Trilogy Antonio López Ortega
I HAVE THREE SONS by three different men. The first was a Kurd in the resistance
living in exile in Paris; the second was a Belgian from Antwerp, a functionary in his
country’s embassy; the third was a Chilean painter who had his studio in the Place d’
Italie. I had relationships with all three while I was still a young student in France.
I have raised my sons with passion. Since my return to Caracas, my mother has had
to make space for me in her house in San Bernardino. The boys run around and play
in the garden. They are three brothers with three different last names; there have
been certain difficulties when it was time to enroll them in school.
Each one inherited a different trait from his father: the oldest, the green eyes and
height of the Kurd; the middle one, the straight hair and the indifference of the
Belgian; the third, the distant self-absorption of the Chilean. I like this variety, this
symphony. It’s like having my past fresh, running around the house; it’s like having
all the variety concentrated in one place.
Strengths and weaknesses accompany me; also the good and the bad moments.
Some days are happy (the birthdays, the day trips) and others truly wretched (the
recurrent nightmares of the littlest one). The boys develop without ghosts and I
have tried to make paternity a remote idea compared to my mother’s warm house.
I see each one’s face and I think I am seeing each of their fathers. They are
interwoven sequels: the encounters in the cafés, the parties, the parks, the trips to
the movies, the museums. They were distinct worlds: from the lurking danger of the
Kurd (a true paranoid who couldn’t meet me in a café without constantly looking in
every direction), passing through the Belgian’s diplomatic coolness, ending in the
Chilean’s romantic passion, always jumping from his canvases to my body or vice
versa. All of that richness runs through me from head to tail and, upon
remembering, I tremble, I long for the past.
My sons have grown up without any great traumas and I can say that now they are
young men. What a shame that with such a great variety no man wants me now.
Occasionally I go out on a date with one or another but I have learned to omit any
reference to my sons. Each day the boys spend more time with my mother and less
time with me. I know that they’ll be fine at home. Taking them anywhere is a
problem in the agitated life of these times. I have begun to travel with a few friends,
I have met other men. Only this time I have taken care not to leave any traces.
Translated by Nathan Budoff