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Back Loop Save as PDF
Chapters (33)
  1. Loop
  2. 1
  3. 2
  4. 3
  5. 4
  6. 5
  7. 6
  8. 7
  9. 8
  10. 9
  11. 10
  12. 11
  13. 12
  14. 13
  15. 14
  16. 15
  17. 16
  18. 17
  19. 18
  20. 19
  21. 20
  22. 21
  23. 22
  24. 23
  25. 24
  26. 25
  27. 26
  28. 27
  29. 28
  30. 29
  31. 30
  32. A note on the text
  33. Copyright

I remember Jonás describing one of his last afternoons with his mother. She asked him to work out a Beatles song on the piano. Jonás isn’t good at working out music by ear. He told me they were listening to the same song over and over again until he could figure out the beginning. ‘Night fell. There was a power cut, it was a really weird moment. As if the electricity going was a sign that she’d be gone soon too. Yeah. I couldn’t see her, but I could hear her. She was lighting candles in the kitchen, humming the part that came next, the part I couldn’t work out on the piano, kind of helping me.’

One Saturday, not long after we moved in together, Jonás went for a run in the park. Completely unexpectedly, he heard the song he’d been trying to work out on the piano that afternoon. He took his headphones out and started crying right there in the park. The first time he’d cried since Ana’s death. He came home. After a while, leaning against the fridge, he told me what had happened: ‘Crazy, right? It’s only hit me now that my mum’s not here any more. Don’t you realise, darling? She’s not here. My mum’s gone.’ He described that afternoon to me in detail, one of his last afternoons with his mother. By the end we were both in tears.

My mum, so as not to cry, so as to dispel that memory, to shake off that moment at which she’d felt so loved at the age of sixteen, described her shock when, not long after getting married, while listening to the radio in that little cream-coloured car they used to have, she heard the news that John Lennon had been killed.

16

16

I was left with a scar. I think telling stories is a way of putting a scar into words. Since not all blows or falls leave marks, the words are there, ready to be put together in different ways, anywhere, anytime, in response to any fall, however serious or slight.

17

17

We don’t have a TV, but we do have a neighbour who takes it upon herself to share the evening news with us all at full blast. Through the wall, I learn that ninety-five per cent of cases involving murdered journalists are unresolved.

Are we getting closer or are we getting further away?

I had dinner with Julia. Calmly, while eating a salad, she said that we usually want something and think we’re heading towards it, when really we’re walking in the opposite direction. I think it’s a powerful claim. Could it be what’s happening to this country? Could it be what’s happening to me?

Am I getting closer or am I getting further away?