by Luiz Ruffato
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i awake with a start, heart surging, and grope around for my glasses. Where am I? My body is numb, drenched in sweat. Oh, I’m at Rosana’s…Cataguases…The sun is already high in the sky. I wonder how long I was out for. I feel nauseated. I jump to my feet, unbolt the door, look for the bathroom, find it, go in, kneel beside the toilet bowl, and let out a stream of liquid that is hot, sour, and viscous—a mix of orange juice, milky coffee, and a buttered roll. My temples throb. Tears roll down my face. I’m no longer queasy. I unroll some toilet paper, clean the rim of the toilet bowl, flush. I rinse my mouth and wash my face at the sink. Back in the guest room, I slide on my glasses, pick up my towel and backpack, and return to the bathroom. I brush my teeth. The mirror shows pallid skin and deep-set eyes. I undress, step into the shower and turn it on. Warm water runs over my emaciated body. I turn off the water, towel myself off, pull on a clean pair of underwear and a shirt, step into the same jeans, leave the bathroom, and walk back to the guest room. I shove the dirty clothes into my backpack, which I toss in the wardrobe. I slip on a pair of clean socks and sneakers. Wet towel in hand, I set out in search of Kelly and find her sitting in the kitchen, at the ready, broom, squeegee, and a bucket full of cleaning products in hand. “Can I get in there now?” “Sure,” I say, embarrassed, and add, “Sorry, I’m not feeling well.” She says nothing. “Where should I hang the towel?” I ask. “Outside, on the clothesline,” she says, gesturing with her chin at the concrete patio at the back of the house. The grandfather clock reads 11:40. How strange…I walk back, stop at the bathroom door and ask, “That clock…does it show the right time?” Kelly spritzes the air with aerosol. “It’s never really worked. Though I don’t reckon they ever sent it to get fixed.” “Do you know what time it is?” “Just shy of two.” I must look awful, because Kelly, hostile moments earlier, suddenly seems more gracious, like she might even feel sorry for me. “Dona Rosana called. Said I was to let you know I’m not a cook. If you want something to eat, there’s sliced bread, cheese, and turkey ham in the fridge.” “I’m not hungry,” I say. “But if you like, I could make you a grilled ham-and-cheese sandwich,” she says, kindly. “I really appreciate it, but you don’t have to do that.” “It’s no trouble.” “No, thank you. Really.” I head back to my room, I need to go out, keep myself distracted. Sizim…I wonder what became of him. On the wall opposite the headboard is a print of a crying boy in rags. Marília liked strolling through the Praça da República market on Sundays. We would arrive early and linger at every stall as she guessed the prices of the objects on sale and haggled with merchants. She hardly ever bought anything. She just liked to practice her negotiation skills. I put on my baseball hat and leave the room. I bump into Kelly in the hallway as she hefts the broom, squeegee, and bucket of cleaning products into the storage closet. I spy a thermos in a corner of the kitchen near the sink, and laugh with a sense of childish vengeance—some things just never leave you. Though the design is modern, the white-and-blue thermos by the sink calls to mind another thermos—red, with a white lid, base, and handle—that had once held watered-down, fermented coffee and had been an important presence in our childhood. Kelly interrupts my daydreaming to ask, “You sure you don’t want me to fix you up a ham-and-cheese sandwich?” “No, thanks,” I answer. “How about some coffee? It’s freshly made.” “Sure, that’ll go down nicely. Don’t worry, I’ll serve myself.” I clumsily open the thermos and pour a splash of coffee into a glass, turning down Kelly’s offer for a cup and saucer—an unpremeditated gesture that wins her over once and for all. I ask if I can have some sweetener and she says, with a twinkle of amusement, “There’s no sugar allowed in the house.” Kelly pours herself a glass of coffee and walks to the doorway. Pulling a cigarette from her packet, she asks, “Do you mind?” Though I’ve become increasingly sensitive to smells, I tell her to go ahead, adding, “I used to be a smoker myself.” “Well, that’s unusual. Ex-smokers are usually a pain in the neck.” She has a funny way of saying neck, drawing out the e. She lights her cigarette with a small green lighter and blows out the smoke with satisfaction. She asks, “Was it hard?” “Quitting? It’s been…let me think…eight years, give or take. Doctor’s orders.” “Oh…” She sighs, and under her breath, as though embarrassed, says, “I’ve tried…I mean, I try…I just can’t…” I finish my coffee, turn on the faucet, rinse the glass, and place it bottom up on the dish rack. “Have you worked here long?” I ask. “Every Tuesday and Friday for about six years.” “Do you like it?” Kelly practically chokes on her cigarette smoke. “Show me somebody who likes working! I work because I’ve got to. I have two kids. Leandro, sixteen, and Larissa, fourteen…They count on me…” “What does your husband do?” “Husband? I sent that man packing! Bastard slapped me upside the face. I took a knife, tore up his clothes, and said to him, You get out of here right now, or I’ll slash up more than just your clothes next time!” She says this without rage and with a touch of humor. “What did he do?” “Coward shat himself, excuse the French,” she scoffs. “Ran away to Rio so he wouldn’t have to pay alimony. I hear he works as a street vendor now…Anyway…Thank God I make enough to raise my kids. They’re my pride and joy.” She tosses the cigarette butt in the trash can. “Men! What do I need them for? Honest. They’re all the same, I have yet to meet a decent one.” She glances at me and adds, “With all due respect. I’m generalizing.” “Don’t worry, most of the men I know aren’t any good either.” And we laugh. “Right. Gotta get back to work. If Dona Rosana comes home and finds that everything isn’t just the way she likes it, she’ll throw a fit.” “I’m going to head out. When does everyone usually get home?” “I’m not sure. There’s never anyone in by the time I leave. Dona Rosana goes straight from work to the gym. I don’t know about Dr. Ricardo, though.” I say goodbye to Kelly and close the gate. I make my slow way to the center. The sun burns my skin, even as I shelter in the shade of the trees along the sidewalk. The air around me dances, as though spellbound by the heat rising off the cobblestones. The roar of cars and motorcycles choking the streets has replaced the hum of the hundreds of bicycles that once swarmed the city at the sound of the steam whistles at the textile mills. My childhood smells of cotton carted down from the Northeast in canvas-covered truck trailers unloaded by men with muscles that gleamed as they formed the bales into white, snowy peaks. Whole families lived off the paltry wages they earned as millhands and lived in row houses on the banks of the Rio Pomba, whose waters brimmed over every year, wrecking the families’ few pieces of furniture, dampening the walls, and getting the children sick. There’s hardly a textile mill left, and though the money has changed hands, floods remain a constant. The city is ugly, dirty, and reeks of piss. Trash is strewn on the sidewalk. Beggars and street vendors compete for the attention of passersby. In botecos, bars, and restaurants, people lounge about in the thrall of television screens. The pedestrian way of Rua Comércio is a window display of stories. A deformed poster from the last electoral campaign catches my eye. Though in pieces, I recognize the face. I buy a bottle of water from the ice cream parlor and ask the teenager behind the cash register who the current mayor is. She gives a tense smile, as if I’d caught her red-handed. A man dressed in shorts, a polo shirt, and casual shoes interjects as he resignedly wipes his son’s sticky face. “The mayor’s that crook Marcim Fonseca!” I turn around. Defiantly, he continues, “The man’s a white-bellied rat! Do you know him?” “I’m not from here,” I say, intimidated, as I shake my head and cross the street. Marcim Fonseca…Who would’ve thought…I sit on a bench beneath a sibipiruna tree on Rui Barbosa Square. I sweat, unmoving. I take small sips from the water bottle. The digital display on the publicity stand reads 31°C. Márcio Luís Fonseca…We were at the same high school for a couple of years. Colégio Cataguases. In my freshman year, the papers I wrote earned the praise of Mr. Haroldo Flávio de Carvalho Sá, a steely teacher whose name formed a perfect Sapphic verse, with stresses on the fourth,
eighth, and tenth syllables, as he liked to pompously remind us. Authoritarian, dark-suited, and somber-tied, he had a habit of humiliating the poor students—calling them dumb, ignorant, and dim-witted—and showing leniency toward the sons and daughters of the city’s wealthier families, no matter how stupid they were. What’s more, he kept a close eye on anyone with the nerve to espouse independent ideas on any given subject, categorizing them as rockers, potheads, and perverts, whether they were longhairs in colorful shirts, tight jeans, thick belts, and bags with shoulder straps who reeked of patchouli; or else took part in youth groups that on weekends helped out at mass, visited shelters, orphanages, and needy families, or planned trips to abandoned places where they could drink, smoke, and make out in secret. In the grips of a nationalist fervor, Mr. Carvalho Sá not only went after students but also spied on his fellow teachers, whom he accused of subversion. He informed on students and teachers alike to the chief of police, Aníbal Resende, a well-known browbeater who tortured prisoners by whipping them with wet towels so as not to leave marks on their bodies, as he himself bragged in conversation at Bar Elite. (Though both were dead, the two remained close: there were streets named after them in a middle-class gated community in the suburbs.) Mr. Carvalho Sá had little affection for me, seeing as I was working class, but he admired what he called my dedication and perseverance—though not my intelligence, an attribute reserved for people with pedigree. The papers I wrote completely lacked originality; I had simply learned to walk the steady tracks of a winding road, and wrote just the way he wanted me to, which is to say correctly. The sentence, he used to lecture, is feminine. And like all women, it is vain and enjoys dressing up. The adjective is the accessory of the sentence. Too many, and the sentence turns vulgar. None, and its beauty is dulled. I learned this lesson early, and became a virtuoso of his preferred style: the Brazilianness of Alencar modernized by the restraint of the neo-Parnassians, he used to say, even though we couldn’t make head or tail of all that mumbo jumbo. After putting me on display in front of the classroom and making me read off the lined paper covered in cursive letters—highly legible, at his insistence—I’d transcribe the text on the chalkboard for the class to copy. All the while, Mr. Carvalho Sá would sit at his desk pretending to quietly read some hefty tome that he used as a cover to better surveil his students through thick, heavy glasses, cracking down on the troublemakers and jokers by whacking them on the head with a yardstick he’d commissioned for the purpose. Mr. Carvalho Sá’s name struck fear in the hearts of the teaching staff. So, while toadying up to him may have inspired the hostility of my fellow students, it also spared me some bother in other classes. And I strove to please Mr. Carvalho Sá not out of a sense of admiration or pride, like the others, but out of sheer indifference. Wanting them to stop harassing me, I became suggestible—satisfied, the people around me drew away, leaving me alone, broken inside, detached from the world. With time, this lassitude turned me into a character in my own life—always prone to agree and guarded with my feelings and opinions—and I grew more and more isolated. I wipe my glasses with the edge of my shirt. The digital clock reads 16:42, and my stomach growls. I need some food to appease it. I’m a bit unsteady on my feet as I get up and walk down Rua do Comércio, the sun beating down on the naked heads of passersby. I enter the first decent-looking diner I come across, on Rua da Estação. In a corner, two women, perhaps a mother and a daughter, are eating coxinhas and drinking Coke. Opposite, by the door, a man with a half-full tulip glass of beer is entranced by the movement on the street. I go up to the counter and ask the server if they still have the set menu. He shakes his head. “Just sandwiches,” he says, gesturing at the pastry display, “And savory snacks.” Everything makes my stomach turn. I order a meat sfiha. He sets it on a paper plate and then places the plate on the counter. “To drink?” I study the drink dispenser and point to the cube filled with a gurgling light-red liquid. The server fills a very thin plastic cup, which warps between his fingers, and puts it down beside the sfiha. He quotes the price. I pull my worn leather wallet from my back pocket and take out a bill. He goes to the cash register and hands me some change. I head to a table behind the man drinking beer. I eat slowly, helping the doughy glob down my throat with sips from the sugary drink, which I assume is strawberry. Mosquitoes buzz round and round, then land on the thick and greasy sheet of semitransparent plastic that sits over the checkered tablecloth. Sweat dribbles down my forehead, face, belly. Marcim Fonseca…Though we grew closer in our second year, we never became friends. The trainee history teacher, Malu, helped dispel the animosity I inspired in my classmates. Malu and her pixie-short black hair. Malu and her thigh-revealing dress. Malu and her advanced behavior. The daughter of Principal Guaraciaba dos Reis, she was attending university in Belo Horizonte. In the very first couple of weeks, bursting with ideas, as Mr. Carvalho Sá liked to spitefully say, she’d drawn lots and divided the class into three groups, then explained that we were going to work on a project about the Early Modern Period, which we would then present in seminars throughout the second semester. My partners were Marcim Fonseca and Graciano Barbosa, our subject the French Revolution. Graciano was one of the troublemakers, defying teachers from the back of the classroom and taunting his enemies during recess. We all coveted his blond curls, set atop his sculpted chest and arms. Scrappy and vain, he suffered from intellectual poverty. Were it not for his singular gift at cheating on tests—achieved through either charm or menace—he may not have finished high school. Years later I came across signs with his name on them all through the city—Graciano Barbosa, Responsible Engineer. The deafening fans in the four corners of the diner circulate the muggy air. I take my hat off and run my right hand over my sopping head, then wipe the sweat on my pants. I collect the paper plate, plastic cup, and dirty napkins, then throw them in the trash. In the bathroom, I try to keep my sneakers from touching the yellow puddle that oozes along the rutted floor. I hold my breath and empty my bladder. Not a single drop of water trickles from the faucet in the small, grimy sink. I leave the diner. My body is still feeling the effects of the long journey, almost eleven hours of no sleep. I amble, plodding over rocks on the sidewalk, which unfurls in a long ember carpet. At the Tietê coach terminal, I had tried to recognize the faces of the passengers traveling with me, to no success. I’m from another time…At first I visited my family two or three times a year. Only Mom and Rosana were still living together; Isinha had gotten married, João Lúcio had relocated to Rodeiro a long time ago, and Dad had withdrawn to a rental shack in Paraíso, where he sank into booze the rest of his diminished disability pension—on account of emphysema, which he refused treatment for. Even though they were separated, Mom always stopped by to pick up the countless shards of glass on the floor, air out the bedrooms, thick with the stench of cachaça and cigarettes, do the dishes, make food, leave him clean clothes, and collect the dirty laundry. I wander down Avenida Astolfo Dutra in the shade of oiti trees. The Lava-Pés creek stinks of sewage. Whenever rain comes down hard on the headwaters, the creek overflows and pushes back up its banks the piss and shit dumped into it by the colonial mansions. The digital clock reads 17:58 and 29°C. Rows of cars honk frantically, their racket muffled by the trilling of thousands of sparrows swooping back into the trees, where they perch on branches to wait out the long night. During my fourth year in São Paulo, I bought a Volkswagen Beetle 1600, which I paid for in installments. As a sales representative for a farm supply company, I used it to reach small rural towns in the interior of the state, where I sold manure, chemical fertilizer, pesticide, and seed. A natural segue for me, since as a kid I loved visiting our family in the countryside, outside Rodeiro, with my mother. Eventually, I started visiting only once a year, on Independence Day. I was married to Marília by then, and we spent Christmas and New Year in Paraná with the Kempczynski family. Marília never stepped foot here in Cataguases. Nicolau, named after his maternal grandfather, never met my mother. When Nicolau was very young, Marília would say s
he didn’t approve of us traveling alone together. By the time he was a bit older, Nicolau himself resisted, at her instigation. My mother’s back problems made it impossible for her to come to São Paulo. Nicolau, a face in a photo album, a voice over the phone, was never a body for my mother to hold in her round arms and study with her nearsighted eyes. When she died—terminal pancreatic cancer—I grew disillusioned and never went back. I’m exhausted. My legs ache, my back aches. I sit on a bench. Lamps glow in the windows. A black-tufted marmoset climbs down an oiti tree, fishes something from between the sidewalk’s hexagonal pavers, bounds back up the trunk, and watches me with interest through the branches as he chews. One morning, I’d pulled up to the curb out of the blue while my mother swept the footpath in her headscarf. I climbed out of the car and said, Ô, Dona Stella, good morning! Slipping on her glasses, which she always wore on a cord around her neck, she propped her broom against the wall and hugged me with feeling, Sweetheart! What’s all this about? You just about gave me a heart attack!, she said, in feigned reproach. C’mon, let’s head in, Go on, get inside. She covetously nudged me through, wanting for herself all the time we would’ve wasted had the neighbors come out to greet me. The house smelled clean; the furniture of linseed oil, the parquets of Polwax, the towels of indigo. Though Rosana still lived with her, they hardly saw one another. Rosana taught at various private schools during the day, studied school administration in the evenings, and spent weekends cooped up with Ricardo. Mom still took in sewing work, doubled over the electric sewing machine João Lúcio had given her, which, as she liked to remind us, had saved her skin. I wouldn’t have been able to pedal another day, she would say, showing us her legs webbed with varicose veins. You should get surgery, Ma, we would urge her. To which she always replied, Now you write this down, the day I step foot in a hospital will be the day I die. And that’s what happened. A decade later, illness laid waste to her in under six months. Streetlamps and headlights turn on. I get up and my feet heave me sluggishly to Rosana’s address. That Saturday, after some coffee and cornbread, tenderly stored away in a square Duchen biscuit tin—We need something to spoil our guests with, somebody’s always showing up out of the blue, she reasoned—I took her with me to the center. She stifled her glee—someone might mistake it for smugness—as we made our slow way down the street, ready to offer a ride to any acquaintance we saw on foot or at the bus stop. After stopping at two or three notions stores—she always needed thread, buttons, needles, ribbons, collars, clasps—we had lunch at Azulão. Between each forkful, she carefully filled me in on every important development since my last visit—weddings, baptisms, the deaths of relatives and acquaintances, though never any intrigue, scuttlebutt, or slander. At my request, she broached the evergreen subject of her children: João Lúcio’s financial rise, Isinha’s domestic sorrows, Rosana’s efforts. Dad’s name hardly came up, and Lígia’s never. In the evening, as she fit fresh sheets on the bed so I could sleep, tears drew furrows in her wizened face. These empty rooms…Everything is so quiet, she lamented. It won’t be long before Rosana leaves too. And then there won’t be anyone left…She stood, patted down her dress, and said, See if you can rest a little, hon. On an embroidered white cloth over the nightstand stood a photograph of Dad, João Lúcio, me, and Sino, a black mutt, in front of the house. Dad had been explaining that the dog got his name because, when they brought him home as a puppy, he wouldn’t stop wagging his tail. He’s like a sino, Mom had said, a clapper, and Dad had jokingly exclaimed, Sino it is then! I dozed. That night, under the dim light of the kitchen, as Mom stood guard over the minestrone, we sorrowfully reminisced about the past, and each reflected alone on our mistakes. Early that Sunday, we went to see Isinha—she was living in Thomé at the time—and convinced her to come out with us and bring the kids: Deliane, around four, and Diego, still in diapers. On the road to Leopoldina, the cool air mussed their light-brown hair—the two of them were so alike, they’d even got themselves into a similar mess. When we got back, in high spirits, Wellington stormed out of the house, drunk. He greeted us with insults, made a scene, picked a fight with me, and threatened Isinha, who held Diego bawling and spluttering in her arms, as Mom fled with Deliane onto the sidewalk, causing a ruckus that, to our dismay and embarrassment, the neighbors watched from their window. Isinha still puts up with her husband to this day—an alcoholic, unemployed, aggressive, two-timing nuisance. But he’s a good dad, she argues, And he’s never laid a finger on me. In the distance, near the source of Rio Pomba, lightning torpedoes the lowery sky. A zephyr eases the heat. I stop by the tall rough-concrete wall, catch my breath, press the intercom buzzer. Rosana’s gravelly voice rings out almost instantly, “Who is it?” “It’s me, Rosana—” I don’t have time to get my name out before I hear the side door unlock. “Did it open?” “Yeah, it opened!” The silhouette of the house appears before me. I cut across the concrete strip and enter the garage, inside it a red Renault Duster. The kitchen light falls on Rosana’s slender but athletic body as she waits by the door, radiating a halo of hostility. Reaching out her hand, she hurriedly ushers me in as she asks, “Have you been smoking in here?” “I quit smoking eight years ago, Rosana.” “Then it must have been that idiot Kelly! I should fire her lazy ass today!” The sharp smell of Bom Ar air freshener sends me into a coughing fit. Rosana throws open the window and flaps her hands and arms to dispel the odor. “I hate the smell of cigarettes!” She turns on the vent. Little by little, my belly stops spasming and my breath returns to normal. I dab my tears with a couple of paper napkins. I wipe my glasses with the edge of my shirt. Stuffed in rosy patterned leggings and a black shirt, in colorful sneakers and a bandana holding up her hair, Rosana shows off the perfect curvature of her muscles. She turns off the vent and asks, “Have you had dinner?” “No, but I grabbed a bite in town.” “There’s some cheese, turkey ham, and sliced bread in the fridge if you want. You could have a ham-and-cheese sandwich.” “No, I’m all right, thanks.” She pours a slimy green liquid into a cup. “Could I have some water?” I ask. She opens the fridge, takes out a glass bottle, pours some water into a cup, and sets it down on the table. “Is it me, or have you lost weight?” “We’re cut from the same cloth,” I say. She shrugs, satisfied. We took after Dad, Rosana and me, lean and slender, with dark-brown hair and eyes. João Lúcio and Isinha took after the Morettos, Mom’s side of the family; a little shorter, obesity-prone, their eyes and hair light brown. As Rosana chats with me, she glances sidelong at her cell phone, which vibrates in her left hand. She drains the gooey green liquid, places the glasses in the sink, tosses out collard stems, a green apple core, and lime peel, and asks, “How come you’re visiting Cataguases now, after all these years? How long has it been, anyway?” She rounds the table where I sit and runs her index finger along the surfaces of the furniture and the appliances, pretending to inspect Kelly’s work. “Since Mom’s funeral. Almost twenty years,” I answer. I try to change the subject. “I noticed you collect New York magnets…” Disarmed, Rosana stops what she’s doing and says, with childlike glee, “Oh, New York…I’ve been going once a year, around mid-November…Are you on Facebook? You aren’t, are you? You should be, though. I got back in touch with two friends from college. We chat every day now. Bia lives in Juiz de Fora and teaches at a state college, she’s a real whiz. Divorced, and her kids are independent. She’s just making the most of life. Lurdinha—she despises her name so we call her Lu now—lives in Brasília. She’s married to a civil servant who works at some ministry. He passed the public service exams and everything, so they’re living it up. We got back in touch about six years ago, and it’s like we were never apart. You haven’t been to New York, have you? Oh, New York…” Rosana rolls her eyes up in delight. “We fly over with only a small carry-on and come back with a ton of suitcases. I only ever fill two bags, but Lu sometimes brings home three. She outdid herself last time—came back with four! I think her husband’s got some deal on with the airport officials. She’s never been stopped.
We always stay in this wonderful hotel on Forty-Fifth Street, right next to Times Square. We go shopping in Jersey Gardens, in Elizabeth.” When Rosana says Times Square, Jersey Gardens, and Elizabeth, her pronunciation is meticulous. “We take a train from Penn Station to Elizabeth, then a cab. We usually take the bus back to Port Authority, in Manhattan, on account of all the shopping bags.” She takes a breath and looks at her cell phone out of the corner of her eye. In the meantime, I praise her, “Your English is fantastic!” Rosana blushes. “I don’t have an accent, do I?” “Not even a little bit,” I insist. “I’ve been studying, twice a week. For years now,” she says with pride, adding, “We don’t just go shopping either! We visit museums, go to the theater, concerts…” Her cell phone rings to the sound of an old telephone. She wraps up, “We have a lot of fun, but we do the cultural stuff too.” And then apologizes, “Gimme a minute, I should take this.” She disappears down the hallway. I get up. My legs ache and I feel faint. I rinse the glass and place it bottom up on the dish rack. At night, the rooms appear to deflate and shrink in size. Crickets chirr in the overgrown garden. I walk to the open kitchen door. The air is still. Snippets of telenovela dialogue seep from neighboring houses. Figures appear at the windows of the low building across the street. Rosana has changed. She’s almost certainly Botoxed her lips, cheeks, and forehead. Her eyes are peculiar, and they hardly blink. She probably has implants too; her breasts look perter. She had her nose done a long time ago. She couldn’t stand the shape, which she’d inherited from Mom. She’s been dyeing her hair ever since she spotted the first white strand, before she’d even turned thirty. But the skin on her neck betrays her age…She’s back. Before she gets a word in, I say, “It’s crazy how amazing you look.” Without thinking, she says, “I know. I don’t look any older than you, do I? I could pass for your younger sister, don’t you think?” She continues, “Did you know no one’s ever guessed I’m over fifty years old?!” “You really don’t look it,” I concur, prepared to keep her fantasy alive. Rosana is older than me, probably approaching sixty. “You know I’m a principal now, right? So many responsibilities,” she says, pleased. “Tamires mentioned it.” “A mountain of problems…But you get used to it.” She removes the bandana and lets her hair down, fixes it and puts it up again. “You separated, didn’t you? Isinha hinted at something.” “Yeah.” “What was your wife’s name again?” “Marília.” “Marília! She never visited, did she? At least, not that I remember.” “No, she never did.” “What about your son…” “Nicolau.” “How old is he now? Twenty-nine?” “Twenty-seven, he’ll be twenty-eight this year…In August.” “Oh…Tamires is older than him…I had her pretty young though.” Keeping up the lie about her age requires certain temporal acrobatics from Rosana. “Tamires works in retail now, you know,” she notes with a touch of scorn. “She could’ve been anything! A doctor, a lawyer…But no, she went into retail. Runs in the blood, doesn’t it?” Lord, what a phony! Does she really believe I’ve forgotten Dr. Normando, who ran an underground poker ring? And what about Ricardo and Roberto, and their rackets—I’ve known the two since they were kids. I am sitting on a white-painted metal bench while Rosana stands against the dividing wall between the backyards. “And Nicolau, what does he do?” If we’d been anything more than voices in the dark, she might have noticed how uncomfortable I looked. “He…I mean…We don’t talk much…” But Rosana isn’t interested, and she isn’t listening. “C’mon, let’s head in,” she says. I take the opportunity to steer her monologue in another direction. “Have you spoken with Isinha lately?” We sit. She at the head of the table, and me in the same seat as before. Rosana’s hands are neat and thin, with long fingers and red nail polish. She’s always been enormously proud of them, ever since a teacher in primary school sang their praises—the hands of a pianist, she’d said—and is always finding ways to show them off in conversation, flaunting them to relatives, neighbors, acquaintances, and strangers, The hands of a pianist…“No…Isinha’s difficult, you know. She’s never been able to stomach how well we’ve done! The woman’s green with envy. But it’s not my fault she married a drunk!” I think of Tamires’s impersonation—she’d used almost the exact same phrasing—and for a second I can’t help laughing. “What about João Lúcio?” “I never really got on with Jôjo. We haven’t spoken in years. Did you know he’s filthy rich?” She catches her breath, asks, “Anyway, what are you doing here, Oséias? You’d never even seen this house, had you?” “No…It’s beautiful. Well done! I had the address from the time I sent you the paperwork and power of attorney so you could sort out the mess with the inheritance. Remember?” “Will you be staying long?” “No, don’t worry. A day or two and I’ll be out of your hair.” “Oséias, why’d you turn up like this, without warning?” Rosana is like Dad: she’d pretend to let go of something, creating a diversion that allowed her to close in on her opponent. “I don’t know, Rosana.” “What do you mean you don’t know?” She gets up and paces around the kitchen, performing her frustration. “Don’t even try to fool me! Twenty years and you’re nowhere to be found. I only ever hear about you when Isinha calls. Now, all of a sudden…What do you want?” “I don’t want anything from you, Rosana. Calm down.” “Are you broke?” she asks. “No, Rosana, I’m not broke.” “Well, then, I don’t get it…” “Can you imagine if Mom heard you talking like this? You sound like you’re about to turn me out. What would she think?” “That you’re being cynical, Oséias. That’s what she’d think! Now quit beating around the bush: What do you want?” “You may not believe it, Rosana, but I honestly don’t know…Maybe all I want is some peace and quiet…” “Peace and quiet?! Here? Hahahahaha. You’re putting me on—” “No, it’s true! You don’t have to believe me if you don’t want to, but it’s the truth.” “Gone and become a Buddhist, have you? Do you want to make peace with Ricardo too?” she asks, sarcastically. “Of course not! I’ll never—” “Careful, that’s my husband you’re talking about!” She plants herself in front of me, finger wagging. “Rosana, now you’re the one being cynical. Ricardo’s no saint. You know it, I know it, Tamires knows it—” “Don’t you dare bring up my daughter!” she yells, slamming her open hand on the oilcloth. “You’re right,” I retreat. “What do you want, Oséias? Aside from causing everyone distress?” she presses, beside herself. We hear the metal gate open. “It’s Tamires. I don’t want her to see us arguing. I’m going to shower, collect myself, sleep. I have to go to work early. Think about what I asked. Sleep on it. I’ll expect an answer from you tomorrow!” “Goodnight, Rosana!” She strides down the hall in a fury, without saying goodbye. I hear the sound of the car being locked, the whir of the metal gate closing. Tamires steps into the kitchen. “Hey, Uncle Oséias! Have you had dinner yet?” she asks, pleasantly surprised. “I had a bite earlier.” “Oh, you won’t join me then? I don’t often eat at night, but I fancied a nibble…” She’s no good at pretending. Feeling sorry for her, I decide to tag along, “All right then.” She smiles and says, “Gimme a minute.” She sets her purse on the table and disappears into the house with her cell phone. It can’t be easy being Rosana’s daughter. My sister needs to feel that she is adored, courted, and praised. I don’t think she’s cheating on Ricardo. Cheating requires dedication, and Rosana is impatient, her faithfulness shaped by an enormous moral inertia, though at the same time she needs constant reminding that she is pretty, smart, and interesting. She needs to be able to measure herself against other women, including her own daughter, and to come out on top, infinitely superior. Tamires returns to the kitchen, grabs the keys to the Honda Fit, unlocks the car, opens the door, and squeezes in. I sit in the passenger seat. She turns on the engine. The metal gate clicks open and she reverses. “There’s nothing to eat at home. Mom’s always on some diet, and she makes everyone do it with her,” she remarks, pitching the car toward the center. “Dad’s got the right idea. He has dinner every night before coming home.” “Where are we headed?” I ask. “Cachorrão do Leo. You know it? It’
s super trashy!” She laughs. Lightning no longer flickers in the dimly starred sky. A full moon steals through sparse clouds. Tamires drives in silence for just over five minutes, then parks. We climb out of the car, still silent. Tamires’s body strains under its weight, and her legs lumber. From a bar in the distance comes the hubbub of voices and the din of sertanejo music. Cachorrão do Leo is a trailer parked under a spray of oiti trees and six tables arranged on the sidewalk. Four of the tables are taken, two of them by cooing young couples, another by three blathering teenagers, and another, at a remove, by a man sitting alone. We set up next to the teenagers, and the server soon comes over to take our order, hard-plastic sheet menu in hand. Without looking, Tamires orders a burger with everything, “The works.” The server smiles—he knows her—and runs through it all, “Lots of cheese, lots of bacon, mayo on the side.” “That’s right! And a Coca-Cola Zero.” Though I’m hungry, my stomach is sensitive to everything. In the end, I order a grilled ham-and-cheese sandwich and a regular Coke. Tamires stares at the individual sitting alone behind me, and finally excuses herself, “He’s a friend, I’m going to say hi.” I turn around to get a better look: roughly forty, black clothes, hair falling down his shoulders, tattooed arms. The air is thick with the smell of grilled meat, which attracts a gentle and wary black-and-white stray dog. The teens’ chatter is riddled with slang I can just barely make sense of. Tamires scuffs back. “Uncle Oséias, so…what’s your son’s name again?” “Nicolau.” “That’s right, Nicolau. I remember him being super cute…Grandma Stella was always showing us photos of him, black hair, big blue eyes…” “Yeah, our little Pole…Not a drop of Moretto in him. He takes after his Mom.” “What does he do?” I blush, take a deep breath. I can’t hide my unease. A train whistles somewhere nearby, startling us. The train treks across the city, its dozens of freight cars once laden with iron ore now carrying bauxite. “Train’s still running, then?” I ask. Tamires says, “Two or three times a day.” “The worst part is that none of the wealth stays here,” I sociologize. “Just muddied rivers and hollowed hills,” she adds. The ground shakes and the wheels squeal, drowning out our words. As a kid, on my way home from school, I used to sprinkle gravel just to see it turn to dust. Once, I put down a coin instead, and it vanished like a soap bubble. The server carries back a tray with the cans of soda, glasses filled with ice, a napkin dispenser, straws, and bottles of ketchup and mustard. Tamires cracks open the Coca-Cola Zero, tips it into a glass and takes a sip. Little by little, the dun-dun-dun dun-dun-dun dun-dun-dun of the train fades into the distance. “Are you still in touch with your cousins?” I ask. She thinks for a second, then says, “I don’t know if you’re aware, but Deliane, Aunt Isinha’s girl, has joined an evangelical church.” “I know…Universal Church of the Kingdom of God. She’s already got two kids, hasn’t she?” “Yeah, though I haven’t met them. I see Diego sometimes. He works with cars, buying and selling them, that sort of thing. He’s just a bit lost, you know.” The server brings over the sandwiches. Tamires snaps up the burger, slops it with mustard, ketchup, and mayo, and takes an enormous bite. I open the can of Coke, tip some in the glass, take a sip, and bite into the ham-and-cheese sandwich, chewing slowly to convince my stomach to keep it down. “Daniel’s in college, taking evening classes,” she says. After a short pause, I ask, “What about João Lúcio’s kids?” “Ah, those girls!” She chases the burger with a glug of soda and wipes her mouth and fingers on a napkin. “Can’t say I know them. We saw each other a couple of times at Grandma’s, when we were really young. I wouldn’t recognize them if I saw them now.” One of the young couples leaves. Tamires takes another large bite of the burger. Mouth full, she says, “I feel sorry for Mom…” I wait, saying nothing. “She’s a miserable person…” Tamires chews anxiously. She takes a sip of Coke, wipes her mouth, sips again. “Have you seen her Facebook page? She posts a new photo every day. She’s always posing, trying to look sexy. All so her friends will say things like, You look so pretty! Oh my God, you don’t age! What a hottie! And emojis posted by machos who think they’re heartthrobs…Deep down, she’s terrified of getting old. She needs it, the constant fawning. She says she’s got a thousand-something friends. Hahahahaha! Poor thing…I feel sorry for her. And she’s totally obsessed with having a perfect body. She works out every night! And she’s had God knows how much work done. Dad even says, half-joking, I married one woman, but I’m living with another…” Tamires takes another spiteful bite of her cheeseburger. We sit in silence. I finish my ham-and-cheese sandwich and polish off my already tepid Coke. I wipe my mouth and hands, collect the dirty napkins, and set them on my plate. “We’re like three rogue planets living under the same roof. Now and then our paths cross and we’ll be on the verge of destruction. But even though we resent each other, we also depend on one another to survive. Magnetic forces…Orbits…” She takes another sip of soda and has the last bite of cheeseburger. “What about your dad?” I ask. She chews more slowly now, relishing the final morsel as though clinging to a fleeting pleasure. “He lets me do my thing,” she says. She wipes her lips and fingers. On her plate is a mountain of napkins soiled yellow, red, and white. “He minds his business, I mind mine. We put up with each other, and that’s enough.” She takes a final sip of Coke. “He knows I don’t approve of his choices…There’s no going back though, is there? Once you lose respect for someone…” Tamires calls the server over and asks for the check. He wonders if we’ve enjoyed our meal. The man in black is gone. Only the young couple’s cooing and the teenagers’ animated shrieking remain. The clouds in the sky have also faded away. Though the hubbub from the bar has died down, there is still the jangle of sertanejo music. The server approaches us and hands me a piece of paper with numbers scribbled on it. But Tamires grabs it and says, “My invitation, my treat.” An astute observation; she must have noticed that morning how destitute I am. Tamires’s hand carefully feels around her purse, and after a few moments her fingers clasp a designer leather wallet and pull out a credit card. “Shall we?” The server hands her the receipt with a grateful “Thank you! Goodnight!” We get up. He collects the plates covered in used napkins, the empty cans, the ketchup and mustard bottles, and the unused straws. We stroll down the footpath below the dense foliage of oiti trees obscuring the streetlights. Tamires unlocks the car with a click and squeezes through the door. I sit in the passenger seat. She connects her cell phone to the stereo, and Neil Young begins to sing “Like a Hurricane.” How odd, I think, and say, “Your Mom used to listen to this sort of music!” Tamires smiles and points out, “I’m an old soul, Uncle Oséias. Old-school…Or maybe just plain old.” She grabs a packet of rolling papers and a baggie. “Mind if I smoke?” “Weed?” I ask, both surprised and alarmed. “Weed!” she says, tickled by my incredulity. “Huh, so you smoke?” “It helps,” she explains. “Manages my anxiety, relaxes me.” “I don’t mind…Can I open the window?” “Of course,” she says. Tamires carefully sprinkles weed on the paper, rolls and seals it with saliva, twists one end, pulls out a matchbox from the glove compartment, lights the joint, takes a long drag, and holds her breath. The funk hits my nostrils, and I try to hide the ensuing waves of nausea. “Lighters kill the essence of the weed,” she philosophizes as she blows the rest of the smoke out the half-open window. “When are you gonna visit me at the store, Uncle Oséias? Or do you think it’s undignified to work in retail too?” “Who am I to say whether anything’s undignified?” “Dad doesn’t think it’s dignified to run a deli.” “He of all people,” I remark and regret it the moment the words leave my mouth. “Yeah, he of all people…” she echoes. “You know how he makes a living, don’t you?” I don’t, though everyone in Cataguases has a theory. “Of course you do, Uncle Oséias. Though I appreciate your not saying anything.” For a moment I consider insisting that I don’t, but there’s no point. She takes another drag. “I need some time away, in a spa.” She confesses this meditatively, staring up at the ceiling of the car. “Aren’t you scared the cops wil
l see you?” I ask. “C’mon. Do you really think anyone’s got the guts to mess with the daughter of Ricardo Alves, aka True-Blue Ricardo?” Her sardonic retort conceals a hint of immodesty. Tamires wets her index finger and thumb with the tip of her tongue, puts out the ember, stashes the joint in the matchbox, and tucks it in the glove compartment. She turns on the engine and drives in silence while Robert Plant sings “Stairway to Heaven.” I wipe my glasses with the edge of my shirt. Five minutes later she stops diagonally on the street and opens the metal gate with the remote. I ask her if Ricardo parks his car in there, wanting to know if my brother-in-law is home. Tamires says, “Dad hasn’t been driving since he got sick.” “Sick with what?” I ask, trying not to sound sadistic. “A load of stuff. Diabetes, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, angina…A load of stuff.” She locks the car with a click. “Dad’s got a Ranger, but Jiló keeps it after he drops him off.” “Jiló?! He’s still alive?” “Very much alive, and at Dad’s beck and call twenty-four hours a day.” She shoves open the kitchen door. “All right. Thanks for the company, Uncle Oséias. Goodnight!” “Night, Tamires.” “I’ll see you at the shop tomorrow!” “You bet,” I say, entering the guest room. I switch on the lamp. Outside, the towel I hung to dry on the clothesline lolls motionless. Though I need the bathroom, I don’t want to bump into Ricardo. I remove my glasses, put them on the nightstand. I take off my shirt and pants, hang them on the coatrack. I slip off my shoes and socks, nudge them under the bed. I switch off the lamp. I lie on the mattress in only my underwear. Moonlight spills through the window, bathing the laminate wood floor. My body aches…I’m exhausted…Jiló…Strange guy…A contemporary of Dr. Normando…Ricardo inherited him from his dad…Driver…Security guard…He does it all…They say he’s burdened by death…Where there’s smoke there’s Jiló, people used to say, with dread…Smoke…deliane’s evangelical marcim fonseca’s mayor sizim dad forbade isinha joão lúcio jôjo rosana calls him jôjo to this day rodeiro family plot monkeys eating popcorn nicolau nicolau nico lau lau nico big blue eyes wonder if dona eva’s still alive i’ve had so much rotten luck evil eye what is evil eye feast your eyes on gale of the wind there’s no wind still air hot i’ve got to pee lígia the ground the coffin what have you come here for window open rose-app