by Luiz Ruffato
i wake up guts in a knot, bladder ready to burst. I put on my glasses, get out of bed, and unlock the door, the house sunken in silence. I walk to the bathroom, switch on the light, sit on the toilet, and sigh as I pee and relieve my aching stomach. I should flush, but the flushing mechanism is loud and might startle Rosana, Tamires, Ricardo…I press the button, wash my hands, switch off the light, rush across the hall, enter my room, lock the door, and listen carefully. I hear nothing. The moon is probably high in the sky. I lean out the window. The towel hanging on the clothesline and the rose-apple tree seem to float in the half dark. I strip the bedspread and lie over the top sheet. The coatrack recalls a gangly man with a hat in his hand. I used to sleep well, even though I spent most nights on uncomfortable beds in rural hotels. I would turn in at nine, nine thirty, exhausted after dinner and several hours of selling manure, fertilizer, pesticides, seeds, run through the itinerary for the following day, and then grab a book—I always packed one—The Maltese Falcon, The Lady in the Lake, The Long Goodbye, The Pillars of the Earth, The Godfather, The Postman Always Rings Twice, Dorothy L. Sayers, Agatha Christie, Sherlock Holmes, John le Carré, Sidney Sheldon, a history of the First World War, a history of the Second World War, For Whom the Bell Tolls, All Quiet on the Western Front, Ben-Hur, Quo Vadis, Luis Fernando Verissimo…I would wake up at six, in high spirits, have breakfast, skim the newspaper for things to discuss with the clients, and by eight I was ready—either to work the square or head on to the next town. On Friday evenings, I would make my way back to São Paulo, after a week on the road, sometimes more. I didn’t mind my job, but Marília was always upset, complaining that I was away too long. She used to say I enjoyed it—time away from the family—and in a way she wasn’t wrong. Marília was bossy; furniture, food, clothes, travel, it all had to be her way. On the road, I had certain freedoms. Before Marília, I used to spend my time off cooped up in the cinema. I’d watch a movie on Saturday and another on Sunday. That was how I met Marília, at Cine Arouche. I walked in and happened to glance over at her. She smiled a little awkwardly, and I smiled back. Without much thought, having overcome my crippling shyness, I asked if the seat was free. She said yes and gestured to the chair beside hers. I went to the bar, ordered a coffee, paid, placed my coffee cup on the table and sat down, embarrassed and already regretting my nerve. But Marília took control of the situation. Eight months later, she had moved into the small apartment I rented in Vila Prudente, and I began to spend weekends grudgingly watching romantic comedies that she borrowed from video rental stores, sitting comfortably on the living room sofa, eating pizza and drinking guaraná soda. Mom never forgave Marília for not condescending to visit Cataguases, and she never let me off the hook for being so submissive to my wife that I never took Nicolau to receive his grandmother’s blessing, not even by force. She took this enormous sorrow with her to her grave, though she seemed happy to see her children gathered around her at the hospital, keeping her company in her final moments. That was the last time we were all together. I didn’t even come home for Dad’s funeral two years later. We had traveled by car to Araucária to visit Marília’s relatives. Though I promised to visit the family plot in Rodeiro at the earliest opportunity, I’d put it off and off and then off again until finally it had slipped my mind altogether. Rosana looked after Dad at the end of his life, forgiving him his animosity. Rosana had studied at Colégio das Irmãs thanks to a scholarship she was able to get through her godmother, Dona Magnólia Prata, who had a great deal of clout, despite being descended from the city’s more modest founders, and even though many had turned their noses up at her marriage to Dr. Normando, a notorious bookie several years her senior. Dona Magnólia was an old customer of Mom’s, and when Rosana was born, Mom had decided, with a mind to the future and without consulting Dad, that Dona Magnólia should be the godmother at her daughter’s baptism. In addition to the occasional visit to put in an order for clothes, Dona Magnólia called on us religiously on Children’s Day, Rosana’s birthday, and Christmas—and spoiled her goddaughter rotten with presents—always in the company of her two boys, Ricardo and Roberto. Dad couldn’t mask his deep aversion to the presence of those two self-important and intrusive boys, the fruit of a marriage too inappropriate to be permitted under our roof. Dad liked to call attention to more than just Dr. Normando’s reputation as a hardened crook; there was also his philandering side, or Naná, the lover he kept in Casa Branca. But what angered Dad most of all was Dona Magnólia’s subservience: every Friday she sent her maid, in uniform and everything, to tidy and perfume the room of the brothel where her husband would spend the weekend frolicking with his lover on a fresh set of silk sheets. So Rosana grew up feeling like she was different, a swan among ducks. When she was small, Dona Magnólia started taking her to Carnival shows at Clube do Remo, to fancy weddings at Santa Rita de Cássia Church, and to dances at the Social Club. Rosana became the linchpin of contention between our mother and father. Dad couldn’t reconcile the money spent on trifles for a daughter who in return treated them with growing disdain, and went so far as to tell people she was an orphan being raised by Auntie Magnólia, who was in charge of managing her fortune. While Mom laughed off these innocent fantasies, Dad despaired: he could see Rosana drifting further and further away from them. The conflict came to a head just before Rosana turned fifteen. At her daughter’s request, and with Dona Magnólia’s money, Mom had agreed to let Rosana make her debut at Clube Meca. Dona Magnólia said she would pay for the dress and shoes, for classes in etiquette, ballroom dance, and posture, and for the hairdresser and portraitist, while Mom would be responsible for the jewelry, at least the jewelry, and went into debt on account of a prohibitive pearl necklace. She wanted desperately to participate in the ceremony itself, but knew Dad would never have permitted such extravagance. One day, during one of her countless arguments with João Lúcio, wanting to humiliate him, Rosana announced that the party was underway. Outraged, he asked Mom to explain. All hell broke loose in the house. Rosana spent days hiding at her godmother’s, afraid of her father, who, to our surprise, neither argued nor fought nor reprimanded anyone. But he stopped talking to Mom for about two years and never addressed another word to Rosana. A photo of rosana’s first waltz with dr. normando was published in the jornal cataguases but mom hid the newspaper the neighbors gossiped joão lúcio grew even more distant
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i wake up to the sound of the metal gate—is it opening or closing? Closing. I’d dozed off. It’s probably Rosana leaving for work. The birds are in a commotion. Outside, the cars roar. I put on my glasses. Get out of bed. My head already aches. I go to the coatrack, collect my shirt and pants, get dressed. I sit on the bed, pull on my socks and slip on my shoes. I grab my toothbrush from my backpack. Press my ear against the door, no sign of movement. I cross the hall, enter the bathroom, and lock the door. I urinate. Wash my face, brush my teeth. Flush. I leave the bathroom and steal into my room, slip my toothbrush back into my backpack. I put on my hat. I catch my breath, tiptoe into the kitchen and check the grandfather clock even though it shows the wrong time, head into the garage, round the Honda Fit, open the side door, and make my way outside. I breathe in the hot and sunny morning air. I amble. A woman, rather elderly, sweeps the footpath. I say good morning. She stops, says good morning, and watches me for a few moments, leaning on the shaft of the broom. Marcim Fonseca…I’ll go find Marcim Fonseca! I wonder if he’ll remember me. I’d never have pictured him in politics. One time, we went to his house to work on Malu’s project about the French Revolution. Marcim lived in Vila Minalda. His dad was a textile worker, his older brother was a textile worker, his sister was a textile worker. His mom—short, shy, milk-bottle glasses, and the saddest eyes—offered us a jug of raspberry-flavored juice with ice exactly like the one on the Q-Suco juice packets and a bamboo basket filled with zeppole covered in a dishcloth embroidered with two chickens. Marcim was visibly uncomfortable. About the smallness of the living
room, the tears in the sofa’s pleather, the plastic sheet over the television screen, the nerve of the two cats rubbing against our legs and mewing, the music sounding loudly from the neighbor’s house, about his youngest sister, who kept showing off her legs to our lustful eyes, and about the voraciousness with which Graciano and I threw ourselves at the zeppole and the Q-Suco juice. Marcim sulked for more than two hours. He was anxious for us to wrap things up and regretted having agreed to host us at all. The row house where he lived was so close to the river that from the armchair where I sat I could see the water flowing calmly beyond the small backyard and the skeletal guava trees, one of which had a yellow mutt tied to a rope, dolefully wagging his tail and ears to shoo away the flies. We never stepped foot in there again. Instead, we met at the school library or at my house, though never at Graciano’s, who must have been embarrassed of us—his dad owned a gas station. Mom was fond of Marcim, but she liked everyone. Dad, on the other hand, mulishly insisted that Marcim had shifty eyes—and maybe he was more perceptive than all of us. If there was one person I thought might be drawn to politics, it was Cesinha. A friend of Lígia’s, Cesinha was one year ahead of me. During his junior year of high school, he and Aladim, the chemistry teacher, decided to start a small newspaper. Aladim was a nickname. Everyone called him that because he taught us chemistry with magic tricks. Friendly, with black curly hair that fell down his shoulders, he had a great sense of humor, played guitar in a Beatles cover band called the Revolution Band, and had women sighing over him, despite rumors that he was a queer. Mr. Aladim, Cesinha, and a couple other students stuck colorful posters up around the school announcing the arrival of O Intrépido. One morning in August, shortly after the holidays, they stood at the entrance to hand out their student newspaper, which had been composed with a typewriter on legal paper and then mimeographed. They’d hardly begun distribution when Zé Leal and Zé Adão, two monitors who were chummy with Carvalho Sá, showed up and brutally confiscated the papers. They set fire to them right then and there, causing a disturbance that was quickly dispelled. They claimed the newspaper preached naturism, vegetarianism, the legalization of weed, and free love, all of which was enough to make Carvalho Sá livid. But the straw that broke the camel’s back was a caricature Cesinha had drawn depicting the teacher with an enormous head and tiny body, sitting on the edge of his bed in his underwear with a look of fear on his face above the caption: My God, what’s gotten into my head? Mr. Aladim didn’t teach that day. The following week, Mr. Arruda, the substitute teacher, informed us he had moved to Rio de Janeiro, in search of new professional challenges. I never heard about Mr. Aladim again. Cesinha was suspended for a week, and his mother, Dona Alice, was seen leaving the office of Principal Guaraciaba dos Reis in tears. She was always crying. Crying, crying, crying, because she just couldn’t understand why people were always going after her Vevé, as she called her husband, A good man, a hard worker, who only wants what’s best for people, like Jesus Christ…Dona Alice couldn’t understand why people were always attacking her Venâncio for being a communist, when being a communist was no different in her view than being a Catholic, except without mass or pastors. Her husband was in prison at the time, at the Penitenciária de Linhares in Juiz de Fora. When he came home a few years later, people gathered at their house, which was three blocks from ours, because despite everything the neighbors were still fond of Dona Alice and Seu Vevé. He arrived home in a shocking state: emaciated and blind in one eye, with teeth missing and a tremor in his hands. Seu Venâncio never worked again. He spent what little time he had left afraid to leave his room, unable to sleep, wary of everyone, pissing blood and refusing treatment, as Dona Alice would explain whenever she came across my mother sweeping the sidewalk. It’s heartbreaking, Dona Stella, just heartbreaking. Principal Guaraciaba dos Reis reminded Dona Alice that, next time, if there is a next time, he’d have to expel Cesinha from school, It would be devastating, Dona Stella! Alice continued, despairing, as though it wasn’t enough for her Vevé to be away, locked up like an animal, Now Júlio César, Lord Almighty, what’ll become of the kid? I stop at a bakery at the entrance to the old bridge. Walk in, say hello, order a buttered roll and coffee with milk. After the scare, Cesinha cleaned up his act, applied for a job at the Caixa Econômica, and moved abroad. He never came back. I wonder if Dona Alice is still alive. And what Carla, her daughter, is up to. The wall clock reads ten to eight. The server, a teenager, places a glass of milky coffee and a Colorex glass plate with an open-face buttered roll on the brushed metal bar. I ask for sweetener and she scans the room for it with her eyes, finds the bottle, grabs it, and places it in my hand. It’s hot out. The glass of coffee burns my fingers and lips. I chew slowly. Peninha, my nickname, Peninha…Even after I shot up and reached a height of 1.74 meters, I remained weedy. I used to spend hours exercising—pull-ups, jumping jacks, crunches—so I could bulk up and become stronger. I’d eat raw eggs, a dozen bananas, enormous bowls of pasta…Someone once told me that jerking off strengthened your biceps and chest muscles, so I did it three or four times a day. None of it was any use. I was still Peninha. Peninha, a small feather. Fethry was a character from a comic book, Donald’s clumsy cousin. Peninha, a small sorrow. Peninha, a shame…Peninha…There was a house between Vila Teresa and Beira-Rio whose owner, Zé do Bem, raised all sorts of fowl. Peacocks, swans, guinea fowls, geese, pheasants, teals, ducks, chickens…It’s gone now. According to Isinha, it’s been replaced by a supermarket. Seu Zé do Bem was already old back then…I wonder if anyone remembers him. I need to stop by Tamires’s shop…Wellington won’t die…How could a person who drank like a fish still be alive? So many people I used to know are gone now…I wipe my hands and mouth with a couple of paper napkins, crumple them and place them on the Colorex plate with the tin spoon, shooing away the mosquitoes obstinately perched on the rim of the empty glass. I ask the server what I owe her and she yells at her coworker, “Coffee with milk and a buttered roll!” I head over to the cash register, take out my leather wallet from my back pocket, pull out a crinkled note, and give it to her. The woman hands me back my change and smiles, “Have a nice day.” “You too,” I say, stuffing my wallet back in my pocket. I wish the server behind the bar a nice day and she smiles back. I head out into the punishing brightness. I walk halfway across the old bridge. Rio Pomba, an open-air sewer. Opposite, the new bridge. To the left, the tree-filled garden of the Hotel Cataguases; to the right, the tennis courts of Clube do Remo. Does anyone get ringworm anymore? What about swollen lymph nodes? Or scabies? Back in the day, all the kids had swollen lymph nodes—I got it several times, in the groin, the pits—and ringworm—my back was constantly covered in blemishes—while a handful had scabies—I used to tear out tufts of hair, my head an infestation. And then there were the sand draggers. Small boats pushed upstream by long bamboo poles. They’d plunge the shovel into the riverbed and pull up sand. Once full, the hull level with the surface of the water, they’d wade back to the riverbank and unload the sand, which dried in large mounds under the sun. I continue toward city hall. Businesses are opening their doors to another day of work and hosing down the sidewalk to settle the dust. At this hour, Mom would have been at home in the basement, surrounded by patterns and tracing wheels, ready to start working on a new garment. People used to come from all over to order clothes from her. The permanently cluttered rooms exposed our private life. We were a family without walls, which may be what drove us children to get out as fast as we could—first, Lígia…then, João Lúcio, Isinha, Dad, me, Rosana…By the time Mom fell ill, she hadn’t made clothes in a long while. Having lost the fight against ready-made apparel, she focused on tailoring and mending. A black dog with silken fur wags his tail in front of city hall. I lumber up the steps, into the building. A security guard, tall and strong, intercepts me. “Can I help you?” he asks gruffly. “Good morning,” I say, which takes him by surprise. Puzzled, he says, “Good morning. You’d like to…” “…speak to the mayor,” I finish. “Do you have an
appointment?” “No…I’m a friend…I’ve come from São Paulo…I just wanted to say hello…” The security guard scratches his head and leads me to a table with two white phones, a school notebook, and a set of matte acrylic pencil and paper clip holders. “Wait here.” He cuts straight across the hall and walks through a side door. I stand and look around at the furniture—two frayed armchairs, a coffee table, a handful of magazines stacked in a basket—and the long, dark-wood staircase that leads to the second floor and the mayor’s office. I wait patiently, the silence muddied only by the sound of a woman cackling in the room the security guard has just entered. I slowly make my way to the door, which is ajar, and push it open to find a cramped but spotless break room. The security guard and two women, one younger and the other older, glance at me in surprise. “Good morning,” I say, and the security guard gestures, “This is the guy, Michele.” Michele must be twenty-odd years old. She’s beautiful, with long and soft straight black hair. “So, you’re a friend of the mayor’s?” The person asking this, with a sneer, is a short, slender woman in shorts, a sleeveless shirt, and open-toe sandals, with white strands poking out from her bouffant cap—no doubt the one with the hearty laugh. “Well,” I say, “I knew him when we were both sixteen. Then we grew apart.” “Uh-huh,” she mumbles, like she’s won a bet. “The mayor doesn’t see anyone without an appointment,” Michele explains, circumspect. “I already told him,” says the security guard, as if apologizing to her. “Have you had breakfast, mister?” asks the older woman. “Yeah, I’ve just come from the bakery by the old bridge.” The security guard stuffs a piece of cornbread in his mouth and downs the rest of his coffee. “That’s a shame,” says the woman, “I guess you can’t try Michele’s cornbread,” she adds, cattily, making her coworker blush. The security guard smothers a laugh. “So, you’re a friend of the mayor’s, huh…” the older woman insists. “Is he a good mayor?” I ask. “We’re small potatoes here—easy to keep in order,” she howls. The security guard sets his empty cup on the sink and leaves. “Are you really from here?” she continues. Michele’s nails are painted red and her pinkie finger juts in the air as she holds her mug. “I am, but I’ve been living in São Paulo for years.” “Your family’s from here, though…” “Yeah…My sister Rosana is a school principal…And my mother was a seamstress…In Beira-Rio…” “I was born and raised on this side of the river. Matadouro, Pampulha. Ring a bell?” “You bet. I used to ride my bike over there. That’s where the city ended. There was nothing at all past that point…” “Michele,” she begins, “Can Dona Iara not find him an opening?” “Good God, Dona Ivete! You know that’s not how things work around here!” Michele leaves her mug in the sink and storms off. Dona Ivete whispers, mischievous, “The mayor comes in through the back. At around seven, seven thirty…Wait there, ambush him…” I thank her with a smile and say goodbye. She switches on the battery-operated radio, turns on the faucet, and begins to do the dishes, humming. I walk up to Michele, sitting behind her desk. “Any chance I could leave a message for Marcim?” Without a word, she grabs a notepad from her drawer and a pen from the acrylic pencil holder. “Write a note here and I’ll give it to Dona Iara. She’s the one who can reach the mayor. I’m just the receptionist.” I scribble: ‘Hello, Marcim. It’s Peninha, we knew each other as kids. I wondered if we could get together sometime, catch up. I’ll come by again tomorrow.’ I fold the piece of paper in two and hand it back to Michele. “If you see him, would you say Peninha was here? That’s me, Peninha. Peninha’s a nickname. He wouldn’t know me by my given name, Oséias. At least, with my nickname…” Michele says, “Yeah, sure.” She answers the phone, “Good morning, mayor’s office!” I shuffle to the door, say goodbye to the security guard, and head down the stairs. The black dog dawdles up to me, tail wagging. I greet him with excitement, scratch his head, and cross the street. He follows me. I cross Santa Rita Square. The lighted fountain is dry. Trash collects in the basin: leaves, a sneaker, cigarette butts, plastic bottles, beer cans, shards of glass, a toy car, a blue bag filled with trash, a doll’s head. Mothers and nannies shepherd children around the playground. I head to the church, and realize the doors are locked. Saddened, I look down at the black dog. He wags his tail. The sun scorches the neglected flower beds. I walk up to an old man. “Good morning.” Cagey, he turns to face me. “Do you know why the fountain’s dry?” Surprised by my ignorance, he says, “Because of dengue, uai…The mosquitoes…” He keeps walking, his shoulders domed. I sit on a bench and the dog flops down at my feet, rests his head between his front paws, and shuts his eyes. Dad used to bring me here sometimes to eat popcorn and watch the colorful lights dance around. Mom hardly ever left the house, always busy sewing. She mended through Christmas, New Year, Carnival, and all night, the machine’s hum right below the floor of the room I shared with João Lúcio. Next door, Rosana had her own bed, while Lígia and Isinha shared a bunk. Mom only let herself take time off in July, when she traveled to the Rodeiro countryside to see her Italian family, whom she missed terribly, and above all, as she never tired of saying, to relive the happiest moments of her life. She became a different person then, sloughing off her stern husk and resurfacing as someone new and almost unrecognizable—fun-loving, chatty, radiant. She loved when the pigs were slaughtered because it took all weekend, from daybreak, when Uncle Paulino stuck a dagger in the barrow’s heart, until the following day, when they finished sealing the tins of meat brimming with animal fat. In the endless hustle and bustle—hours passed between laughter and anecdotes—it was as though the world, which was so distant, did not exist. But that time was short-lived. As soon as Rosana became a teenager, she refused to step foot in those backwoods and Mom didn’t want to leave her alone, so she stopped traveling there. João Lúcio, as a young boy, was the one—A pastor! I can tell from the black clergy shirt. Jeans, flaky Bond attaché case, worn-out shoes. I get up and tap him on the left shoulder. He swivels around, startled. “Father,” I say. “Could I have a moment of your time?” Without stopping, he glances down at his watch, and anxiously says, “Of course, my son. Let’s walk though, I’m in a hurry.” “Father, the church is closed.” “For security reasons,” he says. “Come back during mass.” “But it’s urgent.” He comes to an impatient stop and eyes the black dog tailing us. “What seems to be the problem, son?” “I’d like to confess, Father.” “Now? Can’t it wait?” “I don’t have much time left, Father…” He comes to a stop a little farther ahead. Hog plums are spattered on the Portuguese pavement. The pastor checks his watch again, unsure of what to do. His cell phone rings. He pulls it out of his pocket, an old, compact model, and says, “Ten minutes, tops.” We walk at a clip, in silence. The pastor is much younger than me, with copious black hair and an athletic build. We make our way to a dusty Volkswagen Gol, and he says, “Look, son, I’m not from this parish. I have a meeting to get to, so I can’t help you right now. But let me leave you…” He opens the car door and rummages through the mess in the glove compartment. He grabs a yellow scrap of paper, takes a pen from his pocket, and jots something down with the Bond attaché case propped on his leg. “Look, I’m going to leave you a phone number. For Dona Juscelina, the church secretary at São Cristovão, in Taquara Preta. Do you know it? Call her to make an appointment. That way we can speak at leisure. All right? Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m already late. God be with you.” He tosses his attaché case in the passenger seat, shuts the door, and drives away, turning right at the corner. I wipe my glasses with the edge of my shirt and read the number—nice handwriting. On the back is a supermarket receipt: wine, toilet paper, deodorant, detergent, eggs, flour, butter. I stuff it in my pants pocket. The black dog had retreated to a corner but now pads toward me assertively, tongue hanging out of his mouth. It’s hot. Sweat douses my head, drenching my hat. I cross Santa Rita Square and head down Rua do Pomba, steering clear of Tamires’s deli. The places, trees, and houses are the same as when I was a kid—but not the faces, or the cars, or the motorcycles. I’m a fr
ightened ghost barreling into bodies that move restlessly through the past. Dona Júlia was a loyal client. She’d suffocate you in fat arms heavy with perfume. One time, while my mother was upstairs looking for change, Dona Júlia stood in front of me half-naked as she tried on a dress, and my eyes fixed on the unruly hair bristling from her panties. João Lúcio used to keep a dirty magazine under his mattress. Now and then, Dona Magnólia would take Rosana to Clube do Remo to get some sun. She took me with them once, and I saw asses and breasts on the edge of the blue-watered pool that smelled of chlorine. Malu wore a red bikini…The first naked woman I ever saw was Cidinha, on the Island, the red-light district. Six of us boys paid to watch her strip—saggy breasts, blemished skin—I went back across the wood bridge on my own, retching, and was bedridden for three days with a fever and pains…To escape the sun, I enter a bookstore that’s actually a stationer, and the black dog lies down at the door in resignation. As I pretend to skim the titles of the few books they have—a row of bestsellers lining a tiny shelf—I hear a familiar voice chatting amicably with the shopkeeper. Her back is to me, and thin white hair sweeps down her shoulders. I edge up to the counter and give her a quick, sidelong glance. Marilda, my first girlfriend! She’s buying newspaper for her dog. At least that’s what the sign says, Newspaper for Dogs. Wanting to make conversation, I ask, “Pardon, but do your dogs read?” She doesn’t recognize me and snaps back, “No, they shit!” I turn red and instinctively step back as she says goodbye to the shopkeeper, slips on her sunglasses, and stomps irritably down the aisle with the bundle of old newspaper and an enormous bag. I muster up the courage to intercept her. “Marilda, don’t you recognize me?” I ask. She stops, hesitates. “Have I changed that much?” I insist. Wanting to be polite, she says, “I’m sorry, but—” “Oséias…Peninha…” I say, a little brusquely. “Goodness! Peninha!” Marilda drops her package, takes off her sunglasses, squares her hands on my shoulders, and studies me with her light-brown eyes, now nestled in wrinkles, “My God…It really is you!” Touched, she takes me in her arms. “I’m so sorry I didn’t recognize you.” “It’s not your fault. I haven’t aged well…” “You’re much slimmer. Aside from that, you haven’t changed one bit.” “May I?” I ask, picking up the bundle of newspaper for her. “You’re the one who hasn’t changed. I recognized you immediately,” I say as I search for the black dog who, fickle, has gone elsewhere. She puts her sunglasses back on. We walk a few meters, brushing past people cluttering the sidewalk. “Have you moved back?” she asks, pressing the car key and unlocking her red EcoSport. No, I say. “I’m visiting my sisters.” She opens the trunk. “Ah, your sisters…” I place the bundle of newspaper in the back. “What were they called again?” She closes the trunk. “Rosana and Isabela.” “That’s right! Rosana and Isabela!” We linger for a moment by her car, not knowing what to do. “So you moved back?” “Yeah…” she says, studying the paving stones. Another uncomfortable silence. All of a sudden, she asks, “Are you up to anything now? I’ve got an idea. Why don’t you come over for lunch?” I say nothing, and she interprets my silence as agreement. She presses the key again, locking the car doors, and pulls me by the hand. “Let’s go to the grocery store. I’ll cook for you.” And we’re back on the sidewalk, cluttered with people. “Did you ever get married?” “I did.” “And are you still married?” “Divorced.” “Oh.” Though I can’t see her face, I can guess her expression from the sinuousness of her voice. “Kids?” “One.” “Boy or girl?” “Boy…I mean, a young man…or rather, a man…twenty-eight this August.” “Oh, he’s almost the same age as my…Rôney.” “Just the one?” “No…I’ve got a girl too…Sabrina. She’s a young woman now. How long has it been since you got divorced? Are you divorced? Or did you just separate?” “No, no, we got divorced.” “So how long?” “Eight years, give or take.” “I see. I bet you immediately found a new squeeze,” she presses, letting out a forced laugh, “Hahahaahahaha.” “No…Nobody wants an old lemon like me…” It’s a good joke, I think—lemon, squeeze—but Marilda either doesn’t get it or doesn’t like it. She grows quiet, pensive. We reach the grocery store, also cluttered with people. She takes off her sunglasses, tells me to fetch a cart, and starts wandering down the aisles. “How do you feel about spaghetti?” she asks as she stares at the pasta display rack. “It’s all right, isn’t it? I make a killer shrimp pasta.” She grabs a pack of Italian spaghetti—“the trouble is, it’s hard to find decent shrimp in Cataguases”—and three cans of peeled tomato. “Hmm…I’ve got olive oil, garlic, and onion at home. Let’s keep going. Excuse me, mister, but have you got shrimp? You do?! Where? Let’s go see if it’s any good.” In the frozen food section, “What do you think? A bit small, aren’t they? We’ll make it work, though.” She tosses the bag of shrimp in the cart. “I think that’s it! Anyway, do you come to Cataguases often?” “It’s been almost…” “Oh, the wine! You drink wine, don’t you? Wonderful! I adore wine. I’ve got to be careful, though. If you let me at it…It’s just so glorious. That feeling of…of…I don’t know…of…you know…languor! That’s it! Languor. Wine…Wine…Wine…Mister, excuse me, would you point me to the wine? Ah, thank you! Well, Peninha…Oséias…It feels weird to call you Peninha. But I can’t get used to the idea of calling you Oséias either. Anyway, what I mean is, what kind of wine do you drink?” “Whatever’s good.” “Hahahahaaha! Whatever’s good! Well, let’s see…I like dry wine myself. Not Brazilian though! I always get a splitting headache from Brazilian wine! Christ Almighty, it’s like death. Chilean…Hmm…I’m not sure…I don’t recognize any of these names…Help me out, will you, Peninha…Oséias! Are you familiar with any of these?” I pretend to study the shelves. I grab a bottle, scrutinize the label. She takes it from me—“Nope, no Carmenère for me, thank you, too acidic”—and hands the bottle back for me to put back on the shelf. She continues to study the selection. “Aha, here we go! Nothing like some good old Portuguese wine, don’t you think?” She flashes me a bottle of Monte Velho. I approve, with the air of a connoisseur. “It’s excellent. And the price is reasonable. Grab four bottles, will you?” she orders, and charges on, steered by the shopping cart. We get in line at the cash register. “Soon we’ll be using the priority lane, isn’t that right?” she asks with a chuckle. “Not you, Marilda, no one will buy it. It’s like you don’t age…If it weren’t for the white hair…” Pensive, she says, “Ah, the white hair…” I take the groceries out of the cart and place them on the conveyer belt. The cashier absently scans each item while chatting with her coworker in the next lane. “…A fever…Almost forty degrees! I’ll call daycare again in a second. The doctor says it’s viral. Everything’s viral here…Will that be all, ma’am?” Marilda nods. I stuff my hand in my back pocket, but she immediately stops me, “No, no, it’s on me. I insist. It’s my pleasure.” Marilda riffles through her enormous purse for her wallet and pulls out a credit card. She sticks it in the machine and taps in her PIN. Taking the receipt, she slides it into the same compartment as her money, puts away her credit card, and walks away. A skinny teenager hands me four plastic bags. On the sidewalk, Marilda puts on her sunglasses and grumbles, “It’s true.” “What is?” I ask. “These days, everything’s viral.” “Oh,” I mumble. I pick up on our earlier conversation. “And when did you move back?” “No, first tell me why you never met someone else. Was it out of fear of commitment?” “No…It just didn’t work out. After being married all those years…” “How many?” “Twenty-two.” “Twenty-two, wow. Did you get along all right?” “As well as we could…” “Why split up after twenty-two years?” “The truth is, our marriage ended long before.” “What do you mean?” “After a while, you start to sort of settle…You don’t go out anymore…Then you stop…You stop having sex…You stop sharing a bed…” “True,” she said, with a sigh. “Did you fight a lot, though?” “Not me. But Marília…” “Marília?! Her name’s Marília?” “That’s right.” “Ha! It’s nearly identical to mine…” “I’d never noticed…”
She stops and unlocks the car, teasing, “I got you hooked. Admit it, you never got over me…Hahahahaha…You had to go and marry someone with practically the same name…” She opens the trunk and I set the grocery bags next to the bundle of old newspaper, but Marilda rearranges everything before closing the trunk. We get in. She switches on the AC, connects her cell phone to the stereo, and turns on the engine. A song I don’t recognize floods the car. “So, this Marília character…Was she…Is she…pretty?” she asks. But before I can answer, the Star Wars theme song starts playing on her cell phone, and Marilda smiles, “Rôney, my boy…” She unplugs the device and picks up. “Hi sweetie!…Yeah. I got some newspaper, then I went to the grocery store…Just a couple of things we needed…No, I’m headed back…Late evening? All right…No, honey, I’m going to stay…Love you.” Marilda’s smile has been wiped from her face. She says, stone-faced, “That was Rôney, my son,” and once again connects her cell phone to the stereo. “Anyway, what were we talking about?” “Were you married long?” “Almost twenty years.” “How old’s your son?” “Rôney? Twenty-five.” “So you’ve been back for five years?” “No, three. After my husband and I separated, I moved to Salvador, but that didn’t work out…” “Salvador? Why Salvador?” “Now that’s a long story,” she says in a mournful tone, and changes the subject. “How long has it been since you last visited Cataguases?” “About nineteen years.” “Nineteen years?! Wow! What kept you away?” I take a deep breath. “It’s a long story…” I answer. “Seems we’ve got plenty to talk about, haven’t we?” she says, once again relaxing as she drives down an empty avenue that appears to lead outside the city, the two of us enveloped by the sounds of a mellow tune I can’t identify. “Where are we going?” “Don’t worry, I promise I’m not kidnapping you,” she says with a laugh. Before long, a few houses pop up after a bend in the road. “Where are we?” I ask. “Bela Vista.” “Bela Vista?” “Formerly known as BNH.” “Right…” “I bought some land here when I was still living in Bahia. As an investment…I never thought I’d use it. Then, all of a sudden…You’ll see, it isn’t even finished yet.” She presses a button on the remote, and a heavy gate sluggishly draws open at the end of the street. “Here we are!” Marilda parks her car in the garage, the gate hums shut, and frantic yaps torment what little remains of the morning. “My little shitbags,” she says incisively, and asks me to grab the groceries from the trunk. I reach for the bundle of newspaper and find that I’m surrounded by two tiny dogs snuffling at my pant leg. They snarl and growl, yowl and tremble, mean and territorial. “Let them sniff you. They’ll quiet down in a second,” Marilda says. And then, softly, in a baby voice, “Mommy’s back…This gentleman here is Mommy’s friend. Be nice now. He’s just helping Mommy out.” I am escorted by the bowwow of the two dogs as I round the house behind Marilda and set the package on the floor of a veranda filthy with shit and piss. I feel queasy. In the vast, meticulously turfed backyard are a spattering of fruit trees—lime, jaboticaba, papaya—a grill, and a table with four white chairs. I return to the car with the crazed duo on my tail, grab the grocery bags, and circle back to the veranda. Marilda has cleaned the poop and is now washing the pissed-up floor, jetting water from a rubber hose. “Put it on the kitchen table, will you?” she says, pointing at the door. The dogs snarl and growl, yowl and tremble, bark and yelp. The kitchen is bright and spacious. I place the bags on the table. She yells, “Go on into the dining room, grab a bucket from the shelf, fill it with ice, and stick the wine in it to chill.” I walk through the door into a hallway, and falter over an ashen wool rug that ends in a wide room dimmed by thick curtains hanging shut. In the center of the room, a dining table of solid dark wood dressed in a bright white tablecloth with floral embroidery sits on another ashen rug—this one shaggy. On the table are three tin candlesticks arranged by size. Framed photographs of Marilda at different times in her life, with and without her children, are displayed around the room. I spot the bucket on a shelf of the same style as the dining table, next to various knickknacks standing on a swath of white lace fabric. Back in the kitchen, I take three ice trays from the freezer, fill the bucket, insert a bottle of wine, and leave it in the sink. Marilda pops back in. “I love these little guys. But boy are they hard work!” she says with affection as she glances over at the now-calmer dogs. She takes the ice bucket, sets it on the table, pulls out the cans of peeled tomatoes and the bag of shrimp and leaves them in the sink. She puts the three remaining bottles of wine in the fridge. She balls up the grocery bags and stuffs them in a cloth casing with the words Puxa Saco embroidered in red. “Okay. Now let me introduce you to the cutest little duo in the world,” she says, picking up the dog with a pink ribbon on each ear. “This one’s Angelina. Angelina Jolie. Go on, give her a little scratch.” I reach anxiously for the dog. Just as I’m about to touch her, she snarls, and I gently draw back. Marilda laughs. “She doesn’t bite, she’s just testy.” Wanting to be congenial, I ask, “What breed are they?” Marilda sets Angelina Jolie back down on the floor, picks up the boy and says, “Lhasa apso. They’re excellent companions!” She rocks the dog as though he were a baby and explains, “This one’s Brad, Brad Pitt. Aren’t they just darling?” She sets Brad Pitt down again. “Oh dear, where’ve I left my purse? My cell phone’s ringing!” she exclaims and runs off. “Gosh! Five missed calls. Make yourself comfortable, I’ll be right back.” Brad Pitt turns to face me and begins yawping without further ado. Angelina Jolie, who had left with Marilda, comes back and joins him in barking at me, already a touch hoarse. I stand stock-still, nauseated by the funk that lingers in the air. Ten to noon, reads the white wall clock. The second hand advances furiously. The dogs finally quiet down. I hear Marilda purring on the phone. Disconnected words, loose like soap bubbles: “worse,” “do,” “nobody,” “everything,” “tired.” Birds twitter in the backyard. João Lúcio would know what they’re called. Even though Dad had been born in the countryside and only moved away a married man, he could never tell a thrush from a seedeater. Mom used to say that he did know the difference but pretended otherwise so that people wouldn’t peg him for a hayseed. João Lúcio had liked old things ever since he was a kid, and it pained him to live in the present. He loved food cooked over a woodstove, places without electricity, going to sleep early and rising before dawn, life under the thumb of daybreak and nightfall. So much so that—“I’m so sorry, Peninha, Oséias…Goodness, I’ve got no idea what to call you!” Marilda bemoans, her eyes moist. “Is everything all right?” I ask. She answers in a fluster, “Of course, why do you ask?” “No reason,” I say. “Okay. Let’s hop to it.” She claps as though to shoo away a negative thought. She grabs a corkscrew, a foil cutter, and a wine pourer from the cupboard, places them on the table, and says, “Open the bottle. I’ll take care of the rest.” She heads down the hall and returns with two glasses. The dogs circle us, discombobulated by the havoc. I pour some wine and hand a glass to Marilda, who sets a pasta pot filled with water on the stove top. She theatrically swishes the wine, sniffs it, and then takes a sip. “Exquisite,” she proclaims. “And it’ll be even better once it’s had time to breathe.” I pour some more wine in both our glasses. “To us,” she toasts, looking me square in the eyes. “To us!” I echo. After a long sip, she says, “Let me change into something cooler, more appropriate.” Marilda gives me her hand, damp, cold, pulsing. “But, first…” She tugs me behind her. We cross the dining room into another room that is equally large, equally somber, then stop in front of a dark but modern piece of furniture that suggests a vintage dresser. “There are about a thousand CDs in here…Music’s my passion. Remember? Choose something,” she says, pulling open an enormous drawer. “They’re organized by country, except for Brazil, the U.S., and England, which are organized by genre. For example…” She pulls open another drawer. “Here, we’ve got rock, pop, et cetera.” And another, “And here we’ve got Asia—China, India, Japan, Middle Eastern music, et cetera. Got it? All right. Now find something cool for u
s to listen to.” She adds, proudly, “There are speakers all around the house.” Angelina Jolie follows her mistress to the bedroom, while Brad Pitt keeps watch from the sofa. I wipe my glasses with the edge of my shirt. I open a drawer and read the spines at random. I become bored after the first few rows. But I know Marilda. She’ll ask why I’ve chosen one CD over another…I study the spines and once again lose focus. I persist. Telenovela soundtracks…Ah, here’s something: Estúpido Cúpido—Nacional. It’s from back in our day. Now, how do I get this thingamabob to work? I pick up the remote. Switch it on. A light shines green. I manually open the tray, place the CD inside, and close it. No sound. I press a few buttons. Nothing. I give up. I sit in the armchair. The last time I saw Marilda she was about to move up north, to Acre. Rio Branco. She’d been offered a job at Banco do Brasil. We were no longer seeing each other. She threw a going-away party, and I was invited. She drank too much and left the party before it had ended. The last thing she said to me was, What about you, Peninha? Which I took to mean, My life’s on track, but What about you, Peninha? I was eighteen and she was nineteen. We’d been together for two years. Until she got it into her head that she needed to get out of Cataguases. She studied day in, day out for her public service exam. Our relationship cooled. We fell out of touch. Here comes Angelina, growling in anticipation of Marilda’s return. Brad Pitt gets up and begins to harass me too. Marilda has changed out of faded, ripped jeans, a billowing white shirt, and sneakers into a light, patterned dress and sandals. A clip fastens her sparse white hair. “Have you picked something for us?” “You look lovely!” I say. She smiles, flattered. “I put on a CD but there’s no sound,” I confess in dismay. She takes the remote control and Wilson Miranda starts screaming: “Alguém é sempre bobo de alguém / Se amor não há entre os dois.” She blushes and turns down the volume. I stare in rapture at the fuzz on her neck. My face becomes flushed. “Where’d you find this album?! It’s so corny! Put something else on, now.” And as she crosses the dining room with Angelina Jolie shimmying behind her, she shouts, “Put on something more…more, like…contemporary…I just hate nostalgia!” I take out the CD. My fingers idly rake through various names. “The Cranberries?!” I yell. Marilda yells back, “Sure!” I walk back into the kitchen to Dolores O’Riordan’s singing. Marilda sports a beige apron with a map of Italy and various types of regional pastas. Her glass is empty. I refill it. She dices an onion. “Marilda, could you point me to the restroom?” She stops, says, “There’s one that way,” and gestures at the hall with her knife. I walk into the bathroom. The whiteness of the tiles lining the wall and floor is blinding. I lift the toilet cover, pee, flush, wash my hands, head back to the kitchen. Marilda is dicing garlic. She sees me and says, “Grab a saucepan for me, will you? In the cupboard. Not that one…The other one.” She sets the pan on a burner and slops in a generous amount of olive oil. “The secret is low heat,” she explains and takes a long swig of wine. “What does your wife…or rather ex-wife…Marília…do?” she asks. “I don’t know what she’s up to now, but she’s dabbled in a bunch of different things. When we split up, she was a partner at an event-planning company that specialized in children’s birthday parties.” “Wow, how unusual!” “What about you, Marilda?” “What about me?” she dumps some onion into the pan. “What do you want to know?” she insists, amused. “Everything,” I say. “Everything?” she shoots back, cheekily. “Yes, everything,” I insist. “Hmm…Where should I start?” “At the beginning,” I tease. She slides the garlic into the pan with the onion and stirs both with a large wooden spoon. “Pass me that pepper grinder, will you? Thanks. All right. So, I applied to work at Banco do Brasil. You remember that, don’t you? And I was posted in Acre. I asked to be relocated, I wanted to come back to Minas, or as close as I could get to Minas…” She tears open the bag of shrimp and empties it in the saucepan. She adds black pepper and a pinch of salt. “I was able to get transferred to Barreiras, in Bahia. Next stop, Minas Gerais. Except…” Another long swill of wine. “What happened in Bahia?” I ask. Marilda grabs the cans of peeled tomato, opens them, and dumps the sauce into the pan. “The trick to seasoning this…” She heads to the cupboard, takes out a white sugar bowl, and sprinkles sugar into the sauce with a small teaspoon. “Cuts the acidity,” she explains. “Well…in Bahia…Barreiras was growing fast. Out-of-staters were setting up soybean plantations in the Cerrado…That’s where I met my husband, a Gaúcho. There were tons of southerners up there. Tall and handsome, green eyes and brown hair. A prince,” she concludes, with a touch of sarcasm. “All right, now we wait for the water to boil.” “Then what happened?” “Oséias, my glass is empty!” she laughs. The Star Wars theme song plays and startles Marilda, who reaches for her cell phone. “Just a minute,” she says, heading out to the veranda. Dolores O’Riordan sings, “There was a game we used to play.” A pleasant smell takes hold of the kitchen. I edge up to the stove and watch the red sauce bubble like lava in a volcano. My head, light, seems to want to sever itself from the rest of my body, slow and bone-weary. Brad Pitt snores under the table. Angelina Jolie monitors the door, alert. The water comes to a boil. Time evaporates. Marilda returns, her face puckered. She dabs sauce onto the back of her left hand with a wooden spoon, tastes it. “Is there more wine?” she asks, with a touch of impatience. I show her the empty bottle. “Well, open another!” she orders. I head to the fridge for another bottle of wine, remove the foil, uncork it, insert the wine pourer, fill Marilda’s glass and then mine, and set the bottle in the ice bucket. “And your parents?” I ask. She dumps spaghetti in the boiling water and sighs. “Dad died more than ten years ago. Mom lives in Betim with Paco, my brother. Do you remember him?” “I do…Works for Fiat, right?” “Right.” “My mom and dad passed away years ago…It’s funny, isn’t it? That feeling of being an orphan…” “Yeah…” she mumbles, preoccupied, as she pries loose the strands of spaghetti. “Time is ticking out,” Dolores O’Riordan reminds us. There is a long silence, then Marilda whispers, “Bastard broke two of my ribs.” “Huh?! Who?” I ask, confused. “Prince charming…” “Oh,” I mutter, taken aback. “Do you mind if we eat here, in the kitchen?” she asks, arranging a couple of bamboo placemats on the table. “Do you think you might ever move back, Peninha?” she asks, placing a pair of small bowls over two plates. “No…It wouldn’t make any sense…” I answer. “Do you think you’ll remarry?” she asks, folding the cloth napkins. “No…That wouldn’t make much sense either,” I answer. “Well damn, nothing seems to make sense to you, does it!” she says, exasperated. I stand there in silence as Marilda sets a pair of forks and spoons beside each plate. Sore, she asks again, “Does anything make sense to you?” She takes a long swig of wine. She takes the strainer out of the pasta pot and holds it under the faucet, beneath a stream of cold water. She scoops spaghetti and sauce into the two bowls and then puts them on the plates. She washes her hands and takes off her apron, hanging it on a hook by the oven, and sits down. The music has stopped. She tops up the glasses with wine and gives a half-hearted toast, “To life!” We dig in. “The food’s delicious, Marilda. Not just delicious, exquisite!” She smiles sadly and asks, “Do you still find me attractive?” I look up at her light-brown eyes. “Marilda, you’re a very attractive woman. Like I said, I don’t think anyone would guess your real age. And if you were to dye your hair, well…” “Again with the hair!” “I’m sorry, Marilda,” I say, stuffing a heaping forkful of spaghetti in my mouth. She polishes off her plate. “Peninha, why did we split up, huh?” “You wanted to get out of here, remember?” “And you didn’t?” “I think I did…I just didn’t have the initiative…You sort of egged me on without realizing.” “Do you think we did the right thing?” I remain quiet. “Sometimes I think…Sometimes I feel like we go round and round…But we’re still just stuck in place. It’s all so strange…” she says. We fall silent. The only sound is of the cutlery scraping the ceramic. There is still a small amount of spaghetti on my plate but I can’t eat any more.
I wipe my mouth with the napkin. Marilda asks, “Did you not enjoy the food?” “I did…It’s just that…lately…I’ve been unwell…Everything upsets my stomach…” I explain. She sets down her cutlery too. “Sometimes I think life is all about regret…” she says, abruptly rising to collect the plates, the forks, the spoons, the napkins. I get up to help her and she stops me. “No, no, that’s all right. I’ll stick it all in the dishwasher later. Some more wine?” “I’m good, thanks,” I say, my head aching. “How about a cup of coffee?” “Some coffee would go down nicely.” She grabs a box from the cupboard and opens it. “Strong or aromatic?” she asks, showing me various capsules of extravagant flavors. “Something strong, I think.” “Ristretto?” “Sure,” I answer. She starts the machine, takes me by the hand and guides me to the living room. “Sit down, I’ll be right back.” Angelina Jolie pads behind Marilda. Brad Pitt plops down next to me on the sofa, diligent. The heavy drawn curtains make the room heel like a moored boat. Marilda returns and sets her glass of wine, which is once again full, on the coffee table. She then reappears holding a silver tray with a demitasse of coffee, a small spoon, and two small packets—one sugar, the other artificial sweetener—on a white cloth, and places it next to the glass of wine. She sits in the armchair opposite me, Angelina Jolie splayed at her feet. I pick up the cup of coffee, add sweetener, stir. “Migraines,” she says. “Huh?” “Migraines, I get migraines. Hence the curtains…” “Oh!” She takes a long swill of wine, says, “He used to…the…the bastard used to beat me! The scumbag. I did everything for him, everything…But he still cheated on me…He went around with other women…Drank…Did cocaine…Hit me in front of the kids…And then he’d come crying and apologize to the high heavens. I believed him at first. I thought he could change…Then, I started counting the days, like I was serving time.” I don’t know what to say. “I’m so sorry,” I mutter, but I don’t think she hears me. “When Rôney turned eighteen, his dad agreed to let him study in Salvador. I convinced him to let Sabrina attend high school there too. Meanwhile, I secretly filed for retirement at the bank. The moment it was approved, I climbed into my car and drove away. I didn’t look back. I didn’t say goodbye to anyone. I left everything behind—my house, my furniture, my clothes, everything. He tried to make things right with me, in Salvador. I filed a restraining order. I don’t know why I’m telling you all of this…” I’m still holding the cup of coffee in my hand, unsure of whether I should say anything. She takes a long swill of wine. Gets up and makes her way to a large abstract painting hanging on the wall. “Rôney—that’s his name, right? What does he do?” I ask. “He’s a lawyer. He’s trying to set himself up here. But it’s not easy. He hates the city…The people…He never got over the divorce…” “And…” “Sabrina? She’s at school in Viçosa for environmental engineering.” “Uh-huh…” Her eyes are red and her words, bloated, squeeze past her lips. “Marília…Was she…Was she…the woman of your dreams?” she asks dolefully. “She was a good person,” I say. Marilda pauses behind me. “The worst part is I don’t get to regret marrying the bastard. Because that would mean rejecting my kids.” She circles back, shoves Brad Pitt out of the way, and sits beside me on the sofa. She grabs my right hand and presses it to her breast. “Firmer than most young women out there, don’t you think?” I recoil, embarrassed. She downs the rest of her wine. “You know what, Peninha? You could stay in Cataguases. Just imagine. We get back together, live here, in this house…We could be happy—for however long we have left. Say…Twenty years? Who cares! Twenty years is a long time. We may not be able to change the past, but we can determine the future. Don’t you think?” The Star Wars theme song rings out. Marilda glances at her cell phone. “I gave birth to a monster, Peninha, an actual monster! I have a spy living under my own roof. A spy that came out of my own body…Look at my nails…I’m not allowed to paint them…My hair…Do you think I like wearing it white? I’m not allowed any makeup…Or earrings, bracelets, necklaces…I may as well be a nun! I left home to get away from a jealous husband…But my son’s just like him…Maybe even worse…” The Star Wars theme song continues to play. “You know what I want to do right now? I want to sleep with you…I’m single…I’m fifty-five years old…Independent…But my son won’t stop calling me…He’s suspicious of everything…He can tell I have someone over…He’ll turn up here soon enough. You’ll see…” I stand, say, “Let’s make sure that doesn’t happen, Marilda.” She remains seated. “I don’t want to get you into any more trouble,” I insist. The dogs are agitated; they snarl and growl, yowl and tremble. She gets up, wraps her arms around me, whispers, “I thought things would be different, Peninha…So different…” and her lips reach for mine. I wriggle free and thank Marilda for lunch. She shushes the dogs, who immediately fall quiet, and opens the door in silence. The light blinds me. My feet follow Marilda’s unsteady steps. “I’m a pale, white shadow, Oséias,” she says as she throws open the door. “Bye, Marilda,” I say, unable to meet her eyes. I rush down the sidewalk, the sun beating down on my head. Shit! I forgot my hat! I stop and turn to check if Marilda is still there, but she’s disappeared behind the wall. What now? I’ll have to buy a a new one. I can’t go around without it. Another pointless expense…When had I taken it off? I think it must have been in the kitchen, right when we arrived. Or had I left it in the car? Maybe it was in the car. Or when I took the groceries out of the trunk. Those nutty dogs. It’s insane! Everybody bosses her around. Her ex-husband, her son, her dogs. The stench permeates everything. And the filth caked on the veranda. She’s terrified of this Rôney character…Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt…What a joke! No, we can’t determine our futures, Marilda. The future is only a projection of the past. We are what we once were. We make our own path. We design our own course. When we choose one direction over another, we set the boundaries of what will come later. Her breasts…She’s still attractive…Though she’s let herself go…It’s hot. Sweat pours down my armpits, drenching my back. My skin smarts. Would things have turned out better if we’d gotten married? Different, sure, but better? Can anyone know? No one knows. What I’d give to start from the beginning, from scratch. And still…Still, I haven’t got long left…Jesus, I’m going to die and never…It isn’t my body they’ll bury—what is a body?—but everything I once was, my memories, the people who live inside me and who I can visit by closing my eyes. They’ll disappear with me forever, as if they’d never existed…Just like Lígia…How many people still remember Lígia? Yesterday, a body; today, a name; tomorrow, less than…I need some water, I feel dizzy. I pass roads that lead to fallow plots of land, arid brush, and see no one except for a rangy horse gazing out at the afternoon with downcast eyes. I glimpse Estação Square in the distance, the anarchy of the city. Women at bus stops freshen themselves with makeshift fans, their foreheads misted and their bodies slack. Heat ripples up from the paving stones, scalding my legs and warping the landscape. I walk into a diner, order a bottle of water, unscrew the lid, drink half of it in a single swig. I ask how much I owe, stuff my hand in my back pocket, pull out my wallet, glimpse a photograph of Nico, pay and leave, hands trembling, body careening, feet sinking into the churning waters of the Rodeiro marshes, my hips brace against a stand chock-full of underwear, “Buy two, get one free!” yells a young guy, and I almost knock him over, apologize, keep on walking, as though asleep, bumping into people and things, ignored by some and cursed by others, until I find myself on Avenida Astolfo Dutra, where I collapse onto a concrete bench under the shade of a couple of oiti trees. I empty the rest of the water over my head. Wipe my glasses with the edge of my shirt. The digital clock reads 16:27. 31°C. I grab my wallet from my pocket, slip out the photograph of Nico. He must be around nine years old here. Jet-black hair, big blue eyes, anxious to get back to playing. I wonder who took that photo. Was it me? Marília? Marília ran a gift store on Rua Orfanato at the time, but she felt restless and was considering a change of career—she was on the hunt for new opportunities, as she liked
to say. She later ended up working as a manager for a company that organized parties and events, and then founded her own event-planning business specializing in children’s birthday parties. I slide the photo into my wallet, which I stuff in my back pocket. Was Marília already cheating on me then? Probably. You moron, she’d spat, rolling her Rs and drawling her Os, an accent she slipped into when nervous. It’s all your fault anyway. You leave me at home on my own all week. Then when you’re here, all you do is bitch and moan, I’m tired, I’d rather stay home. You’re constantly bitter and unhappy. Nothing’s ever good enough. No one can live like this, in the gloom. People need light, joy, fun. At first, I was overwhelmed with shame and devotion—I bent over backward trying to please you. I even made you pierogis, your favorite. But your apathy got under my skin, so I cheated on you out of spite. As payback for marrying a man too goddamn dumb to see what’s going on right under his nose. At first she’d tried to disparage me. She’d feigned jealousy and accused me of entertaining lovers in every city I went to. She made up plots, dreamed up intrigue. Weekends were hell. But all her stories—and she knew this—got her nowhere, because I had neither the time, the occasion, nor the desire to add to an already colossal mess. Our fights and quarrels and misunderstandings were so persistent I decided to throw myself into work. Coming home to São Paulo on Fridays started to feel like a burden. One sweltering afternoon just like this one—a Saturday in December, the twelfth—Marília asked me to take her to a motel, something we had never done before. Though I didn’t understand why, I figured it might be a good idea. A new beginning. Christmas was around the corner. We could make peace with one another and do away with the constant fights, which were exhausting and pointless on top of being bad for Nicolau, who was becoming increasingly aloof and aggressive. We climbed into the car and chose a random, discreet, and clean-looking motel on Avenida Sapopemba. I inspected the room—huge TV, jacuzzi, enormous bed, chandelier. Marília said, Sit down, Oséias, we have a lot to talk about. Calm and firm, her eyes averted, she confessed her infidelity to me. She’d been seeing the same man for five years, she said. They were in love and had finally decided to separate from their respective spouses—that’s the word she used, stammering, after a short pause, spouses—and get married. I watched Marília’s reflection in the various mirrors hung around the room. It was as if she—unreal—were performing onstage or in a movie, reciting words that had been written for her by someone else, and as if we—she and I—were enacting the end of a marriage that wasn’t ours but instead belonged to some other couple. Then she got up and grabbed her bag. I asked in shock, Why did you bring me here, Marília? And she said, Because I didn’t know how you’d take it. Before she left, slamming the door behind her, she said, Your stuff’s in the trunk of the car. Please don’t step foot in the house ever again. I fell back on the bed, exhausted, and slept without dreaming. I awoke several hours later, disoriented. After settling up, I climbed into the car and drove through the night on Raposo Tavares highway until I couldn’t keep my eyes open anymore. I pulled into the parking lot of a gas station. Sunday awakened me with rain pitter-pattering on the windshield. I was somewhere near Ourinhos. All I had was a suitcase of dirty laundry and a cardboard box filled with clean clothes and a few personal effects, grabbed in a hurry. We saw each other in person only once after, the day we signed our divorce papers. She looked a little puzzled, almost regretful…I got nothing but the car I used for work. I handed over the apartment, our only joint asset. I never saw Marília or Nicolau again. He never tried to contact me and I never tried to contact him. We weren’t on good terms. Neither were he and Marília, for that matter. He was almost twenty and still hadn’t finished high school. He spent his time cooped up at home, on the computer, chain-smoking, probably doing drugs. Sometimes he disappeared for a whole week and then came home covered in filth. No matter how much we pressed him, he refused to explain his sudden disappearances. I’d spend days on the road, working, then come home to that nightmare. At first when I scolded him, he would hang his head low and stick his tail between his legs. But as he bulked up, he began to stand up to me. One time he went so far as to push me. Another, he raised his fist and only held back because I turned away from him. Things went downhill after that. We grew apart. By the time Marília and I separated, I hardly knew what he did with his time, only that he alternated between locking himself up in his fetid room—pizza boxes and Coke bottles strewn across the floor—and going out into the world. What had happened to the boy? We’d had such high hopes. We used to spend whole nights listing the various professions he’d be able to choose from, fantasizing about the happy moments we would have together once he grew up…Nicolau…Niquim…Nico…For what? My bladder hurts. I get up. I cross the avenue and walk along the footpath, knocking into people who sweat and pant. The sun burns my bald spot. I’ve got to buy a hat. I walk into the same diner I’d gone to the day before, on Rua da Estação, and start toward the bathroom when the young man behind the counter intercepts me, “Where are you going?” “Bathroom,” I answer. “You’ve got to buy something first,” he says. “This isn’t a public restroom,” he adds, embarrassed. I’m neither hungry nor thirsty. I scan the pastry display—sfiha, pão de queijo, empanada, coxinha, kibbe, rissole, croquette, sausage rolls…I feel queasy. “Juice and a…pastel…Have you got pastels?” “We fry them on the spot.” “All right, a juice and a pastel.” “What kind of juice?” he asks. “Doesn’t matter…How about…that red one over there?” “And the pastel? Meat or cheese?” “Cheese…I’ll have cheese.” I rush to the fetid bathroom and 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 sit at a table. The deafening fans in the four corners of the diner circulate the muggy air. By the door, a man with a half-full tulip glass of beer, the same one as the day before, is entranced by the movement on the street. The server hands me a very thin plastic cup and a paper plate that holds a pastel sticky with grease. I take a sip of the juice, which is sweet, watery, and so cold I feel it scrape down my throat. I hold the pastel with my fingers wrapped in napkins, and bite one of the corners. The steam burns my lips. Fuck! The lone man turns and greets me, solemn. He takes another sip of his beer, which I assume is now warm, and carries on watching the monotonous parade of cars and hurried people. I bite the opposite end of the pastel and am met with a piece of bland, rubbery cheese. I take another sip of my sugary beverage. Mosquitoes buzz round and round, then land on the thick and greasy sheet of semitransparent plastic that sits over the checkered tablecloth. Marilda…Marília…She’s right. I’d never noticed the resemblance…Kindred names…Marília is taller, stronger—though both are bossy, dogged, willful. Dr. Alper said, It varies from patient to patient. The disease evolves depending on the energy you’re willing to put into fighting it. The psychological burden is considerable and should not be discounted. I leave half a pastel. I collect the paper plate, plastic cup, and dirty napkins, then throw them in the trash. I ask what I owe him, pull my worn leather wallet from my back pocket and take out a bill. He goes to the cash register and hands me back a few coins. I leave the diner. Sweat runs down my forehead, face, stomach. I amble aimlessly in the shade of marquees and gazebos. After we separated, I lost all interest in my job. The head office called me, warned me, took my circumstances into consideration, made allowances, and then, two years later, they let me go. They tried to make it look like I hadn’t been fired. Like it had been an…honorable…discharge…They threw a small party on a Friday after work. The sales director gave a speech praising my dedication and honesty, and gifted me a watch with my name engraved, incorrectly, on the back—Oséias with a zee—and a check for four months’ salary. My colleagues greeted me with indifference, and a half hour later I was sighing on my own in the boardinghouse room where I still lived, near the Minhocão. I withdrew the remainder of my pension fund, most of which had been sunk i
nto the apartment renovation, and slowly lived off that money as I wore through two pairs of shoes going from door to door in search of work—but who wants to hire a bitter, crabby, and fussy old man? Can I still catch Marcim at this hour? I quicken my pace, legs burning. I need to buy a hat ASAP, while shops are still open. I wonder where I can find something like that. Bakery, bank, stationery, fuel reseller, boteco, bank, diner, ice cream parlor, city hall! Spotting me in the distance, the black dog immediately wags its tail. He approaches me, gently sniffs my hand. “You again! Left me high and dry, didn’t you, you bastard!” I say without bitterness. The dog seems happy to see me, and follows me up the steps of city hall. He sits restless in a corner as I shuffle up to the big-bellied security guard. “Good afternoon.” “Good afternoon.” “I’d like to speak to the mayor, please, Marcim Fonseca.” “Do you have an appointment?” “No, I’m a friend…A childhood friend…” Solicitous, he takes me to the receptionist. “Valéria, this gentleman here would like to speak to the mayor.” The guard circles back to the entrance, confident of having fulfilled his duty. “How can I help you?” she asks, perfect teeth drawing an earnest smile. “Thank you, Valéria. I’m a friend of Marcim’s—the mayor, Marcim Fonseca—and I’d like to speak with him. Just a quick chat.” “Personal business, then?” “Oh yes. Personal business, all right, we’re childhood friends…He used to know me, or rather, he knows me by the name Peninha…Because of my…build…Back in the day…I mean…I was like this back then too, skinny and…” “Mr. Peninha, is it? Let me have a word with his secretary, Dona Iara. I’m just the receptionist, there’s not much I can do to help…But I’ll have a word with her, leave it to me.” “Is he…Is the mayor around?” “I couldn’t say. But write your name down here, yes, right here, and I’ll make sure to pass it on to Dona Iara.” “Thank you very much, Valéria…I left a note for him this morning…with your colleague…Michele, is that right? She probably gave it to him…” “I see, okay. As you’ve done that already, you’ll have to sit tight until he calls. He makes a point of responding to every…constituent.” “So he’ll call?” I ask, not so much ironic as resigned. “Definitely,” Valéria confirms, with confidence. I draw back and hear footsteps clipping down the dark-wood staircase that leads to the mayor’s office. The features of the older of the two men remind me of Nem Ladeira, a classmate from Colégio Cataguases. The men materialize before me, then vanish down a hallway to the side. I circle back to the receptionist’s desk and wait for her to finish her call. “Valéria, the gentleman who left just now, who is he?” “Dr. Domingos Ladeira? Oh, he’s a service provider.” “What sort of services does he provide?” “Waste management.” “Oh…And is he a doctor?” “When you’re poor like us, all rich men are doctors,” she says, disarmingly. I thank her. “Happy to be of service, Mr. Peninha,” Valéria responds. I leave the building, and the stray cheerfully gets up to follow me. I cross Rui Barbosa Square—what time is it now? The streetlamps switch on. 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. Nem Ladeira…Doctor…Service provider…Waste management…Through all three years of high school, Nem Ladeira sat at the desk next to mine so he could cheat on tests. He knew nothing and never studied, but his father was Dr. Ladeira, acting pediatrician for most of the children in town—though his real passion was drinking cachaça and eating mocotó on the weekends in botecos on the outskirts of town. When he drank, he turned bell-pepper red and indulged in samba circles. Nem was the teacher’s pet because his father, as a doctor, commanded respect. I never thought he’d amount to anything, and, now look here, Galego, I’m going to call you Galego, you no-good mutt. You up and left me all alone. Though that’s got nothing on what happened to me after, a real travesty…Women!…Women are terribly complicated, I’m sure you know what I mean…Hold on, though. Are you a stud or a bitch? Let’s have a look. Aha, a stud! Looks like I’m among equals. Galego…Galego was the name of a dog we had at the farm…Galego…He had a long life, that dog…Uncle Paulino was crazy about him. And how could he not be? When the sun went down, the dog would herd the cattle on his own, steering them to the corral. He’d fetch the horses from pasture and lead them to the stable, scare away the forest foxes and oncillas that came down from the woods. He used to escort the family into town, always watchful as he padded ahead of the wagon. He looked after the kids. The only thing he didn’t do was talk…Nem Ladeira. Who would have thought…He didn’t even recognize me…Walked right on by, like I was a post…I mean nothing to him…Or to Marcim Fonseca…He must have gotten the note…He doesn’t remember me…Does anyone? Galego does—let’s be fair. We may have met only once, but you took an immediate shining to me, didn’t you? These sparrows are making a goddamn racket! You don’t happen to hunt birds, do you? What do you eat? How do you get on? I wish I were like you, free, just traipsing around, accountable to no one. I guess I’m sort of like you already. But believe me, there’s nothing good about this life…If I were you, boy—you look young, you’ve still got that twinkle of joy in your eyes—if I were you, I’d find a partner stat, mark my territory, start a family, and then take it easy. Because otherwise, you reach a certain age and find you’ve got nobody beside you…What can I say, buddy? It’s tough…A damp breeze slips through my shirt, faintly sweeping the dead leaves off the footpath, scattering sand from between the paving stones and kicking up dust. It’s probably going to rain. Drawn faces brush past mine, each of them seeming to suspect what a mess my life is. Galego?! I guess he’s off. I look for him up one street and down another, but find nothing. Fleet-footed, he’s melted away like a mirage. When all’s said and done, he probably does have a home, and is on his trusty way there now, like everybody else, after a hard day’s work. Except for me…With no home, no ground to stand on…I heave my feet along the pitted footpath. Nothing’s worked out, Galego…Nothing. How come? When did things take a turn for the worse? What shortcuts had my legs led me down without my knowledge? This constant discomfort…I actually had prospects…But nothing came of those either, small as they were…Night has fallen once and for all. A packed bus pulls up. Men and women squeeze in, glowing with exhaustion and leaving the bus stop empty. The windows of buildings flicker intermittently to the color of flashing television screens. Side by side, two motorcyclists have a chat. In the shade of the fig trees, a young man with his hood up and both hands in his jacket pockets comes toward me, and for a moment I’m scared I’ll be assaulted—but he walks past, without disturbing. I wonder if Rosana’s home yet. I can’t tell from outside, the front of the house is hidden by the gate. I stop by the tall rough-concrete wall, press the intercom buzzer, and wait. I guess no one’s home. Now what? I’d have liked to go to the bathroom, shower, rest. Though I don’t expect a response, I press the intercom buzzer again and Rosana’s voice rings out almost instantly. “Who is it?” “It’s me,” I hear the click. “Did that work?” “Yes!” The door is slightly ajar, casting light on the hood of the red Duster. I walk along the concrete path, enter the empty kitchen, and make my way to the bathroom, skin covered in goose bumps. I lower the toilet cover and sit, relieved. I turn on the faucet, wash my hands and face—the mirror shows features that are aged and pallid—turn off the faucet, wipe my hands and face—I’m as yellowed as the pages of an old book—and sweat, legs aquiver, hang up the towel, unlock the door. “Over here, Zézo.” I follow Rosana’s voice to the living room. Zézo…A family nickname…It’s been years since I’ve heard anyone use it…Zézo…Rosana’s slender and elegant body is draped over the sofa, all but a shadow in the faint lamplight. On the coffee table are two glasses—one empty, the other half full—a bottle of wine, and a charcuterie platter. “Won’t you join me?” Still sore from the abuse I’d been put through that afternoon, I accept her invitation. “Were you expecting someone?” I ask, serving myself and settling onto the sofa. “Yeah, you. You still owe me an explanation, remember?” “I th
ought the glass might be for Ricardo…” She smiles wickedly. “Wednesday’s our day off…” “What do you mean?” “Today’s our day off from each other. Ricardo spends the night somewhere else.” She raises her glass. “Cheers!” “Cheers!” I echo, taking a sip of wine that claws down my throat. “I don’t mean to pry, but…What…What does he…get up to…exactly?” “I don’t know. He says he spends the night playing poker with friends. I don’t care.” “You don’t care?” “No, I don’t care.” She fills up her glass again. “Rosana, do you not love your husband anymore?” “Jeez! You sound like a teenager, Zézo. Love…what is love anyway? An emotional attachment that deteriorates year after year…I was practical about it. I married without the emotional attachment. Ergo, it didn’t deteriorate. What usually happens is people put up with each other. Since I’ve always been happy to just put up with Ricardo, I haven’t gone through all the other stages—disappointment, reconciliation, frustration, reconciliation, depression, resignation, et cetera. I went straight to the end.” The half gloom highlights her pearly teeth, which weren’t so white when she was a teenager. I take another sip of wine. Gesturing at the charcuterie platter, she says, “We’ve got an excellent spread here. Parma ham, Emmental cheese, Chilean olives…All of it from Tamires’s shop.” “And where is she at the moment?” “Wednesdays are when she sleeps with her boyfriend…” “So, she does have a boyfriend!” I exclaim, spearing the prosciutto slices with a toothpick. “No, she doesn’t. She’s just pretending,” Rosana counters, sarcastic. “What do you mean?” “She’s made him up.” “Made him up?” “That’s right,” Rosana continues, in the same tone. “She goes to a motel on her own…And comes back in the morning so we’ll think she spent the night in her boyfriend’s arms.” “And how…How exactly do you know this?” I ask, devastated. “I’ve got my spies…” Indignant, I prod Rosana. “And what do your spies have to say about your husband?” She answers without blinking, “That he cheats.” Feeling vindictive, I decide to goad her. “And do you know who this lover is?” “I mean, he hasn’t got one lover. He’s always switching it up.” “Doesn’t that upset you?” She laughs. Takes a long swig of wine, chews on a cube of Emmental, says, “I know Ricardo, Oséias. He’s got diabetes, high blood pressure, angina…The man hasn’t screwed anyone in a looooong time. Those tramps he parades around are just for show.” Rosana gets up and says, “I’m no saint myself,” then cackles and disappears into the kitchen. The wind has picked up, and now rattles the windows. Thunder claps in the distance. Day off…I wipe my glasses with the edge of my shirt. I wonder if Rosana knows Nem Ladeira. I’ll try some of this Emmental…I’ve got to visit Tamires’s shop…Poor thing…I’ll go to city hall early tomorrow and ambush Marcim…Per the suggestion of the woman with the coffee…It’s a good plan…I need to buy a hat…Rosana, wiry-bodied, returns with a new bottle of wine and sets it on the coffee table. She fills her glass and has a sip. “Delicious!” She clicks her tongue, an expert. Since when does she know anything about wine? “Since when do you know anything about wine, Rosana?” “I took a class. In Juiz de Fora.” Changing the subject, she asks, “What did you get up to today?” “I bumped into Marilda. Remember her?” She shakes her head disinterestedly. “My first girlfriend.” “I had no idea you’d dated someone here, before moving to São Paulo…” “Well, I did…Marilda.” “Ah,” she sighs. For a few moments, lightning floods the room with light. Seconds later, thunder rattles the walls. “It’s going to rain,” she declares. “Rosana, what are people saying about the mayor, Marcim Fonseca?” I ask as I take a fat olive to my mouth. “The usual: some say he’s decent, others that he’s no good. Everybody agrees he’s a crook…” “Did you know he was a classmate of mine at Colégio Cataguases?” “Oh, really…” she sighs, again disinterestedly. “Do you remember Dr. Ladeira?” “Dr. Ladeira? You mean the pediatrician?” “Yeah. Better known for drinking cachaça and eating mocotó with common people on the outskirts.” The wind capers outside. Rosana stretches out on the armchair, sipping at her glass of wine as though lying on a divan at a Roman feast. I take a long drink of wine and whisper, “There’s isn’t a day I don’t think of Lígia…” “Huh?!” Shocked, Rosana topples out of her languorous fog. “Fuck, Oséias,” she jumps to her feet, wineglass in hand, and flips on the light. “Are you still obsessing over that?! Stop dwelling on the past, Oséias!” She paces around, her voice unsettled. “We’ve got to live in the present. In the moment! You keep looking back. You can’t see what’s around you, much less what’s right under your nose. No, nobody can take that kind of weight. That’s why you’re the way you are—no wife, no kids, no friends…Estranged from your family…I’m sorry to put it like this, but it’s my right. I’m your older sister. I worry…If you carry on like this…If you carry on, you’ll end up just like Dad…Dad wasted away under all that guilt…And Mom…Her cancer…I got over it, Oséias. Not long before I became pregnant, something strange started happening to me. I wasn’t sleeping. I heard voices, saw things. I visited a Spiritist Center and put myself through a disobsession treatment, to persuade Mom that she wasn’t part of our world anymore. It wasn’t easy. At first, she refused to accept it. She was so tormented…But I broke free from her…Then, when Tamires was around ten, eleven years old, I had another rough patch. Insomnia, anxiety, depression. I was falling again, when someone—I can’t remember who—told me to see a psychologist. I started therapy. It was a godsend.” The blue glare of lightning flashes against Rosana’s silhouette, which hovers in the darkness like a fish skimming the surface of an aquarium at night. Thunder makes the entire house rumble. Rosana fills her wineglass, sits on the sofa, and picks up where she left off. “Our sister, God rest her soul, was…sick…The more I think about it, the more I realize it was no one’s fault. The truth is that what she did, that…reckless…act…It destroyed our family. It hurt some more, others less, but everyone suffered…enormously…At first, instead of guilt all I felt was hate. But I don’t think about it anymore. I’ve forgiven her. My conscience is clear.” The lights suddenly turn off, and the world plunges into a primordial darkness. “Power outage,” she says. Damn it, how am I meant to shower now? Silence. Fat drops crackle at intervals on the roof. Then, all at once, a thick curtain of water pours down from the sky. Rosana’s voice, tender and a little slurred, shoots through the gloom. “On nights like these, when it storms, I think of Mom…She would’ve lit a candle by now and had us all praying on our knees to Saint Barbara…” “Saint Barbara, your courage is much stronger than the forces of hurricanes and the power of lightning,” I begin. Rosana joins in and together we continue, feigning contrition, “be always by our side so that we, like you, may face all storms, wars, trials, and tribulations with the same fortitude with which you faced yours…” We laugh. “And she used to burn something too…” “A holy branch that hung on the wall.” “That’s it! She used to say it’d protect us from lightning.” I hear the clattering of glass. “I still have nightmares about that house, you know,” Rosana says. “I dream that the river is rising and no matter how quickly we try to get everything out, the water is much stronger and sweeps through every room…Suddenly, I can’t see the ceiling anymore, everything is underwater…I hated that house. Would you believe I once found a snake on the stove?” “I remember.” “You remember? But you were so small…” “It was a vine snake.” “Was it?” My hands fumble through the darkness for my wineglass. I drink the last sip. My mouth is bitter, my head aches, my body tingles. The rain ebbs but does not stop. “Rosana, are all the windows shut?” She laughs. “Yes, all the windows are shut, Zézo. I knew the weather was going to turn…A habit I picked up back in the day…I always check everything before leaving the house. In case it rains and all the furniture is wrecked…Like when the river used to overflow…Those things, they get into your blood,” she asserts, tragicomically. “And Isinha?” “What about her?” Rosana asks. “It’d be so nice if we could get together—me, you, Isinha, João Lúcio…Wouldn’t it? Like the old d
ays…” “There you go again with the old days…There are no old days, Oséias. It’s all in the past! Dead. Over!” she spits out. “Does everything have to be that way?” I mutter. “I haven’t seen Jôjo in years, I know nothing about his life. We fell out of touch. Isinha and me, we still talk now and then, on the phone. Sometimes months will pass, but I always call. She can’t even do that…You know how difficult Isinha can be…She’s terribly jealous of me…And proud…Last time I was there, I asked if she needed anything, and she became furious. Said I could visit anytime as her sister, but if I planned on playing the social worker, I’d better stay the hell away…So, I did. No one wants to be treated that way…” “I feel sorry for Isinha,” I sigh. Rosana glowers. “Sorry? She chose that life. Nobody forced her to marry her good-for-nothing husband! He’s a little shit…A washout…” Washout. Marília had used the same word to describe me. Hurt, I say, “I’m a washout too, Rosana.” She falters, then continues. “You’re not a washout, Zézo. You left, you fought to get where you are…” “And I’ve got nothing to show for it…No home, no family, no friends…You said so yourself…” Rosana immediately asks, “Are you broke, Zézo?” This is the only thing that really moves her, offering financial help as a form of humiliation, what should be an act of compassion manifesting in her hands as pure condescension. Rosana had clawed her way out of the muck and now had the resources to rescue her needy relatives, as she liked to tell anyone who’d listen. It was a way for her to counteract malicious rumors about the suspicious origins of Ricardo’s properties and possessions. When they talk about me behind my back, they’re wolves, but when they need our help, they dress in sheep’s clothing, she threw in the face of the world. Bunch of hypocrites, I could picture her screaming, finger raised. “No, Rosana, I’m not broke. I told you already.” The rain falls harder. Water roars down the gutter. “Why did Marília never visit, Oséias? Was she embarrassed?” “Embarrassed? Why would she be embarrassed?” “Who knows…Maybe because of how poor we were.” “Her family was just as poor as ours, Rosana.” “Then why did she never want to meet us?” I say nothing, I don’t have an answer. “Isinha’s difficult…Always has been…” she grumbles. A car drives down the road, honking convulsively. “I know why you’re here, Oséias,” Rosana says now, haltingly. “You’ve come to stoke a dying ember…You’re a creature of shadows, feeding off the suffering of others…” I need to get up, my body is beaten and can’t take it anymore—my hands tremble, my legs wobble, my heads feels light. “One time…” A hoarse voice rises faceless from the depths of the dark, faint and ragged. “It was Saturday and I’d come home late. I was fifteen or sixteen at the time. I threw myself on my bed to cry. I was miserable, torn by everything my godmother was offering. I felt this sudden hatred for our house and everything that tied me to it—Mom, Dad, all of you. I was scared. I kept wondering what would become of me, what my future would hold. I lay in bed sobbing, quietly. I was sure no one could hear me. Lígia and Isinha were usually asleep at that time of night. Like I said, it was late. But then someone lay down next to me and held me firmly in her arms. She stayed there, silent and still, until little by little I calmed down. The sadness bled out of me and I was filled with a sense of peace so enormous I immediately fell asleep. Me, the insomniac with huge bags under her eyes. I slept like a rock. When I woke up the next day, the sun was already high in the sky. The bunk beds were empty, and the girls had left for mass. I never had a chance to tell her how much it had healed me to be held in her arms, because it wasn’t long before…she…That thing…happened…How I wish she…she were here…so that I could…I could…” Rosana falls silent. I can picture her made-up face desecrated by small tears. She’s right there. I could hold her in my arms, say something, anything, offer a word of comfort. Instead I get up and grope the walls until I reach my room. I’ve turned to stone, to steel. I feel nothing. I fumble with the lock, put my glasses on the nightstand, lie down over the blankets with my clothes on, close my eyes