Blood-drenched Beard

Okay then, but then why the resentment? Why be resentful if no one has any choice in anything? If we only obey fate, no one can be held responsible for their actions. Right? Everything I did, everything you did, and everything your brother did is all just destiny. There’s nothing to forgive because no one is to blame.

But that’s how it is. No one chooses anything, but we’re responsible anyway. That’s just how it is. I can’t explain why. I don’t have the words for it. Maybe you do.

I do, but what you’re saying doesn’t make sense. It’s absurd. Either there is free will, or there isn’t. If human beings are free agents, if we have choices, we are responsible for them. If there’s no free will, if the universe is predetermined by the laws of nature and everything is just the result of what has gone before, then no one is to blame for what they do. Neither resentment nor forgiveness makes any sense.

Wittgenstein.

Don’t give me that Wittgenstein crap! You know what I’m talking about. I know you’re more intelligent than you like to admit in your fits of woe-is-me.

So what are the two alternatives again?

Free will and determinism.

I don’t think it’s that simple.

There’s nothing simple about it.

What I mean is that both alternatives seem wrong. Or both are right at the same time. Two right answers to a wrong question.

Jesus Christ. What’s the right question, then?

I don’t know.

This is a replay of every maddening argument we’ve ever had. The topic changes, but the script is always the same. No one wins.

I know that there are no choices but that nevertheless we have to live as if there were. That’s all.

I think it’s my turn to say “Wittgenstein.” Am I allowed to?

That’s why forgiveness doesn’t make any sense. Forgiveness is cowardice. What takes courage is to keep on loving and having friendships and doing the right thing by others without pretending that you can erase things, without forgiving or accepting forgiveness. You said Dante’s upset because Dad killed himself. What for? I think what he did was fucked up, and I don’t forgive him for what he did, but he told me he had no choice but to kill himself, and now I understand that in a way he really didn’t. I’m not angry at anyone. Why would I be? He was good to us all until that moment. When we look back, it’s all inevitable.

Your dad told you he was going to kill himself?

He doesn’t answer and she covers her mouth with her hand.

Viv, no part of me is capable of forgiving my brother for what he did. It’s not that I want to but can’t. I don’t want to. It’d be

wrong. Deep down he didn’t choose to do it, just as no one chooses anything, but it doesn’t exempt him from the responsibility for inviting you there knowing that I couldn’t go, for having gone ahead with things. Nor does it exempt you from the responsibility for having gone and for leaving me for him. And I’m not exempted from my responsibility for letting you go, for not helping you to be happy, for having become the guy that you ended up having no choice but to leave. It all works together and is a part of our lives now. At some point you guys decided that your feelings for each other justified hurting my feelings. You didn’t decide out of choice, because you didn’t have a choice, but Porto Alegre wasn’t an option, I wasn’t an option, you guys were in love in São Paulo where everything is an option, but the decision is there, it exists in the world like a stone, like a knife, the decision is here, it exists now, it’s something that happened and had consequences like any decision, any gesture, anything you do or say, whether you believe it’s your own free will or not. You guys decided that the life you wanted to have together from that point on was more important than any mark that it might leave on me, and you went ahead with it. And it’s okay. I can put myself in your place. I don’t think I’d have done the same thing, but I can imagine it and understand it. But have the courage to stand by it now. I’ll love you forever, and I would still defend my brother’s life in any way I could if it were ever in danger. But I don’t want to see him, and I won’t be your child’s godfather.

I’m sorry for coming here.

She gets up and straightens her clothes.

You don’t need to leave.

Yes, I do.

But she doesn’t leave immediately. She stands there awhile, staring out of the window at the sunny ocean.

Viv.

You’re happy here, aren’t you?

Me? Yes. I think so.

I actually believe you. When they told me you’d come here, they said you were running away, or were traumatized by what your dad did. I tell everyone it’s not true. I must be the only person who gets that that’s not it. There’s nowhere else you’d rather be right now.

Maybe. I don’t know.