My grandfather took his son’s
funeral very seriously, I had never seen him so serious as he watched my
father’s grave and the priest made his prayer, which he did not seem to listen,
maybe because he was atheistic or rather because the priest himself was not
listening to his own words, which he pronounced without conviction, in a
routine way, so he had no credibility, to the point that not even God believed
him. My grandfather’s seriousness seemed to me far from crying. He closed his
eyes under the blazing sun and put his hands together as if praying for his
son, although he was praying for the priest to shut up, since from time to time
he mumbled unintelligible words among which I could just understand shut up. Not for a moment did he show
any obvious sign of it, of course, for he was a true gentleman, a righteous man
educated on the laicism, and so the last thing he would do was to offend the
priest. Thanks God your father does not exist anymore!, he said religiously, as
soon as the priest finished his prayer. My grandfather could not stand his son
because his son resembled him, he never said that but I knew it precisely because
he insisted on saying he had not taken after him, and from then on his duty
would be to get my life back on track so as not to resemble neither him nor his
son, that is, my father. I was not too enthusiastic about this, for once you
get used to your father’s stupidity you are afraid of someone else’s. I had
nothing against my grandfather, as a matter of fact my only reluctance was he
was my father’s author, together with my grandmother, I guess.
Meanwhile, the priest retired to
conduct another funeral, and I wondered how many funerals he would conduct that
suffocating day and decided I would never be a priest, priests work too much, I
thought, and to make sure of that I crossed off priest later on in my list of jobs. You don’t like priests because
they work too much under the sun, do you, grandpa? He seemed stunned at my
question and after a few seconds he said yes, sure. For the manner he answered,
I was sure he was lying, but anyway, I was used to lies, my father used to lie,
I realised it, he never told me that and for good reason, otherwise he would
have been a bad liar, for liars never say they tell lies, and less so when they
are telling a lie. My grandfather was a big liar too and I liked that, it
improved my deduction capacity and sharpened my cleverness. That very day of
the funeral, for instance, the old man told me he would be my father, so I had
to obey him, even if I didn’t understand how one could go from being a
grandfather to being a father. For me it was obvious that he wanted me to obey
him, that he didn’t care to be my father, and neither did I. It was also clear
that he was too old to be my father and I too young to be his son, but anyway, he
said this kind of lies and I kept quiet to help them being more credible. We
made a perfect team.
There was nothing that
fascinated me more than obeying him. One day he sat with me at the table as I
was doing my homework, and suddenly he grabbed the pen from my left hand and
put it into the right hand. Then I put back in silence the pen into my left
hand and went on doing my homework. He got very angry and yelled at me saying:
is that what your father taught you?, and I said, trying to keep calm, no, it
is me, grandpa, it is me who taught myself, because dad wasn’t left handed, he
was right handed, just like you, aren’t you?, I said. But he didn’t answer, he
closed tight his fists and began going around the room like a lion in a cage
until he –and even me at the sight of him– got dizzy. At your age you shouldn’t
do this, grandpa, I told him. If you do these things I’ll have to take care of
you, grandpa, and you told me you’d take care of me…, I told him. One thing was
to accept lies, but another to break a promise like that. I helped grandpa sit
down at the sofa, I went to the kitchen for a glass of water and gave it to
him. He was resting his head on the back of the sofa and lowered it slowly and
put his lips on the glass as I held it. His face was sweating. I asked him
what’s wrong with you, grandpa?, and he said: nothing, I’m fine…
So another lie.
He seemed to recover a bit, and when
he was able to utter a sentence he said: are you sure your father was right-handed?,
and I said yes, I’ve already told you... Then there was silence, perfect for me
to understand what had happened, especially when he raised heavily his right
hand and staring at it said in a whisper: damn it…
My father was right-handed, and
grandpa couldn’t stand a single quality of his son which resembled him. My
doing with the left hand reminded him of that. Now that he had buried his son,
now that he had gotten rid of the thing he hated most, his right hand was for
him his son’s. He couldn’t stand it. He hated himself for that and, worst of
all, maybe now he would hate my left hand, I thought. But as I saw him so weak
I knew I had no reason to worry, for I expected to bury him very soon. The idea
relieved me.
