“Every one of us is, in some way, all the people who have died before us.”

Twenty years ago today Jorge Luis Borges died in Geneva at age 86. His longtime companion María Kodama was by his side. Borges and Kodama had been married just three months prior, though they had known each other for almost twenty years. Borges knew the end was near and chose to die in Geneva, where he had lived in his teen years.

A few years before his death Borges gave a lecture at the University of Belgrano in Buenos Aires titled Immortality: “I don’t want to continue being Jorge Luis Borges; I want to be someone else. I hope that my death will be total; I hope to die in body and soul.” Regarding inmortality Borges said, “I myself do not desire it, and I fear it, for it would be frightening to know that I am going to continue, frightening to think that I am going to go on being Borges. I am tired of myself, of my name, and of my fame, and I want to free myself from all that.”

Despite those melancholy statements the lecture is not pessimistic. Borges went on to say that “Each time we repeat a line by Dante or Shakespeare, we are, in some way, that instant when Dante or Shakespeare created that line. Immortality is in the memory of others and in the work we leave behind.”

Borges is buried in a simple grave at the Cimetière de Plainpalais in Geneva, a far cry from the opulent tombs of Recoleta Cemetery in Buenos Aires where his mother and sister are buried. His tombstone in Geneva has Anglo-Saxon imagery and a quotation from the Old English poem “The Battle of Maldon”: “and ne forhtedon ná”, and be not afraid.

Published in his 1981 poetry collection La Cifra, The Limit, when Borges was in his eighties. The actual title of this poem in the original Spanish version is also the English word Yesterdays. Here are some selected lines:

I am the hollow solitary dream
in which I lose or try to lose myself,
the bondage between two twilights,
the old mornings, the first
time I saw the sea or an ignorant moon,
…
I am every instant of my lengthy time,
every night of scrupulous insomnia,
every parting and every night before,
I am the faulty memory of an engraving
that’s still here in the room and that my eyes,
now darkened, once saw clearly:
The Knight, Death, and the Devil.
I am that other one who saw the desert
and in its eternity goes on watching it.
I am a mirror, an echo. The epitaph.

Soy el cóncavo sueño solitario
en que me pierdo o trato de perderme,
la servidumbre de los dos crepúsculos,
las antiguas mañanas, la primera
vez que vi el mar o una ignorante luna,
…
Soy cada instante de mi largo tiempo,
cada noche de insomnio escrupuloso,
cada separación y cada víspera.
Soy la errónea memoria de un grabado
que hay en la habitación y que mis ojos,
hoy apagados, vieron claramente:
El Jinete, la Muerte y el Demonio.
Soy aquel otro que miró el desierto
y que en su eternidad sigue mirándolo.
Soy un espejo, un eco. El epitafio.

I just returned from my neighborhood Coto, the largest grocery store chain here in Argentina. The San Telmo store on Av Brasil has two TVs showing the Mundial, one back in the produce section and another in front of the cashiers .

As I was standing in line, all the other men in line suddenly turned their heads towards the TV. They were listening to play-by-play and turned just in time to see Togo scored a goal against South Korea. Smiles all around. Even the cashiers, who are mostly young women, seem to be enjoying it. I guess it makes ringing up groceries all day much more interesting. The whole thing was a rather funny sight, particularly since the game was South Korea v Togo.

I do have to admit that watching the Mundial is quite addictive. I’ll be a soccer fan before this is all over. Now I need to go finish watching Togo.