No one can enter another’s heart. Macabéa even talked with Glória — but was never entirely open with her.
Glória had a happy little butt and smoked menthols to keep her breath fresh for her interminable kisses with Olímpico. She was all puffed up with herself: she had everything her small ambitions required. And there was in her a defiance that could be summed up as: “nobody bosses me around." But then one day she started to stare and stare and stare at Macabéa. Suddenly she couldn’t stand it and with a slightly Portuguese accent said:
— Oh woman, don’t you have a face?
—I do too. It’s just that my nose is flat, I’m from Alagoas.
— Tell me something: do you think about your future?
The question was left hanging because Macabéa didn’t know how to answer.
Very well. Let’s get back to Olímpico.
He, to impress Glória and impose on her right away, bought red hot peppers at the northeastern market and to show his new girlfriend how tough he was bit right into the fruit of the devil. He didn’t even drink any water to douse the fire in his entrails. The nearly unbearable pain nevertheless toughened him, not to mention that Glória terrified started to obey him. He thought: didn’t I say I was a conqueror? And he attacked Glória with the strength of a drone, she’d give him the honey of bees and thick steaks. He didn’t regret for a second dumping Macabéa because his destiny was to rise in order one day to enter the world of others. He hungered to be others. In Glória’s world for example, he’d fill his pockets, the fragile little macho. He’d finally stop being what he’d always been and what he’d hidden even from himself ashamed of such weakness: because since he was a boy he’d been no more than a solitary heart beating with difficulty in space. The man from the backlands is above all a patient. I forgive him.
Glória, wanting to make up for stealing the other girl’s boyfriend, invited her for a snack one afternoon, Sunday, at her house. To treat the wound she herself had inflicted? (Ah what a boring story, I can hardly stand writing it.)
And then (small explosion) Macabéa stared wide. Because amidst the dirty disorder of the lowest reaches of the middle class there was nonetheless the dull comfort of people who spend all their money on food, in that neighborhood people ate a lot. Glória lived on General so-and-so street, very pleased to live on a street named after a military leader, she felt safer. In her house there was even a telephone. It might have been one of the few times that Macabéa saw that for her there was no place in the world and exactly because Glória gave her so much. That is, a cup filled to the brim with thick real chocolate mixed with milk and many kinds of sugared buns, not to mention a small cake. Macabéa, while Glória was out of the room — secretly robbed a cookie. Then she asked for forgiveness of the abstract Being who gives and takes. She felt forgiven. The Being forgave her everything.
The next day, Monday, maybe because of the liver affected by the chocolate or because she was nervous about drinking rich people’s stuff, she got sick. She didn’t vomit afraid to waste the luxury of the chocolate. Days later, on payday, she found the nerve for the first time in her life (explosion) to go to the cheap doctor Glória recommended. He examined her, examined her, and examined her again.
— Are you on a diet, my girl?
Macabéa didn’t know what to answer.
— What do you eat?
— Hot dogs.
— Just?
— Sometimes I have a bologna sandwich.
— What do you drink? Milk?
— Only coffee and soft drinks.
— What kind of soft drinks? — he asked not knowing what to say. He randomly inquired:
— Do you ever have fits of vomiting?
— Oh, never! — she exclaimed very shocked, for she wasn’t fool enough to waste food, as I said.
The doctor took a good look at her and was well aware she wasn’t on a diet. But it was more comfortable to keep insisting that she shouldn’t diet to lose weight. He knew that was just the way it was and that he was a doctor to the poor. That’s what he said while prescribing a tonic that she afterwards didn’t even bother to buy, she thought that going to the doctor was a cure in itself. He added irritated without guessing the reason for his sudden irritation and disgust:
— This whole thing about the hot dog diet is pure neurosis and what you need is to see a psychoanalyst!
She didn’t understand a word but thought the doctor expected her to smile. So she smiled.
The very fat and sweaty doctor had a nervous tic that made him purse his lips every once in a while. The result was that he looked like a pouting baby about to cry.
This doctor had no point whatsoever. Medicine was just to make money and never for love of his profession or of the sick. He was careless and thought poverty was ugly. He worked for the poor while hating having to deal with them. For him they were the rejects of a very high society to which he too didn’t belong. He knew he was out-of-date with medicine and clinical novelties but it was good enough for poor people. His dream was to have money to do exactly what he wanted: nothing.
When he’d said he was going to examine her she said:
— I heard you have to take your clothes off at the doctor’s but I’m not taking off a thing.
He’d run her through the x-ray and said:
— You’re in the early stages of pulmonary tuberculosis.
Macabéa didn’t know if this was good or bad. Anyway, since she was a very polite person, she said:
— Thank you very much, okay?
The doctor simply refused to take pity. And added: when you don’t know what to eat make a nice Italian spaghetti.
And he added with the minimum of goodness he allowed himself since he also considered he’d been dealt with unkindly:
— It doesn’t cost that much . . .
— The name of the food you said, sir, I’ve never heard of it. Is it good?
— Of course it is! Just look at this paunch! That’s from big helpings of pasta and lots of beer. Forget the beer, it’s better not to drink alcohol. She repeated wearily:
— Alcohol?
— You know what? Buzz off!
Yes, I’m in love with Macabéa, my dear Maca, in love with her ugliness and total anonymity since she belongs to no one. In love with her weak lungs, the scraggly girl. How I’d like her to open her mouth and say:
— I am alone in the world and I don’t believe in anyone, everyone lies, sometimes even when making love, I don’t think one being speaks to another, the truth only comes to me when I’m alone.
Maca, however, never said sentences, first of all because she was a person of few words. And it so happens that she had no consciousness of herself and didn’t complain at all, she even thought she was happy. She wasn’t an idiot but she had the pure happiness of idiots. And she also didn’t pay attention to herself: she didn’t know. (I see that I’ve tried to give a situation of my own to Maca: I need a few hours of solitude everyday or “me muero.")
As for me, I’m only truthful when I’m alone. When I was a little boy I thought that from one minute to the next I could fall off the face of the earth. Why don’t clouds fall, since everything else does? Because gravity is less than the strength of the air that keeps them up there. Clever, right? Yes, but one day they fall as rain. That is my revenge.
She didn’t tell Glória anything, because on the whole she lied: she was ashamed of the truth. The lie was so much more decent. She thought that good manners meant
knowing how to lie. She also lied to herself in volatile daydreams in her envy of her coworker. Glória, for instance, was inventive: Macabéa saw her say goodbye to Olímpico by kissing the tips of her fingers and tossing the kiss into the air as if releasing a bird, which would never have occurred to Macabéa.
(This story is only unworked facts of raw materials that hit me directly before I can think. I know many things I can’t say. Besides think what?)
Glória, perhaps remorseful, said to her:
— Olímpico is mine but you’ll definitely find another boyfriend. I say he’s mine because that’s what my fortune-teller told me and I don’t want to disobey because she’s psychic and never makes mistakes. Why don’t you pay for a session and ask her to read your cards?
— Is it very expensive?
I am absolutely tired of literature; only muteness keeps me company. If I still write it’s because I have nothing better to do in the world while I wait for death. The search for the word in the dark. My small success invades me and exposes me to glances on the street. I want to stagger through the mud, my need for abjection I can hardly control, the need for the orgy and the worst absolute delight. Sin attracts me, prohibited things fascinate me. I want to be a pig and a hen and then kill them and drink their blood. I think of Macabéa’s sex, mute but unexpectedly covered with thick and abundant black hairs — her sex was the only vehement sign of her existence.
She asked for nothing but her sex made its demands, like a sunflower born in a tomb. As for me, I’m tired. Maybe of the company of Macabéa, Glória, Olímpico. The doctor nauseated me with his beer. I have to interrupt this story for about three days.
For the last three days, alone, without characters, I depersonalize myself and take myself off as if taking off clothes. I depersonalize myself so much that I fall asleep.
• • •
And now I emerge and miss Macabéa. Let’s continue:
— Is it very expensive?
— I’ll loan you the money. Madame Carlota also breaks any spells someone might have cast on us. She broke mine on the stroke of midnight on a Friday the thirteenth in August, way past São Miguel, where they do macumba. They bled a black pig on top of me, seven white hens and tore off my clothes that were soaked with blood. Do you have the nerve?
— I don’t know if I can see blood.
Maybe because blood is everyone’s secret, the vivifying tragedy. But Macabéa only knew she couldn’t see blood, I thought up the rest of it. I’m becoming terribly interested in facts: facts are hard rocks. You can’t escape. Facts are words spoken by the world.
So.
Faced with the sudden help, Macabéa, who never remembered to ask, asked her boss for the day off claiming a toothache and accepted the loan that she didn’t even know how to repay. That daring decision gave her the unexpected encouragement to do something even more daring (explosion): since the money was a loan, she crookedly reasoned that it wasn’t hers and so she could spend it. So for the first time in her life she took a taxi and went to Olaria. I suspect that desperation is what made her so daring, even though she didn’t know she was desperate, she was on her last legs, face-down in the dirt.
It wasn’t hard to find Madame Carlota’s address and that seemed like a good sign. The ground-floor apartment was on the corner of an alleyway and between the paving stones grass was growing — she’d noticed it because she always noticed small and insignificant things. She vaguely thought while ringing the doorbell: grass is so easy and simple. She had unprompted and stray thoughts because even though she was at random she possessed much inner freedom.
Madame Carlota herself opened the door, looked at her amiably and said:
— My spirit guide had already told me you were coming to see me, my darling. What’s your name again? Oh, really? Very pretty. Come in, my pet. I’m with a client in the back room, you wait here. Would you like a coffee, my little dear?
Macabéa was slightly taken aback because she had no experience with so much kindness. And she drank, with care for her own fragile life, the cold and almost sugarless coffee. Meanwhile she looked with admiration and respect at the room where she was waiting. Everything there was luxury. Yellow plastic material on the chairs and sofas. And even plastic flowers. Plastic was the greatest. She was dazzled.
At last from the back of the house a girl came out with very red eyes and Madame Carlota told Macabéa to come in. (Dealing with facts is such a bore, daily matters wipe me out, and I don’t feel like writing this story which is just me blowing off steam. I see that I’m writing above and beyond me. I’m not responsible for what I’m now writing.)
Let’s continue, then, though with effort: Madame Carlota was very fat, she painted her little flabby mouth a bright red and dabbed her greasy cheeks with shiny rouge. She looked like a big half-broken china doll. (I see that there’s no way to deepen this story. Description tires me.)
— Don’t be afraid of me, you funny cute little thing. Because whoever’s with me, is with Jesus at the same time.
And she pointed out the colored picture where exposed in red and gold was the heart of Christ.
— I’m a fan of Jesus. I’m crazy about Him. He always helped me. Look, when I was younger I had what it takes to make living easy. And it really was easy, thank God. Later, when I wasn’t worth as much on the market, Jesus waited no time in hooking me up with a colleague and we opened a house of our own. So I made money and could buy this little ground-floor apartment. I got rid of the brothel because it was hard to keep an eye on all those girls who just wanted to rob me. Are you interested in what I’m saying?
— Very.
— As you should be because I don’t lie. Be a fan of Jesus too because the Savior really does save. Look, the police don’t allow fortune-telling, they say I’m exploiting other people, but, as I told you, not even the police can outclass Jesus. Did you see that He even found me money for all this fancy furniture?
— Yes ma’am.
— Ah, so you agree, right? From what I can see, you’re intelligent, luckily, because intelligence saved me.
Madame Carlota while she was talking took from an open box one chocolate bonbon after another and stuffed them into her small mouth. She didn’t offer a single one to Macabéa. She, who, as I said, tended to notice the small things, saw that inside every bitten bonbon was a thick liquid. She didn’t covet the bonbon because she’d learned that things belong to other people.
— I was poor, I hardly had anything to eat, I didn’t have nice clothes. So I ended up working. And I liked it because I’m a very sweet person, I was sweet to all the men. Besides, it was fun in the zone because the girls all hung out together. We had each other’s backs and only every once in a while did I get into a fight with any of them. But that was good, too, because I was really strong and liked to throw punches, pull hair and bite. Speaking of biting, you can’t imagine how gorgeous my teeth were, all white and sparkling. But they got ruined and now I have false teeth. You think people can tell they’re false?
— No ma’am.
— Look, I was very clean and didn’t get bad diseases. I just got syphilis once but penicillin cured me. I was more understanding than the others because I’ve got a good heart and after all was only giving what was mine to give. I had a man I really adored and I supported him because he was very refined and didn’t want to waste himself by working. He was my luxury and I even used to let him beat me up. When he gave me a thrashing I could tell he liked me, I liked a goo
d beating. With him it was love, with the others it was just work. After he ran off, I got over him by sleeping with women. Women’s loving really is good. I’d even recommend it to you because you’re far too delicate to stand the brutality of men and if you can land yourself a woman you’ll see how great it is, love between women is so much finer. Are you lucky enough to have a woman?
— No ma’am.
— That’s also because you don’t do anything about your appearance. You do yourself in if you don’t do yourself up. Oh how I miss the district! I knew the Mangue at its best which was frequented by true gentleman. Besides the going rate, I earned lots of tips. I heard the Mangue is done for, that there are only half a dozen houses left. In my day there were something like two hundred. I’d stand in the doorway wearing just panties and a bra made of transparent lace. Later, when I was getting real fat and losing my teeth, I started pimping. Do you know what pimping is? I use that word because I was never afraid of words. Some people get scared by the name of things. Are you afraid of words, dearie?
— Yes, ma’am.
— Then I’ll be careful not to say any bad words, don’t you worry. I heard the Mangue stinks to high heaven. In my day we burned incense to make the house smell nice. It even smelled like a church. And everything was very respectful and very religious. When I was working I was already saving a little money, giving the boss her percentage, of course. Sometimes there were shootouts, but it never had anything to do with me. My little flower, am I boring you with my story? Oh, no? You have the patience to wait for the reading?
The Hour of the Star () Page 7