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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

30

30

The book Catalina lent me is called Classifying the Thousand Longest Rivers in the World. Boetti and his wife, Annie Marie Sauzeau, took seven years to complete the project, and the book was published in 1977. The rivers contained within its red covers are ordered from longest to shortest. It begins with the Nile-Kagera, which is 6,671 kilometres in length. Some rivers meet along the way, like characters, and others, like pedestrians in different cities, never cross paths. It ends with the Agusan River, which is 384 kilometres long. All the rivers flow into the sea.

Rivers have a source, a life, a youth, an old age. Some have longer trajectories than others; some are abruptly cut off, while others follow a peaceful path to the end. The book only classifies the longest rivers. A grey box describes each one: its name, where it begins, where it ends and how long it is. Footnotes at the bottom of each page give the sources consulted, along with other measurements. Comparing one river to another, you see how slight the differences are in their lengths. In other words, it’s obviously impossible to classify them exactly. That desire to classify them, like the desire to write accurately about the past, is based on a fiction. The book of rivers is like a silent novel. The trajectories are so similar despite being in different places, and yet the rivers, ordered from biggest to smallest, lie side by side. Impossibly side by side. They may not all meet along the way, but all the rivers are part of the same book.

Do stories, like rivers, all flow into the same place?

After the first sentences spoken by the woman on the radio, I parked so I could listen to her properly. I cried. I went and walked around a nearby park, I sat down by a tree. I cried for my parents, I cried for them both. I cried when I relived the accident and when I relived the nights that followed. I remembered the hell, the sweat, the smell. I cried for those nights when it seemed as if everything was beginning again. I cried for Ana’s death. I cried because Jonás wasn’t with me. I cried for that woman’s story, for the situation she’s in, which is the situation we’re all in. I cried for the situation as a whole and maybe I also cried for the day I was born.

I wonder if stories can be classified like rivers, from biggest to smallest. I also wonder if, in that case, stories could be part of the same book. Passages placed impossibly side by side. So they make another story.

It’s a good thing you’re coming back tonight, Jonás. The black cat and I want night to fall so you’ll arrive. What a strange life we lead day to day, and what a good thing you’ll be here soon.