Red: A Love Story

by Nicole Collet

  Marisa relaxed for a moment as she looked into his eyes. She saw so many things in them that the mere possibility of being apart from him made her gasp for air. How could she describe everything contained in those eyes? Inside them played a music box with the melody of endless conversations, furtive escapes to eat in Arabic delis, plans to visit a valley sprinkled with quartzes that glimmered in the moonlight. And the bedroom games, as he called them, in which she discovered herself more and more—a woman.

  He blinked. In that lapse, the last quartz glimmered, died away, and all vanished. Time to go. The world outside awaited with the usual reproach. She looked into Marco’s eyes once more to say goodbye to everything they contained, and pulled back at last.

  “Well, I’m gonna put the wig on. I almost forgot it.”

  Marisa grabbed her purse and disappeared down the hall to check herself in the bedroom mirror. She returned with her long hair hidden under a mass of false black curls: she had to wear the wig every time the two went out together. Once in the elevator, they stood side by side and shut off any eye contact until finding themselves inside his silver Lexus in the garage. At that time of night there was no traffic, and the streets flew by the car window during ten minutes that passed in ten seconds.

  They reached their destination in the traditional Higienópolis neighborhood—trees of generous shade and dogs, bars and universities, a large population of Jews and seniors. Marco stopped on the corner without turning off the engine. Marisa glanced around, removed the wig, stuffed it into her purse. She exited the car and walked down the street past bored porters in their posts while Marco waited for her to get home safely. Marisa paused at a modernist building of geometrical lines emphasized in pastel hues. She discreetly waved at him and rang the bell to the porter.

  An electric buzz, a click, and the door opened. Marisa entered the building with reluctance. As soon as she crossed the lobby, the door of the apartment in the back started to open. From the crack emerged the face of an old woman, then her black robe. It was Ms. Rosaura, a small and boney widow of pleasant manners and gray hair with a faint purple tinge. No one could tell, but behind her innocent appearance lived a real professional of domestic intrigue. She resembled a carrion crow croaking with a deep voice, her robe puffing out as she gesticulated, her eyes always attentive to the flicker of an unusual event.

  “Marisa, darling, how have you been?” She looked over her shoulder and checked the carillon in the living room. “You’re coming home late tonight, huh?”

  “Well, Ms. Rosaura, I was studying at a friend’s. You know, for college admission exams…”

  Marisa gave her a polite smile and mentally traced an escape route. On one side were the stairs; on the other, the elevator and a potted flaming sword plant. If she acted fast, she could reach the elevator parked on the ground floor… or, in a bolder move, begin fencing with the flaming sword to deter her nosy neighbor.

  The elderly woman stared at Marisa with determination. They studied each other, initiating a choreography that seemed meticulously rehearsed: one advanced and the other backed off, one went right while the other went left. Desperate, Marisa drew the cell phone from her purse and excused herself to take a call, all the while waving and hurrying into the elevator.

  After the sliding door closed, Marisa put the dead phone back in her purse. Ms. Rosaura had been thrown off the scent—now came the worst. Marisa saw thunder shaking walls, electric discharges ricocheting on the chandeliers, lightning bolts falling on the furniture. As she reached the eighth floor, Marisa clasped the coat to her body. She already knew a storm waited for her at home.

  2. Hobbits and Sexual Deviations from A to Z

  “The Germans are here!”

  That precise sentence shook off the rust from the Wheel of Fortune and bumped it into motion in the unstable month of August that year, triggering the events until the paths of Marisa and Marco crossed in latitude -23° 32’ 51” and longitude -46° 38’ 10” at an altitude of 2,500 feet—that is, in São Paulo, Brazil. In order to understand what the heck the Germans had to do with them, first it is necessary to meet the author of that sentence: Aécio Palamedes, the former literature teacher at the Amaral High School. A ruin of flabbiness, he was almost ninety and had become a local folk character. Despite being retired, he insisted on teaching. The old man just lingered in the school, the years went by and no one ever questioned his permanence there.

  It should be noted that in his youth—a long, long, long time ago, before he even discovered his inclination for teaching—Palamedes had fought the Germans in Italy during the Second World War. That fact scarred him for life, and lately brought back memories more vivid than his cloudy present tense. During class, with a trembling hand and one pointy finger, he would get lost in digression that inexplicably circumnavigated the Parnassian poetic to call at the Battle of Monte Castello amid a pyrotechnical grenade explosion.

  One morning, in the end of August, a couple of cars collided in front of the school. Hearing the loud crash, Aécio brayed, “The Germans are here!” and entrenched himself under his desk until two janitors managed to extract him one hour later.

  The school administration finally released him from his duties for an indefinite period. Hired to replace him, Marco Aurélio Fares stepped into the scene three weeks later. It was a dull Thursday—the students texted and yawned with their eyes already set on the weekend—and thus it didn’t take long for the buzz to spread throughout the corridors like a shot (to use his predecessor’s favorite terminology).

  “Did you see the new literature teacher, Val?” Marisa asked her friend Valentina during intermission.

  “Not yet. But I’m sure I’m gonna love him. I couldn’t take another word about the Battle of Monte Castello.”

  “Well, I just saw him going inside the teachers’ office. The school did the full upgrade: he’s hot,” Marisa said.

  “As long as he doesn’t talk about the war nor show me grenade injuries on his foot, I’ll find him hot too,” was her friend’s reply.

  Marco certainly brought a breath of fresh air to the school’s strict environment. The institution’s physical space alone spoke volumes. Built like a prison surrounded by tall walls, it bore a soul of cement. For the circulation between the three floors in the main building, there were two stairways: in the past, one reserved to the girls and the other to the boys. Decades and decades of traditionalism were ingrained in the walls and floors of the institution.

  The progressive aura of the new literature teacher, paired with his privileged intellect, irradiated an irresistible brilliance there. During his very first class, nine out of ten high school girls began lusting for him. Marco was exactly twenty-nine years old and had a disconcertingly charming dimple on his square chin. Tall and well-proportioned, with charismatic eyes rimmed by black eyelashes, he played the role of a deus ex machina appearing onstage with his educational methods (and other extracurricular endowments) to save the girls from endless boredom.

  There he stood on the podium, a Clark Kent with long legs and emphatic hands opening his shirt to reveal the Man of Steel with a dab of the Dark Knight’s tormented sensuality, the God of Thunder’s Olympian majesty, and… (here, each student would sigh and fill the blank with their own preferences, which could encompass anything from Johnny Depp’s smirk to a juicy bowl of strawberries with cream). In his first class, literature was reborn from the ashes of the Second World War as Marco guided the students on a journey through different eras—starting in Homer’s ancient period, when words were capitalized and strung together in manuscripts, until reaching the digital era, characterized by the atomization of language in unimaginable contractions.

  “Think about how far we’ve come, from words strung together to text messaging,” Marco concluded. “How does that affect our brain and our behavior? Today everything is not only ephemeral but changes too fast. Nobody can predict what the world will be like in
five years and how future technologies will affect people’s lives. Now the challenge is producing literature capable of defining our time.”

  Marisa listened in fascination, soaking in his words. Her passion for books had bravely survived the massacre promoted by Palamedes and now grew stronger in that class. She gazed at Marco with gratitude. More than gratitude: enchantment. While the class fell into silence, Marisa raised her hand and spoke:

  “According to your reasoning, wouldn’t indefiniteness be the very definition of our time? Literature today, as a reflex of those accelerated changes, already defines our time precisely in its difficulty to define it.” Her voice trembled imperceptibly as she felt suddenly shy before Marco. Clearing her throat, she continued: “That would be the same as omission, for example. Just like action, it also brings consequences and therefore can be considered a form of action… right?”

  He smiled and thought for a second before answering. Then the bell rang announcing the end of class and several students surrounded Marco to ask questions. Marisa stood up in an impulse but refrained from approaching him and sat down again.

  “Val, I think I’m in love,” Marisa joked, and for an instant she couldn’t tell if that was really a joke or if it was serious.

  “Then go talk to him, Miss Constant,” Valentina encouraged her, not without a note of amusement. “The girls are like demented groupies around him. Next thing you know, they’re gonna be asking for autographs.”

  “I’d rather wait till the next time. Too many people over there. It’s pathetic. Look how Camila leaps forward… There she goes… pushing past Andrea, in between Júlio and Helena… Bingo, she throws herself at the teacher.”

  “Typical.”

  “Typical,” agreed Marisa with a sting of jealousy.

  The following class, Marco mentioned The Lord of the Rings and piqued her interest in the books. Such a classic work deserved to be read in print, accompanied by authentic English tea served in Royal Worcester porcelain, Marisa thought. So during intermission she rushed to the school library to get the trilogy and found the first two volumes. She savored them for exactly thirteen days along with a half gallon of Earl Grey. Sunday ended with the last chapter.

  To her despair, when Marisa went back for the third tome on Monday, it hadn’t been returned yet. She hurried to the city library right after the last afternoon class. There, the much sought tome was happily found. She intended to ask for it at the counter when she remembered a compendium of sexual perversions Valentina had mentioned.

  Moments later Marisa requested both copies from the librarian on duty, a thin old man with thick glasses who eyed her gravely and, without a word, disappeared into a maze of bookcases. He returned with the third volume of J. R. R. Tolkien’s trilogy and vanished again.

  Avidly, Marisa leafed through the book and was so absorbed she didn’t hear her own name being called. Someone touched her shoulder. Someone with long legs and narrow hips, broad shoulders and a gleam of onyx in the eyes. With a startle, she found Marco leaning against the counter. He looked different. In his jeans and black leather jacket, off the teacher pedestal, he seemed more accessible yet more intimidating now that he stood so close.

  Her voice faltered and her heart pounded. Everything happened too quickly. He showed the rare edition of lyric poetry he was returning, a blue-cover book with yellowed pages that Marisa barely registered amid her surprise. Before Marco’s inquisitive stare, she indicated The Lord of the Rings. He grinned and asked if she was enjoying the book.

  Marisa didn’t have time to answer, for the librarian emerged from the dusty shadows carrying the compendium of erotic eccentricities (black cover, bright red title) and placed it on the counter with a dry thump!

  Marco’s gaze fell on the huge letters of the title: Sexual Paraphilia from A to Z. He frowned. Marisa blushed and immediately hid the compendium under The Lord of the Rings while clumsily filling the forms for both books. Marco pretended not to notice her embarrassment and resumed talking about fairies and elves. Marisa shoved the books into her handbag, and they left the library. As the two were heading in the same direction, they walked together on the busy street, and she noticed he assumed a protective attitude by staying on the outer part of the sidewalk. The teacher was a gentleman, concluded Marisa with a secretive smile.

  They turned the corner and zigzagged along pedestrian streets overflowing with people and booths stuffed with colorful clothes. Under old lampposts covered in ads for jobs, sat men in vests that read “I buy gold.” At certain spots, clearings would open up where street artists performed surrounded by a curious crowd. The soundtrack kept changing, along with the artists and food smells from snack bars and restaurants. Here the aroma of cheese bread and a loud funk beat accompanying a female dancer in shorts, there a vapor of Greek barbecue and the chant of three Hare Krishnas, further down Kung Pao chicken, Andean music, pizza, samba, Portuguese pastries, African percussion…

  In a given moment, Marco retained Marisa. They stood in the middle of the pedestrian whirlpool on Barão de Itapetininga Street.

  “Have you noticed in Downtown there are two superimposed cities? Look,” he said, pointing up.

  On the ground level sprouted the chaotic São Paulo of contradictions: siren song, well-oiled machine, pit of dirt, stage for beauty, box of surprises. In the upper floors, however, a different city came to view in a landscape of historical buildings that sheltered the heaving stores below. It was like emerging from a tank packed with fish to reach the quiet azure. Up above, the sounds silenced and time took a step back in a realm of sober balconies with iron railings, arched windows, neoclassical capitals and imposing towers. Against the sky, a centennial tree top evoked the days when São Paulo was greener.

  “That’s the Peace Building from 1913, which used to host the Viennese Pastry Shop. It was the spot for the high society and the intellectuals involved in the Art Week of 1922.” Marco indicated a four-story neoclassical building with a light brown façade and ornate balconies. He then pointed to a modernist edifice opposite to it, which exhibited large V columns and a white façade of perforated blocks. “And that’s the California Gallery, an Oscar Niemeyer project from the fifties. Inside, there’s a mural by painter Cândido Portinari.”

  “It’s incredible how we can walk in such a hurry and never look up,” commented Marisa as she admired the gallery. “It’s as if São Paulo were a lady from the waist up and a slut from the waist down. Can you imagine if The Lord of the Rings was set here?”

  “That’s impossible. The plot would take a thousand years to advance.”

  “Why?”

  “Because of traffic.”

  Both laughed and kept walking. They resumed the conversation about Tolkien’s trilogy and, when passing by a bar, Marco invited her for a cup of coffee. The two went inside a tiny, old-fashioned place like so many downtown, with dark wooden paneling and a U-shaped counter. Behind it, shelves laden with bottles containing beverages of extravagant colors and obscure provenance. The bar also offered a true Italian espresso machine, which dispatched white cups exhaling arabesques of fragrant vapor.

  Marisa noticed all those things without dwelling on them. Her attention focused on what Marco was saying and, at each word, her admiration for his intellect grew (now he told that Middle Earth had actually been created to serve as a cradle for all the languages invented by Tolkien). His company gave her… contentment. Yes, she felt content, and wondered: what did that invitation for coffee mean?

  Marisa couldn’t deny she was a bit nervous, but the conversation flowed with such an ease that soon her nervousness dissipated. They sat at a small table on the sidewalk and Marco ordered lemon pie with the coffee. The two of them pushed the meringue aside at the same time (too sweet) and, as they ate, talked about the upcoming college admission exams.

  Playing with the end of her braid, Marisa complained about the pressure to choose a profession.
She didn’t have a clue: she liked literature, dance and psychology; her mom insisted that she study law.

  “Sometimes I think of Pierre Anthon, the character from Nothing by Janne Teller,” Marisa said. “He climbed a plum tree and refused to come down, stating nothing mattered. He did the math: if we live to the age of eighty and deduct all the time spent sleeping, studying, working, cleaning and taking care of our children, we’re only left with about nine years to enjoy. Then why worry so much?”

  “The secret is to enjoy everything, Marisa, even the most ordinary moments. Neither the greatest joys nor the greatest sorrows last, so it’s no use getting attached to them. All things pass, right? What remains is ourselves. So balance and motivation should come from within us.”

  As Marco spoke, she nodded slowly, absorbing his words. She liked what he said.

  “True.” Marisa emptied her cup. “Life is constantly oscillating and we oscillate with it. Like puppets. The string of an event lifts us up and we are merry, then another string pulls us down and we fall into depression. We have no control over life. The only thing we can control is our own selves.”

  “See? There you go. You’ve already answered your own question. Cultivate your inner balance so you no longer oscillate. And, if everything else fails, remember the first law of the galaxy: don’t panic.”

  “Oh, it’s the line from The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy! I love that book, Marco.”

  “Me too. In that case, we both know the answer to the meaning of life and everything else, eh?” he said with a solemn expression, contradicted by the humorous note in his voice. “But seriously, don’t fall for the temptation of choosing a profession just to please your family. As Sartre once said, hell is other people. You could take a vocational test for guidance. The main thing is finding what motivates you. What’s your passion?”