computer. Because today I woke up furious at my addiction; I’d gone to bed furious the night before and I woke up furious after spending the small hours, and much of the morning, dreaming – and thinking – about a program that would close Windows at a specified time. In the end I opted for a less aggressive system, because having Windows close automatically after a series of strict, draconian warnings has never helped me much; in situations like that, I generally rebel. This program, which is very advanced, will simply show me a little box with a friendly reminder that I’m trying to detox. I’m not sure if it’ll work, but I owe it to myself to try. I’m still doing everything I can, as with the difficult, even arduous task of paying attention to my shoulders. Every now and then I remember and lower them to their natural position. Yesterday, or rather today, I was able to go to sleep without the back and kidney pain of recent days. The body responds quickly, and very positively, to the slightest effort to improve.
lol
Yesterday (Friday, I mean) I had time to phone my cousin; he left me an answerphone message about ten days ago, and I hadn’t been able to get to the phone at a reasonable hour to call him back. And you need plenty of time to spare if you want to talk to my cousin; he doesn’t share my phobia of telephones in the slightest and can rabbit on for hours, the way women do. When you try to suggest that you’re busy and need to hang up, he works in yet more topics of conversation. Ever since we were much younger, he’s been introducing me to his friends by saying, ‘This is my crazy cousin,’ and I introduce him in turn with exactly the same words. Although we’re very different in lots of ways, I’m sure we have a very similar psychological make-up. For now, what differentiates us is what you might call our awareness of the illness; my cousin almost completely lacks that awareness, and is convinced his problems are caused by things that have nothing to do with him, such as the situation in the country, and perhaps a set of circumstances that have come together by chance just to annoy him. I’m aware of what’s wrong with me and I fight against it – unsuccessfully, most of the time, though with the odd transient or temporary victory. But I carry on being aware of it, even if I can’t overcome it. I wonder how long this awareness will last, and these partial victories which, though fleeting, let me keep doing what I need to do to survive. It’s very likely that before too long I’ll find myself with no solution, restricting myself more and more by the day, and without a clue where my problems come from.