Hilda Hilst - With My Dog Eyes

Designifying

I am digging out screams

Burying height and hauteur.

My whole soft-hard

Also spies the wall. Unhinged

I test the climb

And explosive words

Pressed into the stones: pound, dredge

Knifed in front of the mirror.

I’m in the yard behind the house. My mother’s house. I didn’t tell them I was coming here but I came. There’s a vine-covered arbor. And with straw dirt and bamboo I closed off the sides. The depths. I should have said my good-byes. Amanda and the kid. The station. The train. I should have told them about the dark-gray despair streaked in black, a viscous substance taking me. I hoped the Unfounded would pierce the ribs of a tiger and in that gesture transfigure my own landscape unto the infinite. My poverty is the dryness of spirit. My solitude is to have remained the prisoner of that which I felt on top of the hill and today I find only links of sand, currents of dust. A stray bitch appeared at dusk. She’s yellow. She must have just given birth. Her teats sagging, her ribs showing. Her brown eyes have the vehement glint of hunger. There are sparks that escape the flesh in misery, in humiliation, in pain. The sparks show in animals too. My mother brings us food and water. And searches for words: Amós, it doesn’t make much sense to have the house up there and you back here, seems like it doesn’t make sense, that is if things are supposed to make some kind of sense. Guess so, mother.

I feel like I know how it is.

Really, mother?

Your father once explained it to me without explaining. It was early in the morning. He got up, put on his boots. It wasn’t a nice day at all. He looked at you in the crib, you were six months old. We were young and your father was handsome. Everything seemed all right. His eyes went blank for a moment as though you and I were no longer there, as if he himself were another person, his mouth gaping like he couldn’t breathe and he said all at once: it’s such an effort to try not to understand, it’s the only way to stay alive, trying not to understand.

Doesn’t seem like dad. You sure you weren’t with another man?

She laughs. The earthen floor. There are woven mats spread around. Big boxes. Mother called two men to come thatch the roof of the arbor. A vine roof is a bit much, son. Is he your son, ma’am? He seems sick, wouldn’t it be better for him to stay in the house up front? He likes to be right here. Strange, ma’am. I named the yellow dog Snorey. Long hoarse creaks in her sleep at night. I have paper. Pens. I draw Snorey snoring. I draw the boxes, the mats, I look at myself in a piece of broken mirror and I draw myself looking at myself in a piece of broken mirror.

A minuscule heart trying

To escape itself

Dilating

In search of pure understanding.

From the other side of the mirror: I felt so tired but needed to keep walking no matter what because the gallows were just three hundred yards away and the guys escorting me seemed to be in a hurry. Couldn’t I just have a little nap? Look at this, the guy’s gonna get hanged but he wants to catch some z’s first. You’re gonna get to sleep for all eternity. I know, but will I even know that I’m sleeping? And sleeping now, I’ll know I chose to sleep, or rather, if you want to know, that I need it. A little further and then you’ll sleep.

Ah, it’s nothing, the man insists, it makes no difference to you if I’m ten minutes behind. How’s that, man, no difference? It’s noon, I’m hungry, one of the escorts shot back, today’s Saturday and there’s a buffet at Arnolfo’s bar. The other escort: and I’m dying for some rum. The other escort: and it’s so hot, shit, hanging people at noon is such a drag, at five or six in the afternoon would be better, the early morning would be reasonable too, nice and fresh out. Hey why are you gonna get hanged?

Because I wanted to kill myself. I shot myself here.

Where?

They all stop to surround the doomed man. He shows them a scar on his left shoulder. Not such good aim, eh? Nah, doesn’t look pretty, one of the other escorts said in a low voice. And this other scar by your neck? Ah, that’s from when they wanted to kill me. Why? I’ll tell you later but first just let me sleep a while. They agree. Ten minutes. Lean up against that tree over there, we’re going to rest a few minutes too. Ten minutes, I ask, said the doomed man. Escort number one: Well if a man wants to sleep before dying, then let him sleep. People are strange.

Escort number two: There was one two months ago, in my district, who asked for a fuck. Man, was that tough. All the chicks we knew said over my dead body and made the sign of the cross. I said what’s it to you? He’s still alive, he’ll just be dying in a couple hours. No way, Luzinete said, whoever’s dying in two hours is already dead to me. A whore without a shred of charity. Turned into a big argument, with the man there waiting.

Escort number three: And then?

Escort number two: So then there was no way. He died with a hard-on. I almost felt sorry for him, I’d never seen anybody die like that.

Escort number one: But could you see it?

Escort number two: Yeah you could see it. I saw it.

Escort number one: I told you. People are strange.

Was that ten minutes? Not yet, the doomed man says, let me sleep. And then, he went on, all that about the hard-on is bullshit. Every hanged man dies with a hard-on. I don’t know why, but don’t you guys remember those Germans?

From the photos?

What Germans?

The ones that were hanged in Nuremberg.

Where’s that? And what’s it got to do with a hard-on?

In the photos they’ve all got their flies open.

How come?

Nobody wants to see a dead guy with a hard-on. So they twist the guy’s cock to make it soft.

Who twists?

Somebody, who knows, maybe the hangmen.

So a hanged man’s cock stays hard after death, eh? That can’t be true.

I’m telling you it is. You’ll all see mine. Let me sleep now.

Ten minutes.

Wind and dust suddenly. Whirlwinds of red dust. Noisy birds crossing the chalky sky. The escorts tilt their heads to the highest point, later to the right and to the left and number one says to the doomed man: Get up, we’re going, the weather’s changing, some kind of storm is coming, you won’t be able to sleep. The doomed man tries to get up but the wind, a mass of red dust forces him back down involuntarily, blinding his eyes. The three escorts also crouch down and cling to the trunk of the tree. We have to take the man to the gallows, said number one. Impossible, can’t you see there’s no way? Furious number one unclenched himself from the tree, began to shake the doomed man but then stopped, a horrifying scrunch on his face and the others saw him carried off by the wind, tumbling like a light cardboard tube. They heard shouts and curses, clearly at first, then ghastly coughing fits, and then just the furious drone of the wind. The mass of dust seemed to have thorns that thrashed their bodies. This can’t last a lifetime, shouted number two. Sure it can, yelled number three. They fell silent. Everything remained the same, and it began to get dark. From here where I am I could hear them thinking: Escort number two: The patrol will come look for us, yeah, they’ll come save us.

Escort number three: The patrol won’t come. No one gets out of this kind of thing alive.

The doomed man: This is the only way they’ll let me sleep. But if I sleep I’ll relax and be carried off by the wind. Suddenly carried off by the wind all the way to the gallows. No, that would be the height of coincidence: the doomed man staggering alone to the foot of the gallows. The height indeed. But there are terrible coincidences. Yes, they can occur.

The escorts began to groan. Leaves and branches were falling on their heads. Number three shouted that he couldn’t take it any more, something had to be done. The doomed man: Hang on, nothing can be done. Drops of rain. Thick, heavy. And instantly a downpour. Hours, clinging there to the trunk of the tree. A pasty darkness all around the three men. The wind slapping their cheeks. If they lowered their heads to the mud it choked their mouths and nostrils, so they let them hang in a sharp, desperate gesture, trying to breathe. Birds’ nests tumbled from the branches, rodents dragged by the wind collided violently with the trunk of the tree, moribund, bleeding, their snouts split open. Escort number three let out a howl, opened his arms, blasphemed and disappeared, a scarecrow swallowed by the sordid night. Little by little it became calmer and clearer. The doomed man: finally, it’s over. Now you can take me to the gallows, he said to number two. With effort, slowly, stretching himself, the doomed man got to his feet. What a night what a night, he repeated. All around planks dead animals mud bushes, their roots showing. Let’s get out of here, seems like you don’t believe that everything’s fine now. I’m not tired anymore, I would have slept, but who can sleep on a night like that? Number two remained stuck to the tree. The doomed man approached him: hey hey, let’s go, let’s get to the gallows, you’ll end up losing your job. Number two remained silent. Then he who was to die stooped down. He touched the man. Number two’s limp body was distant. The mouth on his purple face flopped open.