On the topic: The Storm and the Day After. Afterword. Part Four: Between pay and imagination

Oct162024

On the topic: The Storm and the Day After. Afterword. Part Four: Between pay and imagination

On the topic: The Storm and the Day After.

Afterword.

Part Four: Between pay and imagination.

d). – You are part of a theater group. Well, you were. Nothing remains of the brilliant improvisations, the tedious rehearsals, the corrections in posture, diction and intonation, the fights over costumes, the “intra-actor” conflicts (“hey Luis, I don’t like this dialogue, in my role as a statue I should be more eloquent»), the lavish sets, the fights over the budget, the venues that have to be adapted, the advertisements, the tickets. Nor are there the expectations of a role in that movie, soap opera, series, show.

On the other hand, a different you already sensed the outcome of the storm. When you were in different corners of the world, trying to get children’s smiles where there were only grimaces of pain and looks emptied by anguish. The mutilated tree of Palestinian childhood, the cynical indifference of a “civilization” full of the cult for banality, the humble champas of the natives in the long oblivion called Latin America. You were also a driver, with the fellow female driver – “it’s the same thing”, the Zapatista girl would say, who does not deal with biological genders but with the essence of each being– that time when a small mountain sailed against the grain of history, as if it was all about that, to be rebellious. Its passengers reiterating the warning, warning of the imminent expiration date of a system gone crazy. The culmination of the tragedy, the world as you knew it crumbling into a dull moan because there was no social network to warn of it. You can almost say you expected it.

Now that’s behind us. You have been in that community for several days now and you, who are moderately intelligent, have understood that those people gathered together do not want to repeat the story of “Little Malcom and his Struggle Against the Eunuchs.”

Now your turn is about to come. Those who were part of the group have sat together, as human beings sit together in a misfortune. Why can’t you get the dialogues from “The Good Person of Szechwan” out of your head? Maybe because all this seems the same: the challenge of being a better person and being good, living better without abandoning honesty as a human value. There are only two people left until it is your turn to present yourself. You do a quick calculation: there are those who can play the characters: there is Shen Te – Shui Ta, and you trust them to remember the dialogues; there are the gods, there is Wang, Sun and Shui Fa. But what about the scenery? How? With what? Where? It’s your turn. Then you and your group realize that you face the greatest challenge in your profession: with your performances you must get the audience to imagine the scenery. “This is the story of a woman who was also a man who was also a woman and so on,” you begin, standing in the middle of the basketball court.

In the end no one applauded. There were no interviews, flashes, requests for autographs, critical reviews from the specialized press. Nor applause and laughter in solidarity for the story represented. Because now you sense that this solidarity is granted to you, like a murmur among the audience in an incomprehensible language. And now you understand: victims only stop being victims when they survive by force of resistance and rebellion. Only then can they begin again.

Did you do it right or wrong? You don’t know, but the presentation turns continued. The next day, in the community kitchen called “En Común Come Comida Común” [“In common, eat common food”], you hear one woman comment to another: “The problem is that the theater workers paid the girl. They shouldn’t have, now it is something else.» «Or something more, it depends,» responds her partner. “The Pay”, you are left thinking… “Of course,” you say, “Bertold was looking into what would the Second World War and its horrors be like, and thus pointed out the dilemma caused by money, the pay then, as they say in this place.” You go to sit with your group, who are eating in silence because they don’t know either if it went well or badly, and you sit down. You place your plate, look at the others and say: “the problem is the pay.” Everyone stares at you. “You have to imagine another world,” you continue. When you finish eating, while you’re standing in line to wash the plate, you murmur: “We need to imagine the day after.”

The next day, at the assembly roll call, they hear “theatre people” and, simultaneously, as after hundreds of rehearsals, they respond “present.” They sit looking satisfied at each other. Their look changes when they hear: “it’s your turn to carry the board for the auditorium.”

While carrying the boards, everyone thinks: “auditorium… stage… scenery… theater!” Although now they understand that they don’t need a theatre. For art, a collective heart is always enough and more than enough. They don’t say it out loud, but they say to themselves “the problem is no longer the pay, we no longer have to wait for Godot.”

-*-

e). – You used to be a female writer, male writer or ‘otroa’ writer. You know: poetry, stories, some novels. It wasn’t easy. The grants? Bah!, those were always for those who knew how to relate with people in power… and flatter with consistency and certainty. “The problem is the pay,” you heard the theater workers say in the dining room called “Atásquense, que hay lodo” [“Get it while it’s hot!”]. Or is it “Ahora o Nunca”? [“Now or Never”]? You remember that lecture you gave at a university. “Whoever writes tells stories. Nothing more, but nothing less,” that is how it began. All that, was left behind. Paradoxically, the day before you heard Bob Dylan prophesying: “How does it feel / how does it feel? / To be on your own, / with no direction home / A complete unknown, / like a rolling stone.”

Now, with the tip of your foot, you roll a stone. No more time alone, the darkness, your library, the work table or desk, the computer, the ghosts, the dozens of drafts, the hard drive full of truncated words, the search for a publisher: “No, my man, sorry. Literature is already out of fashion. What is happening now are interactive stories, stories with a minimum of characters. Something light, that does not require much thinking, you know? But come another day. The world is round, you know, and goes around.”

But the world no longer exists, at least not YOUR world. Your turn comes. You inhale and stand up. You begin: “I am going to tell you a story.” And without even realizing it, you are weaving a story of stories that, while looking at the faces of those present, you draw from your imagination. Dozens of stories embroidered into one. Just like in that embroidery of “The Hydra”, which you saw in a museum in Madrid, in the Spain “de espíritu burlón y alma quieta” [“of a mocking spirit and quiet soul”], the “España de la rabia y de la idea” [“Spain of the rage and the idea”], when, later, you accompanied the Open Arms band that, in a tavern in Andalusia (between tapas, clapping and flamenco heels, with cante jondo and Federico, challenged the earth with a “¡Despierta!” [“Wake up!”]), decided to use the payment for a boat in the rescue of shipwrecked migrants.

Perhaps they imagined then that the day would come when everybody would be shipwrecked, trying to emigrate from a broken world, filled with rubble and nightmares, looking for someone to open their arms to welcome them and thus try to begin again…

Silence rules and commands, and it is only your voice that is heard. Even the crickets, always annoying, have remained silent.

The next day, in the “Corre que te Alcanzo” [“You better run for life”] dining room, you hear an old man declare: “I did like that story because I’m younger there.” An older woman: “I did too, because I’m pretty there,” and coquettishly adds, “Well, prettier.” At another table, two young people: “What I don’t understand is what that mutt had to do with the story”; the other “Is it a mutt, I clearly saw it’s a cat”; “No way! it even barked”; «Did it bark? I clearly heard it sounded like a cat.» Later, in the assembly they say “Contador” [“Teller of accounts”], everyone turns to look at you and you understand, you stand up and declare “Present”.

You think to yourself, “My grandmother said it well: mija [my child], you are good at arithmetic, when you grow up you are going to be a contadora [an accountant].” Your smile disappears when you hear “it’s your turn to support Doña Juanita in the kitchen.”

You head towards the kitchen, when a girl (about 5-6 years old) bumps into you and, without further ado, blurts out: “Hey Contador [Teller of accounts], tell me a story about how I already know how to ride a bicycle. Because I already hate that I always fall.” The girl shows you her knee so that you can see a scrape still covered in blood and dust. You ask politely: “Does it hurt a lot?” She puts her hands on her hips and says: “Not that much, don’t you go believing it, what hurts is the bloody boys laughing, who just show off, but also fall, I saw them the other day. Little Pedrito fell, but his head ended up in the mud, so he only washed himself off and he bloody well makes fun of me. But I fell in the gravel. Because riding a bike on gravel… not just anyone.”

Just then a friend passes by and says: “Hey Contadora [Teller of accounts], if the captain comes and tells you that he is preparing a meal called “Marco’s Especial” [“Marco’s Special”], don’t listen to him. “The whole world is going to thank you.”

You are moderately intelligent, so you understand two things: that the captain’s dish is not welcome on any table, and that the world is now that small community in search of its own destiny. A group of people who survived the storm who, as individuals and as a collective, seek to move forward, that is, to recommence, without repeating the same mistakes… the day after.

To be continued…

Written on the eve.