Purgatory Read Online Free PDF Page A

duplicitous sentence many times. Couples regularly say things to each other that are hypocritical or clichéd. Though it was true that as she said the words she did love Simón, her love felt irrelevant. Her overriding feeling was one of uncertainty, as though the whole world were drawing away from her, as though nothing – no substance, no smell, no scene – would ever be as it had been before.
    ‘Actually, let’s not listen to “Michelle” again,’ she said, ‘it makes me sad.’
    ‘Are you sad?’
    ‘No, what makes you think that? It’s the song that’s sad.’
    There was a comedy on television. Simón said maybe if they took their minds off things, focused on something else, they might get back to the way they felt before they were married. Might even forget that they were alone. He turned off the music and turned on the television. On the screen, a pale comedian was sitting on the floor of a cage on a pile of straw, wearing a black leotard through which his pitifully thin chest and his protruding ribs were clearly visible. From nearby cages came wild shrieks and roars. The comedian was obviously the only visible exhibit in a zoo – and clearly the least interesting, since people sneered, walked past his cage not even stopping to look at him, eager to see the lions or the monkeys. As the cage grew dark and light again, the sign outside changed to indicate the number of days the man had been fasting: 35 days, 40 days , and so on.
    Simón explained to Emilia that this was a comic version of Kafka’s short story ‘A Hunger Artist’. Every time the lights came up, fewer and fewer people stopped to look at the hunger artist. Visitors walked straight past his enclosure to look at the animals on either side. ‘Let me out of here!’ the actor screamed. ‘Stop torturing me!’ The screen faded to black and the words ‘ 62 days later ’ appeared to the sound of canned laughter. Simón, who remembered the story, told Emilia that in Kafka’s version, the artist is proud of his record-breaking fasts and his main reason for staying in the cage is that he does not really like eating. Curiously, this version was even more Kafkaesque. On day 73, a guard came over and peered into the cage, poking the damp pile of straw with a stick looking for the comedian. Unable to see him, the attendant pressed his ear to the cage. A childlike, almost inaudible voice from the straw screamed, ‘Get me out of here! I’m disappearing!’ There was another burst of canned laughter. Eventually, a truck pulled up towing a wagon in which a restless panther was prowling. ‘There’s an empty cage here,’ the driver says. ‘Get it cleaned out, we’ve got a panther we need to house.’ Some people in the audience started shouting, ‘You can’t put a panther in that cage! There’s a starving man in there!’ while others yelled, ‘Go on, put him in the cage! Let him eat the bastard!’ Hands on his hips, the truck driver said, ‘Where is this hunger artist then? I want to see him!’ He threw open the cage, took a pitchfork and began sifting through the straw on the dirty floor. The camera zoomed in on a tiny heap of straw and the actor appeared, no bigger than an ant, screaming, ‘Don’t stamp on me!’ his voice so shrill, so faint, that only the microphone could pick it up. ‘Don’t trample me! I’m one of the disappeared!’ The sketch ended with a close-up of the sole of a shoe hovering menacingly over the actor as the audience applauded, roaring with laughter.
    The sketch left them feeling even more depressed. They decided to sleep in separate rooms and kissed each other goodnight without passion. In the morning they were due to take the 10 a.m. flight to Recife for a two-week cruise down the Brazilian coast – a wedding present from Emilia’s father.
    They had been on the cruise for several days when, over breakfast, they heard that the actor in the sketch had issued an unqualified apology to the viewers and the