A dialogue in four parts

Things weren’t supposed to be like this. It’s truly a disgrace, a crime against Humanity and God, for we are desecrating the gifts that were given to our care. We were so lucky, my Mary and I. My parents were able to afford sending me to school, the middle son of a family of 13, and after some gruelling years of medical school I was able to come back to my small village to become the first permanent doctor in a 25km radius. Best decision I ever made, as not only was I respected by everyone, but it also allowed me to meet my wife. I wouldn’t have been able to marry her if not for my job, as I brought very little else to the table, maybe my wits and honesty, and she had a considerable dowry. And throughout the years, she ended up inheriting even more.

Managing our possessions became a job almost as demanding as being a doctor. And truth be told, money is only good insofar as you can make it serve you, and not the other way around. I never wanted more, only caring for what I already had. But God has a funny sense of humour, and kept giving us more. By the time I died, we had 10 times as much as when we got married. Between what we produced on the farms, and the felling of trees from all the forest we owned, we made enough money to pay our 12 full time workers, this plus the 50 sharecroppers we had taking care of the lands I couldn’t attend to on a regular basis. I could afford to offer decent sanitation and roofs to those who lived around us, as well as those who rented from us - the poor souls deserved it. Even after death, I feel unworthy of all the fortunes that we were given, but at least I know I did my best.

Of course, our three sons went to college. Our first-born, chose engineering and ended up being the lead engineer in a dam in a remote land, part of our country’s colonial possessions; the second, our little girl, studied philosophy and became a teacher; the third, again a son, poor thing, chose law and he wasn’t even good at it. Bless their souls, for like me they aren’t between the living anymore. And I guess this is part of the problem. I want to think that if they’ve had more time, things could’ve turned out differently. Not that they’ve died young, all of them over 75, by that time you are kind of supposed to have your affairs in order, maybe not between your progeny, but at least with your parents and siblings for sure.

Maybe it was something I’d done, or maybe it was the world that really changed. When I was born, we travelled by horse when we wanted to go fast; when I died, you could board a plane to cross the ocean in the morning and arrive in time for an early dinner. This seems to make a world of difference. The telegraph and the telephone too. Don’t get me started on the TV, that thing seems like it came straight from hell, always something happening, there’s no peace watching it. At least the radio left something to your imagination, but the TV is all-encompassing. Probably it was me who couldn’t get on with the times. Even as a doctor, you noticed it: the diseases got stranger and more varied, as did the medicines, and I can now see that those two were not unrelated, it’s all so obvious now. In any case, it’s clearly my fault. There’s no other explanation, I failed as a father. Forgive me for that.

It’s not a surprise that things turned out like this. You have to understand that it’s not easy being the first-born son of a great man. That’s what my father was, and it was undeniable. And seems like everyone around me was constantly reminding me of that while I was growing up. But I shouldn’t complain, as my parents gave me pretty much every possibility, and my life was quite good still. Maybe I wasn’t a good man, but for sure I was successful.

I can only say good things about my childhood, I think. Maybe if things were harder I would’ve turned out differently, but it all came naturally to me. In school I always did well, in church I always knew what verses to say by heart, and I was usually a calm and collected kid. You could also say that I tried to help my siblings: while I was still around, I stood up when some kids were messing with Augustine - we all know he’s just a functional dimwit, and sometimes people take advantage of that, and my sister Elise, what a joy of girl she was, and it’s truly unfortunate that she ended up marrying that vicious man, but what could my parents do, she was already 35 when she finally got a suitor, and even if he was only after the money she would have, I agree with my parents that it was the right thing to do.

I ended up having to go away, because I couldn’t stand to be in his shadow, but I also had to come back because I loved my family too much. A very good and profitable position as a lead engineer for a big project in our colonies was everything I could dream of, as I loved to build things, and we’d bring a huge boon to that area. The conditions were also quite prosperous: my wife and four kids never lacked anything, we had a housemaid living with us, and there was a community of all the other mainland Portuguese living there with us. It was honestly close to perfect: the air was clean, there was no crime, everything worked orderly, it was a picture perfect, calm life. I knew that this wasn’t forever, since not only the position was going to stop existing once everything was up and running, but I also didn’t want to stay there for too long - Africa can be a really strange place sometimes.

Now, in hindsight, there was every signal that things would turn sour. Too much of a good thing and all that. I do fear that, with my children having known no real adversity in their formative years, plus all the increase in comfort that was afforded by the progress we felt after the war, something didn’t fully form in their heads, either physically or spiritually, people nowadays talk about the underdevelopment of the pre-frontal lobe or something like that, but maybe it was just spiritual rot. Truth is, whenever they had a difficulty in life, they’d turn to me to solve it, instead of enduring adversity and, hopefully, coming out stronger. At times there was a clear notion that I was but an ATM with arms and legs. I could’ve said no, of course, but felt strangely bad whenever I tried to do it. I never got used to it, maybe because my parents never really did it with me, but then again, I rarely asked them for anything.

It’s probably easier to blame myself, but we can’t ignore the times. We were lucky enough to return back to the mainland before the revolution, which was kind of providential, and we avoided so many troubles, as I knew some people who got back only after the regime change and their life took a hit so big that it never fully recovered. But even then, what happened in the years that followed was no joke. As I came back, I did so with the implicit agreement that I’d take over the management of our possessions, which meant replacing my father. My work was cut out for me, as everything was running along smoothly, which pretty much meant that the best I could do was to just keep everything as it was, or just fail miserably. And seems like fail miserably I did.

For one, there was the fact that the relationship with our sharecroppers, or should I say tenants, because they’re not called sharecroppers anymore, in any case that relationship soured considerably through the years I was managing them. People kept expecting more investment on our end, while simultaneously reducing the amount they’d give to us. Everything became purely monetary, there was no more sharing. And don’t get me started on what happened in our farm, as with the revolution there was a sudden development of class consciousness, and apparently I was suddenly the bad guy in the picture, the one that was exploiting everyone. My father was the most respected man in town, and I apparently became the villain, even though we had the exact same role, and even similar modes of action. But none of that mattered, for it seemed like I was destined to fail.

Much thought was given to whom was supposed to come after me, and how the farm should be brought into modern times. I talked this through with my wife, but due to her disease she wasn’t able to give me the anchoring I needed, as her mania and depression phases made her mood swing wildly, and whenever she took the goddamned lithium that ultimately killed her, she became neither maniac nor depressed, she just ceased to be for a few hours. I tried to talk this through with my sons, but they were more interested in a lifestyle that was as far as possible from the farm as possible. Only my daughters took an interest in the farm, but I didn’t really trust them. I also didn’t trust any of my nephews and nieces, for it was clear that they took after the worse parts of their parents. So I just stopped thinking about the future, and concentrated on making things run as well as I could. And that was my fatal mistake, because then the disease came.

What a damned thing, to slowly lose control over your mind and body. You don’t really notice it, only the confusion that sets in when, little by little, things make less and less sense, as in how did I get here, or where is my car, or who is this person that’s talking to me like they know me, or why can’t I grab this pen. And once that reality sets in, it’s too late, and it was too late for me by then, not only because of the disease, but because everything around me was already going exactly the opposite way from what I wanted. My kids were fighting because of the inheritance, but not a single one really wanted to continue the legacy this family had built for generations, the fight was over who got the biggest piece of the pie so that they could then sell it to the highest bidder.

Where did it all go wrong? That’s what, even after my death, I keep asking myself. But I’m not sure if I’ll ever be able to answer that.

Ah, yes, family, that nebulous thing that everyone likes to preach, but you rarely see in practice, and to be be frank I couldn’t give a rat’s ass about it anymore. It’s quite clear that my blood relations are out to get me and what’s rightfully mine, all you need to do is to look at it from a detached, rational point of view. I know that nowadays this seems too big an ask, given how everyone is all about feelings and stuff, but I beg, use your head for a minute here, will you.

Imagine that you were born in a rich family, but in a time where this doesn’t take you that far anymore. Like, my uncle, who was a dimwit, was able to get a very cushy job in the local government just because he was the son of a rich landowner and could read and write at a decent level, this doesn’t exist anymore, we’re supposed to be living in a meritocratic and democratic society, one where people are judged by their merits and not by how many surnames they have. You’re supposed to be your own man now, make a name for yourself, it’s a dog eat dog world out there, even if my father and grandfather seem to think that the bucolic life of a landowner is enough.

Let me tell you, it’s not. Sure, I was able to attend a good university, and never really lacked for anything, but let us not forget that I lived in the middle of nowhere until I was pretty much an adult and to be denied access to all the advancements that you see happening in the big city, it’s certainly a pain and trauma that’s really hard to overcome. I was able to eventually do it, but it wasn’t easy, I had to lie and cheat to prove that I could belong to the new elite. There was no more power to be had with the life they had, and my family didn’t see it coming, no wonder it’s all ruined now.

After my grandparents died, my father should’ve just cashed in and moved to the city. He definitely shouldn’t have returned to the farm, all it caused was a complete drain of his energy and resources, and for what, all his employees hated him, all the tenants did as well, and by the end he had very little to show for it except for the headaches and an orchard of a semi-exotic fruit that, it turns out, it was just a pit of money he had to fill every year. Being a farmer in the XXI century, are you kidding me? He could’ve become the head engineer of any firm in the region, and yet all he wanted was to continue on the steps of his father. Poor soul, no wonder he got dementia.

There’s no denying, the world changed and with it you had to change as well if you didn’t want to be left behind, can you imagine what people would say if the son and grandson of the most powerful man in the area were to be left behind because he had no ambition, because he clung to the stupid precepts of the past, that he probably had a mental handicap just like his uncle, can you imagine having all the opportunities in the world and just coming back to this backwater?

So I left as soon as I could, and never looked back, and would come only if I couldn’t avoid it, either because there was some familial function I had to attend, or I needed to ask something from my parents, which unfortunately I had to, because being an elite in a big city isn’t easy, most of my money is tied in the stock market and sometimes I need liquidity, and selling shares when they’re down is not a successful strategy, and usually means you lost. I never lose, that’s just the naked reality, and it’s not like my father needs the money anyway, better for him to give it to one of his progeny than to invest it in the fields that will yield nothing but produce that he will have to sell for cheap.

Of course that once the dreaded hour came, and we had to divide the estate after his death, there was nothing that could convince my brothers and sisters of the reality that the countryside was done and dusted, that there were no plans that we could implement to improve the situation, and we should just cut our losses and sell to the highest bidder. I did my darned best just to convince them, but it seemed like it was all for naught. We fought a lot, and it took a long time. And to make matters worse, after my father got incapacitated, instead of just firing all his employees and closing the orchard, my nephew decided that it was a good idea to continue with the farm.

I can’t understand what goes on in the head of that kid, but seems clear that it was all part of a plan to deny me of what’s rightfully mine and prolong this state of affairs that benefits no one and hurts me. Because that seems to be the ultimate goal of this family, to do things just to hamper my life.

No wonder things got to this point.

It’s all so strange, and not even hindsight can help here. You’d think that wanting to help your family would be a good deed, but no good deed goes unpunished, right? How is it possible to see those that sacrificed themselves for you needing help, and not helping, seems like either your soul was dead and cold or, and maybe even worse, rotten to the core. And yet this is what I saw around me, I could see everything falling apart, but that was not the worst part, as things have their life and they decay and die, the worse part was seeing people that should be helping actively trying to make it decay faster.

I can very clearly imagine my ancestors thinking about where it all went wrong, and bless their souls, I don’t think anyone could have predicted that it would’ve turned out like this, as the conditions for the decay and eventual fall of what was built by them depended on conditions changing so much, and so fast, that it would be almost impossible to predict it, and even if they did, it would be even harder to counteract those changes. Ultimately, the world was different, and with it so were the people, and when that happens there’s very little point in trying to fight it. If there’s anything I’d have done differently, it would certainly be to not try and fight it as hard as I did, because it’s clear now that was not the right course of action.

The process of building something takes generations, but the process of tearing it down can be done in a few years, and what happened is proof of that. And we can try and find blame in a lot of factors, that the world changed, that people changed, that relationships changed, values changed, this or that changed. But all of it is idle talk, because ultimately what matters is what you can do in the face of the existing conditions.

We might all wonder how it got to this point, and if we lack imagination, maybe not wonder but just be somewhat disconcerted, but in any case it seems like all of us refuse to face the reality, that it got to this point because we let it. And this is the bold faced lie I told myself on and on, that I was doing it all for others when clearly I was doing it for other reasons, either ego or wanting to please or needing validation or something like that. I wasn’t honest, and for that reason alone I must atone. I wished for things to be different, tried to will it into existence, and was successful for a while, but just like a river always runs up to the sea, so did my attempt. I’m glad things got to this point, because otherwise I wouldn’t have learned this: be honest with yourself, and everything else will fall into place.