Saudade as Second Language
Kimi K2 (0711) and GLM 4.5 Base
saudade
saudade
for Mishka
My fathers hábito was telling stories to pass the time. Thats what he told the Inquisitor-men who came to our door one morning wearing serious leather masks and holding heavy wooden clubs. Qué clase de historias? asked one, his voice low and creamy. Stories about home, mi amor. About a home you have never known. In Portugal, there is a word in their language: saudade. It is the love that remains after someone is gone. Saudade is the story you tell yourself of a place you cannot recall.
Saudade. Saudade.
It leaks from the corners of your soul. It bubbles up from the ground. A word for someone you do not remember, a story for a lover never had, sadness for a period of time that has already passed. Saudade is my fathers história.
He began to tell them them about a place he had never been, remembering things he had never seen. The Inquisitor-men stared, their mouths hanging agape as my fathers hábito painted pictures on the floorboards, of castles on cliffsides, ships in port, wine-dark fields, and a boy, alone in the world, with a heavy marble chopping block in place of a corazón. But my father had never been to Portugal. And we had never had a home.
Goosebumps ran up the spine of their leader. Dark spots formed in the centers of their palms. We will let you go this time, Jew, he said. But Portugal is not your home. You must leave Mexico. It is not your home either.
And so we left Israel, and we left Spain, and we left Portugal, and we left Brazil, and we left Mexico. But my fathers hábito forgot Cuba.◆ About the ending
❧ About the title