TE19 Iberian Adventure

José Luís Peixoto

That instant protracted because someone made a motion that paralyzed both men, one with his hands at a drawer he did not quite open; the other with his knee sunk onto José’s back—who had no remedy than endure the dozens of pounds, lying on the wooden floor prostrate, his face flattened. The reason for such sudden hush was a residue of voices muffled by brick walls and concrete. And the elevator crackled, and the voices were heard in sharper fashion. They thus came closer until they stood behind José’s door before going outside. The door was but a wafer, a thin membrane that stopped the light but let all the sound through. In the conversation, the neighbor lady poked with her chin and shaped a sort of silence with her thin, old woman’s lips. What of this one? The neighbor gentleman replied with a single noun: Liquor . He may also have made a drinking gesture, thumb pointing toward mouth. Both neighbors raised their eyebrows in agreement and moved on at their own speed. A few meters away, separated by a paper door—almost paper as it were—, was a motionless picture: the African held a drawer with both hands; the onewith the scar sunk a knee in an acute angle onto the center of José’s back. As soon as the metallic noises gave away the outer door’s opening and closing, the flow of time resumed from the point it had been interrupted. The drawer was pulled out and its contents scattered over the floor. José was slapped, then lifted by his collar as he had words spat onto his face, “Besides a welcher you’re also a drunkard?”

Being human, any being will find a shred of affirmation to protect that which truly humanizes it—not so much muscles or organs

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