It’s not easy to speak about you now that you’re gone for good. So many things have happened, my dear one. I grew older, I went back to my country. Do you know? I got married and I have daughters, little girls like you. Similar smiles, the same glint in the eyes of young people without guilt. I don’t know if you see us from where you are now. If you do see us, forgive my indiscretion in saying who you are and painting your picture, in rough lines, to be sure, as the artist is a street artist only.

I remember well the day we first met. You adolescence was just over, like a jigsaw puzzle just put together: a number of small neat pieces fitting all together. That was you. A look without shadows, a smile without irony. You did not come alone, of course. You brought with yourself your court, like a princess, your family, you came surrounded and cherished by your elders who saw in you divine grace incarnate. You are that.

Meanwhile I had to get into some serious talk. To speak of brain cancer, of its ways and its tricks. I wrote to the University to make sure you would have full medical aid. To convince the professors that your heart was worthy a million hearts. To overlook all shortcomings, as that little girl was really sick.

You behaved very well in your first stage. The tumour withdrew, maybe shamed at your youth and your beauty. But it remained in waiting, rascal that it was. And you forgot about it, my dear child. And we cannot afford distraction. So it came up again, the bastard, laughing at us. And it advanced a little more. It came to dwell in you as in its own house. It invaded you. I swear I did not give it permission. I shouted, ‘Get out! Get out!’ I tried to drive it away with all my strength. But the wicked fellow that it was, just laughed at me and put out its tongue.

There are things that should not be told to a twenty year old. Yet, dearest flower, you were of age under the rules, had the right to choose, knew you had to decide. I liked you so much. I offered you two poisons. I mean, two treatments. I swore that with medicines you would live two years more, and then you would say farewell to your beaches, your dogs, your lovers. A risky treatment with constant poisons and brews: chalk in your veins, acid in your blood, stepmother’s spindle’s stabs, apples with a worm… because the deadly herbs growing within you were strong as hell. I was handing you over to witches, to stepmothers, to executioners, and if you would come out safe, as a princess in a fairy tale, you would appear dressed as a bride, dancing waltzes with whomsoever you wanted. The doubtful alternative was a transplant. And none of us knew what would happen.

You asked for time to think and consulted your friends. You went to dance with dolphins, who became coaches and horses as for Cinderella, gentle and soft as streets in the waters do not shake. You said you were a child, and fairies and ghosts and knights errand would be by your side. There were no curses enough to pierce though those walls, through your joy.

I bowed my head and I obeyed. I injected potash and nettle’s juice in your veins. Chemotherapy. Acids and herbs. Cobra’s spittle, toad’s saliva. And waited for you to come back. You’re not going to like this: but the fact is you were not beautiful any more. You had swollen, you were out of shape. Blisters burst, locks of hair came lose. Your skin, so fair and tender, was full of stains, scars, grains. You would look to me from time to time and smile. I staid on this shore signalling to you to come back. But you didn’t come back. Your ropes had snapped, my dear one, and the current was strong. You left for ever, adrift.

If you already know all this, I apologise for boring you. I went to your burial but again I was late. The mourners had already left. Your parents came back to embrace me. Your beloved parents. I don’t know how they knew it (you must have told them) that this useless man, this ambassador of nothingness, had done the best he could. Or perhaps they guessed that, if you could come back you would have given me a last kiss for me to give it to them. But the kiss did not come.

The ceremony was beautiful. You were lying in a blue coffin, smaller than normal. You had shrunk. Blue, I suppose, because of the colour of your eyes and the colour of the sea. Your father, just imagine, had painted during the night on your coffin the dolphins you so much liked. They jumped happily. The waves broke about them and smiled, only for you, the enigmatic smile of the Gioconda. I then realised you were beautiful again, that sea and sky are the same thing, that you were happy.

I wept so much, Jennifer, so much. So much that your parents pitied me. Honest! They took my arm, they kissed me, they consoled me. And I, my dear little one, I was lost. Lost in my pain and in my guilt. And in my longing. I don’t know if you know what a well is. The well is hell. And I was in it. All darkness and lack of air. I need the sun to enjoy life. Your parents, in their grief, helped me stand, as they were collecting your last memories spread out all over the stones of the church.

My dear little one, if you already know all this and I am boring you, please forgive me.

(Nuno Lobo Antunes, Lo Siento Mucho, Aguilar, Madrid 2009, p.45)