Gonçalo Tavares: The Neighborhood

The Boss opened up the report at the list of contents.

“This is a great help. It makes consulting the report so much easier,” said the Boss, surprised.

“It helps a lot,” agreed the President of the Committee of Economists. “You can see the subject in question here and later, a few spaces ahead, there is the page number.”

“What an excellent idea!!” exclaimed the Boss.

“It has already been used in other works by other people; even outside politics. And even in other countries. When the reports are very large, there are even more detailed indications of the page numbers, so that readers do not waste a lot of time finding the subject that is of interest to them.”

The Boss was fascinated. That question of the contents. What an idea!! He was undoubtedly surrounded by the best people. These Economists!!

“Impressive, this list of contents,” insisted the Boss.

And he ran his forefinger all over this initial page of the report, from left to right, from top to bottom, with the meticulous gestures of a blind person feeling adapted writing.

“Here it is!” murmured the Boss, still enthusiastic. “For example, if I were interested in the item ‘widespread poverty,’ I go to the contents and here it is: page 322. It’s extraordinary! Widespread poverty: page 322. How wonderful!”

“It’s the list of contents, Boss.”

2

The Boss continued to be fascinated with the list of contents of the report about the economy.

“Extraordinary!”

“It’s useful, no doubt, but it’s only a list of contents,” murmured someone from the back, already irritated.

“The important thing is that the Boss likes something,” whispered one of the Assistants to the President of the Economists, who was becoming rather disheartened. They had written about all the nation’s problems. With thousands of calculations, numbers and numbers, practical and theoretical solutions. And the Boss: nothing. He was fascinated by the list of contents, euphoric: like the first Man to have heard a telephone working.

The President of the Committee of Economists, getting increasingly impatient, tried to control himself. “It’s just a question of organization. It’s a list of contents, nothing. But farther ahead we have presented four fundamental proposals to resolve the problem of poverty in the nation.”

While speaking, he attempted with his hands, albeit always delicately, to force the Boss to go to the middle of the report. However, responding with unflinching vigor, the Boss would not let him. The Report continued to remain open at the page with the list of contents. Until the end of the session.

“It’s very important,” insisted the Boss, keeping his two hands, solidly and firmly, on the page with the list of contents, seemingly not having heard anything at all. “This is an example of organization that should be applied to the entire nation. Everything: from top to bottom. From left to right. The entire nation should have a list of contents.”

“We have four proposals,” someone still ventured to say, but the voice soon faded away.

“It’s just the list of contents,” murmured the President of the Committee, who had already thrown in the towel: his arms hung low.

“Boss,” asked one of the Assistants at the end, “should I send the Report to Education?”

Mister Kraus had handed over his last chronicle to the newspaper. The end of the day neared, like yesterday, and shortly a new Boss would appear in the world, then another and another. However, it was always the same.

The Fall

It was one of those cold days and breathing became a public act.

“Nobody breathes discreetly on these very cold days,” said the Boss.

And it was true: when one exhaled, it cut a trail through the air, as though the air were painted or etched out with another color. On such days breathing was no longer a private act or something shared only by passionate couples. Breathing was like a speech, except at a much lower volume.

“Exhaling becomes almost as visible as singing.”

“It’s true.”

“Like a voice that doesn’t speak,” said the Boss.

“Your breathing does, in fact, look magnificent!” said the Assistant, suddenly, as though he had just remembered something.

The Assistant continued, “Your Excellency, on cold days like this, you do not even need to say anything. Just by looking at the air that emanates from inside Your Excellency it is clear that in case Your Excellency did decide to speak, you would speak as never before. Your air is magnificent!” he repeated.

The Boss thanked him, trying to present a modest expression. He was good at that; like an acrobat: the Boss knew how to make faces. He kept them tucked away somewhere like one keeps small slips of paper in one’s pockets with telephone numbers. When one needs a number one only has to find the right piece of paper in one’s pockets. It was the same thing with him: he looked for an appropriate expression for the moment inside himself. And he took only about a thousandth of a second to find the thing. He was trained.

“You exaggerate,” he told the Assistant.

“No, no, it’s magnificent. Nobody exhales like that!”

In truth, the Boss heard these words like someone who hears that two plus two equals four. Someone was stating the obvious: he was excellent from all points of view, and his breathing — especially his exhalation — was magnificent! He felt in a certain way that the world, not from a general point of view, but the concrete world, nature, the elements of the atmosphere, should, together, if they could talk and were well-bred, thank him for that brilliant way of expelling carbon dioxide. “Nobody expels carbon dioxide like I do,” thought the Boss. However, externally, he resumed his exclamations of modesty, “You exaggerate, Assistant. My exhalation is simply air.”

“Air?!” exclaimed the Assistant. “No, not at all. It’s something else. There’s something about the way in which your exhalation stands out from the rest of the atmosphere that is reminiscent of ancient mythological stories. There is something secret and mysterious about it.”

The Boss was enjoying listening to his Assistant, that music lulled him pleasantly, so to speak. In fact, they had climbed the stairs up to the fourth floor and he had barely noticed it.

Then, at that precise moment, he discovered a law that blended the world of physiology and psychology: being praised made one forget fatigue. “If someone,” thought the Boss to himself, “was lauded every step of the way, he could easily climb to the top of the Eiffel Tower on foot.” He was so enamored of this idea that he even stopped to write it down in a notebook. When he had time, he would sell that line of reasoning to athletes who needed it.

Epilogue

The Boss and his two Assistants were already on the balcony of the fourth floor, standing and braving the cold. One of the Assistants was out of his mind with jubilation, he was almost hopping.

“See, Boss, your exhalation. It’s extraordinary, do you see this color?!” The Assistant pointed his forefinger at the plume of carbon dioxide that emanated from the Boss’s mouth. “It’s magnificent, magnificent!”

The Boss smiled, but it seemed to him that his Assistant was beginning to exaggerate: what the hell, he was the Boss, but his lungs and all the channels responsible for expelling the air from inside him were just the same as any other human being’s. “I’m a man just like everyone else,” he thought. However, he trusted his Assistant. If he said that his exhalation was particularly magnificent, then it was because it was true. The Boss then bent over to better observe the air coming out of his mouth.