The Dreamseller_ The Calling - Augusto Cury [37]
Gradually, the dreamseller acquired more disciples, each more interesting than the last. The swallows were learning to fly within a system that threatened to clip their wings. But we also learned not to make grand plans for the future. The future didn’t belong to us. Life was a celebration, even though the wine always eventually ran out.
We learned to kiss old people and feel the markings of time. We learned to pay attention to children and delight in their innocence. We learned to talk to beggars and journey through their incredible worlds. Priests, nuns, pastors, Muslims, Buddhists, would-be suicides, depressives, neurotics . . . there were so many beautiful and interesting people around us who were ignored by society.
I was starting to develop a new sensitivity to others, an empathy. Even though my pridefulness was dormant, it wasn’t yet dead. I recalled action films I had seen. How many countless extras were killed in movies, faceless people who, in the real world, had entire life stories, complete with fear and love, bravery and cowardice. To the dreamseller, there were no extras in society. He praised the poor, calling them to be his closest friends. He cared deeply for those who lived at society’s margins.
Just when I thought my sensitivity was at its height, one of those supporting actors came into my life and made me see that I was still only just a beginner. We were on Kennedy Avenue when we saw a young man of about twenty, close to six feet tall, curly hair, dark skin. His name was Solomon Salles. He had these wild gestures that made even children flinch. He would wink uncontrollably and move his neck restlessly, flexing his trapezius muscles. Before going through a door he would jump three times, believing that if he skipped the routine even once, someone in his family would die. He had severe obsessive-compulsive disorder.
Besides all these bizarre compulsive rituals, the oddest thing of all was that Solomon couldn’t see a hole, whether in walls, the ground or furniture, without feeling the urge to stick his right index finger into it. As we were watching him, he was crouching, sticking his finger in various small openings in the sidewalk.
Passersby made fun of him. To tell the truth, we couldn’t hold back either, though we tried to disguise our laughter. We thought we’d finally found someone more messed up than any of us. But the dreamseller was upset at our reactions.
“Is this young man more fragile than we are, or stronger?” he asked us pointedly. “What price does he pay for having to live with his tics in public? Is he weak or gifted with unusual courage? I don’t know about you, but beyond a doubt he’s a stronger man than me.”
We fell silent, but he went on:
“How often do you think this young man has felt he was in the center ring of a circus, as he is now? How many sleepless nights has he spent thinking about the laughter of others? How many times has he felt the white-hot sting of prejudice?” And so we would truly feel the burn of our discrimination, he concluded, “Criticism injures a person, but prejudice annihilates him.”
Whenever the dreamseller analyzed one of us, he stripped us, leaving us “naked.” I discovered that people like me, who always defended human rights, are grossly prejudiced in some areas, even if this barbarity is subtly manifested in a hypocritical smile or in indifferent silence. We’re worse than vampires. We kill without extracting blood. He continued:
“If you want to sell the dream of unity, you have to perceive the suffering of others. You have to learn to dry the tears never shed, the anguish never verbalized, the fears hidden below an impassive face. The ones who don’t develop such characteristics will have traces of psychopathy even if they live in unsuspecting settings, like the temples of universities or the temples of business, politics or religion. They’ll pressure, wound, coerce, without feeling