A casa é sua

Dear Ece,
Dear readers of the ERB,

I’m writing this letter on my way back from Brazil. I was there to celebrate the eightieth birthday of my host father; the father of the Brazilian family I spent a year with as an eighteen-year-old, more than thirty years ago. There are a million good reasons to go to Brazil, but to be invited to a party is one of the best. It was, as always, as if we met yesterday, in an instant I was hugged back into the fold, my home away from home. The occasion brought together Brazilians from the north and the south of the country, old and young, people from all kinds of backgrounds — the birthday boy is a very kind, funny and generous man. There was enough food to last us a week and I’ve never seen so many octogenarians dance to live music with such gusto and grace. A dream party.

But all is not well in Brazil — it hasn’t been for some time. All throughout the festa I wondered, is Nation of Strangers translated into Portuguese yet? It would speak to everyone present at that happy occasion, and many more who weren’t there, as it did to me when I read it. In the days before the party, my host mother had driven me around Juiz de Fora to show me the impact of the torrential rains that hit the city last February. Orange strips of mud scar the hills, and houses higher up teeter on the brink of collapse. Almost seventy people died and hundreds lost their homes, or are not allowed to go back because their houses are no longer standing on solid ground. Several streets have been inaccessible for months now, and on other roads you can’t be sure a sinkhole isn’t waiting to open up and swallow passersby, cars or — worst case scenario — entire buildings.

My host mother kept pointing left and right, and I was struck by the mix of frustration and resignation I heard in her voice, a feeling stretching beyond this particular calamity. « Who is responsible? Why isn’t anyone doing anything about it? Another disaster like this is just a matter of time! » (People are mourning in the future tense, as Ece writes.) She didn’t seem to expect an answer anymore, and she’s not the only one. Frustration simmers underneath a semblance of normality: life goes on and you find ways to deal with « inconveniences ». Unheimlich comes to mind, the word Philippe Huneman mentioned in his answer to Ece’s letter. Things are not as they seem. In this case: your city may still look like your city, albeit damaged, but you sense the threat lurking underneath. How do you dance when the ground is shifting beneath your feet and you can’t be sure you and your loved ones won’t disappear in a sinkhole, literally and figuratively?

The family that took me in so many years ago taught me the true meaning of the Brazilian expression a casa é sua, the house is yours. No need to ask for every piece of fruit I took or to say thank you every time for their endless generosity. A casa é sua is about permission to relax, counting on your own basic sense of propriety and politeness, but without the constricting formalities and pressure some social relationships impose. I don’t think any of us in the family (and, yes, I consider myself part of the family) is ever under the illusion we will some day completely understand each other, either in Portuguese or without words. But we know we were (and are) always affectionately curious about each other, and will forgive awkward blunderings in advance in order to get as close as possible.

The elections of 2018 threatened the foundation of Brazil’s young democracy and blew the roof off the house of my family. For the first time since the end of the dictatorship, an extreme-right candidate won the presidential elections, Jair Bolsonaro. Suddenly my beloved and tightly knit Brazilian father, mother, brother and sister became strangers to each other. How can a father vote for a president who is violently homophobic, knowing his own son is gay? How do you keep the conversation and love going after that?

« Do you still have faith in words? Or, like any true believer, do you have doubts? » Ece asks in her letter. Faith in words as a means to bridge the chasm between political views, between individuals, between cultures? I admit to having my doubts from time to time. Is my belief in books, and in writing and reading — always stressing the importance of precision and attention — maybe an excuse for not getting my hands dirty, for not doing the hard work, out there, in the arena? I sometimes wonder.

You and I, Ece, we know each other in English, our common language, though our relationship to English is very different. You had to make English your own after you decided not to return to Turkey, in order to survive as a writer. That’s no mean feat, English being a language that is so wildly un-Turkish. English, the frenemy. For me, from a very young age, English was always the language in which I spoke and thought more freely than in my own mother tongue. It was the language that allowed me to experiment with who I was and could be. English, the playmate. How well can we then truly know or understand each other in a language we each experience so differently: empowering versus enriching, a clunky harness versus a magic mantle, a way to survive versus a way to escape and relax? I think we’re managing fine. More than fine, in fact, we are more attuned to one another, having to take into account that what we say or write doesn’t necessarily exactly convey what we think or experience. Every word comes with a shadow of nuances, « trailing a glorious cloud of connotations » as Homer translator Emily Wilson puts it, informed by our respective backgrounds. That glorious cloud, of course, hangs over a conversation or a correspondence in one’s mother tongue as well. In order to make « a language home » for all of us, the unhomed, as you suggest, we need not only words but also a mental space where these words can be unpacked, looked at from several angles and be questioned in order for us to understand each other better.

This is an election year in Brazil. As in 2018 and 2022, there is in all likelihood a Bolsonaro on the ballot (Flavio Bolsonaro, son of Jair), challenging president Lula da Silva. (Though at the time of writing, the election is still months away — a long time in politics.) Not much seems to have changed since 2018. Both sides have their loyal supporters. The frenzy around the first Bolsonaro bid and reign seems to have worn off (slightly); positions are known and have hardened. No surprises this time around. People know (or think they know) what they will get with either candidate. It will most likely be the roughly twenty percent undeclared voters in the middle who will decide the result in October. Two visions of Brazil, two ideas of what it means to be home and who, as a consequence, may end up feeling politically « unhomed ».

My Brazilian family has found a way to keep talking and hold each other close. Affectionate curiosity won the day. The blundering space was widened, always leaving a way back home. Instead of judging, questioning and explaining. Instead of breaking apart, looking for what remains common ground. The chasm was bridged, the roof of the house was restored, with words, yes, but also through dancing. For now.