by Luiz Ruffato
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“that my godfather, God rest his soul, gave me. A French brand, L’Alpin,” Edinho explains as he spritzes me with Aqua Velva. “They ran off with it that time they broke into the parlor, when it was still in Vila Domingos Lopes,” he continues, fanning my irritated skin with the white cloth. “I don’t know why. It’s not like they could do anything with it,” he laments, softly dabbing my freshly shaven face with a cotton pad. “That’s when I found out about Filarmonica, a Spanish brand. Best razor under the sun,” he boasts, scouring my face for a microscopic hair. “Second best,” Édson contests. “There’s nothing quite like Solingen,” he says, brandishing his razor. “Everybody knows Germans are the best steel producers in the world.” “They make the best steel, I’ll give you that, but they don’t make the best knives.” Edinho rights my chair, satisfied. “There you go! The torture’s over!” Satisfied, he hands me my glasses and turns the seat so I am facing the mirror. I get up, a little light-headed, and glance at the price chart. I take money from my pocket, pay, open my backpack, stuff my hat and the small plastic bag inside, and sling it on my back. I say goodbye to Edinho and Édson, and to the man whose face is now slopped in foam and who wishes me a good evening with his eyes. I leave the arcade. Clouds of swarmers gather around the streetlamps. I walk slowly, knocking into sweaty passersby rushing to bus stops. The shops are closed. The heat inflames my swollen, tired legs. In the bars, beer drinkers holler as they try to make themselves heard over the babel of voices, over the music spilling out of the television, over the din of car engines and horns stuck in traffic, over the trilling of sparrows. The last street vendors have taken down their stalls. A cart sells popcorn; another, corn on the cob; yet another, various sweets. Even though she was a good cook, Mom never had time to prepare individual meals every day; she was chained to the basement and to the tireless rat-tat-tat of the sewing machine as she turned out dresses, skirts, blouses, shirts, pants, shorts. On Sundays, though, she used to wake up early and spend the morning making desserts that kept in the fridge for weeks, and always did her best to please every single one of us: coconut cheese flan for Dad and me, rice pudding for João Lúcio, chocolate icebox cake for Rosana, brigadeiro for Lígia, cathedral-window jelly for Isinha. But on the day Lígia…died…Mom declared the end of desserts. As though it were a sin to soften the bitterness of such a loss. Once, when I was in Cataguases for New Year, João Lúcio showed up without warning at the house in the company of an older woman. He walked in, hugged Mom, and explained he wanted her to teach his housekeeper to make rice pudding. Mom, overwhelmed with sewing commissions, greeted them both and asked, with majestic condescension, if the woman really had no idea how to make something as straightforward as rice pudding. João Lúcio said she did know how to make rice pudding, just not her rice pudding. Mom protested, claiming she had too much work on, that she didn’t remember the recipe and didn’t want to think about it anymore, but at the end of the day, she couldn’t say no to João Lúcio, her darling son. She sent him to the center for Piemonte rice, milk, cloves, cinnamon sticks, and lime, and went back to her errands, while the woman sat in the living room, awkward and still. As soon as João Lúcio returned, Mom taught them to make rice pudding with teacherly precision. She tossed the rice, cinnamon stick, cloves, and lime zest into a large pot of water and let it simmer over a low flame. Once the water had evaporated, she poured in milk and sugar and brought it all to a boil. Then, she lowered the heat and waited for the mixture to thicken, stirring occasionally with a wooden spoon. The woman observed everything studiously and without speaking. Then, Mom put the rice pudding in a glass baking dish and left it to cool on the windowsill. She returned to the basement, visibly shaken. João Lúcio went out for some beer and salami, then sat in the living room listening to his favorite old records on the turntable: Ray Conniff and his Orchestra, Franck Pourcel, “Tales from the Vienna Woods,” Paul Mauriat. The woman sat unmoving in a corner of the room. Two hours later, Mom summoned everyone to the kitchen—besides João Lúcio and his housekeeper, Rosana and I were also in the house. She showed us the baking dish, took a teaspoon and plunged it into the rice pudding, then gave the teaspoon to João Lúcio. He tasted it, said, Wow, that’s it! Mom asked the woman, Do you know how to make it now? And the woman nodded. Mom dumped the whole thing in the garbage and burst into tears. I cut across Largo da Estação and enter the hotel lobby. Morais greets me with a smile. “Mr. Nunes, room nine, hehehe. Good evening. How are you doing today?” “Good evening,” I say, taking the key from him. “What’s for dinner?” “Bean soup…Hehehe. There are some à la carte options too…” I heft my suddenly heavy body up the wood staircase, walk down the dark hallway, open the door to my room, flip on the light, drop my backpack on the floor, and sigh. Sweat pours down my forehead, neck, and underarms. I fling open the window. There’s no wind to ruffle the leaves. I exit the room and cross the hallway into the bathroom, switch on the light. I unzip my pants, piss. Be quick. Leave the bathroom clean for the next person. That next person might be you. I flush, wash my hands, wipe them on my pants—I forgot my towel…The dark circles under my eyes emphasize my exhaustion. I wipe my glasses with squares of toilet paper. I switch off the lights, close the door, lumber down the hall and the wooden staircase. Morais intercepts me, effusive, “Dinner? Hehehe.” I squeeze through the curtain of colorful plastic strips and enter the near-empty dining hall, where a man sits on his own, drinking beer and watching the seven o’clock telenovela. On a table in the corner is a smoking stockpot and a handwritten sign that reads, Please help yourself. I take a ceramic bowl from the stack, then dip the ladle into the soup, filling it. I grab a spoon and napkin and find somewhere to sit, far from the sound of the television. A server approaches me. “Good evening,” he says. He requests my room number and wonders whether I’d like to order anything off the menu. I shake my head, so he asks if I’d like anything to drink. “Still water,” I say. He turns around and disappears. The TV presenter reels off the news items that will air momentarily on Jornal Nacional. I slurp a couple of spoonfuls of bean soup and feel my body leach out from every pore. The server walks in carrying a tray with a tin cover for the lone man, who decides to order another beer. A couple stumble noisily into the dining hall—he, short and potbellied, already a little drunk, in an auburn wig, and she caked in makeup, squeezed into a low-cut dress, trotting in high heels. The server walks in carrying a tray with a plastic bottle of still water and a glass, then places both theatrically on the table. He asks if I’d like anything else, I say no, and he turns his attention to the new arrivals. They must be regular customers because I hear them roaring with laughter, and, though they’re nowhere near me, can make out the man in the auburn wig as he says, “…Cuban steak, but hold the apple, ’cause, you know, Jaque’s not a fan.” “They kicked Adam out of Paradise over an apple,” she says, with thundering laughter. In winter, Mom used to make minestrone and leave it sitting on the gas stove. As people came home, they would light the burner, serve themselves a bowl, and dig in. Mom always waited until the last person had had his or her fill. Only then, sometimes in the middle of the night, would she check if there was any left, scrape the bottom of the stockpot, devour the minestrone with relish, then wash, dry, and put away the dishes. The server comes back carrying a tray with a glass of whiskey on the rocks and another glass with a straw submerged in a pale red liquid. I drink the rest of my water, wipe my mouth with the paper napkin, get up. The lone man, his plate clean and beer bottle empty, watches the news program while worrying his teeth with a toothpick. I head through the curtain of colorful plastic strips, and Morais, who’d been sitting on the red sofa, jumps to his feet. “How’d you like the food, Mr. Nunes? Good, isn’t it? Hehehe.” “Good,” I say as I plod up the staircase. I walk down the dark hall and open the door to room nine, switch on the light. I take off my shirt, drape it over the back of the chair. I sit in bed, place my glasses on the nightstand beside the can of Coke, stee
ring clear of the large grease stain. I pull off my shoes and socks, nudge them under the bed, undo the button on my pants. My eyelids are heavy and I feel dizzy. Like I’m on a moving bus. The outside of the house was green. Every year around Christmastime, Dad would hire Seu Julião to paint another coat and then studiously inspect his work, insisting the color had to be the exact same shade of emerald green. He didn’t mind if the inside walls were various hues of blue, so long as they were blue. Yet Seu Julião’s trips back and forth from the hardware store—until Dad gave him his blessing to start painting—became legendary. There was a tiny veranda at the entrance, and through the door, its glass window never fully closed, was the living room, which featured the enormous morado-wood cabinet that held the Philips tube turntable and two dozen records. The three-seater sofa in yellow corduroy faced the Colorado RQ TV, which stood on a peroba-wood sideboard. On the wall, an oval sepia portrait of Mom and Dad on the day of their wedding; she in a white dress, he in a suit and tie, both cloaked in the golden cloth of happiness. I pad through the rooms like a thief, in the gloomy night quiet. Under an enormous wooden crucifix, Mom and Dad sleep with their backs to each other—she with her hands nestled between bent knees, he in his striped pajamas, belly-down, snoring softly. One time, while looking for something or other—I was always looking for things to distract myself with—I’d found a box of condoms under the mattress. That was the moment I realized, disappointed and furious, that my parents were man and woman. On the headboard, on Dad’s side, a chrome Herweg alarm clock—Mom used to proudly remark that she’d never, not in her whole life, needed anything or anyone to help her wake up. I’m always awake, she boasted. And it must have been true, since we never saw her turn in at night, and the table was always set for breakfast when we rose in the morning, while she was already cooped up in the basement pumping the pedal of the sewing machine. Dad liked to sleep. He found it torture to wake up at five a.m. to clock in at Industrial at six on the dot. On Saturdays, at the end of his work week, he’d take a long bath, shave, spritz himself with cologne, have a bowl of soup, hang a blanket over the window to block out the light, and happily sign off until the following morning, when he’d be woken by the radiant Sunday sun and could busy himself with cleaning his bicycle, listen to his cornball music—as Mom liked to quip—and read the Jornal do Brasil, all while looking forward to his postprandial nap, full of spaghetti and wine. I walk into the girls’ bedroom. On the single bed, beneath the window facing the street, Rosana lies on her belly. On the dresser are rings, a necklace, a watch, and a wallet. On the bottom bunk, Isinha sleeps facing the wall. Up top, under the light of a small lamp, Lígia avidly reads Steppenwolf by Herman Hesse. I enter the bedroom I share with João Lúcio. Two single beds and a closet. He sleeps on his side, head resting between open hands. I’m wide awake, watching the shadows twirl on the ceiling. Why had I shown Lígia the gun? Why