‘Greed Is Greatly Overrated … But Fear Isn’t’

JEFFE Are you there, Counselor?

COUNSELOR Yes.

JEFFE I dont mean to upset you, but reflective men often find themselves at a certain remove from the realities of life. In any case, to prepare a place in our lives for the tragedies to come is an economy few wish to practice. Do you know the works of Antonio Machado?

COUNSELOR No. I know his name.

JEFFE A lovely poet. I think his work does not translate so well. But the spanish is very beautiful. He was a schoolteacher and he married a very beautiful young girl whom he had loved very much. And she died. And so he became a great poet.

COUNSELOR I’m not going to become a great poet.

JEFFE Perhaps not. But even were you to do so, it would be of little help to you. Machado would have given every line he wrote for one more hour with his beloved. There is no rule of exchange here, you see. Grief transcends every value. A man would give whole nations to lift it from his heart. And yet with it you can buy nothing.

Silence. The counselor holds his wrist to his forehand, his eyes closed.

JEFFE When my son was lost to me I would not pray for that which I should fervently have wished for. I could not.

COUNSELOR A speedy death.

JEFFE I’m sorry.

COUNSELOR Why are you telling me this?

JEFFE Because you stand at that crossing of which we spoke. You may dedicate your life to grief or not. The choice is yours. The assassin would claim you as well, but he will require your compliance. And of course he puts nothing of himself at hazard. He seeks to know what the warrior knows, but he has no stomach for the warrior’s way. He is a usurper and a pimp. And as he is without courage he is greatly to be feared. He would explore that realm to which we are all consigned, but his way is to send an emissary. To bring his victim to the edge of the precipice with the greatest care and then lean to inquire if there be any news. Some word amid the sobbing. Amid the bleeding and the cries and the terror. Not even in the act of love will be the object of such solicitude and such care.

COUNSELOR Why are you telling me this?

JEFFE Because you cannot accept the reality of your life.

COUNSELOR Why do you care?

JEFFE Do you love your wife so completely that would take her place upon the wheel? Not die for her. That is easy. But that your nerve would not fail you as they bend to buckle the straps?

COUNSELOR Yes. Yes, damn you.

Silence.

JEFFE That is good to hear, Counselor.

COUNSELOR What are you saying? Are you saying that this is possible?

JEFFE No. It is not possible. Sí. Un cafecito. Por favor. Negro. Negro, sí. Gracias. I’m sorry, Counselor.

COUNSELOR You said that I was that man. At that crossing.

JEFFE Yes. At the understanding that life will not take you back. I have no wish to paint the world in colors more somber than those it wears, but as the world gives way to darkness it becomes more and more difficult to dismiss the understanding that the world is in fact oneself. It is a thing which you have created, no more, no less. And when you cease to be so will the world. There will be other worlds. Of course. But they are the worlds of other men and your understanding of them was never more than an illusion anyway. Your world – the only one that matters – will be gone. And it will never come again. The extinction of all reality is a concept no resignation can encompass. Until annihilation comes. And all grand ideas are seen for what they are. And now I must go. I have calls to make, and then, if there is time, I will take a little nap.

The phone rings of.

Cormac McCarthy – The Counselor 2013 Picador

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