TE19 Iberian Adventure

Ricardo Menéndez Salmón

my father’s eyes surveyed the world for the last time, I discovered that there was nothing to justify the expedition. No wish to fulfil. No expectations to meet. Nothing to hold on to as a symbol of what it means to survive. In the final analysis, alone in the house of death, the man and his illness amounted to nothing. The black hole had turned inside out, like a glove, absorbing itself. A garment incapable of covering the flesh, shred of air, birdwithout a branch, the body that was growing cold was a pithy remnant, the figurehead thrown onto an empty beach by the tide. At this point there was no name for this kind of shipwreck; coming up with one would be a colossal task. When the short-circuit between body and experience is observed, when it manifests itself as a ruthless indicator of existence’s mechanical aspects, the illness expresses itself as a biological dictatorship. For a month now, coinciding with the beginning of the writing of this book, I have been suffering from lumbago. One day I picked up something heavy. When I tried to put it down, I didn’t bend my knees and something inmy back tore. This leftmedebilitated, somewhat incapacitated in my day to day affairs. I have to write standing up. (I remember seeing Philip Roth doing this in a photograph taken at his home in Connecticut.) I cannot hold my little boy in my arms. (My older children haven’t sought that refuge for years.) I can’t organize the new books that arrive at my library (the price of maintaining alphabetical order). I can only fuck in certain positions (actually, a certain position. The rest are out of bounds to me for the time being.) 122 ***