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Authors: Alejandro Zambra
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watching us.
But we soon forgot God. We dismissed him as one more character from the stories of our childhood. We didnât want to be like our parents. We wanted, at most, to have puppies, kittens, and tortoises, even parrots, although the wish to have something as nasty as a parrot has always been incomprehensible to me. We wanted to be children without children, which was the way to remain children forever and thus to blame our parents for everything. What we received when you were born was a little animal that was too alive, and also an excuse, the perfect alibi, a mantra, a multipurpose sentence:
I have a son.
I was never so motivated as in those first years to ask for raises, to avoid unnecessary commitments, to stop smoking and drinking so much or to smoke and drink like crazy, because in our language the phrase
I have a son
meant, in a not-so-tacit way,
I have a problem
. I must admit I knew perfectly well how to add seductive nuances to that phrase:
I have a son
meant, in some cases,
Iâm a serious man, I havelived, Iâm responsible, I have a history, so go to bed with me
. And the next morning, if I didnât want to stay, or want her to stay for breakfast:
Sorry, I have to go, you have to go, I have a son
.
Except for those videos your mother got it into her head to show youâI donât know whether for better or worseâI understand you donât have any memory of our life when the three of us were together. When you were seven years old you told me that some of your classmates lived with their father and mother and you thought that was boring, because they only had one house. At the time I laughed, I wanted to interpret it literally, but I know there was pain there, a recrimination, though maybe an unconscious one. But in the end, almost all of your classmates had divorced parents. And even so I feel that the abyss separating you and me is deeper and more irrevocable than the abyss that always separates children from their parents.
__________
We never told you why we separated. Iâm going to tell you now. The reason for our separation was Cosmo. Yes, Cosmo. Itâs a sad story. You have to understand that we were going to separate anyway; for years weâd been looking for reasons, and of course if you hadnât been born we would have separated much earlier. That afternoon I was furious with you but also unsure: you were barely three years old but you were very self-determined, and when you saw that poor abandoned puppy in the garbage bin on the corner, you picked him up and went right on walking. I told you we couldnât keep him, but there was no way to make you understand. I was amazed that there was no cryingâyou were a crier but you didnât cry then, which in some way revealed to me that you existed, that I couldnât fool you anymore. You stroked the dog and named him Cosmo, and as we walked home Ifelt overpowered. I can think of no other word: overpowered. I understood while we were walking that right then a struggle was beginning, and it was one I would lose a thousand times: the struggle that perhaps now, with these words, Iâm definitively losing.
I opened the door convinced, willing to respect your decision, and at first your mother agreed. But that night, after some hours of false harmony, the escalation of mutual accusations began, until finally she said:
We already have one
. I asked how she could possibly talk about you as a pet. She went quiet, and I think I felt the fanfare of triumph, but then, after arguing about many other things that I donât remember, when weâd already accepted that we would keep Cosmo, I was the one who said exactly the same words, meaning the same thing:
we already have one
.
Neither your mother nor I were talking about you. We were talking about you, but only to hurt each other through you. We competed for the scepter of who loved you more. For years we had agreed that we did not agree. And that night I
But we soon forgot God. We dismissed him as one more character from the stories of our childhood. We didnât want to be like our parents. We wanted, at most, to have puppies, kittens, and tortoises, even parrots, although the wish to have something as nasty as a parrot has always been incomprehensible to me. We wanted to be children without children, which was the way to remain children forever and thus to blame our parents for everything. What we received when you were born was a little animal that was too alive, and also an excuse, the perfect alibi, a mantra, a multipurpose sentence:
I have a son.
I was never so motivated as in those first years to ask for raises, to avoid unnecessary commitments, to stop smoking and drinking so much or to smoke and drink like crazy, because in our language the phrase
I have a son
meant, in a not-so-tacit way,
I have a problem
. I must admit I knew perfectly well how to add seductive nuances to that phrase:
I have a son
meant, in some cases,
Iâm a serious man, I havelived, Iâm responsible, I have a history, so go to bed with me
. And the next morning, if I didnât want to stay, or want her to stay for breakfast:
Sorry, I have to go, you have to go, I have a son
.
Except for those videos your mother got it into her head to show youâI donât know whether for better or worseâI understand you donât have any memory of our life when the three of us were together. When you were seven years old you told me that some of your classmates lived with their father and mother and you thought that was boring, because they only had one house. At the time I laughed, I wanted to interpret it literally, but I know there was pain there, a recrimination, though maybe an unconscious one. But in the end, almost all of your classmates had divorced parents. And even so I feel that the abyss separating you and me is deeper and more irrevocable than the abyss that always separates children from their parents.
__________
We never told you why we separated. Iâm going to tell you now. The reason for our separation was Cosmo. Yes, Cosmo. Itâs a sad story. You have to understand that we were going to separate anyway; for years weâd been looking for reasons, and of course if you hadnât been born we would have separated much earlier. That afternoon I was furious with you but also unsure: you were barely three years old but you were very self-determined, and when you saw that poor abandoned puppy in the garbage bin on the corner, you picked him up and went right on walking. I told you we couldnât keep him, but there was no way to make you understand. I was amazed that there was no cryingâyou were a crier but you didnât cry then, which in some way revealed to me that you existed, that I couldnât fool you anymore. You stroked the dog and named him Cosmo, and as we walked home Ifelt overpowered. I can think of no other word: overpowered. I understood while we were walking that right then a struggle was beginning, and it was one I would lose a thousand times: the struggle that perhaps now, with these words, Iâm definitively losing.
I opened the door convinced, willing to respect your decision, and at first your mother agreed. But that night, after some hours of false harmony, the escalation of mutual accusations began, until finally she said:
We already have one
. I asked how she could possibly talk about you as a pet. She went quiet, and I think I felt the fanfare of triumph, but then, after arguing about many other things that I donât remember, when weâd already accepted that we would keep Cosmo, I was the one who said exactly the same words, meaning the same thing:
we already have one
.
Neither your mother nor I were talking about you. We were talking about you, but only to hurt each other through you. We competed for the scepter of who loved you more. For years we had agreed that we did not agree. And that night I
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