The Voice of Lower Village

Hoarse

Rouco

On the morning of the final, Thinley Wangdi woke up and no longer had a voice.

Na manhã da grande final, Thinley Wangdi acordou sem voz.

He did not notice at once. He lay under the woollen blanket, listening to the roosters of Lower Village contradict one another, and thought what he had thought for thirty-one years on the last day of the tournament: today. Then he cleared his throat to try out the first verse of the day, and what came out of his chest was a sound like someone pushing a door across gravel.

Ele não percebeu de imediato. Ficou deitado sob o cobertor de lã, ouvindo os galos de Unterdorf se contradizerem e pensando o que pensava havia trinta e um anos no último dia do torneio: hoje. Então pigarreou para testar o primeiro verso do dia, e de seu peito saiu um som que parecia o de uma porta sendo arrastada sobre cascalho.

He tried again, louder. Only air came out, dry and warm, and a scratching that pulled all the way up into his ears. For three days, in the quarter-final and the semi-final, he had shouted his mocking verses across the field, a hundred and forty metres, against the wind and against the cowbells, and in October the nights in the valley were already cold. That was the bill. He was sixty-three, a retired postman, and the only thing Lower Village had ever needed from him was precisely this organ.

Tentou de novo, mais alto. Saiu apenas ar, seco e morno, e uma ardência que subiu até os ouvidos. Durante três dias, nas quartas e nas semifinais, ele havia gritado seus versos de zombaria pelo campo, a cento e quarenta metros de distância, contra o vento e contra os sinos das vacas, e as noites de outubro no vale já eram frias. Essa era a conta que chegava. Ele tinha sessenta e três anos, era carteiro aposentado, e a única coisa de que Unterdorf precisara dele a vida inteira fora exatamente aquele órgão.

He sat up, took the little slate from the shelf above the bed, on which the shopping list usually stood, and wrote: NOT TODAY. Then he looked at the words and wiped them off with his sleeve. Dechen had written the best verses, back then, at the kitchen table, and he had only shouted them. Since she had died four years ago he wrote them himself, and they had not got worse, but they came out of a head in which it was quieter.

Ele se sentou na cama, pegou da prateleira a pequena lousa de ardósia onde costumava anotar as compras e escreveu: HOJE NÃO. Depois olhou para aquelas palavras e as apagou com a manga. Dechen costumava escrever os melhores versos, na época, à mesa da cozinha, e ele apenas os gritava. Desde que ela morrera, quatro anos antes, ele próprio os escrevia; não ficavam piores, mas vinham de uma cabeça onde havia mais silêncio.

“Grandfather?” Choden stood in the doorway, nineteen years old, in the grey jacket of the telephone company that was paying for the final this year, a lanyard around her neck saying EVENT TEAM. In her semester break she lugged cables and loudspeakers for the company, and she had a gift for walking into any room as if she had been expected. “You look as if you had received a letter addressed to yourself.”

“Vovô?” Choden estava parada à porta, com seus dezenove anos, vestindo a jaqueta cinza da empresa de telefonia que patrocinava a final naquele ano e com um crachá no pescoço onde se lia EQUIPE DO EVENTO. Nas férias da faculdade, ela carregava cabos e alto-falantes para a firma, e tinha o dom de entrar em qualquer cômodo como se todos estivessem à espera dela. “Você parece alguém que acabou de receber uma carta de si mesmo.”

He pointed to his throat and shook his head.

Ele apontou para o pescoço e balançou a cabeça.

“No,” she said. “No, no, no. Today?”

“Não”, disse ela. “Não, não, não. Logo hoje?”

He nodded.

Ele assentiu.

“Say something.”

“Fala alguma coisa.”

He opened his mouth. The door on the gravel came out, and Choden pressed her lips together so as not to laugh, and laughed all the same, and then she stopped, because she saw his face.

Ele abriu a boca. A porta raspando no cascalho se fez ouvir, e Choden apertou os lábios para não rir, mas acabou rindo mesmo assim; em seguida parou, porque viu a expressão no rosto dele.