Are you cutting the cloth?
I’m cutting the cloth!
Are you cutting the cloth?
I’m cutting the cloth.
Germano, get lost, before you get tossed.
I’m a novice tailor
and work even for sailors
I only get it right if there’s some kind of slight
If God helps with the suit, it turns out a beaut
in the North American system.
I’m a novice tailor.
I just pick up the scissors and start cutting the cloth.
Luiz Gonzaga, Miguel Lima, J. Portela — “Cortando pano,” circa 1950s
Dona Joana sang as she cut. No, we weren’t all equals, even if we went arm in arm. Everyone had his own history of cutting the cloth, of flowers and guns and lovers. I don’t remember anymore why this mattered. Life was meaningless and I hadn’t died for my country, nor for the revolution. I hoped and I don’t know what else there was, only the heavy weight on my arms and legs, everything slow and difficult, the ideas of betrayal and death, powerlessness, and barely any rage. It was the bitter taste of defilement and defeat. I, too, would go cutting the cloth, getting rid of Germano, disappointment, God, ‘beauts, and the North American system. What I wanted was only to cut and cut and cut, the cloth, anything, whatever, all that mattered was cutting.
I still have one certain memory of 1970. I don’t know what made it survive, but it’s still there, intact. It almost pains me, it’s so alive, and it didn’t exist a few days ago. But it came with sound, image, and temperature, it seems like I only understand it now, rather, it’s only now that I’m living this long-passed moment. It was recorded and archived before I became aware of its existence. It’s nighttime, the women aren’t here — maybe they’re asleep. We’re in the living room, my father and I. We’re not wearing jackets, but are dressed for going out. He has on his black coat with the worn elbows, his collar opened in a V. I must be wearing a coat, too, but I feel cold. I’m on the sofa in front of the window to the street. It’s dark outside, the air is dry, and occasionally I hear a bus going by in the distance. It must be late. My father is in the armchair, his back to the verandah. He looks at his feet as he talks, sometimes glancing up to face me. Gustavo, he says, Armando reaped the death he sowed. He pauses. He took his mother and sister with him. Silence. I’m uncertain whether he’s about to start a new thought or if he wants me to speak. No, he doesn’t: he’s stopped to choose his words carefully, he needs to be clear, it’s important that I understand. I wait and force myself to pay attention, I’m distracted, maybe tired. He lifts his head and says, “Armando,” but then breaks off. He gets up and goes to the window, gazes into the darkness of that night in 1970, when there were still no streetlights on our street. He’s wearing slippers and I think about how long I’ve known those slippers. They were way too big for me. He turns around, leans against the low parapet, crosses his arms over his chest, lifts his shoulders, and looks up at me. It’s difficult to tell whether he’s emotional or angry. Perhaps he’s only being serious. He’s the age I am now, an old man. I see an old man. I’d never considered it that way. And, at the same time, here in this room, in this moment, he is my father, the one who knows and transmits. I delay my return to being the child who receives. Armando chose his own path, which wasn’t yours. It wasn’t Eliana’s or his mother’s, but he, the son and brother, wanted it that way. He falls silent again. Father, I say, these are difficult times. He hangs his head, smooth hair falling over his forehead. He adjusts his hair and then wraps his hand around his chin, covering his mouth. Standing, leaning, legs crossed. They always are. Times are always difficult. I don’t know what he’s saying. It’s neither consolation nor lament. We hear Lígia’s frightened cries, a vigorous fear amid the silence, and then my mother’s steps. A prattling, sobs. I have my back to the staircase, but from the sounds and the direction of my father’s gaze I perceive my mother coming down the stairs and going into the kitchen to warm the bottle. She must be holding Lígia, because the prattling continues. It’s okay, it’s okay, it’s over, grandma’s here, oh!, oh! baby girl, grandma’s little girl, sssh, sssh, sssh, bom bom bom. We wait. She takes Lígia back upstairs. You have a family to take care of, he says, mother, sister, and daughter. I close my eyes, runs my hands across my face. The conversation is annoying me, I don’t want to listen anymore. He continues: they’re three women, your family. I get up and wrap my arms around my body, then rub my hands to get warm and wake myself up. What he’s saying sounds like a senile lamentation. Yes, father, they’re three strong and healthy women, hard working and understanding, we’ll manage, all of us. I turn to put an end to the conversation, go upstairs, get in bed. I stop, turn, and sit on the arm of the sofa. I look at my father and ask with my gaze, what is all this about, anyway? Gustavo, I’m talking to you, I’m trying to tell you something, it’s important for you to understand that you weren’t supposed to be the one to die, you have your responsibilities, and Armando had his. I start to get an idea of what he means. He’s blaming Armando. But why all this now? My father is without strength, white and distant in the dim light of the living room, but he’s resolute. He can see I understand and am displeased. Father, no one is supposed to die, you know that. Everything’s all wrong, and it’s not even over yet. I slouch, I didn’t want to talk, I don’t want to think, everything’s all wrong, why stir things up. Gustavo, he says in a soft voice, it’s over now. It ended. Armando went too far, he lost control. He thought he could do it, that he’d find a way, but things got out of control. And now it’s over.
That’s what I’d tell you, Cecília, if it were possible.
The author wishes to thank
the friends I interviewed and consulted: Dona Cida Castilho Rocha, Maria Lúcia Ovidio, Antonio Perosa, Isaias Pessotti, Ricardo Abramavay, and Maurício Mogilnik (in memory),
Professor Marcos Lorieri, for the story of Benício, told in one of his classes at Pontificia Universidade Católica,
my colleagues and students at Acaia and at Ilha de Vera Cruz.
Special thanks to my friend Francisco Augusto Pontes.
— Beatriz Bracher
Copyright © 2004 Beatriz Bracher
Translation copyright © 2018 by Adam Morris
All rights reserved. Except for brief passages quoted in a newspaper, magazine, radio, television, or website review, no part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the Publisher.
Originally published in Brazil as Não falei by Editora 34. Rights to this edition negotiated via literary agent Patricia Seibel in association with Agência Riff.
New Directions gratefully acknowledges the Ministry of Culture/ National Library Foundation and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Brazil for their support in the publication of this work.
MINISTÉRIO DAS RELACÕES EXTERIORES
MINISTÉRIO DA CULTURA
Fundação BIBLIOTECA NACIONAL
Grateful acknowledgment is made for permission to quote from “The Thaw” by Primo Levi, translated by Ann Goldstein. Copyright © 2015 by Ann Goldstein. Used by permission of Liveright Publishing Corporation.
Manufactured in the United States of America
New Directions Books are printed on acid-free paper
First published as a New Directions Paperbook (ndp1413) in 2018
Design by Erik Rieselbach
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Bracher, Beatriz, author. | Morris, Adam J., translator.
Title: I didn’t talk / by Beatriz Bracher ; translated by Adam Morris.
Other titles: Não falei. English
Description: New York : New Directions Publishing, 2018.
Identifiers: LCCN 2017055978 | ISBN 9780811227360 (alk. paper)
Subjects: LCSH: Urban violence—Brazil—Fiction. |
Brazil—Politics and government—20th century—Fiction. |
GSAFD: Political fiction
Classification: LCC PQ9698.412.R33 N3613 2018 | DDC 869.3/5—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017055978
eISBN: 9780811227377
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