Liar's Lair

-Adiós. Demasiada memoria de Funes-Iván para ustedes. °Oh ! ¿Cómo se fabrica un poeta? Con astucia, dólares, decisión y mentiras.

Canto VII - Cantos Ivánicos
Iván Portela

I went to the Poet's house again yesterday. It has been several months since the last visit, but, strangely, time seems to warp in his tiny apartment on the fourth floor, surrounded by yellowing unpublished pages, and lamenting his lost youth. I wonder what it is that draws me there, as if a lost sheep wandering into the wolf's den.
I didn't go there to fall into the same pattern of abusive epithets and political debate, nor to laugh at the absurdity of our lengthy conversation full of fantastic and ultimately useless words. I didn't mean to let him get to me again, like the last time when I went running from the building, sobbing and furious, and lost myself in the woods. But he managed to creep under my skin once more and rile me, provoke an uneasiness without definitions, without the millions of words with which we toy like restless cats, to name it.
And it's not that the apartment is uncomfortable in and of itself, that is, the objects that occupy it don't necessarily lend themselves to threatening, but in conjunction with his presence , his wild eyes, the blood rising in heated argument, the walls of tomes seem to loom and make me feel every bit the child that I am.
I returned, perhaps in an attack of morbidity. I lose a bit of life every time, but still like a lamb to sacrifice I go, heart thumping in my chest as I edge towards the precipice - tempting myself to fly, to throw myself to wild abandon, to the savage wolves below that want to devour me, to rip me to pieces. I returned, and it was an encounter that, like the others, left me shaken and disturbed. The Poet is growing belligerent in his old age, and he takes it out on me, with his words. Just words, but oh, how they burn, like hydrochloric acid aimed at my face, beautiful, and vain as he always tells me. And why not?... But this time, this time it was different.
I am watching the smoke curl out in strands, the scent of copal, dark, sinister, seeping in thick bands from the carved basalt sphere. I watch the smoke intertwine, like braided ropes that evanesce into nothingness before me. I am not looking at him. I do not want to see his face, mustache twitching with glee as I squirm.
The Poet is a liar, and that infuriates me. He invents stories, people, places, events. He places himself in the center of a circle of literati and dramatis personae who all venerate him, who hang on his every utterance (just as I am inexplicably caught in rapt attention to his false accounts). It is all a lie. He is lonely and he recreates history to fill his days. I tell him that and he grows pale with rage. I don't know why I came; now I am trying to leave. A coffee mug crashes to the floor and shatters. Shards of porcelain are sent scattering and I wrench my arm from his grasp. We glare at each other. I am not coming back! He reaches out to caress my face. I flinch as if it were a raised fist instead of an open palm, and turn away casting my gaze to the window. What must it be like to live on this island of exile? The street below seems a million miles down, and I feel the walls closing in on me. I take a step towards the edge. He comes closer. I don't want to become what he is: a hermit, holed up in his tree-house, far from reality.
I slip out the door before he can wrap me up in another one of his many lives. They start to lose meaning. He doesn't remember if they are his words or the words of others, experiences lived by him or those vicarious, or poems he has written. They all become one long string of tales with the same termination. Him. And it dawns on me that I am one of his characters, right out of a novel that he has been working on for years, but has yet to edit. I stepped out of his pages and I have to return in order for him to perfect the image of me.
I don't want to be the child of the Poet. I won't let him reconfigure me to his liking. I step over the edge of the balcony and fall. While I am falling I feel light, like the smoke flowing from the greedy mouth of the apartment. Flames engulf the Poet's house and I see him watching me fall, falling...
I am the Poet. He makes me angry with his lies. He is lonely and I abhor him. He forgets my name. I haven't been back to visit since then. I wonder if he survived the fall. I didn't turn back to verify anything, in fact, I can't be sure that I survived the fire. I walk through the city of millions and no one looks me in the eyes, they don't seem to hear me - no one responds when I speak, but then, no one ever speaks to me. The Poet was my only friend. He would tell me stories and we would talk for hours about everything and nothing at all. Now there is emptiness, silence, stillness. No one saw me leave that day. They all fled like rats from the bonfire. There was nothing left of the books, of the unfinished manuscripts ,of the scores of poems. They all went up in smoke, along with the lies.
I haven't been back to where the Poet lived. It makes me a sad to think that I no longer have anyone to disagree with. I don't have an excuse for my outrage, yet it persists.
I see now that they are all liars. We are all liars. There is no truth left in the world, just empty words and blank pages to fill with more lies.



--- Ilana Dann


October 1998, Mexico, D.F.