João Agapito escreve em inglês. O seu conto "Between the Cracks of Knowledge", foi incluido na prestigiosa "Oberon's 95: Canadian Best Stories."
Mas que seja o autor a dizer-nos quem é:

"Although my parents were originally from the Alentejo,  I was born in Lisbon in 1968. In 1973, my parents were able to leave for work in Ireland, and then moved to London, England. My two sisters and I joined them there in 1974, and that is where we grew up. In 1991, I took a position as a radiation therapist in Toronto, and fell in love with Canada. I became a Canadian citizen in 1996. I met Carol (now my wife) in Toronto. We have a son (Benjamin), and our second baby is due in early March. We now live in Sydney, Nova Scotia. I began writing seriously when I arrived in Toronto. Finding time to write is difficult. Or rather, finding the mental space to write, is difficult. My heart is split in too many directions. I have written perhaps only a dozen stories and non fiction pieces. But, from time to time, I simply have to write something. I become distracted and cranky. At these times, Carol forces me to lock myself up in a room to get things out of my system and into the page."

Between the Cracks of Knowledge

Nuno sits on the doorstep of number seventeen. The April sunshine falls on his exposed legs warming him. The warmth is welcome. The stone he sits on drains his body of heat. The sun, himself, and the stone are in symbiosis. But Nuno does not know this, until a breeze blows up from the river downtown and raises hairs on his legs and arms. He shivers - the breeze?- and looks for his sisters who sat him there. "Fica aqui." Stay here. And here he sits. This is no burden for Nuno, as it might be for another boy. He sits and watches the people pass him by.

Black Luis passes and tips his wide hat at Nuno. He wears always the same clothes. He continues down the street to his pile of dusty cobblestones. The sidewalks of Lisbon are a myriad of small, cuboidal stones. Some white, some a deep, deep azure. Little piles of these can be found at various street corners waiting for someone to come along and slot them into crumbling sections of the city's sidewalks. It is an art, for the azure and white ultimately connect to create images which glorify the city: a fifteenth century Galleon; a silhouette of King Henry the Navigator or Vasco de Gama. It seems funny to Nuno that it is always a black man that can be seen doing this work, or mixing concrete, or digging trenches. Luis squats by the rubble and hammers at the stones, singing to himself in a language from far away.

Dona Virginia, who lives next door, smiles at him briefly on her way down to the fish market to inspect the day's catch. Undoubtedly, she will settle for cheap salted cod. Bacalhau. The large quantities of this fish found in the North Atlantic make it cheap. It is 1974. She always smiles at him this way, a tear in each eye. An emotional woman, ever since her son was killed in the colonies. Angola or Mozambique? Nuno can not remember, but he would not, in any case, imagine there is any difference between two African countries. Africa is Africa. A continent of savages where brave Portuguese soldiers die in an endeavour to bring God to pagans. Nuno knows this from his school books. He imagines himself surrounded by near-naked figures who will cook him in a pot if he does not escape. The idea there might be a city in Africa does not once enter his head. Only snakes, lions, oversized trees with large and flat leaves.

And so he sits and dreams. His mind a fertile ground of adventure. Many days pass, it seems to him, in his imagination. And all the while he sits on the stone door step a little way down from his house on Rua de Bela Vista. Another shiver. The breeze?

"Bom dia."

"Bom dia."

Nuno looks up at the man. The sight hurts his eyes. The sky is a deep blue with flecks of white. The sun is clear and burning white, just above the man's head. The effect is a curious one, producing what looks almost like a halo. The contrast is painful. He struggles but can not make out any features, and lowers his head. Nuno stands, thinking the man must live here, at number seventeen.

"Nao, nao. Senta-te." No, no. Sit down. And the man promptly joins Nuno on the doorstep. His face is visible now. Only his skin and shirt are white. Perhaps he is in mourning. His wide-brimmed hat, his tie, his coat and trousers and shoes. All black. His hair. His eyes that stare through spectacles. His mustache.

"Como estas?"

"Bem obrigado." Nuno does not remember this man. But he is used to being known by people he does not remember. Most adults look alike to him. He tolerates them. The hand on the top of his head, like patting a dog; Dona Virginia's smile; the pulling at his face as though it was made of rubber. The man is asking him what he is doing. Nuno shrugs.

"Just watching the world go by?" the man says. "Well, why not, that's what I spent my whole life doing. What else can we do?" And he turns to the street, "we are only what we see."

*****

Nuno's father washes the oil from his hands. He soaps and soaps, but ten hours of changing oil and filling tanks at Denis-Freitas is difficult to wash away. In the end he compromises, and leaves prints on the towel. He twists the tap and the whining of pipes subsides. His family awaits him, seated at the kitchen table. They see him for about an hour a day. He kisses his wife and sits himself at the light, plastic-topped table. He looks at his family. His wife, his daughters...

"O Nuno aonde esta?"

There is a great screeching of chair leg on kitchen floor as everyone jumps into motion. The girls are first away, their cutlery crashing to the ground. Their father follows close behind. It is debatable whether he hopes to catch them or just keep up. They're not waiting to find out. Their mother is left alone, having slipped to the cold kitchen floor. Her breathing comes clipped and sharp. One hand on her forehead, the other propping herself up, down amongst the knives and forks.

Feet slapping stone. An old woman comes out to her varanda, and leans out high above Nuno's head. The crunching sound of confused running bears down on Nuno. It is dark now, and he has taken to watching the sky for shooting stars.

"Nuno!" And he is relieved, the stone step has become uncomfortable. He sees his father running towards him. He has never seen this before.

"Estas bem filho?" Are you well son?

Nuno shrugs, "Estou frio." I'm cold.

"Where have you been?" Victoria screams.

"Here, where you said to wait."

"All this time?" hisses Ruth in disbelief. She has seen the look on her father's face.

"I was talking to someone."

"Who?"

"Uma pessoa." A person. He says at a loss.

*****

Their mutual daydreaming becomes a routine. Nuno's sisters continue to leave him there while they go off to play alone or with other neighbourhood girls - singing English songs they've heard and don't understand. They keep a better eye on him now. And yet, they never seem to notice the person. Sometimes, the man brings a wad of white rumpled paper sheets and a pencil. As he sits on the doorstep by Nuno, he can be seen jotting down notes from time to time. Nuno scan's his face as he writes. He sees now the face is marked. The scars of a childhood illness have left his skin bumpy.

"What are you writing?" Immediately he regrets his presumption. Children should speak only when spoken to. But the man smiles at him.

"Something which will never be read." And then he continues, not to Nuno, but for the sake of saying what he needs to say. "They have ignored me thirty nine years, but soon - soon I will be perfect for them. They will use what I have written, but will conveniently forget certain parts: such as the Portuguese need for authority, for instance. They will disturb my very bones for their own end. They will make a statue of me, here in Lisbon. They will build me an institute to glorify my works, which they have never read. They will use me to justify their actions. They know even stupid peasants do not trust them. But a poet - ah, every Portuguese loves a poet." Then awakening, he sees Nuno. "You ask me what I write, my little friend. Well it all depends on who's reading, you see?"

*****

At home. The two-tone television. Harold Wilson is being congratulated as the new Prime Minister of Great Britain. The reporter is discussing the election as it progressed. (Foreign news is rare, but this is, after all, Portugal's oldest ally.)

"Who is our Prime Minister?" asks Nuno, struggling with the unfamiliar words.

"Marcelo Caetano." His father says sadly.

"He must be very popular to win the election?"

"Yes, and before him was the most popular Prime Minister of all time - Salazar. He was so popular he ruled for thirty six years. We are very lucky to have such fine men in Portugal." But his father no longer seems to be talking to him, and it scares Nuno.

*****

Nuno knows that if he gets up and walks to the crossing at the bottom of the road, he can look up and see O Castelo de Sao Jorge. Watching the city. But knowing this somehow makes it suddenly pointless to actually perform the act of going. He can see the castle in his mind. He can do better - he can see Sao Jorge himself, on horseback, fighting the black Knight. At a window in a high tower, a princess, with hair that floats gently in the wind down to the ground, watching in torment.

"What are you writing about today?"

"The same as always, I hope - the truth."

Nuno thinks for a long time.

"How do you know the truth? You must be very clever?"

"The truths are within us, Nuno" the man smiles, "it is just that we must be willing to sit and fish within ourselves for them."

Nuno turns away back into the street. Not completely convinced. But he promptly arches his arms out, as though sending out a reel.

"Assim?" Like this?

"Yes!" Laughing.

*****

"And what did you and your imaginary friend do today?" sneers Victoria.

"We went fishing."

"What? Of all the idiot brothers in the world we had to get the worst!"

"And what did you catch?" adds Ruth,

"You wouldn't understand." He says haughtily, but then spoils the effect by kicking her in the shin and running home.

*****

When he has fought in the jungle and become a hero, perhaps he will come back and be stationed here, near his father's house. Just a few minutes walk from here is the barracks of the National Republican Guard. He will stand guard outside in the sunshine, wearing regulation green sunglasses. His medals will catch the light and pierce the vision of the passers-by. His father would be proud of him, surely. And yet, his father never speaks to him about the army, or Africa.

"Have you been to Africa?" Nuno asks, bringing the man home from another world.

"Why, yes."

"You fought there? Which regiment?" Excited.

"No, I went to school there. In Durban."

"A school in the jungle?" Confused. Disappointed.

"Well," the man smiles, "yes - in a way."

"That's very strange."

"Yes it is Nuno." And the man drifts away from him again, staring at the people passing. With his long legs, Nuno wonders how none of these people seem to trip on him. And no one seems to know him. No one acknowledges him. This embarrasses Nuno, so he does not mention it. Instead he stares at the man who seems oblivious. He is slight, though tall. Not an imposing figure. In fact, he seems hardly there at all. His frame seems to rattle inside his clothes when he moves, as now, when he reaches for his right side and groans.

"Are you ill?"

"Strange isn't it?" The man says, "Everything is taken away from me, but the last pain still remains." He stands, grimacing and walks away.

*****

His father has an old friend still in the army. Nuno likes it when he comes to dinner. Usually he will let Nuno wear his beret, or sunglasses, transporting Nuno far away.

But the last time he visited was different. He seemed nervous. He and Nuno's Father disappeared for a long time into the bedroom.

Nuno creeps up to the bedroom door. He stops, listening, hoping to hear of battles in Africa.

"I had better not come again."

A pause, then: "You return to the barracks at Pontinha?"

A nod? A shake of the head?

"I hope the call will come soon. God willing there will soon be an end to this fascist madness."

*****

From time to time the man takes a brilliant white handkerchief from his pocket to dab underneath his hat. The black suit absorbs the sunlight admirably. The heat enters him through his clothes and leaves through the pores of his skin.

"Are you well, Senhor?"

"Oh yes, Nuno. Nothing will stop me now, of course. Not even revolutions," he laughs looking around, but no one seems to hear, "and yet, if only poetry came as easily as perspiration."

"Have you written many poems?"

"Too many according to some. Too few for others. But this - this will never be read." And indeed, Nuno spies, and the paper is still blank though he has been writing for some time today.

Later, he sees the man has left the handkerchief. It is of very fine cotton, and in a corner is: Ibis.

*****

"Where are your sisters today?"

"Probably down by the corner where that boy sells the newspapers. The one they giggle about, at night sometimes."

And then: "My sisters say I dream too much."

"No, no do not let them stop you. To dream is to live. We only live that we may dream of other lives. It is good to think of being someone else, somewhere else - they are better lives and places, for not being us, and here."

Nuno smiles, not knowing quite why. Then he guiltily reaches in his pocket and hands the man back his handkerchief.

"Thank you, Nuno. I thought I had lost it. My mother gave it to me."

"What is Ibis?"

"A bird." He says slowly, as though this is but one of the possible answers. Then, seeing the dissatisfaction in the boy's face - the sinking eyebrows, the slanting eyes, "Never mind. There are some things we can not know: facts that slip between the cracks of knowledge. It is better that way. It adds to the mystery." And in an attempt to animate Nuno, he hands him a 10 Escudo note. "It's your birthday tomorrow isn't it? April 25th?"

"Si." Nuno mouths, amazed. He has never had a bank note before.

"Well, I had better go now Nuno. My time is up. Do not leave your house tomorrow. It will not be safe."

"Obrigado!" But when he looks up the man is gone. He doesn't think to wonder at how the man knew of his birthday. He seems to know everything. He does not even wonder that the man went in through the door without making a sound, at number seventeen, Rua de Bela Vista.

*****

"Where did you get this?"

"He gave it to me. For my birthday."

"Meu deus! If he hasn't gone and sold the handkerchief! We told you to give it back to that man, not sell it!" Screams his mother.

Father looks at Mother. "Dez Escudos from 1924, but crisp as lettuce." He says, tugging the money between two hands. "Give it back to him tomorrow, son." Troubled.

"But..."

*****

Nuno's parent's are talking. 12:25am, Nuno's birthday.

"They took Manuel last night."

"The police? Why?"

"I don't know. Something he said. Something someone said he said. You know how it is."

"Meu deus."

"We'll watch for whoever suddenly has money to buy a TV or a fridge."

"Yes."

"Sometimes, it is a blessing to be poor, Emma."

They try to laugh. In a corner of their room, the radio crackles and spits with a mans voice.

"Do you think this time?"

"Se deus quiser." God willing.

The radio falls quiet abruptly, and they follow its cue. Then the scratchy spitting of a record bursts forth, and Nuno hears his father turn the radio lower. Straining, he can just make out the song:

"Grandola Vila Morena,

The radio dies.

"Ja comecou." It has begun.

Later, Nuno thinks he hears the squeaking of heavy, rusty metal wheels-on-tracks-on-cobblestones. He thinks he recognises the sounds from military parades he has seen. In his mind he sees the tanks slipping down the Rua de Bela Vista. But it could be a dream.