tras a páxina de ferro

         With what slow steps did I enter this empty house, from which every echo has
faded, where the very tread of footsole on board is flat and dull! How I longed
for you to be here, to hold me, comfort me! I begin to understand the true meaning
of the embrace. We embrace to be embraced. We embrace our children to be folded in
the arms of the future, to pass ourselves on beyond death, to be transported. That
is how it was when I embraced you, always. We bear children in order to be
mothered by them. Home truths, a mother’s truth: from now to the end that is all
you will hear from me. So: how I longed for you! How I longed to be able to go
upstairs to you, to sit on your bed, run my fingers through your hair, whisper in
your ear as I did on school mornings, “Time to get up!” And then, when you turned
over, your body blood-warm, your breath milky, to take you in my arms in what we
called “giving Mommy a big hug, the secret meaning of which, the meaning never
spoken, was that Mommy should not be sad, for she would not die but live on in
you.

      To live! You are my life; I love you as I love life itself. In the mornings
I come out of the house and wet my finger and hold it up to the wind. When, the
chill is from the north-west, from your quarter, I stand a long time sniffing,
concentrating my attention in the hope that across ten thousand miles of land and
sea some breath will reach me of the milkiness you still carry with you behind
your ears, in the fold of your neck.

     The first task laid on me, from today: to resist the craving to share my death. Loving you, loving life, to forgive the living and take my leave without bitterness. To embrace death as my own, mine alone.

      To whom this writing then? The answer: to you but not to you; to me; to you
in me.

The age of iron, J. M. Coetzee, 1990 

     Con que pasos lentos entrei nesta casa baleira, da que cada eco esvaeceu, na que a pisada das solas sobre os tablóns é seca e amortecida! Canto te botei de menos aquí, que me apertases, que me reconfortases! Empezo a entender o verdadeiro significado da aperta. Abrazamos para que nos abracen. Abrazamos aos nosos fillos para sermos envoltos polos brazos do futuro, para rebasarnos alén da morte, para transportarnos. Así era cando te abrazaba, sempre. Criamos fillos para que nos coiden eles a nós. Verdades caseiras, a verdade dunha nai: dende agora ata a fin, iso é canto oirás de min. Así que: como te botei de menos! Canto desexei ir escaleiras arriba contigo, sentar na túa cama, pasarche as mans polo pelo e susurrarche no oído tal e como facía nas mañás escolares: Hora de levantarse! E logo, cando dabas a volta, o corpo de sangue quente e o alento de leite, collerte no colo no que chamabamos “darlle a mamá un abrazo ben grande”, cuxo significado, o significado nunca expresado en alto, era que mamá non había estar triste, pois non morrería senón que seguiría a vivir en ti.

Vivir! Ti es a miña vida. Ámote como amo a vida. Polas mañás saio da casa, humedezo o dedo e levántoo cara ao vento. Se sopra dende o noroeste, dende a túa dirección, fico un anaco en pe osmando, concentrando a miña atención na esperanza de que a través de vinte mil quilómetros de mar e terra chegue ata min algunha bafarada do recendo a leite que aínda levas detrás das orellas, no prego do pescozo.

A miña tarefa principal, a partir de hoxe: resistir o devezo de compartir a miña morte. Quererte, querer a vida, perdoar aos vivos e marchar sen amargura. Abrazar a morte como miña, miña nada máis.

A quen escribo isto, logo? A resposta: a ti, pero non a ti. A min. A ti en min.

A idade de ferro, J. M. Coetzee. Tradución de Estíbaliz Espinosa