Read Online The Faint-hearted Bolshevik by Lorenzo Silva - Free Book Online Page B

heterosexual pederasty (although there are some who maintain that Barrie swung both ways, I don’t believe so: just think about the nervous shiver Peter Pan feels when he discovers that Wendy has become a mother and compare that with the complete indifference he shows the boys). I also remembered Oscar Wilde, unparalleled apostle of the other kind of pederasty. It ought to give pause for thought that some of the most distinguished members of society figure among those who devote themselves to activities society considers appalling. The Greeks, to whom we Europeans owe the glorious inheritance of doubt that distinguishes us from backward peoples and savages (for example North America, Japan, etc.) were almost all sodomites or child molesters. Of course, it’s always been easier to burn at the stake those who do things that make their fellow citizens feel uneasy. Perhaps that is what every self-respecting ruler should do. But what might the irresponsible subject prefer to do?
    When I still enjoyed the idea of seeing the world, I took advantage of a summer holiday to go to Paris. There is a cemetery there called Père Lachaise, and that is where Oscar Wilde is buried. His tomb is an unbearably tacky affair funded by an admirer, but behind it there’s a shelf loaded with curious objects. They are mementoes left by visitors: stones, dried flowers, metro tickets, locks of hair, letters. Among the latter I discovered one which began: “Dear Oscar, Since you left us, things in England haven’t changed much … ” This was followed by the moving confession of the spiritual torments of a closet gay, an impressive filigree of exquisite feelings. After reading it I had a curious thought: Would anyone be the slightest bit moved by a letter left by a straight guy on the tomb of, for argument’s sake, one of the honourable members of the jury that condemned Oscar?

That day, and I didn’t realize until the end of the afternoon, when I went to Rosana’s school and nobody came out, was a Friday. In June, public schools don’t have classes in the afternoon, but in those where the wealthy pay fees (where they stow away their offspring for safe keeping far from their servants’ vulgar influence, while they go about their important business) Fridays are the only half day in the whole academic year. It must be because it’s increasingly common for the urban warrior to begin his weekend rest period on Friday afternoon.
    Fridays always throw me off center. Sometimes I end up going to one of those bars where you find affection-starved divorcés and divorcées. The kind of place where women give you their phone number the moment they tell you their name and always carry condoms in their handbags. For the most part it’s boring, but from time to time I’ve met some very sensitive people who simply feel lost in the midst of a mess that caught them off guard. Society has no pity for those who break down and fall through its cracks. Besides which, they’re forty years old and the men realize that their eyes aren’t crinkling the way Robert Mitchum’s do and the women that their butts aren’t quite as tight as Jane Fonda’s.
    Other times I feel less philosophical and head to one of those temples that resound with the rubbish that acts as a tom-tom for the spoiled brats who stuff themselves with pills then go out and kill themselves on the motorway crashing into some innocent father on his way home from the night shift. Once there I normally get drunk as quickly as possible while I pass the time watching spoiled little girls dancing, since there’s a well-known law of physics that determines that the density of their gray matter is inversely proportional to the length of their legs and the firmness of their tits.
    The number of long legged people around these days is incredible, in a country known for its short legged population. The number of blondes and Business Administration graduates is also amazing. They must have put something in