By FLAVIO AGUIAR*
In Berlin the letter “Z” is under suspicion
Libertas
What will be tamen.
I read, with some astonishment, but not much,
Given the times we live in,
That in Berlin the letter "Z" is under suspicion,
Because it was used by Russian tanks
As identification in the war around here.
It can be used, but in moderation,
Depending on the circumstances and the occasion,
Always at the discretion of the authority
Who, they say, will know how to use it with precision.
My companion Zinka Ziebell
She was worried, and so was I:
There will be two “Zes” in the name an excess,
A sign of exaggeration in expression,
A cursed inheritance from the ancestors
That can land you in prison?
With such fears in mind
I spent a feverish and trembling night
With dreams in retail and wholesale.
In one of them, with horror I saw
The alphabet lying on the operating table
As in that famous painting
From the Anatomy Lesson,
Being quartered by serious doctors,
No choker, but white collar,
Although some wore the toga
Whatever were lasso and scissors judges.
I wanted to run to the letters, to their rescue,
But I stopped when I heard one of the learned
Pronounce with a serious and somber air:
“Let's start by banning 'The Mark of Zorro'”,
To which another, putting his boots on the Z,
He replied: “It is a good measure, and also,
Let's put it on our agenda
Ban 'The Prisoner of Zenda'”.
The foot on the "Z" caused great turmoil
Especially in the letters next to it:
The “Y”, the “X” trembled, rightly so,
For they were soon taken away
In the relentless razzie
And without any formed guilt:
Their idol was to be letters, nothing more.
One went away because it was the “X” of the question,
And the other for being the initial letter
From names like Yuri, Yashin,
Taking together in the same embrace
Cosmonaut and goalkeeper, submitted,
On the neck, by the same tie.
And then another scholar suggested:
“Let's also cut the 'V' of Vladimir,
And Putin's 'P' won't be too much!
And later he suggested a bolder one:
“Let’s go back to the old days,
Let's also cut Lenin's 'L'
And Trotsky's "T", Mayakovsky's "M",
Dostoyevsky's 'D' and Shostakovich's 'Ch'”.
From a distance, the arrogant “A” watched everything,
Thinking, "It's all too far away...
After all, it is about the “Z”, the ends of the alphabet…”
But soon a new censor, with a very sly look
He said, in a frajola Brazilian way:
“Let's send Brizola's 'B' to the basket,
Smart politician like saracura,
'B' which is also from Baiano, old nickname
From Luiz Inácio da Silva, Lula”.
And so they fell, one by one,
All letters, without exception...
Didn't escape such wild rage
Not even the “Z” for “orgasm”
Shredded by censor from uncontained
Snarling, with satisfied spasm.
In the immense din of desolation
The “H” was silent, thinking to escape.
But the escape was just a vain illusion
For soon a censor grabbed him by the quotes
Roaring: “you are in Hiroshima,
In Holocaust, and in the many Hebron massacres,
Things we must banish from memory,
Rather than with your painful presence
In the minds do a lot of mess”.
Everything was already too quiet
When a very hasty letter appeared:
It was the “U” wanting to make an award-winning delation!
He was welcomed by a robed censor
Who declared, without being asked,
With the air of a sibylline monk:
“I am the well-known Judge Conge,
With my brilliant assistant
Spiky and thin as a hook,
The famous Doctor Daranhol.
Tell me what you want to report
And I will then judge your case”.
"Well see," said the "U" all trembling,
“I am the U of Ukraine and to deserve your forgiveness
I denounce my fellow brother,
The “U” in the word Russia: this one
Should be banned for subversive.”
After a quick conference
With your esteemed assistant,
Thus manifested the learned censor,
Demonstrating judicious sieve:
“Go in peace, U of Ukraine;
We accept your complaint
For in this word you are
Innocent pronunciation.
Besides, if we condemn the 'Z' of tanks,
We salute Zelensky's Z, our hero of the occasion;
Ye are, as the saying goes,
the noble exceptions
Which confirm the rule!”
But the massacre didn't stop there.
Perpetrated by those people
Vestily dressed as a Quaker.
And so they were banished
Of all geography books
Places like Zanzibar, Zambia, Zimbabwe,
And as if they were bandits
They were scratched out of philosophy books
People like Zoroaster and Zarathustra,
And even if they were skittish
All the zebras lost their stripes
In the Zoology book, which came to be called
Just Oology.
“Zabumba” came out of Music,
And as in the ancient legend
Zumbi preferred to throw himself off a cliff
Seeing yourself enslaved again
By those gentlemen of hatred and disgust.
In my dream I was already confused
With that madness unleashed
When I saw a little further
Another operating table,
In which the same operation was performed,
Slicing and killing another alphabet.
although strange to me
Recognized my empirical knowledge
That it was the Cyrillic alphabet,
And without knowing the language they used
My conscience already so afflicted
You can see that the other censors
They spoke with a Moscow accent…
“War is war”, I thought
With my sad buttons,
“It is about enthroning the insanity
And to banish with fierce impatience
Every form of intelligence,
Reduced to a raging black and white
All the colorful richness of the world”.
I noticed that the alphabets thus destroyed
They caught fire and from them the ashes together fell
In common vault quickly dug.
I approached the cursed hole
And I saw that in that improvised cinder
Some embers still flickered
After going through such heartless Inquisitions.
I saw, with renewed hope,
That burned there, like souls in pain,
The “Z” in “Poetry” hidden,
The “Z” of “Ousadia” in disguise,
And also the declared “Z” for Zenith.
And from there they and other letters rose
Protected by a celestial dome,
Fleeing from the clutches of pursuers
And in the midst of them glittered
The word Freedom – albeit late.
* Flavio Aguiar, journalist and writer, is a retired professor of Brazilian literature at USP. Author, among other books, of Chronicles of the World Upside Down (Boitempo).
