I Shall Commit Suicide Another Time

Can you guess when I first thought of suicide? When I spotted the central tower of the main cathedral in the center of Cluj, a northern city in Romania. I was a student there for one year, when I was 19-20 years old. Daring construction, I said to myself. Back then I knew nothing neither about the centuries taken to build up large cathedrals, nor about the angels at Chartres, nor about the fight Gaudi undertook in his work. And that very moment a man looked me in the eyes, persistently, and it was as if someone said don’t do this…otherwise no one seemed to say something in my intimate life. He was one of those interesting men about whom you ask yourself if he is really taking a walk or he is about to meet another interesting person. The same as lonely men reading newspapers in the parks, under blossoming trees. These men usually wear hats. Today I feel I always was a boring person and no man could have invited me in his Shangri-La with an old fashioned piano and tea steaming in glassware. Vintage atmosphere over the green, green grass of home, that was my life. Like martini with pepper instead of lemon. Not only that my background was poor, but I was also fond of hats and of Barbey d’Aurevilly’s writings. After wandering through the city of Cluj in search of a free organ concerto, I entered a bookstore and bought me a Bible. I was so happy that I glued on the inside of the cover a few stamps with Raphael’s virgins.

When a suicidal person doesn’t want to bear her cross any longer, the gravediggers ring the bells, the mothers hit their children and almost everyone, bad or good, poor or high in spirit, make a fuss about it. It is already known that some are too preoccupied to hit the nail right into the coffin. For me life seemed sometimes locked in a box (a too vulgar comparison for an evolved intellect), but a transparent one. A kind of translucent wooden structure, not a glassy one. Not even a magician box. Therefore I found myself knocking on wood, even after my bedtime prayer. I never prayed for my enemies because I never believed I had enemies. But I admit the taste of life was still very tender when I used to say “forgive them Lord for they don’t know what they do”. It is written that angels don’t uplift suicides to heaven; I dare to be heretical and say that it isn’t so. Sometimes they raise them, other times they don’t. It depends on how much earth did the person carry on her back. An earthen sticky cross that growth like the moon on the back of a heavy loaded elephant. People don’t cry for suicides because they don’t forgive themselves. And I also dare to say: eppur non si muove. Why on earth did they proclaim the revolution of our wretched solar system? And from whom did Galilei took the ransom?

Just take me to the Cinematheque to relive the adventures of Cousteaud and his ship Calypso, to sail again with Onedin or with any other ark, anything but the Ship of fools or the Titanic. Don’t take me to the theater, because my inhibited histrionic spirit refuses to accept itself. And if I shall die don’t stick a stamp on my front, not even one with a virgin.

(In my ramblings in Cluj I was impressed by this statue of St. George killing the dragon, which was close to the University where I studied. I wanted to attend organ concertos for free in old churches, but I had no luck... The original of the statue is in Prague, but it was originally sculpted in the 14th century by two Romanian sculptors.)