democracy, yet the accused I dealt with hadn’t committed thefts, frauds, homicides, or any other crimes appearing in the penal code, they’d committed the crime of thinking differently from how the state thought, and they’d expressed their thoughts in public, or in private, perhaps because they’d talked about it with a cousin, or a brother-in-law, and those people had reported it to the state police. He paused, and meanwhile the waiter had arrived with our orders, but I’d changed my mind, I preferred a coffee, an Italian espresso, there are occasions, rare occasions, when you must be wide awake, I thought of the Italian proverb, the sleeping man won’t catch the fish, and asked him if he knew the saying, perhaps there was a similar version in his country, and he clearly did, if you don’t sleep tonight, you’ll catch a strange fish, he said smiling, a dog with a bitten tail, better make a joke of it, that way I won’t turn too dramatic, I’ll tell you about a dog whose tail was bitten.
The breeze had died down suddenly, leaving a clear night, on the promenade a small group passed singing “Cielito lindo,” in the morning we’d watched a Mexican movie, it wouldn’t win, the director and actors knew it, it was a simple and heartfelt movie, the kind that doesn’t win awards in important festivals, maybe some refined critic will talk about it. They’ve understood and are playing along, I said. Back then I too was playing along in some way, he said, but you play along even if it’s rigged, because you hope one day to draw the winning card, this is the perversity of the vicious circle, it’s like Achilles and the turtle, on paper the turtle wins the race, the logic is tight, but the truth is that Achilles is Achilles and you are the turtle, forgive me the zoological digressions, I’ve moved on from dogs to turtles, and the thing is that at the trial we’d begin from the same point, and the turtle in theory could arrive before Achilles, and the finish line would be the acquittal of the accused, but that finish line would never arrive for the turtle, my run consisted in trudging painfully after the fleet-footed one so he wouldn’t cross the line too many meters ahead of me, the race was his anyway, let’s say I had to be satisfied with centimeters, I was working with centimeters, I don’t know if I’m being clear, I’ll put it in an equation: one centimeter, one year less in a labor camp, two centimeters, two years less, and so on, sometimes you had to be satisfied even with millimeters, I’d try to nibble away at a few millimeters, two or three months less in jail can mean a great deal to a man, for example: my defendant had absolutely no intention of undermining state security, it’s true the books found in his apartment were published in France, though I did point out tothis venerable court that they’re about the French Revolution, which, as we know, put an end to absolute monarchy: things of this kind, and the prosecuting attorney never did voice any objection, or interrogate, or question, anyway the race had already been won from the start, the sentence was already set, the judges needed only a few minutes in a fake meeting in the council chamber to read a slip of paper they already had in their pockets, yet how solemn they were as they listened to my closing address, my speeches asking for clemency or claiming the right to think, depending on which millimeters I was nibbling away at, at the moment.
He made a sweeping with his hand as if to say enough, picked up his cigarettes and lighter from the table, put a banknote on the bill plate. I don’t want to bother you further, he said in a low voice, you’re tired, and this is a stale story. And at that point, I did something inappropriate, too intimate for our having just met, I stopped him, gripping his arm. We can’t let this story be swallowed by the night, I said, please. I was losing myself in all the details, he said, sorry, I’ll try to
The breeze had died down suddenly, leaving a clear night, on the promenade a small group passed singing “Cielito lindo,” in the morning we’d watched a Mexican movie, it wouldn’t win, the director and actors knew it, it was a simple and heartfelt movie, the kind that doesn’t win awards in important festivals, maybe some refined critic will talk about it. They’ve understood and are playing along, I said. Back then I too was playing along in some way, he said, but you play along even if it’s rigged, because you hope one day to draw the winning card, this is the perversity of the vicious circle, it’s like Achilles and the turtle, on paper the turtle wins the race, the logic is tight, but the truth is that Achilles is Achilles and you are the turtle, forgive me the zoological digressions, I’ve moved on from dogs to turtles, and the thing is that at the trial we’d begin from the same point, and the turtle in theory could arrive before Achilles, and the finish line would be the acquittal of the accused, but that finish line would never arrive for the turtle, my run consisted in trudging painfully after the fleet-footed one so he wouldn’t cross the line too many meters ahead of me, the race was his anyway, let’s say I had to be satisfied with centimeters, I was working with centimeters, I don’t know if I’m being clear, I’ll put it in an equation: one centimeter, one year less in a labor camp, two centimeters, two years less, and so on, sometimes you had to be satisfied even with millimeters, I’d try to nibble away at a few millimeters, two or three months less in jail can mean a great deal to a man, for example: my defendant had absolutely no intention of undermining state security, it’s true the books found in his apartment were published in France, though I did point out tothis venerable court that they’re about the French Revolution, which, as we know, put an end to absolute monarchy: things of this kind, and the prosecuting attorney never did voice any objection, or interrogate, or question, anyway the race had already been won from the start, the sentence was already set, the judges needed only a few minutes in a fake meeting in the council chamber to read a slip of paper they already had in their pockets, yet how solemn they were as they listened to my closing address, my speeches asking for clemency or claiming the right to think, depending on which millimeters I was nibbling away at, at the moment.
He made a sweeping with his hand as if to say enough, picked up his cigarettes and lighter from the table, put a banknote on the bill plate. I don’t want to bother you further, he said in a low voice, you’re tired, and this is a stale story. And at that point, I did something inappropriate, too intimate for our having just met, I stopped him, gripping his arm. We can’t let this story be swallowed by the night, I said, please. I was losing myself in all the details, he said, sorry, I’ll try to
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