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Fiction

Natanael

By Cristhiano Aguiar
Translated from Portuguese by Daniel Hahn
Cristhiano Aguiar finds mysticism in the murky depths of São Paulo’s gutter of a river.

II

When Natanael arrived, the first thing he wondered was, “Am I in the right place?” The taxi driver could not understand why my friend wanted to get out at that spot on the riverside road. Now Natanael found himself on the verge between the several lanes of the highway and the concrete incline that sloped down to the half-dead river. To avoid the stench, he followed Faustine’s advice and put his hand in his pocket, drawing out a handkerchief perfumed with vanilla essence. “Ah,” Natanael inhaled, as the cars and helicopters hammered about him. The white flag was more visible now than when he’d seen it from inside the taxi. Attached to a buoy, which was floating in the waters, its corner trailed in the river. Natanael grimaced: the vanilla had the collateral effect of accentuating the aroma of rotten eggs emanating from the river. There was nothing for it but to inhale the handkerchief ever more strongly, his gaze fixed on a huge concrete pilaster, one of the countless that were supporting the nearby viaduct, which, from that angle, looked to him like a parody of some extinct animal. There’s a lot we could say about the relationship between Faustine and Natanael, but at least one thing would be accurate: she always kept him well-informed. By reading a newspaper article that she had brought to his attention, he had arrived in this place. 

*

“And how did the initial approach happen, Natanael?” I asked.

“I managed to get hold of his contact details from journalist friends, so I called, I wrote e-mails. Have I told you about what I’m planning? I’m writing a book, but it’s going to bring together lots of different kinds of writing, which is why I chose this guy to be at the center of the whole thing,” he replied.

“The whole thing?”

“I’m completely immune to your sarcasm, Faustine. But anyway, my plan was to . . . To dive with him.”

At that moment we all exclaimed in surprise and Natanael couldn’t hide his satisfaction.

“And did you do it?” I asked, filling another glass.

“Of course I did, Lucas. Just like the old days.”

“The old days?!”

“Come on, Faustine—I’m a diver!”

We all exchanged glances.

“But you do know that I’ve done diving courses, you know I’ve been on diving holidays. Even this year, before setting it all up with him, I did get myself ready, months earlier, by doing another course!”

“And when, pray, did you do this course, Natanael?”

He shrugged off Faustine’s question, then replied:

“This year.”

“When exactly?”

“Yeah, right—” I said, “I don’t remember you saying anything about that, or about any diving course, Natanael!”

“Can I go on?”

The others in the audience were also annoyed, but with us.

“I simply wanted to know if this was just another of those things you’re always doing, Natanael.”

“‘Those things I’m always doing’, Faustine?”

“Sounds like a nice story, anyway,” I said.

“I don’t care if it’s a nice story, Lucas! Facts are facts.”

“What exactly are you implying?”

“That there are certain . . . how can I put it . . . flights of fancy to your stories, Natanael.”

“Nonsense!” he shouted, but half-smiling.

III

I think our friend’s gaze was on the large metallic spikes of the viaduct. “You know how”—Natanael gave an example, if I recall correctly—“when we go to a beach, or to some tourist spot or other, and there’s always this artisan guy selling things like, say, a Don Quixote made of antique pieces taken from all sorts of mechanical devices?” This impression created a second impression on my friend, that he was in a kind of open-air museum, but not one that was a traditional museum, which are always filled with the spoils of war.

Further off, beyond the far bank, Natanael could make out a group of skyscrapers, part of one of São Paulo’s significant financial districts. Their summits were now pointy, now rounded, and there were all kinds of subtle differences between their diameters, their recesses and the outlines of those bony structures. What they had, mostly, in common, was the giants’ being clothed in reflective material; one of them seemed covered in a fine layer—if such a thing were possible, and purchasable—that was traced directly onto the sky; another building attracted toward it multiple beams of light that combined, for a fraction of a second, into a clot; then right away the giant hurled them out again into space. All about them, helicopters, restless as grasshoppers, buzzed and swung their locks around and around.

The vanilla didn’t stop stinging. The river flowed slow and oily. Fatty strands of color slid by, reflecting the hues of the rainbow. Despite being just half-alive, despite the heavy sense of grief, despite that thickness, it seemed, Natanael assured us, that at any moment from out of those depths some revelation would occur—that the river would open up its own entrails and spit some poor exile back out.

The water was indeed moving, creating circles, which overlapped with one another making hundreds of bubbles; then a form emerged from the thick water; and the form was that of a body, the body of a man, who swam over to the buoy. He grabbed hold of it and then began, easily enough, to climb the slope, heading in a straight line towards Natanael. The explorer, as we might call him, was in a black suit made of some rubberlike material. His head was protected by a golden helmet, which revealed nothing of the face it was protecting; in the place of the mouth, a rounded valve; in the place of the eyes, two glass circles that reflected the sunlight; at the top of the helmet, a lamp that was still lit. In his right hand he was holding an object that resembled a pistol. His free hand, however, was making a gesture of greeting that was not at all hostile. Natanael didn’t move. Soon the diver was right in front of him and put the oxygen canisters down on the ground. Only then did he remove his helmet, which made a noise as he took it off. Under the suit was a dark-skinned man, fat, with short gray hair. Once he had taken off his gloves, he held his hand out to Natanael and said:

“Batista. You must be the writer?”

“Something like that.” And they shook hands.

Car horns were honking and Natanael realized, to his surprise, that some of them were being honked at the two of them. People were pointing at Batista. They were gesturing and taking photos. He, in return, gave a smile, tilting his head slightly, gave a thumbs-up. If he noticed children, however, they’d even get a pose. And people didn’t even need to get out of their cars to take photos—the traffic really was solid.

“So, looks like you’re famous, then?”

“Right,” he replied, and looked down. Then straightaway looked back up—“but that’s partly why you’re here.”

“Yes, yes.”

“Did you like my answers?”

“Yes! And thanks for letting me come to . . . your work.”

Batista glanced at the river.

“This isn’t the only place I dive, but, well, of course it’s the most famous.”

More honking.

“So, when do we dive, then?”

Batista was watching Natanael.

“This is no place for amateurs, Son. I do get where you’re coming from and all that, and thanks for your interest, but . . .”

“I do have experience.”

“Yes! But the Caribbean is one thing, or the Fernando de Noronha archipelago—but all this here, this is something else.”

(At this point, Faustine elbowed me, and said, quietly, “The Caribbean?!”)

“Perhaps it would be better, Natanael, to take a few classes first. I’ll give you a few theory lessons and we’ll do some practical classes back at the Center.”

“Won’t that lose us a lot of time, Batista?”

“It’s a shame. Look—here . . .” He pointed at the river. “Everything here is lost — and everything is found.” 

IV

If Natanael is to be believed, the great lesson of his theory classes, the two or three classes led by Batista, was this phrase: “down there, your greatest enemy is fear.” There would have been practical lessons, too, such as diving in tanks of cloudy water, for example.

It was quite clear: Batista wanted to see Natanael swim. When telling us about it, Natanael made a point of stressing just how impressed his classmates and Batista himself had been at his “remarkable” ability to orient himself in the classroom, despite the blindfold and the cotton wool in his ears. But Natanael did admit to some anxiety. “It was totally safe”—except that from time to time a diver would get hurt or, in rare cases, needed to amputate something, “but all the same, I was constantly wondering: what was there in the river?” 

*

The night before the dive, he awoke from a nightmare: it was two in the morning. His throat burned. Natanael hit the fan a few times: the warm breeze soothed his face and tried to ruffle his drenched hair. Not moving, he could hear the rain. The river will be full, he thought, worried. He tried to remember the nightmare that had just woken him. Were there horses, and a moon? He wiped his forehead as he dug around for the dream in his memory. Nothing. And he couldn’t sleep. He took a volume of poetry off his improvised bookcase, turned on the bedside lamp, and began to leaf through it. 

V

“Batista . . . have they ever found any creatures, any kinds of animal, round here? I don’t remember your mentioning it.”

On the riverbank the two of them were getting ready.

“Well?”

“One this size,” Batista said at last, opening his arms as wide as he could. “A huge snake . . .”

“A snake?!”

“As strong as an alligator! And it was white, a proper albino. We found it a few months back. This big!”

“And what was it hunting for here? Or was it lost?”

Batista let out a laugh. Touching Natanael’s shoulder, he said:

“Oh there was no such thing, Son. Down there all you get are an unpleasant kind of fish, they’re the only things that don’t die. Or bite. I’ve seen some capybara, too, but not right here, not on this spot.”

Right there, on the crust of the water, bubbles and spirals were popping. Batista’s face turned serious. His two hands gripped Natanael’s scrawny shoulders:

“For a diver, fear brings trouble. What I mean is . . . a little bit of fear is good. Fear of getting hurt, or the real fear of death. You do have to be careful. But a greater fear, one of those fears that’s more than just a fear of a thing, a fear out of expectation, you’re to get rid of that completely, son!”

He inspected Natanael’s clothing from top to bottom, and some bits of his gear.

“All seems to be in order,” he commented.

“I’m ready.”

By way of reply, Batista pointed toward some newly formed bubbles, but said nothing. 

*

They made their way into the water gradually, seeking permission, after having almost slipped down the slope that ended in the river. Natanael touched the bottom with timid steps; sometimes his foot sank. His arms, which at first he kept close to his body, gradually felt freer and were released as though they were the tentacles of jellyfish. The river got wider and wider as they progressed. Soon there was nothing beneath his feet; for a second or two, his body fell victim to a kind of turbulence until he finally achieved equilibrium. Batista, ahead of him, turned toward him and gave a thumbs-up; in reply, Natanael copied the gesture from the diver who again turned his back on my friend. The dark substance, centimeter by centimeter, was erasing Batista. Natanael looked around him: the light from the buildings spilled out right into his visor; shaking his head, his hands protecting his face, Natanael looked down: spikes and the cement bones and the flurries and the still water. His hands, free, free, tried to grip onto something solid, opening and closing frantically.

“Take it easy, take it easy.”

There was no one else in the water. Giving a slight lurch upward, Natanael sank, his eyes still closed in spite of the visor; he seemed to hear his own body, which, adrift, was shifting heavy plates about; the blazes of light were still contracting within it. When he opened his eyes, Natanael couldn’t see a thing. A darkness that was so very pure. And this point in Natanael’s story reminded me of a sight from when I was still living in Recife. For certain particular months of the year, the old customs area, down by the Madredeus church, is transformed into a peculiar tourist attraction. Under a bridge that connects one of the islands in the city center to another, ever since the 1980s, thousands of bats had decided to make their home. And so it became a tradition for the city’s inhabitants or its tourists to gather on the bridge’s pedestrian walkway, or on the banks of the Capibaribe River, to wait for the sun to set and the bats to emerge. And while the sun set, making a golden corona, the color of the church domes, radiating a kind of whitish blue, a blue tending toward pink, the bats woke up and began to tumble out from under the bridge, spinning in circles above the Capibaribe water. They looked like bits of paper that had been thrown into the air by some turbine. There, watching the bats, we find couples holding hands, sleepy Europeans, street vendors, young bohemians, tropical hippies, tropical hipsters, tropical yuppies, Californians, street kids, lawyers, perhaps some magistrate or other, engineers, civil servants; a lot of them applaud when the bats gather and begin to explore the atmosphere—thousands of wings beating at once and resounding with a sharp leathery noise. The bats commonly come together in a row that recreates the pattern and thickness of an artery; then they usually split into two thick arteries, which, well above the constructions of the city centre, then combine again and move in a way that, from a distance, resembles a long banner full of breaks, patches, and holes; the banner, despite being corroded, yet retains a minimum amount of structure.

All of this was in the darkness visited by Natanael. And now my friend was unsure whether he really had opened his eyes, or whether he would be able to open them. Out of instinct, his right hand moved toward his face: he felt the whole paraphernalia of metal and plastic. Submerged, with circular movements in the middle of the gloom, Natanael kept blinking until he was quite sure he did have eyelids; there was already some force pushing him out toward the light; his body, however, reacted and managed to sink even further. And Batista? No sign of the man at all. Everything was closed up, and there might be that albino serpent, just as there might be a ghastly painting, found by Natanael on some street corner on his way there, depicting a sea-serpent, coiled like a screw, in wine-colored waters; there might be the crocodiles, those monstrous crocodiles from the worst films in the world that terrorize the sewers; and Tiamat, sliced open from her throat to her claws, rotting; and the leeches; and the blind alligators, bright white, whose prey over time take on strange forms and sizes; and all the Dagons, Molochs, Azazels, Baals. But nothing appeared. No threat at all. No movement, no presence, nobody. There was only an absolute silence.

Natanael remembered the lamp attached to his diving helmet.

“Oh God!” he might have said.

He had found all kinds of objects together in the river, but as soon as the lamp came on, he couldn’t recognize a thing; Natanael moved his head from side to side and the beams of light showed him glimpses of a landscape that he could only describe by use of the word “carnage.” Something glimmered at around the level of his knee: something metal, sticking out the middle of a block made of plastic, paper, and some gooey substance, was about to tear his protective suit. It looked like the metal was getting ready to strike.

“Down there, down there, it was like I was in the farthest future, or in the most distant past! At a point where everything already had, or will have, its eyes closed. I moved a bit away from the metal bar and reached out my hand to grab the first object that, for the first time, I was able to recognize: guys, it had been constructed out of some material that was smooth to the touch, and which wasn’t very big, on the contrary, you could almost have fit it in a human hand. The shape of the object suggested an ‘inside’ and an ‘outside.’ At one point on its surface, it was attached to a prosthesis that stuck out elegantly, self-contained, curved, full of meaning!”

We all exchanged glances, apart from Faustine, who kept her gaze fixed on our flatmate.

“ . . .?”

Her voice seemed to come from far away, from way over there.

Natanael stood up, went to get some water from the kitchen, asked whether anyone else wanted some wine or beer. It was already late, but no one gave any sign of leaving.

When he had returned, he said:

“It was then that the strangest thing happened.”

In the water Natanael took one of the objects in his hand and lit it up.

“Lucas, remember when we had a fish tank? You remember?” Yes, I remember: a fish tank, not that small, which was in the living room in that apartment, and whose expenses and upkeep I shared with Natanael for a time. There was only one species of fish in the tank, a really small, thin kind of fish, about the size of a little finger, perhaps, if not smaller; we had —I don’t know—about twenty of those fish, that always swam around together. Their movement reminded me of those ballet-dancers or circus performers whose circlings around the ring are adorned with a long piece of cloth, usually in some bold color, a blue, a red, gold, and which spreads all over, undulating; these little fish had gray scales and their backs had a phosphorescent blue strip across them; under the strip of neon, their belly was a red that was almost verging on orange. Before Faustine moved in with us we used to love turning off the living-room lights (only the light in the fish tank would remain on), putting cushions down on the floor, lying down on them and spending a long time watching the coming and going of those fish. I’d usually put on one of the first two albums by Pink Floyd, or a Mutantes one, or that Cream record in the colorful cover, or even Tommy, and we’d stay like that until Natanael fell asleep. Sometimes I’d open a beer. For quite a long time that was the only way Natanael could get to sleep without the help of medication.

When he focused his lamp on the object and touched it, what he saw were lights, lights that looked like fish.

“But that doesn’t seem strange to me at all, Natanael!”

“Why not, Lucas?”

“Let him finish!” Someone spoke.

Faustine was looking at me.

“Say again what you saw.”

“What I saw, Lucas, was an accumulation of lights that moved around my hand, around my arm, around the Object. I . . . They were small particles, or rather, tiny strands, and it was only then I realized they couldn’t be fish, perhaps if they were, perhaps if they were . . . They were a lot smaller than our fish, but the way they moved—the way they moved!—they gave the impression that they were being led, orchestrated, that there was one, just one rule there, just one will.”

“But the ones in our tank went round and round without anywhere to go.”

“That’s true, but at the same time didn’t it look kind of like a dance? Like a display?”

A pause.

“Those phosphorescent strands moved and vibrated.”

“Something in your eye, maybe some effect of the reflection of the light from the buildings, Natanael. And you didn’t sleep properly, either, you said so yourself. On top of that, if you were down there and it really was that dark . . .”

“It was! But it all lasted not very long. I mean, it seemed long—really long!—that I was watching the movement, the”—suddenly he clapped—“the tingling! It’s as though I’d understood that my hand and that same object, not only that—everything was running aground. I saw them, like things actually existing, but less solid! Down there everything could be inside everything, overlapping, mixing together. Slipping around without any trouble. Because there was a place for it, there could be space, if it weren’t for those fish that down there, among it all, enemies to one another, insisting on banging into each other head-on, preventing the wonder that would be a world all meshed together. Then the light went out! And I thought: you haven’t got an arm any more. They’re out there, lost. And I could feel myself like that, less and less, each little strand stretching out to give place to the darkness that filled me and filled me more and more, washing through my name. I don’t know how long I stayed like that and I don’t remember having moved a centimeter. But my body still belonged to me and what happened was that I moved, who knows where, because anyway a ‘where’ wasn’t any use to me. And that kind of woke me up. And I felt about for the things surrounding me, swimming and feeling and trying to guess, and I was quite certain now, I had the certainty that my body, unless something went very badly wrong, would continue to be more or less as expected—” At that moment, perhaps for no particular reason, Faustine got up and left. Without saying good-bye to anyone, without saying another word, we didn’t see her again the whole night. “—and I know I felt all kinds of different objects, you all have no idea how much there is at the bottom of that river, and how if I reached out here, for example, and I seemed to be touching a . . . —or, or, or a . . ., and, the banks . . .”

Natanael’s hands, which hadn’t stopped gesticulating, suddenly froze in the air and seemed to be trembling, quite deliberately. His gaze was on some unspecific point, his chest heaving. His mouth, slightly open, had accumulated some saliva in it, rather unpleasantly. Finally he drew back his hands and closed his lips. After clearing his throat, he said:

“My light never came back, but a light did appear, there in the depths. But I didn’t feel relief, or anything like it. The light made me angry. The light—this is what I felt—wasn’t bringing good news, it was giving me back a ‘where,’ it was giving me back day and night. If previously I simply was, now I was being. And this weighed so heavily in my chest that I pushed myself off, and rose.”

© Cristhiano Aguiar. Translation © 2013 by Daniel Hahn. All rights reserved.

English Portuguese (Original)

II

When Natanael arrived, the first thing he wondered was, “Am I in the right place?” The taxi driver could not understand why my friend wanted to get out at that spot on the riverside road. Now Natanael found himself on the verge between the several lanes of the highway and the concrete incline that sloped down to the half-dead river. To avoid the stench, he followed Faustine’s advice and put his hand in his pocket, drawing out a handkerchief perfumed with vanilla essence. “Ah,” Natanael inhaled, as the cars and helicopters hammered about him. The white flag was more visible now than when he’d seen it from inside the taxi. Attached to a buoy, which was floating in the waters, its corner trailed in the river. Natanael grimaced: the vanilla had the collateral effect of accentuating the aroma of rotten eggs emanating from the river. There was nothing for it but to inhale the handkerchief ever more strongly, his gaze fixed on a huge concrete pilaster, one of the countless that were supporting the nearby viaduct, which, from that angle, looked to him like a parody of some extinct animal. There’s a lot we could say about the relationship between Faustine and Natanael, but at least one thing would be accurate: she always kept him well-informed. By reading a newspaper article that she had brought to his attention, he had arrived in this place. 

*

“And how did the initial approach happen, Natanael?” I asked.

“I managed to get hold of his contact details from journalist friends, so I called, I wrote e-mails. Have I told you about what I’m planning? I’m writing a book, but it’s going to bring together lots of different kinds of writing, which is why I chose this guy to be at the center of the whole thing,” he replied.

“The whole thing?”

“I’m completely immune to your sarcasm, Faustine. But anyway, my plan was to . . . To dive with him.”

At that moment we all exclaimed in surprise and Natanael couldn’t hide his satisfaction.

“And did you do it?” I asked, filling another glass.

“Of course I did, Lucas. Just like the old days.”

“The old days?!”

“Come on, Faustine—I’m a diver!”

We all exchanged glances.

“But you do know that I’ve done diving courses, you know I’ve been on diving holidays. Even this year, before setting it all up with him, I did get myself ready, months earlier, by doing another course!”

“And when, pray, did you do this course, Natanael?”

He shrugged off Faustine’s question, then replied:

“This year.”

“When exactly?”

“Yeah, right—” I said, “I don’t remember you saying anything about that, or about any diving course, Natanael!”

“Can I go on?”

The others in the audience were also annoyed, but with us.

“I simply wanted to know if this was just another of those things you’re always doing, Natanael.”

“‘Those things I’m always doing’, Faustine?”

“Sounds like a nice story, anyway,” I said.

“I don’t care if it’s a nice story, Lucas! Facts are facts.”

“What exactly are you implying?”

“That there are certain . . . how can I put it . . . flights of fancy to your stories, Natanael.”

“Nonsense!” he shouted, but half-smiling.

III

I think our friend’s gaze was on the large metallic spikes of the viaduct. “You know how”—Natanael gave an example, if I recall correctly—“when we go to a beach, or to some tourist spot or other, and there’s always this artisan guy selling things like, say, a Don Quixote made of antique pieces taken from all sorts of mechanical devices?” This impression created a second impression on my friend, that he was in a kind of open-air museum, but not one that was a traditional museum, which are always filled with the spoils of war.

Further off, beyond the far bank, Natanael could make out a group of skyscrapers, part of one of São Paulo’s significant financial districts. Their summits were now pointy, now rounded, and there were all kinds of subtle differences between their diameters, their recesses and the outlines of those bony structures. What they had, mostly, in common, was the giants’ being clothed in reflective material; one of them seemed covered in a fine layer—if such a thing were possible, and purchasable—that was traced directly onto the sky; another building attracted toward it multiple beams of light that combined, for a fraction of a second, into a clot; then right away the giant hurled them out again into space. All about them, helicopters, restless as grasshoppers, buzzed and swung their locks around and around.

The vanilla didn’t stop stinging. The river flowed slow and oily. Fatty strands of color slid by, reflecting the hues of the rainbow. Despite being just half-alive, despite the heavy sense of grief, despite that thickness, it seemed, Natanael assured us, that at any moment from out of those depths some revelation would occur—that the river would open up its own entrails and spit some poor exile back out.

The water was indeed moving, creating circles, which overlapped with one another making hundreds of bubbles; then a form emerged from the thick water; and the form was that of a body, the body of a man, who swam over to the buoy. He grabbed hold of it and then began, easily enough, to climb the slope, heading in a straight line towards Natanael. The explorer, as we might call him, was in a black suit made of some rubberlike material. His head was protected by a golden helmet, which revealed nothing of the face it was protecting; in the place of the mouth, a rounded valve; in the place of the eyes, two glass circles that reflected the sunlight; at the top of the helmet, a lamp that was still lit. In his right hand he was holding an object that resembled a pistol. His free hand, however, was making a gesture of greeting that was not at all hostile. Natanael didn’t move. Soon the diver was right in front of him and put the oxygen canisters down on the ground. Only then did he remove his helmet, which made a noise as he took it off. Under the suit was a dark-skinned man, fat, with short gray hair. Once he had taken off his gloves, he held his hand out to Natanael and said:

“Batista. You must be the writer?”

“Something like that.” And they shook hands.

Car horns were honking and Natanael realized, to his surprise, that some of them were being honked at the two of them. People were pointing at Batista. They were gesturing and taking photos. He, in return, gave a smile, tilting his head slightly, gave a thumbs-up. If he noticed children, however, they’d even get a pose. And people didn’t even need to get out of their cars to take photos—the traffic really was solid.

“So, looks like you’re famous, then?”

“Right,” he replied, and looked down. Then straightaway looked back up—“but that’s partly why you’re here.”

“Yes, yes.”

“Did you like my answers?”

“Yes! And thanks for letting me come to . . . your work.”

Batista glanced at the river.

“This isn’t the only place I dive, but, well, of course it’s the most famous.”

More honking.

“So, when do we dive, then?”

Batista was watching Natanael.

“This is no place for amateurs, Son. I do get where you’re coming from and all that, and thanks for your interest, but . . .”

“I do have experience.”

“Yes! But the Caribbean is one thing, or the Fernando de Noronha archipelago—but all this here, this is something else.”

(At this point, Faustine elbowed me, and said, quietly, “The Caribbean?!”)

“Perhaps it would be better, Natanael, to take a few classes first. I’ll give you a few theory lessons and we’ll do some practical classes back at the Center.”

“Won’t that lose us a lot of time, Batista?”

“It’s a shame. Look—here . . .” He pointed at the river. “Everything here is lost — and everything is found.” 

IV

If Natanael is to be believed, the great lesson of his theory classes, the two or three classes led by Batista, was this phrase: “down there, your greatest enemy is fear.” There would have been practical lessons, too, such as diving in tanks of cloudy water, for example.

It was quite clear: Batista wanted to see Natanael swim. When telling us about it, Natanael made a point of stressing just how impressed his classmates and Batista himself had been at his “remarkable” ability to orient himself in the classroom, despite the blindfold and the cotton wool in his ears. But Natanael did admit to some anxiety. “It was totally safe”—except that from time to time a diver would get hurt or, in rare cases, needed to amputate something, “but all the same, I was constantly wondering: what was there in the river?” 

*

The night before the dive, he awoke from a nightmare: it was two in the morning. His throat burned. Natanael hit the fan a few times: the warm breeze soothed his face and tried to ruffle his drenched hair. Not moving, he could hear the rain. The river will be full, he thought, worried. He tried to remember the nightmare that had just woken him. Were there horses, and a moon? He wiped his forehead as he dug around for the dream in his memory. Nothing. And he couldn’t sleep. He took a volume of poetry off his improvised bookcase, turned on the bedside lamp, and began to leaf through it. 

V

“Batista . . . have they ever found any creatures, any kinds of animal, round here? I don’t remember your mentioning it.”

On the riverbank the two of them were getting ready.

“Well?”

“One this size,” Batista said at last, opening his arms as wide as he could. “A huge snake . . .”

“A snake?!”

“As strong as an alligator! And it was white, a proper albino. We found it a few months back. This big!”

“And what was it hunting for here? Or was it lost?”

Batista let out a laugh. Touching Natanael’s shoulder, he said:

“Oh there was no such thing, Son. Down there all you get are an unpleasant kind of fish, they’re the only things that don’t die. Or bite. I’ve seen some capybara, too, but not right here, not on this spot.”

Right there, on the crust of the water, bubbles and spirals were popping. Batista’s face turned serious. His two hands gripped Natanael’s scrawny shoulders:

“For a diver, fear brings trouble. What I mean is . . . a little bit of fear is good. Fear of getting hurt, or the real fear of death. You do have to be careful. But a greater fear, one of those fears that’s more than just a fear of a thing, a fear out of expectation, you’re to get rid of that completely, son!”

He inspected Natanael’s clothing from top to bottom, and some bits of his gear.

“All seems to be in order,” he commented.

“I’m ready.”

By way of reply, Batista pointed toward some newly formed bubbles, but said nothing. 

*

They made their way into the water gradually, seeking permission, after having almost slipped down the slope that ended in the river. Natanael touched the bottom with timid steps; sometimes his foot sank. His arms, which at first he kept close to his body, gradually felt freer and were released as though they were the tentacles of jellyfish. The river got wider and wider as they progressed. Soon there was nothing beneath his feet; for a second or two, his body fell victim to a kind of turbulence until he finally achieved equilibrium. Batista, ahead of him, turned toward him and gave a thumbs-up; in reply, Natanael copied the gesture from the diver who again turned his back on my friend. The dark substance, centimeter by centimeter, was erasing Batista. Natanael looked around him: the light from the buildings spilled out right into his visor; shaking his head, his hands protecting his face, Natanael looked down: spikes and the cement bones and the flurries and the still water. His hands, free, free, tried to grip onto something solid, opening and closing frantically.

“Take it easy, take it easy.”

There was no one else in the water. Giving a slight lurch upward, Natanael sank, his eyes still closed in spite of the visor; he seemed to hear his own body, which, adrift, was shifting heavy plates about; the blazes of light were still contracting within it. When he opened his eyes, Natanael couldn’t see a thing. A darkness that was so very pure. And this point in Natanael’s story reminded me of a sight from when I was still living in Recife. For certain particular months of the year, the old customs area, down by the Madredeus church, is transformed into a peculiar tourist attraction. Under a bridge that connects one of the islands in the city center to another, ever since the 1980s, thousands of bats had decided to make their home. And so it became a tradition for the city’s inhabitants or its tourists to gather on the bridge’s pedestrian walkway, or on the banks of the Capibaribe River, to wait for the sun to set and the bats to emerge. And while the sun set, making a golden corona, the color of the church domes, radiating a kind of whitish blue, a blue tending toward pink, the bats woke up and began to tumble out from under the bridge, spinning in circles above the Capibaribe water. They looked like bits of paper that had been thrown into the air by some turbine. There, watching the bats, we find couples holding hands, sleepy Europeans, street vendors, young bohemians, tropical hippies, tropical hipsters, tropical yuppies, Californians, street kids, lawyers, perhaps some magistrate or other, engineers, civil servants; a lot of them applaud when the bats gather and begin to explore the atmosphere—thousands of wings beating at once and resounding with a sharp leathery noise. The bats commonly come together in a row that recreates the pattern and thickness of an artery; then they usually split into two thick arteries, which, well above the constructions of the city centre, then combine again and move in a way that, from a distance, resembles a long banner full of breaks, patches, and holes; the banner, despite being corroded, yet retains a minimum amount of structure.

All of this was in the darkness visited by Natanael. And now my friend was unsure whether he really had opened his eyes, or whether he would be able to open them. Out of instinct, his right hand moved toward his face: he felt the whole paraphernalia of metal and plastic. Submerged, with circular movements in the middle of the gloom, Natanael kept blinking until he was quite sure he did have eyelids; there was already some force pushing him out toward the light; his body, however, reacted and managed to sink even further. And Batista? No sign of the man at all. Everything was closed up, and there might be that albino serpent, just as there might be a ghastly painting, found by Natanael on some street corner on his way there, depicting a sea-serpent, coiled like a screw, in wine-colored waters; there might be the crocodiles, those monstrous crocodiles from the worst films in the world that terrorize the sewers; and Tiamat, sliced open from her throat to her claws, rotting; and the leeches; and the blind alligators, bright white, whose prey over time take on strange forms and sizes; and all the Dagons, Molochs, Azazels, Baals. But nothing appeared. No threat at all. No movement, no presence, nobody. There was only an absolute silence.

Natanael remembered the lamp attached to his diving helmet.

“Oh God!” he might have said.

He had found all kinds of objects together in the river, but as soon as the lamp came on, he couldn’t recognize a thing; Natanael moved his head from side to side and the beams of light showed him glimpses of a landscape that he could only describe by use of the word “carnage.” Something glimmered at around the level of his knee: something metal, sticking out the middle of a block made of plastic, paper, and some gooey substance, was about to tear his protective suit. It looked like the metal was getting ready to strike.

“Down there, down there, it was like I was in the farthest future, or in the most distant past! At a point where everything already had, or will have, its eyes closed. I moved a bit away from the metal bar and reached out my hand to grab the first object that, for the first time, I was able to recognize: guys, it had been constructed out of some material that was smooth to the touch, and which wasn’t very big, on the contrary, you could almost have fit it in a human hand. The shape of the object suggested an ‘inside’ and an ‘outside.’ At one point on its surface, it was attached to a prosthesis that stuck out elegantly, self-contained, curved, full of meaning!”

We all exchanged glances, apart from Faustine, who kept her gaze fixed on our flatmate.

“ . . .?”

Her voice seemed to come from far away, from way over there.

Natanael stood up, went to get some water from the kitchen, asked whether anyone else wanted some wine or beer. It was already late, but no one gave any sign of leaving.

When he had returned, he said:

“It was then that the strangest thing happened.”

In the water Natanael took one of the objects in his hand and lit it up.

“Lucas, remember when we had a fish tank? You remember?” Yes, I remember: a fish tank, not that small, which was in the living room in that apartment, and whose expenses and upkeep I shared with Natanael for a time. There was only one species of fish in the tank, a really small, thin kind of fish, about the size of a little finger, perhaps, if not smaller; we had —I don’t know—about twenty of those fish, that always swam around together. Their movement reminded me of those ballet-dancers or circus performers whose circlings around the ring are adorned with a long piece of cloth, usually in some bold color, a blue, a red, gold, and which spreads all over, undulating; these little fish had gray scales and their backs had a phosphorescent blue strip across them; under the strip of neon, their belly was a red that was almost verging on orange. Before Faustine moved in with us we used to love turning off the living-room lights (only the light in the fish tank would remain on), putting cushions down on the floor, lying down on them and spending a long time watching the coming and going of those fish. I’d usually put on one of the first two albums by Pink Floyd, or a Mutantes one, or that Cream record in the colorful cover, or even Tommy, and we’d stay like that until Natanael fell asleep. Sometimes I’d open a beer. For quite a long time that was the only way Natanael could get to sleep without the help of medication.

When he focused his lamp on the object and touched it, what he saw were lights, lights that looked like fish.

“But that doesn’t seem strange to me at all, Natanael!”

“Why not, Lucas?”

“Let him finish!” Someone spoke.

Faustine was looking at me.

“Say again what you saw.”

“What I saw, Lucas, was an accumulation of lights that moved around my hand, around my arm, around the Object. I . . . They were small particles, or rather, tiny strands, and it was only then I realized they couldn’t be fish, perhaps if they were, perhaps if they were . . . They were a lot smaller than our fish, but the way they moved—the way they moved!—they gave the impression that they were being led, orchestrated, that there was one, just one rule there, just one will.”

“But the ones in our tank went round and round without anywhere to go.”

“That’s true, but at the same time didn’t it look kind of like a dance? Like a display?”

A pause.

“Those phosphorescent strands moved and vibrated.”

“Something in your eye, maybe some effect of the reflection of the light from the buildings, Natanael. And you didn’t sleep properly, either, you said so yourself. On top of that, if you were down there and it really was that dark . . .”

“It was! But it all lasted not very long. I mean, it seemed long—really long!—that I was watching the movement, the”—suddenly he clapped—“the tingling! It’s as though I’d understood that my hand and that same object, not only that—everything was running aground. I saw them, like things actually existing, but less solid! Down there everything could be inside everything, overlapping, mixing together. Slipping around without any trouble. Because there was a place for it, there could be space, if it weren’t for those fish that down there, among it all, enemies to one another, insisting on banging into each other head-on, preventing the wonder that would be a world all meshed together. Then the light went out! And I thought: you haven’t got an arm any more. They’re out there, lost. And I could feel myself like that, less and less, each little strand stretching out to give place to the darkness that filled me and filled me more and more, washing through my name. I don’t know how long I stayed like that and I don’t remember having moved a centimeter. But my body still belonged to me and what happened was that I moved, who knows where, because anyway a ‘where’ wasn’t any use to me. And that kind of woke me up. And I felt about for the things surrounding me, swimming and feeling and trying to guess, and I was quite certain now, I had the certainty that my body, unless something went very badly wrong, would continue to be more or less as expected—” At that moment, perhaps for no particular reason, Faustine got up and left. Without saying good-bye to anyone, without saying another word, we didn’t see her again the whole night. “—and I know I felt all kinds of different objects, you all have no idea how much there is at the bottom of that river, and how if I reached out here, for example, and I seemed to be touching a . . . —or, or, or a . . ., and, the banks . . .”

Natanael’s hands, which hadn’t stopped gesticulating, suddenly froze in the air and seemed to be trembling, quite deliberately. His gaze was on some unspecific point, his chest heaving. His mouth, slightly open, had accumulated some saliva in it, rather unpleasantly. Finally he drew back his hands and closed his lips. After clearing his throat, he said:

“My light never came back, but a light did appear, there in the depths. But I didn’t feel relief, or anything like it. The light made me angry. The light—this is what I felt—wasn’t bringing good news, it was giving me back a ‘where,’ it was giving me back day and night. If previously I simply was, now I was being. And this weighed so heavily in my chest that I pushed myself off, and rose.”

Natanael

II

Quando Natanael chegou, a primeira pergunta que se fez foi: “estou no lugar certo?”. O taxista simplesmente não conseguia entender por que meu amigo queria descer naquele ponto da marginal. Agora Natanael se encontrava na margem de terra, localizada entre as várias faixas da rodovia e o declive de concreto que descia até o rio morto-vivo. Para evitar o mau cheiro, seguiu o conselho de Faustine e pôs a mão no bolso, retirando um lenço perfumado com essência de baunilha. “Ah”, Natanael inspirou, enquanto carros e helicópteros martelavam. A bandeira branca estava mais visível agora do que quando a viu dentro do táxi. Acoplada a uma boia, que flutuava nas águas, a sua ponta tocava o rio. Natanael fez uma careta: a baunilha tinha o efeito colateral de acentuar o buquê de ovos podres que emanava do rio. Não havia outro jeito a não ser cheirar o pano cada vez mais forte, olhos fixos em direção a uma imensa pilastra de concreto, uma das inúmeras a sustentar o viaduto próximo que, daquele ângulo, lhe pareceu uma paródia de algum animal extinto. Podemos dizer muita coisa do relacionamento entre Faustine e Natanael, mas pelo menos uma é certa: ela sempre o mantinha bem-informado. Através da leitura de uma matéria de jornal indicada por ela, ele chegou àquele lugar.

*

            – E como foi a abordagem prévia, Natanael? – Perguntei.

            – Consegui os contatos dele com amigos jornalistas, daí liguei, escrevi e-mails. Disse a vocês do meu projeto? Estou escrevendo um livro, mas algo que vai juntar muitos tipos de escrita, daí eu escolhi esse cara pra ser o centro de tudo. – Respondeu.

            – “De tudo”?

            – Sua ironia não afeta meus ossos, Faustine! Mas enfim, meu plano era… Mergulhar com ele.

            Nesse momento, todos soltaram exclamações de surpresa e Natanael não conseguia esconder seu contentamento.

            – E você fez isso? – Perguntei, enquanto enchia mais um cálice.

            – Claro, Lucas. Como nos velhos tempos.

            – Velhos tempos?!

            – Ora, Faustine, eu sou um mergulhador!

            Todos trocaram olhares entre si.

            – Pois saibam que já fiz cursos de mergulho, já viajei pra megulhar. Esse ano mesmo, antes de combinar tudo com ele, me preparei, meses antes, com um novo curso!

            – E quando o senhor fez esse curso, Natanael?

            O interrogado deu de ombros e respondeu a Faustine:

            – Este ano.

            – Exatamente quando?

            – É mesmo. – Falei. – Não lembro de você falar desta história, ou de qualquer curso de mergulho, Natanael!

            – Posso voltar?

            O restante do público também estava contrariado, mas conosco.

            – Eu só queria saber se esta é mais uma das suas, Natanael.

            – Das “minhas”, Faustine?

            – De qualquer forma, parece uma boa história. – Eu disse.

            – Para mim não é isso o que mais importa, Lucas! Fatos são fatos.

            – O que exatamente você está sugerindo?

            – Que há certos, como dizer… Voos de imaginação em suas histórias, Natanael.

            – Absurdo! – Ele gritou, mas com um meio sorriso.

III

             Acho que o olhar do nosso amigo observava os grandes espinhos metálicos do viaduto. Sabe quando vamos, teria, se bem recordo, exemplificado Natanael, para uma praia, ou para um lugar turístico qualquer, e sempre tem um artesão que vende objetos como, por exemplo, um Dom Quixote feito de peças antigas retiradas dos mais diversos aparatos mecânicos, ou um castelo construído apenas com espinhas de peixe? Essas coisas? Essa impressão criou uma segunda, a de que meu amigo se encontrava em uma espécie de museu ao ar livre, mas não um museu tradicional, que sempre é formado por espólios de guerra.

            No mais além, lá pra depois da margem oposta, Natanael enxergou um conjunto de arranha-céus, parte de alguma importante região financeira de São Paulo. Seus cumes ora eram pontudos, ora arredondados, e havia todo tipo de sutil diferença nos diâmetros, nas reentrâncias e nos recortes daquelas estruturas ossudas. Em comum, a predominância, revestindo os gigantes, de materiais refletores; um deles parecia ter sido recoberto por uma fina camada, se isto fosse possível e comprável, diretamente decalcada do céu; outro prédio atraía para si múltiplos feixes de luz que, acumulados, formavam, durante meio segundo, um coágulo; em seguida, o gigante os lançava pelo espaço. Ao redor de tudo, helicópteros, agitados como gafanhotos, zumbiam e balançavam as tranças.

            A baunilha insistia em arder. O rio corria lento e oleoso. Coloridos fios gordurosos escorregavam e refletiam cores do arco-íris. Apesar da meia vida, apesar do luto, apesar do espessor, parecia, Natanael nos garantiu, que a qualquer momento dali do fundo uma revelação aconteceria – o rio abriria as próprias entranhas e cuspiria de volta algum degredo.

            De fato, a água se agitou, engendrando círculos, que se sobrepunham uns sobre os outros e produziam centenas de bolhas; logo, uma presença emergiu da água maciça; e a presença era um corpo, o corpo de um homem, que nadou até se aproximar da boia. Agarrou-a e depois começou a subir, sem dificuldade, o declive, movendo-se em linha reta em direção a Natanael. O explorador, poderíamos chamá-lo deste modo, trajava uma roupa preta feita de algum material que lembrava a borracha. Seu rosto estava protegido por um capacete dourado, que nada revelava da face protegida; no lugar da boca, um construto-válvula arredondado; no lugar dos olhos, dois círculos de vidro que refletiam a luz do sol; no alto do capacete, uma lanterna ainda acesa. Na mão direita, segurava um objeto parecido com uma pistola. A mão livre, porém, fez uma saudação pacífica. Natanael não se moveu. Logo o mergulhador estava na sua frente e colocava no chão os tubos de oxigênio. Só depois disto retirou o capacete, que fez barulho ao ser removido. Por baixo da roupa havia um homem moreno, gordo, de cabelos curtos e acanhados. Após tirar as luvas, ele estendeu a mão na direção de Natanael e disse:

            – Batista. Você deve ser o escritor?

            – Mais ou menos. – E apertaram as mãos.

            Carros buzinavam e Natanael descobriu, para sua surpresa, que alguns buzinavam para os dois. Apontavam Batista. Acenavam e tiravam fotos. Em troca, ele esboçava um sorriso, balançava discretamente a cabeça, fazia um sinal de legal. Se percebia, porém, crianças, surgia até uma pose. E as pessoas nem precisavam sair dos seus carros para fotografar – o tráfego estava realmente encorpado.

            – Parece que você está famoso, não é?

            – Pois é. – Respondeu e abaixou o rosto. Logo em seguida o ergueu de novo. – Mas é meio por isso que você está aqui.

            – Sim, sim.

            – Gostou das respostas?

            – Sim! E agradeço por me receber no seu… Lugar de trabalho.

            Batista lançou um olhar na direção do rio.

            – Não mergulho só aqui, mas, bem, este é claro o lugar mais famoso.

            Mais buzinas.

            – E então, quando mergulhamos?

            Batista observava Natanael.

            – Este não é um lugar de amadores, rapaz. Simpatizo com teu jeito e muito obrigado pelo interesse, mas…

            – Eu tenho experiência.

            – Sim! Mas uma coisa é Caribe, Fernando de Noronha, outra bem diferente é isso tudo aqui.

 

            (Neste momento, Faustine me deu um cutucão e, baixinho, disse: “Caribe?!”)

 

            – Talvez fosse bom, Natanael, umas aulas antes. Te dou umas aulas teóricas e fazemos umas práticas na empresa.

            – Batista, não seria perder muito tempo?

            – É uma pena. Olhe, aqui… – Apontou o rio. – Se perde e se acha de tudo.

IV

            A se acreditar em Natanael, a grande lição das aulas teóricas, das duas ou três classes ministradas por Batista, era essa frase: “lá embaixo, o seu maior inimigo é o medo”. Teria havido também lições práticas, tais como mergulhos em tanques com água turva, por exemplo.

            Ficou claro: Batista queria ver Natanael nadando. Para nós, ele fez questão de enfatizar o quanto os seus colegas e o próprio Batista teriam se impressionado com sua “extraordinária” capacidade de se localizar na sala de aula, apesar da venda e dos algodões. Mas Natanael nos confessou ansiedade. “Era completamente seguro” – apenas um ou outro mergulhador se machucava e, em casos raros, precisava amputar algo -, “mas, mesmo assim, eu pensava a todo instante: o que tinha no rio?”.

*

           Na noite anterior ao mergulho, acordou com um pesadelo: eram duas da manhã. A garganta ardia. Natanael deu alguns soquinhos no ventilador – o vento morno aliviou seu rosto e agitou os cabelos ensopados. Sem se mexer, ouviu a chuva. Vai ser rio cheio, pensou, preocupado. Tentou se lembrar do pesadelo que o tinha acabado de acordar. Havia cavalos e uma lua? Enxugou a testa, enquanto cavava o sonho na memória. Nada. E não conseguiu dormir. Pegou um livro de poemas da sua estante improvisada, ligou a luz do abajour e o folheou.

            – Batista… Já encontraram algum bicho, algum animal, por aqui? Não lembro de você mencionar isso.

            Na beira do rio, os dois se aprontavam.

            – E então?

            – Uma dessa tamanho. – Batista disse, por fim, abrindo o máximo possível os braços. – Uma cobra imensa…

            – Uma cobra?!

            – Forte como um jacaré! E branca, albina mesmo. Achamos faz alguns meses. Desse tamanho!

            – E o que ela caçava aqui? Ou estava perdida?

            Batista soltou uma gargalhada. Tocando no ombro de Natanael, disse:

            – Que nada, rapaz. Aí embaixo, o que só tem é um tipo de peixe ruim, o único que não morre. E não morde. Já vi também umas capivaras, mas não aqui mesmo, nesse ponto.

            Lá, bem na casca da água, bolhas e espirais estouravam. O rosto de Batista ficou sério. Suas duas mãos agarraram os ombros franzinos de Natanael:

            – Pra um mergulhador, medo chama problemas. Quer dizer… Um pouquinho de medo faz bem. Medo de se machucar, ou medo mesmo da morte. Tem que se cuidar. Mas um medo maior, um medo assim mais de alguma coisa, um medo de expectativa, esse daí você joga fora, rapaz!

            Escrutinou a roupa de Natanael de cima a baixo, examinou algumas partes da vestimenta.

            – Parece tudo em ordem. – Comentou.

            – Estou pronto.

            Em resposta, Batista apontou na direção de novas bolhas, porém nada disse.

*

            Entraram na água aos poucos, pedindo licença, após quase escorregarem pelo declive que terminava no rio. Natanael tocava o solo com passadas tímidas; seu pé às vezes afundava. Os braços, primeiro próximos ao corpo, aos poucos se sentiram à vontade e se soltaram como se fossem fiapos de águas-vivas. O rio se tornava mais largo à medida que avançava. Logo não havia nada abaixo dos seus pés; durante um ou dois segundos, seu corpo foi vítima de alguma espécie de turbulência até finalmente se equilibrar. Batista, mais à frente, se virou em sua direção e fez um sinal de legal; em resposta, Natanael repetiu o gesto do mergulhador, que novamente deu as costas para meu amigo. A matéria escura apagava, centímetro após centímetro, Batista. Natanael olhou à sua volta: a luz dos prédios vazou direto por dentro de seu visor; sacudindo a cabeça, mãos protegendo o rosto, Natanael abaixou a vista: espinhos e os ossos de cimento e rajadas e a água estacionada. As mãos, soltas, soltas, tentavam se agarrar em algo sólido, abrindo-se e fechando-se freneticamente.

            – Calma, calma.      

Não havia mais ninguém em meio às águas. Após jogar o corpo para cima, Natanael afundou, sem deixar de fechar os olhos, apesar da viseira; julgou ouvir o próprio corpo que, à deriva, deslocava pesadas placas; as rajadas da luz ainda se contraíam por dentro. Ao abrir os olhos, Natanael nada enxergou. Uma treva tão pura. E isto me lembrou uma visão de quando ainda morava em Recife. Durante específicos meses do ano, a região da antiga alfândega, ali pela igreja da Madredeus, se torna uma curiosa atração turística. Embaixo de uma das pontes que conectam uma ilha do centro da cidade à outra, desde a década de 80 milhares de morcegos decidiram fazer morada. Assim, se tornou tradição na cidade que os seus habitantes ou os turistas se aglomerem na passarela de pedestre da ponte, ou às margens do rio Capibaribe, a fim de esperar o sol cair e os morcegos partirem. E enquanto o sol cai, formando uma corola dourada, da cor das cúpulas das igrejas, que irradia um certo azul meio esbranquiçado, um azul amarrado ao rosa, os morcegos despertam e começam a despencar do fundo da ponte, girando em círculos acima das águas do Capibaribe. Parecem pedaços de papel lançados ao ar por alguma turbina. Observando os morcegos, temos casais de mãos dadas, europeus sonolentos, flanelinhas, jovens boêmios, hippies tropicais, hipsters tropicais, yuppies tropicais, californianos, meninos de rua, advogados, talvez um juiz de direito ou outro, engenheiros, servidores públicos; muitos baterão palmas quando os morcegos se aglomerarem e começarem a explorar a atmosfera – milhares de asas batendo ao mesmo tempo e ecoando um barulho estridente de couro. Os morcegos usualmente se juntam uns aos outros em uma fila reproduzindo o traçado e a espessura das artérias; eles geralmente se dividem em duas espessas artérias que, bem acima das edificações do centro da cidade, se encontram e seguem num movimento que, ao longe, lembrará um longo estandarte cheio de fraturas, remendos e buracos; o estandarte, apesar de corroído, conserva um mínimo de estrutura.

Havia tudo isto no escuro visitado por Natanael. E agora meu amigo duvidava se realmente tinha aberto os olhos, ou se conseguiria abri-los. Por instinto, a mão direita se moveu em direção ao rosto: sentiu toda a parafernália de plástico e metal. Afundado, movimentos circulares em meio às trevas, Natanael piscou os olhos até confirmar com segurança que possuía pálpebras; uma força já o expulsava na direção da luz; seu corpo, porém, reagiu e conseguiu afundar ainda mais. E Batista? Nenhum sinal do homem. Tudo estava fechado e haveria a serpente albina, assim como haveria um quadro horrível, encontrado por Natanael em alguma esquina no caminho antes de chegar ali, a retratar uma serpente marinha enroscada, tal qual um parafuso, em águas cor de vinho; haveria os crocodilos, aqueles crocodilos monstruosos dos piores filmes do mundo e que assombram os esgotos; e Tiamat aberta, do pescoço às patas, apodrecendo; e os sanguessugas; e os jacarés cegos, branquíssimos, cujas presas adquiriram, com o passar do tempo, formatos e tamanhos excêntricos; e todos os Dagons, Mollochs, Azazeis, Baals. Mas nada chegou. Nenhuma ameaça. Nenhum movimento, nenhuma presença, nenhum outro. Há apenas um silêncio de mãos cheias.

Natanael se lembrou da lâmpada acoplada em seu capacete de mergulho. 

            – Deus! – Ele poderia ter dito.

            Encontrou todo tipo de objetos acumulados no rio, mas assim que a luz acendeu, não conseguiu reconhecer nada; balançou a cabeça e os raios de luz lhe revelavam vislumbres de uma paisagem que Natanael só conseguiu descrever utilizando a palavra “carnificina”. Algo brilhou na altura próxima ao seu joelho: uma extremidade metálica, ereta em meio a uma massa formada por plástico, papel e por uma substância melosa, esteva a ponto de rasgar sua roupa protetora. Parecia que o metal preparava um bote.

            – Ali embaixo, ali embaixo, eu parecia estar no mais distante futuro, ou no mais distante passado! Em um ponto no qual tudo já esteve, ou estará, de olhos fechados. Me afastei um pouco daquela barra de metal e estiquei a mão para pegar o primeiro objeto que consegui, pela primeira vez, reconhecer: tinha sido construído, meus amigos, com uma matéria lisa ao toque e seu tamanho não era grande, pelo contrário, quase cabia em uma mão humana. O objeto previa um “dentro” e um “fora”. E em certo ponto de sua superfície, tinha sido acoplada uma prótese que se projetava de um jeito elegante, contido, curvilíneo, cheio de significâncias!

            Todos os presentes se entreolharam, exceto Faustine, que continuava com o olhar fixo na direção do nosso colega de apartamento.

            – …?

            A voz dela parecia vir de longe, lá do outro lado.

            Natanael se levantou, pegou água na cozinha, perguntou se alguém mais queria vinho ou cerveja. Já era tarde, mas ninguém fazia menção de ir embora.

            Ao voltar, disse:

            – Foi então que aconteceu a coisa mais estranha.

            Natanael agarrou o objeto e o iluminou. Lembra, Lucas, quando a gente tinha um aquário? Lembra? Sim, lembro: um aquário não tão pequeno, que ficava na sala daquele apartamento e cujos custos e manutenção eu dividi durante algum tempo com Natanael. Só havia uma espécie de peixinho dentro do aquário, era uma espécie bem pequena e magra, talvez do tamanho de um dedo mindinho, se não menor; tínhamos, sei lá, talvez uns vinte destes peixes, que nadavam sempre juntos. O movimento deles me lembrava o daqueles bailarinos ou artistas circenses, cujos movimentos circulares no picadeiro são ornamentados com um pano comprido, geralmente de cor forte, um azul, um vermelho, um dourado, e que se espalha por todos os lados, ondulando; no caso, aqueles peixinhos possuíam escamas grises e seus dorsos eram atravessados por uma faixa azul fosforescente; abaixo da faixa neon, o ventre era um vermelho quase caindo no laranja. Gostávamos muito, isto antes que Faustine vinhesse morar conosco, de apagar as luzes da sala (apenas a luz do aquário permanecia acessa), colocar umas almofadas no chão, deitar em cima delas e passar um bom tempo vendo o lá-e-cá dos peixes. Eu geralmente botava um dos dois primeiros do Pink Floyd, ou um Mutantes, ou aquele disco de capa colorida do Cream, ou mesmo o Tommy, e assim ficávamos até Natanael dormir. Às vezes, eu abria uma cerveja. Durante um bom tempo, esta foi a única maneira que Natanael encontrou de dormir sem a ajuda de remédios.

            Quando ele focou a luz no objeto e o tocou, foram luzes que viu, luzes que pareciam peixes.

            – Mas não acho isso estranho, Natanael!

            – Por que não, Lucas?

            – Deixe ele terminar! – Alguém falou.

            Faustine me olhava.

            – Diz de novo o que tu viu.

            – Eu vi, Lucas, um acúmulo de luzes se mexendo ao redor da minha mão, do meu braço, do Objeto. Eu… Eram pequenas partículas, ou melhor, minúsculas cordas e só então vi que nunca poderiam ser peixes, talvez se fossem, talvez se fossem… Eram bem menores do que nossos peixes, mas se mexiam, como se mexiam!, e me davam a impressão de que tinham sido conduzidos, orquestrados, que havia uma, uma regência ali, uma vontade!

            – Mas, no nosso aquário, eles rodavam e rodavam sem ter pra onde ir.

            – É verdade, mas ao mesmo tempo, não parecia uma coisa meio que uma dança? Uma exibição?

            – Sim, mas esse é o jeito que a gente tem de entender a coisa toda, acho.

            Pausa.

            – Aquelas cordas fosforescentes se mexiam e vibravam.

            – Algo no seu olho, talvez algum efeito ainda do reflexo da luz dos prédios, Natanael. E você não dormiu direito também, você mesmo disse. Além disso, se você esteve lá embaixo e tudo estava tão escuro assim…

            – Estava escuro!

            Agora era difícil decifrar Natanael.

            – Tudo durou muito rápido. Quer dizer, pareceu um longo tempo, longo mesmo!, que eu fiquei olhando o movimento, o… – de repente ele bateu palmas. – O formigamento! É como se eu tivesse percebido que minha mão e o tal objeto, não só ele. Tudo se encalhava. Eu via, é como se existissem as coisas mesmo, mas menos cheias! Aí tudo poderia estar por dentro de tudo, se cruzando, se misturando. Deslizando mesmo sem grande problema. Porque havia lugar, porque podia ter espaço, se não fossem aqueles peixes que, dentro de tudo, teimosamente, inimigos uns dos outros, se batessem de frente com a cabeça, impedindo a maravilha que deve ser um mundo todo acumulado. Daí a luz apagou! E eu pensei: não tem mais braço. Estão aí, perdidos. E eu poderia me sentir assim, cada vez menos, cada pequena corda se esticando para dar lugar à escuridão que me enchia e me enchia cada vez mais, lavando o meu nome. Não sei quanto tempo fiquei assim e não lembro de ter me mexido um centímetro que fosse. Mas meu corpo ainda era meu e o que aconteceu foi que me movi, sei lá pra onde, até porque “onde” não me ajudaria em nada. E isso meio que me acordou. E fiquei apalpando tudo ao meu redor, nadando e apalpando e tentando advinhar, e eu já estava seguro, já tinha a segurança de que meu corpo, a não ser que algo desse muito errado, continuaria a ser mais ou menos o que se espera – Nesta hora, talvez por nenhum motivo em especial, Faustine se levantou e saiu. Sem cumprimentar ninguém, sem dizer qualquer outra palavra, não a vimos mais no resto da noite. – e sei que eu apalpei diferentes tipos de objetos, vocês não fazem ideia do quanto existe no fundo daquele rio, é como se eu tocasse isso aqui, por exemplo, e me desse a sensação de tocar uma, ou, ou, ou um, as margens…

            As mãos de Natanael, que gesticulavam muito, estacionaram no ar e me deram a impressão de tremer calculadamente. Seu rosto olhava algum ponto incerto, seu peito arfava. A boca, um pouco entreaberta, tinha algum acúmulo meio desagradável de saliva. Finalmente, recolheu as mãos e fechou os lábios. Após pigarrear, disse:

            – Minha luz não voltou, mas uma luz apareceu, lá nas profundezas. Mas não fiquei aliviado, ou algo assim. A luz me deu raiva. A luz, essa foi a sensação, não trazia boas novas, ela me devolvia um “onde”, ela me devolvia o dia e a noite. Se antes eu apenas era, agora eu estava. E isso pesou tanto no meu peito, que eu me expulsei e subi.  

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