The More I Owe You

by Michael Sledge

  “It started in Bahia,” Luiz replied gravely. “I’d gone to live there during a time of change in my life. I’d been working as a lawyer, and I found that I had to stop. It was not a choice; it was a matter of survival. In Bahia, I hoped to clear a small space in my mind, in my living, to see what might grow. I arrived in summer. You must see Bahia in summer. The excitement, the music and dancing, it is consuming. Everyone was out, their asses full of heat. I was very restless myself. I couldn’t sleep.”

  “You couldn’t sleep?” she asked.

  He shrugged. “It was impossible. Every day I walked on the beach for many hours and collected seashells. This became my ritual. At night I worked. I used the shells to make mirrors—”

  “Mirrors out of seashells!” she howled. “How charming.”

  Why was she being so awful?

  Luiz spoke no further. The remainder of the evening passed in a manner that Elizabeth did not commit to memory.

  IN THE MORNING as their guests prepared to leave, Elizabeth remained in her room. She begged Lota, who was escorting them to Rio, to say goodbye on her behalf.

  “That is very rude,” Lota said.

  “Yes, I know, but Lota, I can’t do it.”

  Lota’s irritation became something even less tolerable. She sat on the bed and put her arms around Elizabeth, squeezing tightly. Not anger or blame but love filled her eyes. How could Lota keep loving her, after such a disgusting performance? Elizabeth couldn’t help but despise her just a bit.

  “Are you sure you’ll be all right?” Lota asked.

  “Of course I will.”

  “Why don’t you come with us?”

  “No, Lota, it’s better if I stay.”

  The thing about drinking was that it gave you a sense of humor about the absurdity of your own existence, your own self-ishness. Was that, she wondered, the origin of the word? To have a self and to be selfish, yes, they were inescapably one and the same thing. Drinking also provided a context, a frame, if you required one, for the disorganized desire to cause injury to yourself, operating somewhat like the formal structure of a poem.

  But it was not immediately upon Lota’s departure from Samambaia that Elizabeth committed herself fully to the art of drinking. She did not advance upon the liquor cabinet the instant the jeep disappeared down the hill. She savored the idea most of the day, and it was only in the evening that she went up to her studio with her watercolors and a bottle of gin. There, she began to drink in earnest, sipping the gin straight from a glass while sketching the objects and papers on her desk. It was a relief, really, after all this time pretending to be someone she had no business being, and no desire to be. She felt extremely purposeful. It was her mission to empty the bottle in a methodical fashion while maintaining enough composure not to fall down and break an arm. That would be hard to explain, and it would make her feel stupid. Her drawings devolved into nonsensical shapes and colors. When it became difficult to remain seated upright in the chair, Elizabeth moved to the daybed. There, she must have nodded off.

  Someone was shaking her awake. A light was sharp in her eyes, it hurt. Maria and another face behind. She slapped their hands away. They held her up, carried her down to the house.

  In the morning, a breakfast tray stood beside the bed when she woke. The coffee was ice cold.

  Elizabeth heard the jeep come up the road late in the afternoon and then Lota’s voice calling out for her. It was a while before Lota entered the studio. She sat on the daybed and looked at Elizabeth very hard.

  “How was Lina’s class?” Elizabeth asked brightly.

  “Maria says you were drinking last night.”

  Lota would give her a stern lecture, Elizabeth would apologize and swear never to do it again, and that would be enough to get her back on track. It wasn’t as if it had never happened before.

  “Maria doesn’t know what she’s talking about.”

  Lota stood over her. “No more.”

  “No more what?”

  “You are going cold shoulder.”

  Lota’s apocalyptic face uttering the malapropism caused Elizabeth to burst out laughing.

  “What is funny?” Lota said angrily, and yet she too began to laugh.

  “The expression is cold turkey.”

  Lota rushed upon Elizabeth and embraced her. “I love you, Elizabeth. I love you. I love you.”

  ELIZABETH DREAMT SHE could breathe water. She left the bed where Lota lay sleeping and removed her clothes like a false skin and without fear she went into the river and took water into her lungs. She swam from the mouth of a tributary into a great river, past a sunken canoe and enormous fish with eyes the size of silver dollars, but she was not afraid. Above, sleeping villages were unaware of her moving swiftly in the strong currents. In the dream she knew she must leave the water, but she did not wish to return to the world of air. She woke with a sharp, indrawn breath. The dream remained so real that even as Elizabeth became aware of her body and surroundings, she was surprised to find herself in bed, with Lota’s arms tightly around her.

  GOING COLD SHOULDER lasted several days. Lota didn’t hover, though there were awful moments when her great brown eyes turned liquid with helplessness and Elizabeth felt she stood at the shore of a sea of rage with waves lashing at her feet. Still, she slept soundly through four glorious nights. During the fifth, she woke with a parched throat. She produced a series of pathetic opera coughs that would not stop; the sensation was like that of steel wool abrading the lining of her lungs.

  There was no deliberation regarding the rightness or wrongness of the act she was preparing to commit. No remorse. It was very clean.

  Elizabeth left the bed roughly. Lota did not stir.

  The fire in the stove still produced a warm glow by which Elizabeth made her way across the room to the liquor cabinet. Oddly, the shelves were empty, as if she’d misremembered the alcohol’s location, and she opened several adjacent cabinets before she understood. Very clever. She could picture Lota standing over Maria as she ordered her to clean out all the bottles and hide them where Dona Elizabeechy’s greedy little hands could not reach.

  No matter. She had a trick or two up her own sleeve, though it was extremely irritating to have to brave the freezing night in her stocking feet. She slid open the glass door and tiptoed up the steps. Once she was inside her studio, it was unnecessary to light the lamp; she could navigate the dark room, having prepared for such times of scarcity, though she’d had to pony up a hefty sum to the American cultural attaché in Rio for a decent bottle of bourbon.

  She removed the bottle from its hiding place. The taste of the liquor was harsh at first, but she loved how the suffusion of alcohol in her blood greeted the buzz of the cortisone, like the froth of a wave advancing up the beach. She had rarely known the forest outside to be so silent: no bugs humming, no birds calling, no monkeys whistling.

  Her mind began to grab at fragments.

  The world is asleep, and here am I.

  I am an eye.

  She hadn’t bothered to light a fire, and soon the chill banished thought altogether.

  When the shivering became intense, Elizabeth put the bottle and the glass away and returned to the house, stepping carefully upon each step, her hand on the wall to steady herself. What a communicative surface the wall was against one’s fingertips, rough and smooth at the same time.

  At the foot of the stairs, she turned from the terrace to enter the house. A great reverberation sang out, causing Elizabeth to stagger back and topple over, as if she’d been felled by Zeus’s thunderbolt. Flat on her back, she did not feel any pain, though her head was ringing. Then she remembered: Oh, yes. Some of the plate-glass windows had been installed, right where she had long been used to walking directly through the wall. They’d even taped big X’s over the glass to prevent birds from snapping their necks. How silly of her. She’d walked smack into a window.

  The cold was extreme, yet Elizabeth lay for some time marveling at the vastness above. Unbeli
evable how clear the night sky could be here in the mountains, the stars so close and sharp they seemed to prick her scalp.

  Time slid along. She may have, mercifully, slept. Then there was Lota standing over her, hands on hips, her expression so severe Elizabeth laughed out loud. She looked just like a disappointed mother. That was, if a person actually had a mother.

  “Elizabeth, you’re drunk!”

  “You’ve a keen eye.”

  “You must stop this!”

  Elizabeth rolled onto her side. “And you have to stop trying to stop me.”

  Lota gripped her arm and yanked Elizabeth to her feet. There was such violence in her eyes, Elizabeth was certain Lota would actually strike her.

  “Lota, you look extremely pitiful at the moment.”

  “Elizabeth, please.” Lota’s face collapsed in that helpless, defeated look. A weak animal lays itself open to attack, and Elizabeth seized her opportunity.

  “You’re even sicker than I am, to want someone like me. Something is wrong with you.”

  It was odd how one aspect of Elizabeth stood apart, observing these words as though they’d been written on a page, finding them wanting, even laughable, while another aspect of her filled to bursting with the most hateful, vile feeling. “You’re quite a little despot. I suppose you have to have someone weak close by for you to bully.”

  “Please do not say any more.”

  “The bully can’t take being bullied!”

  The charges were cruel, yet at the same time they were not cruel enough. Elizabeth’s voice rose until she found herself shrieking. “It’s really pitiful, pitiful, pitiful. It’s just pitiful, building this stupid house out here in the middle of nowhere.”

  At last, Lota left her.

  But Elizabeth would not let her off so easily. Lota slipped behind screens and halls ahead, eluding her like a bird in the trees, as Elizabeth followed through every half-finished room of that stupid house, spewing the most odious charges. At the door to the bedroom, she finally caught up. Lota’s face was wet. For an instant, Elizabeth was startled by the tears. Then she pressed her advantage.

  “It’s almost perverse, Lota, don’t you think? You really should see someone about this.You need to take a good, long look at yourself. Or are you afraid what you’d see would be too ugly?”

  Lota put a hand upon Elizabeth’s breast and gently pushed. Shuffling back, Elizabeth felt Lota’s touch begin to lance the abscess; if only she never removed her hand, this horrible soul-sickness might be drained. There would be no need for drink, there would be no thirst.

  “I’m sorry, but I must do this for your own good,” Lota said softly. The hand was withdrawn and Lota retreated, closing the door behind her.

  Elizabeth went after her, but the door would not open. Lota had locked her in. She kicked at the door and shouted until she exhausted herself.

  When morning broke, her head was clear; her stomach, however, was reminiscent of the insufferable Miss Lytton’s aboard the SS Bowplate . Poisoned from the alcohol, of course, but beyond that, the poison was of her own manufacture. A little packet of it had burst inside her like a rotten appendix. Putrid yellow bruises ran along her hip and arms, and both elbows were scraped. It was some minutes before she remembered walking into the plate glass. Lucky to have escaped with mere bruises.

  Elizabeth lay for quite some time gazing out the window as the sun appeared and soft yellow light filtered into the valley. The window also framed the main structure of the house, where through the glass she could see Maria sweeping. That was the thing about Lota’s house, there was nothing hidden, there was no pretense; what you saw was what you got. It wasn’t corrupt. She loved this view with the entirety of her being. Perhaps that was why she was being punished so severely. She should have known never to love anything so much she couldn’t bear to lose it. That was life’s lesson.

  But impressive really, to have lasted this long. She had to give herself that much. Now it was time to pack her bags, to turn her mind to the next part of her journey. Maybe she really would get to Machu Picchu. Brazil had been only a stop to refuel, after all, not the final destination.

  Lota knocked lightly on the door before she unlocked it, a final politeness offered to the criminal. She entered with a breakfast tray, sans toucan. The smell of coffee appealed to Elizabeth and was at the same time revolting. “How are you, Cookie?”

  “Just peachy, officer.”

  Lota set the tray aside. “I’m sorry that I shut you in here. I did not know what else to do.”

  “Well, you should have known. You should have had a plan.”

  “Please do not become angry.”

  “I’m not angry, Lota. I’m ill. Why do you think all your friends advised you to steer clear of me? I’m a drinker. I told you so when we met. I’ve tried to stop before, but I’m too weak. I’m not going to stop drinking, and I don’t want to.”

  Lota gazed at her hands in her lap. “I love you, Elizabeth.”

  “I think you are the sick one,” Elizabeth cried. “Why would you want to put up with this? All this time, it’s been a trick.”

  Lota drew Elizabeth close, wrapped both arms around her, then a leg, she seemed to have as many limbs as an octopus. Rocking her, she shushed Elizabeth’s protests. “Here is what I propose,” she said. “First, I will take you to a hospital to get the asthma and the drinking under control. I realize now that I can’t do it myself. I thought I could. After that, you will tell me when you feel the desire to drink. You will come to me. You will not hide from me. I am not your enemy. I will be with you in the day and in the night. It is not your destiny to hurt yourself in this way.”

  “It’s no use.” Elizabeth felt extremely tired.

  “There is a medicine you can take.”

  “Antabuse. It makes you violently ill.”

  “Only if you drink.”

  “Yes,” Elizabeth laughed bitterly. “Only if.”

  She was growing uncomfortable in Lota’s tight embrace, but Lota held on.

  “You do not believe you can change. I believe you can.”

  15

  SLUMBER, INTERRUPTED BY brief periods of semiwakefulness. Her body did not want to leave sleep for long. Whenever Elizabeth opened her eyes, there was always a lively young nurse plumping her pillows, rubbing her calves or hands, smiling and cooing over her as if she were a baby in an incubator. They roused her for the injections and the tests, drawing blood out, putting something else in. The blurred, smiling white shapes hovered over her like angels, then a pin-prick on her arm or wrist.

  It was called the Hospital dos Estrangeiros: Foreigners’ Hospital. Yet she did not feel a foreigner here. She did not feel unwelcome. Some of her happiest times had been spent in hospitals. Everything was soft, white, heavenly.

  “WAKE UP!”

  Against a white plane, a wall or a sheet, shadows glimmered and played. There was a draft on her skin, cool. It was not clear if the words had come from the real or the dreaming world.

  “Wake up, Brazilians!”

  The amplified voice was followed by cheers and whistles. Another political rally in the plaza outside.

  Elizabeth’s hand lay outstretched upon the white covers, tucked between the pages of a book. It was the study of the poet George Herbert, written by a friend, that she’d carried with her to the hospital. Her mind was too slack from the chemicals they fed her, or simply from exhaustion, to take in much of the book’s substance, yet she wanted it near her, wanted to be touching it like a talisman. She owed Herbert so much; he’d guided her so well in art. When she’d come across her own name in the acknowledgments, her heart had contracted and she’d been unable to control her sobs.

  Elizabeth looked to the window, and there was Lota. She stood with her back to Elizabeth, her head bobbing to and fro, intent on what she watched outside. The streak of white in her dark hair made her look just like a chickadee trying to fly out of the room.

  Love bade me welcome: yet my soul drew back

/>   Guilty of dust and sin.

  The line was Herbert’s. She did not think she would ever write one half so piercing.

  “What are you looking at?”

  “Sweet Cookie,” Lota said, turning. “Sweetest of them.”

  “Anything new happening in the world?”

  “The city has become very agitated.You can’t walk down the street, it is so full of uncollected garbage.The bay is full of ships that the dockworkers will not unload. Carlos is very pleased. The strikes at last are eroding that dictator Vargas’s support. The cruzeiro has lost half its value.”

  “Again? Lota, that’s terrible.”

  Lota nodded, yet she was smiling. “That is simply life. We will make do. But I’m afraid we will have to postpone our trip to Italy.”

  “I don’t want to go to Italy. I just want to go home, with you.”

  Lota again faced the window. “While you were asleep, I was taking a walk down memories lane. There used to be a big hill just over there, the Morro do Santo Antonio. They knocked it down and used the rubble to extend the waterfront all along Flamengo and Gloria. I was living in the Hotel Gloria then. The noise was terrible, constant. I’d had a fight with my mother, and for some reason my father put me up at the Hotel Gloria. Very luxurious! Me and the movie starlets. Perhaps he wanted a reason to be nearer the movie starlets. The aterro is so ugly now, a pile of rocks along the water. What is wrong with these people? They have no sense of possibility. They can’t see what’s right in front of their eyes. It could be made into beaches or a park, a place for people to gather and meet, not just a gravel pit. I was thinking that if I could only get my hands on it, I would make something truly beautiful.”

  “I don’t doubt that you would. Like everything you touch.”

  LOTA WAS CHATTY in the car.