Rubem Fonseca: Winning the Game and Other Stories

Agnes picks up the book.

“This here: ‘the lover becomes transformed into the thing loved, by virtue of so much imagining … what more does the body desire to achieve?’ What the devil does the poet mean by that?”

“Agnes, you read the poem unwillingly. It was you who chose this poem. There were other easier ones.”

“Can we say it’s a solipsistic sonnet?”

“Just for the pleasure of alliteration?”

“That too. Or should we call it an ascetic sonnet? Or a Neo-Platonic sonnet? See, I’m starting to sound like my own professor.”

“Can one have a philosophy without knowing the philosopher who conceived it?” I ask.

Her face remains immobile; she has the habit of being like that, without moving her eyes, much less her lips—those gestures of someone wanting to demonstrate that they’re meditating. It’s as if she has gone deaf. But she quickly resumes speaking, with enthusiasm. And I listen. Knowing how to listen is an art, and enjoying listening is part of it. Anyone who feigns liking to listen is soon unmasked.

I don’t touch her, either that day or in the days that follow.

There are women with dull white skin, others with an almost verdigris whiteness, others faded like plaster or bread-crumb flour, but Agnes’s white skin has a splendid radiance that makes me want to bite it, sink my teeth into her arms, her legs, her face; she has a face meant to be bitten, but I restrain myself.

I give her another erotic poem to read. I confess that I’m taking a calculated risk. How will she react when she reads the tongue licks the red petals of the pluriopen rose, the tongue tills a certain hidden bud, and weaves swift variations of subtle rhythms, and licks, languorously, lingeringly, the liquory hirsute grotto? Agnes had changed the subject when I tried to make an erotic exegesis (isn’t that what she wants—to understand?) of the cunnilingus poem, read by her two days earlier. How would she act now, after reading another poem on the same topic and even more daring?

“I thought that poetry didn’t show such things, that fellatio and cunnilingus were only clichés used in films,” Agnes says, after reading the poem. “I don’t know if I liked it. ‘Licks, languorously, lingeringly’ is an amusing alliteration. But ‘liquory hirsute grotto’ is horrible. Is the next one going to be like that?”

I don’t fathom the true implications of what she’s telling me. Displeasure, disappointment? Mere curiosity? An opening? Better not to go into it too deeply.

We have been at the game for several days.

We read a poem about a guy who asks if he dares to eat a peach.

“Eating peaches?”

I play her game: “Let’s say it’s about old age.”

“And old men don’t have the courage to eat peaches?”

“I think it’s because old people wear dentures.”

“I thought that poems always spoke of beautiful or transcendental things.”

“Poetry creates transcendence.”

“I hate it when you show off.”

“I’m not showing off. Prostheses are not merely the thing they represent. But some are more meaningful than others. Penis implants more than false teeth.”

“Mechanical legs more than false fingernails?”

“Pacemakers more than hearing aids.”

“Silicone breasts more than wigs?”

“Right. But always transcending the thing and the subject, something outside it.”

“Is that implant much used? The one—”

“For the penis? Put yourself in the place of a man who has that implant. See the poetic simplicity of the metaphysical gesture of rebellion against the poison of time, against loneliness, anhedonia, sadness.”

“May I ask an indiscreet question?”

“Go ahead.”

“Do you use, or rather, would you use that prosthesis?”

“I’m a true hunchback. A hunchback doesn’t need it.”

I could have told her that a hunchback from birth, like me, either sublimates his desires forever—in which case, why the implant?—or else, as an adult, like me who until twenty-eight never had a sexual relationship, comes to be dominated by a paroxysmic lubricity that makes his dick get hard at the slightest of stimuli. A hunchback either becomes impotent or burns in a fire of lasciviousness that never cools for a single instant, like the heat of hell. But she’ll find that out for herself in due time.

“There are no dentures in the poem,” says Agnes, “or any kind of implant.”

“Poets never show everything clearly. But the dentures are there, for one who knows what to look for.”

“Old age is there, and the fear of death.”

“And what is old age in a man?” I ask.

“I agree: it’s false teeth, baldness, the certainty that the sirens no longer sing to him. Yes, and also the fear of acting. ‘Do I dare?’ the poet asks the whole time. He hates the horrendous symptoms of old age but doesn’t dare commit suicide. ‘Do I dare to eat a peach?’ means will I have the courage to put an end to this shit that is my life? The peach is a metaphor for death. But I accept that there’s also a denture involved. Am I learning to understand poetry?”

“Yes. The poem can be understood any way you like, which in itself is a step forward, and other people may, or may not, understand it in the same fashion as you. But that’s not important in the least. What matters is that the reader must feel the poem, and what one feels upon reading the poem is exclusive, it’s unlike the feeling of any other reader. What needs to be understood is the short story, the novel, those lesser literary genres, full of obvious symbolism.”

“I think you talk too much,” she says, good-naturedly.

Caveat: if a woman doesn’t have a minimum of humor and intelligence, I am not able to fuck her. How could I carry on a conversation with her? That’s awful for a lascivious hunchback who must confront a real uphill battle to seduce women, whose first impression on seeing him could be the same one they’d have upon seeing a basilisk, if that cross-eyed reptile with lethal breath existed. Can you imagine me investing, blind with desire, days and days on a seduction only to discover later, in the middle of the undertaking, that I’m dealing with a dummy who’ll make me go limp at the moment of truth? Once a hunchback goes limp, he’s limp for the rest of his life, as if infected by a polyresistant bacteria. You’ll say that if Agnes were intelligent she’d find me prolix and an exhibitionist. But in actuality I merely provoked her so she would talk. She was impressed with herself, believed she was learning not just to see but to understand that though the person may be nearsighted, he can’t keep his eyes closed.

Another thing: just as for the poet writing is choosing—creating options and choosing—I too had to create options and choose.

My member is rigid. The hardness and the size of my penis give me confidence, very great courage, greater even than my cerebral astuteness. I feel like placing her hand on my dick, but the moment for that hasn’t arrived yet. The alternative hasn’t been created yet.

I don’t know if I’ve mentioned already that the name of my cook is Maria do Céu, or Mary from Heaven. She deserves that name, and tonight she graces us with a magnificent meal.

After dinner we talk until the early hours. Several times I ask: Isn’t it late for you? And she replies that she’s not sleepy and doesn’t feel like going home. We have wine, but I’m careful to avoid getting her drunk. Lucidity, both hers and mine, is essential to my plan.

I tell pointless jokes that make her laugh, precisely because they’re pointless. For the first time she speaks of personal matters, the least complex ones, like her mother’s grouchiness. There are women who even after they’re no longer adolescents continue to feel resentment towards their mother. I listen to everything, attentively. Agnes also speaks of her former boyfriend, who was a good person but didn’t talk to her. On one occasion, they went out for dinner and she decided that she’d keep quiet the entire evening. At the restaurant, her boyfriend consulted the menu, suggested the dishes, placed the order, and, once served, asked Agnes if her dish was tasty. He didn’t say anything else, and didn’t even note the silence. He might have noticed if she had refused to eat, but she was hungry. When they returned home, they went to bed and made love in silence. Then the boyfriend said “Good night, dear,” rolled over, and went to sleep.