The Compagnia dell’Imbuto Confuso is performing “Becoming Anselmo / Defend Myself”

I cannot defend myself against what happens at the same time— her cry, her bending forward, letting herself fall— as I open the door at the end of the narrow corridor, formed by the gap between the right-hand wall (as seen from the floor-to-ceiling shop window) and the long side of the counter, leading into the dimly lit stairwell.

I see myself walking across the courtyard, holding my mother’s hand.

She tells me: one thing happens, the other you imagine.

I didn’t have the words— not the right ones— that could explain that I am here and there at once, in the midst of the funeral procession, at the head of which the musicians sway their bodies forward, far forward, then back again, just as far, their faces red, cheeks puffed, blowing into their instruments.

Two strike their drums, while the mourners who follow behind them mirror the same movements— forward, and back.

I, among them, under the burning sun, can smell them.

I have to close my eyes, hear the screech of trumpets, the slap of drumsticks on tin— and at the same time, I am holding my mother’s hand.

She says it’s impossible. At the same time, I lock the door behind me, step down the three steps to the covered gateway, open the small door set into the towering gate, cross the courtyard as my mother stretches out her arms— first toward me, then, in despair, toward the sky.

I unlock the cellar door and descend the steep stairs.

Now, I am beyond her reach.

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