SU QUIETUD
El doctor dijo: "Usted me pidió que le dijera
cuando no se pudiera hacer nada más.
Se lo digo ahora."
Mi padre estaba sentado,
casi inmóvil, como siempre, sin mover los ojos.
Yo supuse que se enfurecería al saber que moriría,
que agitaría los brazos, que gritaría.
Pero se quedó sentado,
limpio con su pijama limpio,
delgado, como un santo.
El doctor dijo: "Podemos hacer algunas cosas
para darle tiempo, pero no lo podemos curar."
Mi padre le dio las gracias.
Y se quedó sentado, quieto, solo,
digno como un rey extranjero.
Me senté a su lado. Ese era mi padre:
siempre supo que era mortal. En cambio, yo temí
que tuvieran que amarrarlo. Había olvidado
que siempre se quedaba así, aguantando,
en silencio, el alcohol un modo de callar.
No lo había conocido: mi padre tenía dignidad.
Al final de su vida, su vida
empezó a despertar en mí.
HIS STILLNESS
The doctor said to my father, “You asked me
to tell you when nothing more could be done.
That’s what I’m telling you now.” My father
sat quite still, as he always did,
especially not moving his eyes. I had thought
he would rave if he understood he would die,
wave his arms and cry out. He sat up,
thin, and clean, in his clean gown,
like a holy man. The doctor said,
“There are things we can do which might give you time,
but we cannot cure you.” My father said,
“Thank you.” And he sat, motionless, alone,
with the dignity of a foreign leader.
I sat beside him. This was my father.
He had known he was mortal. I had feared they would have to
tie him down. I had not remembered
he had always held still and kept quiet to bear things,
the liquor a way to keep still. I had not
known him. My father had dignity. At the
end of his life his life began
to wake in me.
ÚLTIMAS PALABRAS
Hace tres días, mis maletas estaban amontonadas
en un rincón de su habitación en el hospital.
Debía cogerlas por el cogote y dejarlo,
pero una vez tras otra volvía a apoyarlas,
desandaba mis pasos para besarlo
aunque su cansancio tuviera el brillo
de la plata oxidada.
No lograba cogerlas y marcharme,
cruzar ese umbral por última vez.
Volvía a sus labios, a la frente que alzaba
con esfuerzo, a sus ojos heridos, avergonzados,
hasta que por fin dijo ¡Último beso!
y lo besé y me fui. Esta mañana,
llamó su mujer para decir que ha dejado de hablar,
de modo que esas fueron sus últimas palabras para mí,
las que me deja-un beso-
una orden de clemencia,
sus agrietados labios de creador.
Para rogarme que me fuera
mi padre me pidió un beso.
No me hubiera ido de otro modo,
no te dejaré ir
hasta que clames por ello.
LAST WORDS
Three days ago, my suitcases
were hunched there, in his hospital room,
in the corner, I had to pick them up
by the scruff of their necks, and leave him. I kept
putting them down, and going back
to kiss him again although he was exhausted,
shining like tarnished silver, and yet
I could not seem to pick up those bags
and walk out the door the last time. I kept
going back to the mouth he would lift, his
forehead glittering with effort, his eyes
slewing back, shying, until
finally he cried out Last kiss!
and I kissed him and left. This morning, his wife
called to tell me he has ceased to speak,
so those are his last words to me,
the ones he is leaving me with--and it is ending with a kiss--
a command for mercy, the offer of his cracked
creator lips. To plead that I leave,
my father asked me for a kiss! I would not
leave till he had done so, I will not let thee go except thou beg for it.
SU OLOR
Durante sus últimos días de vida
quise encontrar un nombre para su olor: como levadura,
catalizador ocre alimentándose de líquido,
ingiriendo malta, excretando arrope,
fermento agrio, embriagador, exultante,
la bebida fuerte del sudor de mi padre.
Me inclinaba sobre la cama del hospital
y lo olía. Era cemento húmedo,
era acera de granito triturado, era cuarzo
y esquisto jurásico, o el olor agrio
del humidificador de cobre
lleno de humedad, era la puna, eran hilachas
ennegrecidas de tabaco; era el recuerdo del cloro
en el piso del vestuario de la piscina durante el verano;
el tenue olor a moho de la alfombra de su casa,
el esputo mordaz que huye de las fauces
nubladas de un borracho. Era también la cavidad
de un zapato de cuero, rancio,
mezcla de betún y medias ácidas:
en su olor, siempre, esa sensación
de mancha y la atracción de la mancha,
la armonía del aceite y el metal,
como si los mundos de la manufactura y de la industria
hubieran decidido usar su cuerpo
como glándula para sudar. El último día,
se alzó en su frente, una esfera de sudor
compacto, la tomé en mis labios.
Después de su último aliento, yacía ahí,
tendido de costado, inmóvil,
sin respirar, sin proferir sonido,
pero su olor era el mismo, ese olor viciado
fresco industrial doméstico varonil,
oscuro, reflejando puntos de luz.
Alguna vez pensé que al final
sería una palabra, una mirada, la presión
de su mano. Nunca, que él habría muerto
y que yo me inclinaría para olerlo,
respirándolo como se respira el aire,
profundamente, antes de partir hacia el exilio.
HIS SMELL
In the last days of my father’s life
I tried to name his smell-like yeast,
ochre catalyst feeding in liquid,
eating malt, excreting mush-
sour ferment, intoxicant, exultant, the
strong drink of my father’s sweat,
I bent down over the hospital bed
and smelled it. It smelled like wet cement,
a sidewalk of crushed granite, quartz,
and Jurassic shale, or the sour odor
of the hammered copper humidor
full of moist, bent, blackish
shreds of pipe tobacco; or the smelling-salts
tang of chlorine on the concrete floor of the
changing room at the pool in summer;
or the faint mold from the rug in his house
or the clouded pungence of the mouth and sputum
of a drinking man. And it was also the socket
of a man ’s leather shoe, acid with
polish and basic with stale socks-
always, in his smell, the sense
of stain and the attraction of the stain,
the harmony of oil and metal,
as if the life of manufacture and
industry were using his body
as a gland for their sweat. On the last day,
it rose on his forehead, a compound disc
of sweat, I brought it off on my lips.
After his last breath, he lay there
tilted on his side, not moving,
not breathing, making no sound,
but he smelled the same, that fresh tainted
industrial domestic male smell,
dark, reflecting points of light.
I had thought the last thing
between us would be a word, a look, a pressure
of touch, not that he would be dead
and I would be bending over him
smelling him, breathing him in
as you would breathe the air,
deeply, before going into exile.
 |
| ph Brian Palmer |
Sharon Olds
(EE.UU., San Francisco, 1942)
de The Father, New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1998
en El padre, (edición bilingüe) Bartleby Editores, 2004
Traducción de Mori Ponsowy
para leer más en: HUELLAS EN LA CIÉNAGA
y MÁS
