Samba, she told them as they ate, that’s real poetry. So inventive and playful. Every year there’s a new batch for Carnaval, songs of love and politics all shot through with a crazy, funny hope.
They ate the meal, they tripped over their own feet as she tried to give them samba lessons, and at last they said goodnight and disappeared into the rain. The young woman remained behind to help clean up. Elizabeth kept talking. “It’s Carnaval in Rio tonight. I always loved watching the samba bands. Samba can take anything from life, stories straight out of the newspaper, and make it into art. That’s the wonderful thing about Brazil. The way they live, it’s so poetic, not hygienic like it is here.”
“So you’ve said, a number of times.”
Elizabeth began dancing a samba for the young woman. She wasn’t bad for a northerner, that was what they’d always told her in Rio. The young woman watched intently, but she was no longer smiling.
The song ended. Elizabeth stopped dancing. “Well, that’s what I’d be doing in Rio tonight.”
“But you’re not in Rio, Elizabeth. You’re right here.”
Irritated, Elizabeth turned and put the needle back on the record. She danced a little more with her back to the young woman and with her eyes closed. How could you long for a place and at the same time feel so relieved to be free of it? It didn’t make any sense. Maybe she’d had too much to drink, because she tripped on her heel and nearly fell, but the young woman was right behind her, catching her arm so she didn’t.
“Oh my, I’m getting old,” Elizabeth said. “I never used to stumble.”
“You’re not old. You just need someone to hold you when you lose your balance.”
The young woman’s arm remained around Elizabeth’s waist. Elizabeth turned and stared straight into the girl’s sternum. She did not resist when the young woman pulled her close and slipped her arms around her. She was hardly in love with the young woman, Elizabeth thought. In fact, she had never missed Lota so much. But she’d felt so tired for such a long time, she deserved to rest. Her body gave itself over to this touch, its strength and its youth.
The young woman pressed her lips to Elizabeth’s forehead, and switched off the lights.
It was only the body. Skin touching skin. She allowed the younger woman to take hold of her physical person, to position it this way and that, and it was exciting. There was no indecision.
Her pleasure came quickly. It was intense and muscular, like a cramp.
“I will never leave Lota,” she whispered, her hand entangled in the young woman’s hair.
26
THE ART OF blaming oneself is so very easy to master. Countless nights alone pondering infinite if onlys. For a time Elizabeth will be unable and even unwilling to imagine an end to this variety of self-inflicted torture. But she will not blame herself forever.
Three more cities lie ahead: San Francisco briefly, Ouro Preto off and on, and finally Boston for the last years. In the end, the North will draw her back. From her study overlooking Boston’s waterfront, she’ll watch the sailboats and fishing boats and tugboats crisscrossing the harbor. She’d been a good sailor herself as a girl, and the boats will always be mesmerizing. But what a shame, she’ll think, that there’s no one playing soccer. For nearly seventy years she will have wandered across a multitude of continents, but she’ll die not fifty miles from where she was born.
It will happen most often in the mornings, before the day sweeps her into its present demands—that’s when she’ll think of Lota. A wake-up kiss on her Cookie’s forehead. Elizabeth will not forget the intolerable years; hardly—how can you forget the scars knifed indelibly into your flesh? It is simply that the nightmare pervasive at the end of their time together will no longer take precedence. The horror will ebb, like a wave pulling back from the beach. So that, yes, it will still be possible to remember the evening Lota intercepted a letter from the young woman and then climbed onto the balcony railing, shouting and sobbing, threatening to jump to the street below; to remember as well her own screaming, insane response: Just do it and put us both out of our misery. It will be possible not to elide those events from her memory, and yet still recall the exquisite tenderness of floating side by side in the pool at Samambaia on a hot summer afternoon, such peace between them that butterflies alit on their arms and faces to drink the moisture from their skin.
Sometimes, while she gazes at the harbor traffic, the sensation of Lota’s presence will rush upon Elizabeth with such force she will suspect she has only to turn and discover Lota standing there, watching her with a mischievous smile.
Loving was not about saving yourself, nor saving your beloved. Mary had tried to tell Elizabeth something of the sort, but at the time she hadn’t been able to listen. Love was simply about loving, as ardently and willfully, as consciously, as you were capable.
The oratorio of Saint Barbara that Lilli gave her will sit on a shelf above her desk. Fittingly, on the autumn afternoon Saint Barbara witnesses her death, Elizabeth will be at work, making revisions to a poem that isn’t yet right. Throughout the day, she’ll raise her head from the page to watch the boats gliding upon the water. Since the recent anniversary of the date on which Lota slipped from the world, Elizabeth’s thoughts will have been traveling back in time, back to the trip they made to Italy before Lota became so ill.
After arriving in Florence, they’d been on their feet without a break, Lota was inexhaustible when it came to museums, and even more so when shopping for the exact black leather briefcase she’d imagined finding there. Elizabeth’s feet throbbed, she begged to rest. Wait right here, Lota said, and disappeared around a corner. Within twenty minutes she returned, wheeling along two bicycles. Elizabeth resisted at first, though she could not say why; it was simply her way, to resist while at the same time longing to be convinced. And Lota always convinced her. As soon as she was on the bicycle and pedaling through the streets, Elizabeth could not stop grinning. She had never imagined herself as graceful, but this was glorious, it was truly like flying. They wove daringly among tourists, rode out into the countryside and back—she did not want to stop. Late in the evening, near midnight, they propped their bikes at a café. The church directly across the little square had palm trees painted on its face. They look like an oasis, Elizabeth observed. They make me homesick for Brazil.
Lota caught up her hand and kissed it. Elizabeechy, she said. My life was arid, and now you are my oasis.
You are the same for me.
Lota called over the waiter and ordered a grappa for herself and, to Elizabeth’s surprise, a limoncello for the lady. We are on vacation, she said, I do not need to be so strict with you. Just like the first day Elizabeth had arrived in Samambaia, when Lota had poured her a limoncello, the drink was syrupy at first and then it was delicious. It is a real lady’s drink, Lota said, and you are a real lady.
Then they were back on the bikes, racing tipsily through the deserted city, up and down the cobblestone streets, over bridges, through plazas, and Elizabeth singing. Limoncello, she sang. Lotacello. La mia bella, Lotacella. They rolled down a curving sidewalk that suddenly broke into a series of stairs—bump, bump, bump on the bicycles—and there before them was the Duomo! Lotacella, sang Elizabeth, la mia bella. And on through the streets of Florence.
A BUS DISGORGED a tour group that entered the botanical garden in a queue, two by two. From a distance, they appeared to stumble and stagger down the long avenue beneath the imperial palms. “There’s something odd about those people,” Elizabeth remarked to her companion. “Look how they walk, as if their feet are bound together.”
“Are they adults or children?” he asked. “They seem to be holding hands.”
“Maybe they’re war veterans,” she said. “Damaged, somehow.”
“Or suffering from terminal illness?”
“Who’ve come here for the healing properties of nature.”
They’d been sitting on a bench in the shade of a jackfruit tree and playing this game much of the
afternoon, conjuring stories about whatever caught their notice, be it animal, vegetable, or mineral. Her friend was a bright young Fulbright scholar she’d met before leaving for Seattle, who thankfully hadn’t come to his senses and fled Rio before her return. He was good, clever company, and ready for any outing she suggested at almost any time of day or night. She appreciated that about young people. Even Lota found him agreeable, a rarity in itself, and trustworthy enough that she didn’t give Elizabeth too much grief when they went out to hear music at Copacabana nightclubs.
From the bench, one’s eye was first impressed by a pond full of those vigorous, thrusting elephant ears she remembered lining the banks of the Amazon. Beyond, one or two ladies beneath parasols, then all faded into trees and vines. The colors were elemental: blues, greens, browns, with a dash of yellow, pink, or red here and there—you could lose yourself completely, as if you were staring into a painting. Earlier she’d seen that one of her favorite old trees had died. Beautiful even in death, with enormous buttresses running down the trunk and bare black branches covered with green bromeliads. For an hour or so, three men had been working energetically to fell it with a giant saw.
The scholar followed her gaze. “Backyard forestry,” he said. “Part of a new government program initiated while you were away.”
“Yes, it’s called Fifty Years of Regression in Five. I’ve heard it’s been highly successful already. The first step was restoring the dictatorship.” Then Elizabeth dropped the game. “Honestly, I find the political situation impossible to understand. Maybe you can explain it, but it seems to me the country’s in worse shape than when I arrived fifteen years ago.”
The scholar merely shrugged, as if confused by her seriousness. To amuse him, she began translating the inscription on an old plaque beside their bench, though of course her friend’s Portuguese was far superior to hers. “‘Sitting in the shade beneath this jackfruit tree,’” she read, “‘Friar Leandro do Sacramento, in 1825, directed the workers excavating this lake.’”
“Perhaps the friar is buried here, and that’s his epitaph.” At times Elizabeth noticed that he seemed to imitate her inflections of speech.
“Yes, a lovely tribute to what can be accomplished while sitting in the shade. It’s never too early to have a good epitaph prepared. I know what mine will be: ‘Awful, but cheerful.’” He laughed, but this was in fact her second choice. Her first was more apt: “Here lies one whose name was writ in hooch.”
Over her friend’s shoulder, she saw the tour group emerge from the forest, lurching hand in hand out of the foliage. Docents in white caps kept them in line. The mystery of their confusing appearance was now solved. All proved nearly identical: short stature, droopy, sad eyes, broad foreheads, downturned mouths. It was an outing of mongoloids.
“Look,” Elizabeth said, “here come a bunch of Brazilian politicians.”
She was not a kind person, but she could usually draw a laugh. At least she had some spark left, a little fire, even if when she looked in the mirror she saw a crooked old lady.
And yet when she and her friend returned to the apartment and stood on the veranda, the view of the ocean and the long graceful curve of Copacabana still made Elizabeth’s heart leap up, as if it were not yet through with the world.
They had just settled into chairs, each with a gin and tonic in hand, when Lota arrived home. Elizabeth hadn’t expected her so early, but she didn’t worry overmuch. Lota wouldn’t be too terrible in front of company.
“What are you doing here?” Lota asked in an accusatory fashion.
“We’re discussing Moby-Dick,” Elizabeth said.
“That’s not what you’re doing. You’re drinking in the middle of the day!”
“Please, Lota. It’s not the middle of the day, it’s after five. That’s a perfectly civilized time.”
Lota left them in disgust and retreated to the back rooms of the apartment.
“It’s too bad you didn’t know her when she was fun,” Elizabeth said. “She used to be hilarious. She could make you laugh more than you’d ever laughed in your life. Now I find her opening my letters.”
“While you were away, I came to see Lota quite a lot. She missed you very much.”
“Oh, don’t try to give me a pep talk. She missed controlling me.”
Lota banged on the wall.
Elizabeth raised an eyebrow. “I suppose that means we’ll have to change venues. Shall we see if Vinicius is playing tonight?”
Lota reappeared, lunging at Elizabeth and snatching the drink out of her hand.
“Lota, that’s enough!”
“She is sick,” Lota told the scholar, “very very sick, and she can’t control herself. She is a sick woman.”
CONSTANT NOW, the dread.
IT HADN’T BEEN so when she was preparing to return. During Elizabeth’s last days in Seattle, once she’d turned her thoughts southward, back to Brazil, she had begun to believe in the prospect of a happy reunion. The separation had done her good—Miss Bishop was cut out to be a teacher after all. And it was better to be leaving Seattle before things with the young woman became too complicated. She was excited to take up her life again with Lota. Yet she almost did not know the woman, so haggard and thin, altered virtually beyond recognition, who leaned on the faithful maid Lucia’s shoulder at the airport. Had she really changed so much in such a short time, or had some amnesia about Lota’s condition fallen over Elizabeth in Seattle like a veil?
On the way back to the apartment, Lota talked nonstop in a kind of angry mania. Elizabeth had had her six-month drinking binge in Seattle, but now she was home and there’d be no more of that. And now that she knew what a failure she was as a teacher, there’d be no more of that, either. She did not allow a single word of rebuttal. By the time they arrived home, Elizabeth was completely drained. Lota followed her into her room to continue the harangue. Elizabeth pulled a pillow over her head, and still she went on. It appeared there was not to be any joy between them.
Through July and August, Lota’s moods grew only more extreme and unpredictable. Mornings were the worst. Elizabeth woke to discover the bed shaking with Lota’s sobs. No gesture or word of compassion was allowable, because the moment the crying fit passed, it was replaced with a temper so befouled with rage and suspicion you would be cut down instantly if caught in its crosshairs. Better to remain hidden like a rabbit in a burrow until the danger passed. When at last Lota left the apartment for work, Elizabeth and Lucia stared at one another, at first too brutalized to speak.
“Has she been like this for long?”
Lucia nodded. “But it is worse now that you are back, Dona Elizabeechy.”
The park consumed her; that circumstance remained consistent. The power struggles, the idiocy, the feuds—ongoing. Lota was seeing her analyst five times a week, and it was that, Elizabeth thought, that kept alive whatever rationality remained. Week after week, however, her physical condition deteriorated. Lota tossed and moaned at night, unable to sleep. She did not possess enough concentration to read, denied even that consolation. When Elizabeth remained at her side she was contemptuous, yet she refused to be left alone. She began to suffer dizzy spells of such severity she could hardly walk across a room without stumbling. Her doctor was useless, blaming the vertigo on a liver imbalance and prescribing the intake of macaroni and gelatin. But he narrowed his eyes accusingly at Elizabeth when he suggested that the true cause was emotional distress.
Thank heavens for the Fulbright scholar, for the botanical garden, for the samba clubs in Lapa, for escapes to Ouro Preto, and for cachaça, Brazil’s national pastime.
One morning in September, Elizabeth found Lota at the dining table with her forehead pressed against her fists. She drew near but hesitated to come too near.
“Lota, dear, what’s wrong?”
“I can’t do it,” Lota murmured.
“You can’t do what?”
“I can’t do it!” she shouted, slamming both hands upon the tabletop.
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In the back room, Lucia was watching a soap opera; the overwrought voices could be heard through her door. Outside, the day was flawless. A bird floated on a draft, as if suspended motionless from above with his wings outstretched, and then alighted on the veranda railing. Elizabeth did not speak. She willed herself to enter the tiger’s cage, offer her hand. Carefully she placed a palm on Lota’s back and began to rub lightly between the shoulder blades.
Lota mumbled something, arching her back.
“I’m sorry, Lota, I couldn’t hear you.”
“I don’t like to be touched,” she said.
Elizabeth withdrew her hand. Until now, it had not occurred to her that love could be completely beside the point.
“O Globo has started reporting on the number of people killed in the park every day by speeding cars,” Lota told her. “Children are dying as they cross the road to the playground. And they blame me! I told them not to put in so many roads.”
“I know you did. They would have put in even more if you hadn’t fought them so hard.”
“Negrão has requested to meet with me this morning. He is looking for any excuse to terminate the park foundation and has already filed a lawsuit challenging its legitimacy. He plans to give jurisdiction to SURSAN, to those imbeciles. And I’m supposed to make a case for why he should not take it away from me. After everything I’ve done. I can’t face him. I can’t do it.”
Lota now turned to Elizabeth with a terrible, desperate look. Elizabeth had seen the expression before, but she could not at first remember where. The mule on the highway to Ouro Preto, watching their car fly toward it, thinking it was going to be hit—its eyes had rolled back in terror just as Lota’s did now.
“Please try to calm down.” It was all Elizabeth could think to say. Were there no other words more helpful, more loving? “It will work out for the best, I just bet you it will.”
The More I Owe You Page 29