The Day I Killed My Father (11 page)

Augusto … He kept brooding over the story that Kiki had told him the night before, but it was impossible to know for sure in what way Hemistich and Farfarello had been involved in it. Might they have helped Augusto murder his wife, and then killed him? Had they been Augusto's accomplices, and then watched him commit suicide? Did they simply witness the deaths, without interfering? Even in this last case, they wouldn't be free of guilt; they'd be accessories. The only way to find out would be to ask Hemistich, but Antonym was less afraid of the answer than of the consequences of doing this. No matter what the answer, it would connect him to the fact and, by extension, to Hemistich.

Antonym gazed at a tree trunk, dirty with tar, that had been carried onto the sand by the sea.
‘Le inutili macerie del tuo abisso …'
He was seized by the idea that he himself was good for nothing — just excrement in an ocean of other worthless existences. What had he done with his life to this point? Nothing. He hadn't been able to love those who loved him (and there had been so few!), and he hadn't produced anything of relevance in anything he'd turned his hand to (except in the opinion of Kiki and her backpacking ex-boyfriend — but Kiki and her crowd were a load of rubbish, too). What kind of epitaph would excrement like he have? Gazing at the seascape — which was, in itself, an invitation to live — he tried to come up with a phrase that, on his death, would sum up his idiotic existence. And at that moment he fancied he heard a voice, mingling with the sea breeze, whispering in his ear:
Here lies he who died without ever having been.

Died without ever having been. But having been what? And then a light came on in Antonym's mind.
Without ever having been a man of spirit.
Yes, that was what he wanted to be: a man who, through personal enterprise, would help change the fate of the world. This ambition was what was stopping him from being ‘a normal man', as Bernadette liked to say. The fact that he hadn't fulfilled it had often led him to feel dead or that he could be approaching death — perhaps even at the hand of Bernadette, who wanted him to be ‘normal'. Ever since he'd been a child, Antonym had felt different, special, but without ever lighting upon what it was that made him special. All those moments of anxiety that had punctuated his life, all those empty afternoons munching on biscuits, all those idiotic articles. They were symptoms not of his vacuity, as he had always thought, but of anticipation.

Antonym took a deep breath, his eyes closed.
‘Ubriacato dalla voce che esce dalle tue bocche quando si schiudono come verdi campane e si ributtano indietro e si disciolgono.'
No, poetry wasn't just surface — not to one who decided to make his own life poetry. Yes, that was what he had to do: give his existence a poetic dimension. Brutally poetic. All great men had done this somehow — the good ones and the bad ones. But what is Good and what is Evil? If God couldn't exist without Evil, if Evil was also a part of the divine plan, then … Then, that was it! One couldn't judge men of spirit, because all of them were fulfilling God's designs. What did it matter if, in the lines they composed, a few worthless little lives were lost along the way? It was the big picture that mattered. The big picture!

He could no longer condemn Hemistich and Farfarello. They were obviously partners in an undertaking with a higher objective. Yes, that was it: a new religion! A religion that celebrated the senses as the only way to understand the world … Life and Death … Augusto. Hemistich had said that Augusto had acted on his own impulse: ‘The purest expression of the senses.' No, there was no flippancy in this remark. Hemistich and Farfarello had witnessed the deaths of Augusto and his wife. No one was that flippant. Perhaps they were true men of spirit, the founders of a new way. A way that contained a dash of Evil, certainly. But, since Evil was a part of the divine design, there always had to be someone to do the dirty work. And if this fate — doing the dirty work essential to the divine plan — was born of human free will, he who stepped forward to play the part had to be considered by God to be a special child. A child who loved Him so much he was willing to relinquish the advantages of Good; who was willing to face limbo, hell, or whatever else, so that God could bask in glory. Evil was thus a parallel highway to the highway of Good — and both met in infinity. The infinity that was God!

A religion of the senses that led to total knowledge. Was he, Antonym, prepared to be an apostle? Obviously, this was what Hemistich was going to propose to him. He and Farfarello had drawn him in because they had sensed the potential in him. They regarded him as a man of spirit, which in some ways he had always felt himself to be, though he had never admitted it to himself until then. No, he wouldn't die without ever having been. No, he …

What nonsense to imagine he was any different to that tree trunk smeared with tar that the sea had deposited on the sand! How naive, how presumptuous!

Antonym watched a solitary seagull flying in imperfect circles over the ocean. He was also alone, also flying in imperfect circles. But soon his face lit up. Presumption and naivety: weren't these also the attributes of a man of spirit? Many great men had been ridiculed early on in their careers for seeming overly ambitious and out of touch with reality. What if ‘realistic' was just a euphemism for the weak, for those devoid of spirit?

Antonym realised, then, which God he had begun to believe in since his life had entered this jumble of events and thoughts. It was the God who had given him, Antonym, the capacity to stand out from the flock. It was the God who had taken him far beyond Good and Evil. It was the Entity who had created the Universe — the genesis of all presumption and all naivety — and had thus become God.
‘I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and the intelligence of the intelligent I will reject. Where is the wise man? Where is the scholar?'
Now he understood the real meaning of those words.

And this was how God appeared to Antonym, and Antonym appeared as God before God. Terrible events were to follow henceforth.

Part Two

–12–

I was hoping you'd say something immediately after the last reading session, but you left without saying a thing. I take it you didn't like it … I can understand what you mean when you say it's a disturbing book. I stopped writing it shortly before I killed my father, when I was swept up in the events that led me to commit patricide. What … ? That's not true. I wasn't emulating my characters when I eliminated my father … I'm sorry, but that kind of comment is uncalled for … No, I don't want to hear it … What? What idiotic manual gave you the idea that using the word ‘eliminate' is typical of those who premeditate murder in cold blood? I give you the most precious thing I have, and this is how you reward me. More than an attempt at writing literature, my unfinished book is a concrete representation of my interrupted life, and this is why it is of inestimable value to me. It's confirmation that I've managed to become the protagonist of my own story. I decided to kill my father, I decided to stop writing my book, I decided …

No, it's not true that it might have been my only option. I could have gone on living as if nothing had happened. But in choosing the path I did, I put a full stop to everything. Do you see? I imposed my will on everyone. Even you, who had nothing to do with this whole story, but who is now living and breathing it and will remember it until the day you die … Yes, I did kill my father, as one breathes — but that illustrates how resolute I was in my decision rather than the lack of an alternative. It was a conscious move — lucid, rational even; the adjective doesn't matter. I couldn't care less that people think I'm crazy, or that I'm here, in this place, because doctors and judges have declared me insane. I'm not crazy, do you hear me? I'm not crazy.

Isn't it clear to you why I killed my father? Then I have no illumination to offer. Only darkness.

I had dearly hoped for an unbiased appreciation of my book, and now you come along with these … You've cheapened me, and what I wrote, by drawing easy, mechanical parallels. I didn't expect such stupidity from you. Please, leave, and never come back.

–13–

It's been ten days since we last saw each other — long enough for me to calm down and come to the conclusion that I owe you an apology. Can you forgive me?

You see, I was fantasising about seducing you with my book. After all, that's what books are really for — to seduce. But you, it seems, were not seduced. You wanted to read meanings into it that … Come on, say it. Why do you think I emulated my characters? In other words, that the book anticipates my patricide? You think ‘anticipates' is too strong a term? Then use another. ‘Is connected to', perhaps.

The Brothers Karamazov
is the story of a patricide. So what? The fact that I mention it doesn't mean I intended to kill my father; it's just that it deals with some of my philosophical and religious concerns — because it debates the existence of God … Coincidence? Yes. Can you allow me the right to coincidences, or is that asking too much?

How curious … Did I tell you this at the beginning of our conversation? That after killing my father as one breathes, I leaned the piece of wood against the back of the couch, as if it were a ritualistic object? I'd forgotten that detail. It's true … for Hemistich and Farfarello, Augusto's death also had something ritualistic about it. Yes, Antonym would have turned out like them. Do you know what else? Contrary to what I first thought, I now believe that you were seduced by my book — even more than I'd hoped. I bet you haven't thought about anything else this whole time. I, at least, have only thought about you.

I apologise again. I didn't mean to make you uncomfortable. Don't get me wrong — it's just that you've become my only connection with … I don't know what. I was going to say ‘the outside world', but that's not true. You don't bring in anything from the outside. Our only topic is me, my history, what I did. But, in a way, you are the outside world — a piece of it. You're another voice, at least. I haven't heard another voice for days, not even my own. It's my isolation. I don't have anyone else — just you. And I'll lose you when our conversation is over. You'll never come back, I know … Don't make a promise you can't keep. I hate it when people feel sorry for me. I'm a murderer, a parricide. I don't deserve pity, nor do I want it.

Reading the book — your reading of the book, that is — has unsettled me. You read it with so much interest. I'm no longer sure if I'm happy it's not finished. Your vivid interest — I could tell from the way you read it — planted a seed of doubt in my mind. And I don't need this uncertainty, do you hear, because not even a parricide deserves to be tortured like this … What uncertainty? That maybe I had no other option. No, I can't think about it. I need to breathe a little, I need to breathe … The dizziness, oh dear, the dizziness is back …

–14–

I'm fine, thank you. No, the dizziness didn't come back; it was all in my mind. We can talk. Don't worry, I'm back under control. My uncertainty has gone, and everything is clear again.

Let's get straight to the point. I told you that reading my book would help you understand some of my processes. Some. And these processes are intellectual … Go ahead … Antonym says at one stage that his father isn't worth it. So what? It's a line — laden with self-reference, I admit — that only reinforces my intention to distance myself, through writing the book, from the real relationship that consumed me.

Don't look for clues in the plot itself, please. That's vulgar. What I have to say is of much more interest to you. And it will make everything clearer. You want clarity, don't you?

I wanted, as I've said before, to speculate about the birth of Evil, after I'd acquired some knowledge of philosophy, literature, and existential matters … What? I don't mean to offend you, but that's a narrow view of the matter. Try to be less of an analyst and more of a philosopher. It is true that science explains that we are born with genetic determinants which can be developed or stifled by our environment. It is also true that psychology can provide explanations for my blasphemies when I was a boy, and much of what followed. But that's not my point. It's more transcendental than that. I was interested, I repeat, in finding out what lies beyond our genes, and their psychological or social triggers.

Let's take a historical case: Hitler. Some people believe that his artistic frustrations and repressed homosexuality led him to do all those horrific deeds, as if they had activated hypothetical genes for Evil. But if they were the only factors, there would have been hundreds of monsters of Hitler's calibre throughout human history — and there haven't been. Hitler's followers? They only confirm my theory. They were so petty that they would have been insignificant, or would only have been common criminals, were it not for Hitler. Now, consider the opposite: Good. Take the example of Saint Francis of Assisi. In an era of utter moral and religious decay, he renounced wealth to assume a life dedicated to Christ and the poor. He attracted thousands of followers, but there is no record of any of them having attained the same degree of sainthood and abnegation. Can hypothetical genes for Good explain Saint Francis? If that were the case, shouldn't there be lots of others like him?

Where am I going with this? Well, you read
Future
. I'm suggesting that there are men of spirit, good ones and evil ones, who are granted complete free will. It is men of spirit who drive humanity and, one way or another, who fulfil God's designs … How can divine designs and free will coexist? That's the point I'd like to have elaborated on in my book: God's designs are universal, but they are brought to fruition by the free will of special individuals. In other words, there had to be a Saint Francis, just as it was imperative that there be a Hitler, so that humanity could follow the path laid out by God. But Saint Francis only became Saint Francis, and Hitler only became Hitler, because they were given the ability to choose. The former chose Good; the latter, Evil. Which also means that Saint Francis could have chosen Evil, and Hitler, Good … Yes, in a way, they were equal at some stage. That's another heresy for my list.