00.23 — THE BIG BANG IS THE BREATH OF GOD
Paris / seminary / uncertain place · Different years
There are winters when breathing is enough to see that the body is still alive.
The children of the electrocuted man inherited different ways of failing to love correctly.
That is what Bernardo would have said.
Tony would have corrected the sentence. Alejo would have thought it obscene to speak of a family that way. Isaac would have asked what correctly meant and then done exactly the opposite of the answer.
Perhaps it was not love.
It was something else.
Limerence.
A word they did not yet know when they began to fall ill with it.
It did not mean loving too much. That was a rather romantic way of putting it. It meant allowing a person to begin occupying places that did not belong to them: breakfast, sleep, a song, a street, the way of interpreting something someone had said three days earlier. The object could disappear and go on organizing life.
Each had found a way of displacing it.
Tony toward images.
Bernardo toward bodies.
Alejo toward God.
Isaac toward stories.
That did not cure them.
It only made the illness more interesting.
Samuel begins to lose his faith when David begins to believe.
That strikes him as rude.
He has spent his life teaching things he now hears his nephew repeat with a conviction he no longer possesses.
—Does God know what I am going to do tomorrow?
David waits for an answer.
Samuel looks at the coffee.
—I suppose so.
—Then am I free?
—I suppose so too.
David frowns.
—That cannot be.
Samuel smiles.
—Welcome to theology.
The boy does not laugh.
That is the problem with those who begin to believe: they still think religious questions deserve answers.
Samuel takes him to Mass.
He teaches him to remain silent.
He explains that praying does not consist of producing thoughts and that sometimes the only honest prayer is to sit still.
David learns quickly.
Too quickly.
Samuel watches him kneel and feels a small, almost shameful envy.
There was a time when he too believed that way.
Paris.
Open streets.
Gas.
Stones.
Marx.
Boys shouting that beneath the pavement lay the beach.
Samuel was twenty then and convinced that revolution and love were two names for the same thing.
He slept little.
He kissed men.
He went to Mass some mornings.
He saw no contradiction.
The contradiction came later, when others began to explain what all that was supposed to mean.
César keeps photographs from those years.
Not because he appears in them.
In most he does not.
Demonstrations, barricades, young people running, a girl standing on a car, a policeman bent over as if he were about to vomit.
He looks at the images for hours.
He does not interpret them.
He has learned, rather late, that some images defend themselves.
You think you are looking at a demonstration and suddenly discover a boy at one edge looking straight at the camera.
Then the direction changes.
The photograph ceases to be a document about 1968.
The boy looks at César.
That is enough.
César has another obsession.
The Big Bang.
—It is not an explosion —he says.
Everyone knows that when he begins that way they will have to listen to him for twenty minutes.
—Then do not call it the Big Bang.
—I did not name it.
—César.
—It is the breath of God.
That is where the protests begin.
He enjoys himself.
He is not trying to prove the existence of God scientifically. That would be too vulgar even for a priest.
The image interests him.
Something that was not breathing.
Then expansion.
Space.
Time.
Matter.
An entire universe like the chest of someone who has just breathed in for the first time.
—And when does he breathe out? —Samuel asks.
César looks at him.
He had never thought of that.
—Perhaps now.
Samuel laughs.
—Now that is theology.
In the seminary, Isaac learns something else.
Temptation does not disappear because you name it.
Nor because you pray.
Sometimes praying makes it much more distinct.
Juan Manuel appears on a page before he appears in the corridor.
That will be difficult to explain later.
Isaac has seen him in La Virgen de los Peregrinos: a face, a small profile, enough information to know that something is wrong.
Then he finds him there.
In the flesh.
Thinner.
Paler.
Alive.
Juan Manuel walks down the hallway as if his body weighed on him.
Isaac looks at him.
The other raises his head.
For a second they recognize each other without ever having met.
That ought to be impossible.
Neither says anything.
Juan Manuel passes.
Isaac stands still.
That night he tries to pray.
He cannot.
He is not exactly thinking of Juan Manuel.
That is the lie he tells himself.
He thinks of the page.
Then of the face.
Then of the distance between the two.
First an image.
Then a body.
And something he does not know where to put.
Then he understands that temptation does not always consist of wanting to touch.
Sometimes it consists of wanting to know.
Why he was on that page.
Who had put him there.
Why he looked ill.
Why he had looked at him as if he too had seen Isaac before.
Isaac closes his eyes.
The Virgin is in a reproduction in front of him.
She does nothing.
That is beginning to make him uncomfortable.
He opens his eyes.
The image is still there.
He looks at her.
Then something else happens.
He could not say when.
Perhaps it never really happens.
Isaac has the feeling that she is looking at him.
Not like a woman.
Not even like a Virgin.
The way certain icons look: without needing to seem alive.
Isaac lowers his eyes.
Samuel finds David asleep over a book.
He carries him to bed.
He weighs less than he expected.
He covers him.
For an instant he remembers another boy.
Paris.
A small room.
A morning after a demonstration.
He no longer remembers the name.
That causes him more pain than the memory.
For years he had thought that forgetting was the opposite of limerence.
Now he knows it is not.
You can forget the name and preserve the exact hollow.
He leaves the room.
In the corridor he finds César.
—Still on about your Big Bang?
—God still is.
—That is not an answer.
César smiles.
—He never answers.
He looks toward the window.
It is cold.
The glass is misted on the inside.
César brings a hand up and clears a circle.
Outside, almost nothing can be seen.
—Do you know what I think?
Samuel sighs.
—No.
—That if God breathes, we are what happens between one breath and the next.
Samuel looks at him.
—That means absolutely nothing.
—Right.
César seems satisfied.
They go on walking.
In some room, Isaac tries not to think of Juan Manuel.
David sleeps.
The Virgin looks out from a page.
And something none of them yet knows how to name begins to repeat the same movement.
Coming closer.
Moving away.
Returning.
Like the universe.
00.23 — THE BIG BANG IS THE BREATH OF GOD
Paris / seminary / uncertain place · Different years
There are winters when breathing is enough to see that the body is still alive.
The children of the electrocuted man inherited different ways of failing to love correctly.
That is what Bernardo would have said.
Tony would have corrected the sentence. Alejo would have thought it obscene to speak of a family that way. Isaac would have asked what correctly meant and then done exactly the opposite of the answer.
Perhaps it was not love.
It was something else.
Limerence.
A word they did not yet know when they began to fall ill with it.
It did not mean loving too much. That was a rather romantic way of putting it. It meant allowing a person to begin occupying places that did not belong to them: breakfast, sleep, a song, a street, the way of interpreting something someone had said three days earlier. The object could disappear and go on organizing life.
Each had found a way of displacing it.
Tony toward images.
Bernardo toward bodies.
Alejo toward God.
Isaac toward stories.
That did not cure them.
It only made the illness more interesting.
Samuel begins to lose his faith when David begins to believe.
That strikes him as rude.
He has spent his life teaching things he now hears his nephew repeat with a conviction he no longer possesses.
—Does God know what I am going to do tomorrow?
David waits for an answer.
Samuel looks at the coffee.
—I suppose so.
—Then am I free?
—I suppose so too.
David frowns.
—That cannot be.
Samuel smiles.
—Welcome to theology.
The boy does not laugh.
That is the problem with those who begin to believe: they still think religious questions deserve answers.
Samuel takes him to Mass.
He teaches him to remain silent.
He explains that praying does not consist of producing thoughts and that sometimes the only honest prayer is to sit still.
David learns quickly.
Too quickly.
Samuel watches him kneel and feels a small, almost shameful envy.
There was a time when he too believed that way.
Paris.
Open streets.
Gas.
Stones.
Marx.
Boys shouting that beneath the pavement lay the beach.
Samuel was twenty then and convinced that revolution and love were two names for the same thing.
He slept little.
He kissed men.
He went to Mass some mornings.
He saw no contradiction.
The contradiction came later, when others began to explain what all that was supposed to mean.
César keeps photographs from those years.
Not because he appears in them.
In most he does not.
Demonstrations, barricades, young people running, a girl standing on a car, a policeman bent over as if he were about to vomit.
He looks at the images for hours.
He does not interpret them.
He has learned, rather late, that some images defend themselves.
You think you are looking at a demonstration and suddenly discover a boy at one edge looking straight at the camera.
Then the direction changes.
The photograph ceases to be a document about 1968.
The boy looks at César.
That is enough.
César has another obsession.
The Big Bang.
—It is not an explosion —he says.
Everyone knows that when he begins that way they will have to listen to him for twenty minutes.
—Then do not call it the Big Bang.
—I did not name it.
—César.
—It is the breath of God.
That is where the protests begin.
He enjoys himself.
He is not trying to prove the existence of God scientifically. That would be too vulgar even for a priest.
The image interests him.
Something that was not breathing.
Then expansion.
Space.
Time.
Matter.
An entire universe like the chest of someone who has just breathed in for the first time.
—And when does he breathe out? —Samuel asks.
César looks at him.
He had never thought of that.
—Perhaps now.
Samuel laughs.
—Now that is theology.
In the seminary, Isaac learns something else.
Temptation does not disappear because you name it.
Nor because you pray.
Sometimes praying makes it much more distinct.
Juan Manuel appears on a page before he appears in the corridor.
That will be difficult to explain later.
Isaac has seen him in La Virgen de los Peregrinos: a face, a small profile, enough information to know that something is wrong.
Then he finds him there.
In the flesh.
Thinner.
Paler.
Alive.
Juan Manuel walks down the hallway as if his body weighed on him.
Isaac looks at him.
The other raises his head.
For a second they recognize each other without ever having met.
That ought to be impossible.
Neither says anything.
Juan Manuel passes.
Isaac stands still.
That night he tries to pray.
He cannot.
He is not exactly thinking of Juan Manuel.
That is the lie he tells himself.
He thinks of the page.
Then of the face.
Then of the distance between the two.
First an image.
Then a body.
And something he does not know where to put.
Then he understands that temptation does not always consist of wanting to touch.
Sometimes it consists of wanting to know.
Why he was on that page.
Who had put him there.
Why he looked ill.
Why he had looked at him as if he too had seen Isaac before.
Isaac closes his eyes.
The Virgin is in a reproduction in front of him.
She does nothing.
That is beginning to make him uncomfortable.
He opens his eyes.
The image is still there.
He looks at her.
Then something else happens.
He could not say when.
Perhaps it never really happens.
Isaac has the feeling that she is looking at him.
Not like a woman.
Not even like a Virgin.
The way certain icons look: without needing to seem alive.
Isaac lowers his eyes.
Samuel finds David asleep over a book.
He carries him to bed.
He weighs less than he expected.
He covers him.
For an instant he remembers another boy.
Paris.
A small room.
A morning after a demonstration.
He no longer remembers the name.
That causes him more pain than the memory.
For years he had thought that forgetting was the opposite of limerence.
Now he knows it is not.
You can forget the name and preserve the exact hollow.
He leaves the room.
In the corridor he finds César.
—Still on about your Big Bang?
—God still is.
—That is not an answer.
César smiles.
—He never answers.
He looks toward the window.
It is cold.
The glass is misted on the inside.
César brings a hand up and clears a circle.
Outside, almost nothing can be seen.
—Do you know what I think?
Samuel sighs.
—No.
—That if God breathes, we are what happens between one breath and the next.
Samuel looks at him.
—That means absolutely nothing.
—Right.
César seems satisfied.
They go on walking.
In some room, Isaac tries not to think of Juan Manuel.
David sleeps.
The Virgin looks out from a page.
And something none of them yet knows how to name begins to repeat the same movement.
Coming closer.
Moving away.
Returning.
Like the universe.
00.23 — EL BIG BANG ES EL ALIENTO DE DIOS
París / seminario / lugar incierto · Años distintos
Hay inviernos en que respirar basta para ver que el cuerpo todavía está vivo.
Los hijos del hombre electrocutado heredaron distintas maneras de no amar correctamente.
Eso habría dicho Bernardo.
Tony habría corregido la frase. Alejo habría considerado obsceno hablar así de una familia. Isaac habría preguntado qué significa correctamente y después habría hecho exactamente lo contrario de la respuesta.
Quizá no era amor.
Era otra cosa.
Limerencia.
Una palabra que todavía no conocían cuando comenzaron a enfermar de ella.
No significaba amar demasiado. Ésa era una forma bastante romántica de decirlo. Era permitir que una persona empezara a ocupar sitios que no le correspondían: el desayuno, el sueño, una canción, una calle, la manera de interpretar lo que alguien había dicho tres días antes. El objeto podía desaparecer y seguir organizando la vida.
Cada uno había encontrado una forma de desplazarla.
Tony hacia las imágenes.
Bernardo hacia los cuerpos.
Alejo hacia Dios.
Isaac hacia las historias.
Eso no los curaba.
Sólo hacía la enfermedad más interesante.
Samuel empieza a perder la fe cuando David comienza a creer.
Eso le parece una grosería.
Ha pasado la vida enseñando cosas que ahora escucha repetir a su sobrino con una convicción que ya no posee.
—¿Dios sabe lo que voy a hacer mañana?
David espera una respuesta.
Samuel mira el café.
—Supongo.
—Entonces ¿soy libre?
—Supongo también.
David frunce el ceño.
—Eso no puede ser.
Samuel sonríe.
—Bienvenido a la teología.
El muchacho no se ríe.
Ése es el problema de quienes empiezan a creer: todavía piensan que las preguntas religiosas merecen respuestas.
Samuel lo lleva a misa.
Le enseña a permanecer en silencio.
Le explica que rezar no consiste en producir pensamientos y que, a veces, la única oración honesta es quedarse sentado.
David aprende rápido.
Demasiado.
Samuel lo observa arrodillarse y siente una envidia pequeña, casi vergonzosa.
Hubo un tiempo en que él también creyó así.
París.
Calles abiertas.
Gas.
Piedras.
Marx.
Muchachos que gritaban que debajo del pavimento estaba la playa.
Samuel tenía entonces veinte años y estaba convencido de que la revolución y el amor eran dos nombres para una misma cosa.
Dormía poco.
Besaba hombres.
Iba a misa algunas mañanas.
No veía contradicción.
La contradicción llegó después, cuando otros empezaron a explicarle qué debía significar todo aquello.
César conserva fotografías de esos años.
No porque aparezca en ellas.
En la mayoría no.
Manifestaciones, barricadas, jóvenes corriendo, una muchacha subida sobre un automóvil, un policía inclinado como si fuera a vomitar.
Mira las imágenes durante horas.
No las interpreta.
Ha aprendido, bastante tarde, que algunas imágenes se defienden.
Uno cree que está mirando una manifestación y de pronto descubre a un muchacho, en un extremo, mirando directamente a la cámara.
Entonces cambia la dirección.
La fotografía deja de ser un documento sobre 1968.
El muchacho mira a César.
Eso basta.
César tiene otra obsesión.
El Big Bang.
—No es una explosión —dice.
Todo el mundo sabe que cuando comienza así habrá que escucharlo veinte minutos.
—Entonces no lo llames Big Bang.
—Yo no lo llamé.
—César.
—Es el aliento de Dios.
Ahí comienzan las protestas.
Él se divierte.
No intenta demostrar científicamente la existencia de Dios. Eso sería demasiado vulgar incluso para un sacerdote.
Le interesa la imagen.
Algo que no estaba respirando.
Después expansión.
Espacio.
Tiempo.
Materia.
Un universo entero como el pecho de alguien que acaba de aspirar por primera vez.
—¿Y cuándo exhala? —pregunta Samuel.
César lo mira.
Nunca había pensado en eso.
—Tal vez ahora.
Samuel se ríe.
—Eso sí es teología.
En el seminario, Isaac aprende otra cosa.
La tentación no desaparece porque uno la nombre.
Tampoco porque rece.
A veces rezar consigue volverla mucho más nítida.
Juan Manuel aparece en una página antes que en el corredor.
Eso será difícil de explicar después.
Isaac lo ha visto en La Virgen de los Peregrinos: un rostro, una pequeña ficha, suficiente información para saber que algo no está bien.
Después lo encuentra allí.
En carne.
Más delgado.
Más pálido.
Vivo.
Juan Manuel camina por el pasillo como si el cuerpo le pesara.
Isaac lo mira.
El otro levanta la cabeza.
Durante un segundo se reconocen sin haberse conocido.
Eso debería ser imposible.
Ninguno dice nada.
Juan Manuel pasa.
Isaac permanece quieto.
Aquella noche intenta rezar.
No puede.
No piensa exactamente en Juan Manuel.
Ésa es la mentira que se cuenta.
Piensa en la página.
Después en el rostro.
Después en la distancia entre ambos.
Una imagen primero.
Un cuerpo después.
Y algo que no sabe dónde colocar.
Entonces comprende que la tentación no siempre consiste en querer tocar.
A veces consiste en querer saber.
Por qué estaba en esa página.
Quién lo había puesto.
Por qué parecía enfermo.
Por qué lo había mirado como si también él hubiera visto a Isaac antes.
Isaac cierra los ojos.
La Virgen está en una reproducción frente a él.
No hace nada.
Eso empieza a incomodarlo.
Abre los ojos.
La imagen continúa allí.
Él la mira.
Después ocurre otra cosa.
No sabría decir cuándo.
Tal vez nunca ocurre realmente.
Isaac tiene la sensación de que ella lo está mirando a él.
No como una mujer.
Ni siquiera como una Virgen.
Como miran ciertos iconos: sin necesidad de parecer vivos.
Isaac baja la vista.
Samuel encuentra a David dormido sobre un libro.
Lo carga hasta la cama.
Pesa menos de lo que esperaba.
Lo cubre.
Durante un instante recuerda otro muchacho.
París.
Una habitación pequeña.
Una mañana después de una manifestación.
No recuerda ya el nombre.
Eso le produce más dolor que el recuerdo.
Había pensado durante años que olvidar era lo contrario de la limerencia.
Ahora sabe que no.
Uno puede olvidar el nombre y conservar exactamente el hueco.
Sale del cuarto.
En el corredor encuentra a César.
—¿Sigues con tu Big Bang?
—Dios sigue.
—Eso no responde.
César sonríe.
—Nunca responde.
Mira hacia la ventana.
Hace frío.
El cristal está empañado por dentro.
César acerca una mano y limpia un círculo.
Afuera no se ve casi nada.
—¿Sabes qué creo?
Samuel suspira.
—No.
—Que si Dios respira, nosotros somos lo que ocurre entre una respiración y la siguiente.
Samuel lo mira.
—Eso no significa absolutamente nada.
—Ya.
César parece satisfecho.
Siguen caminando.
En algún cuarto, Isaac intenta no pensar en Juan Manuel.
David duerme.
La Virgen mira desde una página.
Y algo que ninguno de ellos sabe todavía llamar por su nombre comienza a repetir el mismo movimiento.
Acercarse.
Alejarse.
Volver.
Como el universo.