Red: A Love Story

by Nicole Collet

  One single wish, actually, would suffice for Marco: to gain superpowers in order to organize it all in only one hour. It was a shame he didn’t even have enough time to find a genie of the lamp.

  Marco would be travelling that evening and had just returned home from spending a week inland with his family to look after his mother. She had undergone an emergency surgery for a neglected appendicitis and, after a difficult recovery, was fortunately okay. The good news had been delivered the previous day, but, due to a problem with his car, Marco was only able to take off that morning. Now he needed to run if he didn’t want to miss the plane.

  He picked a suitcase and opened it on top of the bed. The phone rang. Marco answered, alarmed when he recognized the gentle voice of Aunt Carmina. She was his mom’s elder sister, a lady with a cherubic face who liked to dye her short hair blonde and paint her nails pink. Why was she calling? Marco thought the worst and feared for his mother’s health. Given the aunt’s careless tone, though, he relaxed.

  She tended to speak quite a bit—like, a lot. With bovine tranquility, she ruminated the words slowly and would thus chew away many hours before you realized it. As soon as Marco picked up the phone, Aunt Carmina ruminated he had left in such a hurry and she didn’t have the chance to say a proper goodbye. She asked if he had eaten lunch, mentioned the hot weather and complained about her rebellious air conditioner. Finally, the aunt said she had forgotten to ask him something, if it wouldn’t be a bother, of course. And he replied: no bother at all, Aunt, you can ask whatever you wish.

  “Well, Marco, I remembered in the US there’s a special baking tray for cakes. It’s shaped like small balls, and the dough takes only five minutes to bake. Do you know which one I’m talking about?”

  “No, I don’t.”

  “Well, I saw it in a magazine. It’s an enclosed tray for round minicakes the size of plums. Then you put a stick into them and they look like lollipops, really cute.” She sighed, dreamy. “I saw them decorated with little flowers, little polka dots, little faces… They would be perfect for the children’s birthdays. Oh, and did you know you can put filling in them? All you need to do is prepare thicker custard. You can also use chocolate fudge, caramel, nuts—”

  Marco bypassed her and said he had never seen such a baking pan but would search for it. The aunt calmly informed that, well, she would need two trays, as each fitted a dozen minicakes. Did he think he could bring them? Sure, swore Marco. His prompt response made her suspicious.

  “What if you can’t find them?”

  “I promise I’ll do my best.”

  Now a higher pitched feminine voice and a closing door could be heard in the background.

  “Oh, Marco, wait a minute. Lolo just came in, and I will ask her if she can find the magazine where I saw the tray. It has the name of the manufacturer. It helps, right?”

  “Aunt Carmina, I’m in a bit of a hurry, can’t you tell Lolo to message me the name later… Aunt? Aunt?”

  She was no longer on the other end of the line. Marco listened while she talked to his twenty-year-old cousin (a younger and leaner version of Aunt Carmina with a weakness for fashion). In despair, he opened the closet and started grabbing clothes. Let’s see, shorts, pants, sweatpants…

  “Your cousin is searching for the magazine. The problem is locating anything in her bedroom. You know how Lolo hoards stuff, don’t you? I always tell her she needs to do something about it, or else she won’t be able to fit even a pin in that bedroom.”

  “Listen, I’m running late and—”

  “Oh my, Lolo is taking so long. You don’t happen to have that magazine, do you? It’s last month’s Cosmo… or maybe it’s the edition from the month before?”

  “I don’t read Cosmo, Aunt.”

  She gave a little chuckle that would be lovely if it were not maddening.

  “Ah, of course you don’t, Marco. What a nonsense I just said. But I thought,” she discreetly probed, “maybe your girlfriend bought the magazine and left it in your apartment, right? One never knows, that’s why it’s always good to ask.”

  As she spoke, Marco tried to concentrate again on his list: shirts, T-shirts, swimming trunks…

  “True, Aunt. But I don’t have a girlfriend,” he said, throwing everything in the suitcase.

  Since the divorce, it had been basically one-night stands. Many of them. A gentlemen’s agreement that included maximum pleasure and minimal strings. After all, the body required some attention and the deal was convenient for both parties. Until Marisa came along: the woman with whom he had wished to be night after night. And then Marisa quarreled with her mother because of him. At that point he still had no idea what he had gotten himself into.

  It was time to rectify the situation once and for all. The circumstances were far from favorable—he had planned a different scenario, a different frame of mind. Now he needed to do the best within his reach. Marco called Marisa’s home to talk to her mother and found the line busy. Agitation dominated him. Busy. Busy. Busy. He decided to stop by without warning. The subject at hand didn’t sit well on the telephone anyway. In the car, he turned the radio off and concentrated on what he would say, which wasn’t too hard. He had already said the words in his thoughts way before that day. The message was clear to him and so it would be to her.

  Marco announced himself as a friend of Marisa’s to the porter and was admitted in the building. He found the mother waiting for him at the apartment door, her face still marked by tears, her compact frame lost inside a brown pencil dress too loose for her. The resemblance between the mother and Marisa struck him. The eyes were the same, with the color of topaz at twilight and narrow lids that intensified their focus. She stared at him suspiciously and hesitated before inviting him in.

  He noticed she lingered on his black clothes, already disapproving of him at some subliminal level. Marco regretted not changing before he’d left his apartment and, as he followed her into the living area, nervousness clutched the pit of his stomach. They sat in opposite armchairs, shielded from each other by the coffee table and an army of ornaments. She offered him water from a silver pitcher, he accepted it, and for a minute both were lost in that automatic game of politeness.

  Then he talked about his intentions, financial stability, goals and all the details that composed a good impression. She assessed him with an ambivalent gaze that didn’t signal the bent of her thoughts. She wanted to know how Marco and Marisa knew each other. They stumbled into silence—brief but so dense not even the sounds on the street would pervade it. When Marco answered, the good impression he had painted blurred.

  “So this is what you do. You get involved with students,” the mother summed it up, and Marco felt the stab in her voice.

  “Certain things are not planned. It has never happened before, and I didn’t intend—”

  “But it’s a fact.”

  Marco found himself before a wall. She continued piling up stones meticulously—one more minute and she would disappear behind them. In an effort to keep calm, he searched for a breach and attempted to translate the untranslatable. He needed to think fast and find the vulnerable point in the foundation—find the word Marisa’s mother wanted to hear, the one word that would bring down the wall. One mistake, and she’d pile up the last stone.

  “I want to make your daughter happy. Marisa is very special to me. More special than anyone I’ve ever met.” Marco saw his words crumbling on her gaze and felt the grasp in the pit of his stomach. Then he remembered Red River. “There’s a poem by Cora Coralina that says a river is the windowpane of the sky, clouds and stars, a photograph of the moon when it dresses the city in white… To me, that’s what Marisa is. A reflection of beauty.”

  Her smile came unexpectedly.

  “I know that poem. You have good taste. No wonder you teach the love for letters.”

  “Then you understand.”

  She
had to.

  The mother helped herself with water from the silver tray where the pitcher rested with three crystal glasses. She adjusted with a mechanical gesture the white cloth on the bottom of it, took a drowsy sip and laid the glass on the table. Her face was almost dreamy when she commented: “I used to read a lot of poetry when I was young. That reminds me of a poem from a book I was given long ago. Pablo Neruda. Do you like him?” And since he assented, she went on. “It’s the Sonnet LXVI if I’m not mistaken. It speaks of the measure of love, when even if you don’t see your loved one, you love them like a blind man.”

  “That’s it. When you find the reflection of beauty, it stays with you wherever you are.”

  She understood.

  Poetry.

  Such a simple and complex, magical and obvious thing. As he looked at Marisa’s mother, Marco thought of the poem I(a by e. e. cummings, which contained a leaf falling within the word loneliness. In condensed lines, an entire life. No one could remain immune to that.

  And, without realizing he’d clenched his hand on the chair, Marco relaxed. He found a breach, and with it came relief. The mother was a harsh and difficult woman, just like Marisa described. But she had loved. She understood. That was all he needed: an opening. With that step taken, everything would fall into place.

  On the other end of the table, the mother meditated for a moment.

  “Neruda used to say he was a public service poet, but you must already know that. I’ve reread him many times. He has also another interesting poem in The Attempt of the Infinite Man,” she said. “Entitled I Am Afraid. About a gray sky that opens up like the mouth of the dead, about a heart that holds the weeping of a princess forgotten in the depths of a desert castle. That’s the reflection after the reflection, Marco. Now you say you see beauty. What happens when you’re no longer able to see it?”

  Marco shivered as the last stone was settled. Not on the wall, but in this heart.

  In his gaze passed the river.

  “That’s never gonna happen. Beauty increases with time.” Copious, scintillant, crystalline waters. “You learn to know and love each leaf of each tree, each grain of sand. And when you think you already know it all, the light shifts and the seasons go changing.

  “And eventually the eyesight tires. You’re still young, but not a boy anymore. You should know better.”

  “I do.”

  Ignoring Marco’s categorical tone, she smiled again. This time with condescendence.

  “Someone once told me pretty words like yours.” She fell into a pause that swelled until it burst with a gush: “Flowers in the church and gifts, marriage, children, a shared life and happiness until death do us apart. I believed it. And it meant nothing. Nothing. You can regurgitate a thousand poems. Words are just words. Sounds that vanish in the air without a trace.”

  “Sounds that anchor thought so it becomes action.”

  “Oh, but of course you can also take action. You can bring me the sky, the clouds and stars tomorrow. And the day after tomorrow. And next week. And it will mean nothing. Only that you’re doing your best to fool me, because it’s not real. A cardboard sky, insubstantial clouds, cheap stars. I know your kind. Your sweet tongue. You like young flesh. It’s firmer and easier to maneuver. Then, when it gets boring, you just move on.”

  She took a deep breath and leaned forward. Her voice now sounded surprisingly calm.

  “I waited five years to have Marisa and carried her in my belly for another nine months. The day she was born was the happiest of my life. You can’t imagine what it means to have such a strong bond, what it means to hold a child that transforms a dream in reality and becomes a piece of you. Our relationship may not be perfect, but it’s my duty to protect Marisa and ensure only the best for her. That includes a decent companion. I’ll never allow a pedophile to take advantage of my daughter. Ever.” On her glacial countenance, the irises changed color. A deep brown like the entrails of the earth. Almost black. “And don’t you even think of setting Marisa against me. This conversation stays between us. If you don’t disappear, I’ll report you to the school director. I swear I’ll make sure no respectable school ever hires you. I’ll…”

  Marco no longer listened. He was willing to fight to the end of the world, and no threat intimidated him. But in that moment he understood. In the mother’s eyes he met hardness—a rock protecting a very fragile core. The issue was not with him, his age, or the fact he’d gotten involved with Marisa at school. No matter what he said or did, the mother would still cling to her own truth. Not for Marisa. For herself. Admitting another truth meant accepting a different reality from the one she embraced. It meant accepting the failure of her engagement as a result of her flaws. She couldn’t survive that. She had been raised under her father’s protection and the illusion of being perfect. Perfection was her very identity, and she had no choice but to defend it with walls and stones. Without that identity, she was an empty shell. Nothing.

  And all of that Marco saw in her eyes when he gazed at her. The mother wouldn’t yield. Neither would Marisa. Parallel lives. How many years would be lost until a death in the family reunited them? Marco saw a repeat of the situation with Lorena. Everything was replaying, even the threats behind closed doors. He wasn’t indeed a good guide to be followed.

  Marco had never told Marisa about his meeting with her mother. Instead, he asked himself a question.

  What is life?

  Paradox.

  Hence, he ended the conversation. Rising to his feet, Marco headed for the door while Marisa’s mother accompanied him at a tense pace. Then he turned to her and spoke: “Parents are the most important reference in a person’s life. They’re the source and the base that stays forever engraved in one’s identity. Lovers and friends come and go. Parents are irreplaceable. I’ll do my share and you’ll do yours. Marisa is in dire need of your support, don’t be so harsh. Remember, she’s already lost a father. She doesn’t deserve to lose a mother too. I will stay away—not for your sake but for hers.”

  He said it at the exit. The mother stared at him, disarmed—there was a crack in the rock and, inside, pain and confusion. It lasted just one second. Her face shut. Next, the door.

  Two months later Camila showed up, insisting to be with him at his weakest moment. She was in for the thrill, for the fantasy she had built in her head. The relationship never reached beyond the surface. When it did, it drowned.

  “How come you don’t have a girlfriend?” the aunt pressed against his silence. “A young man so handsome like you. You need to marry soon and give your mom a little grandchild. You know nothing would make her happier. And, after what happened to her—”

  “I’d love to keep chatting, but I can’t talk right now. I haven’t even packed—”

  “—we must think about that, right? After all, you’ve already reached the age for starting a family. You can’t remain single forever—”

  “Aunt, I can’t—”

  “—I worry about you, you know? A man needs a woman to look after him. When I think of you over there, all by yourself—”

  Marco now grew utterly desperate. He interrupted her in an emphatic tone: “Aunt, I can’t talk now. I’m very late and I’m gonna miss my flight!”

  She muted for an instant. When the aunt spoke again, she sounded as if she was walking on eggshells. “Gee, I’m so sorry. How silly of me. Well, I won’t keep you… Oh, wait a second… What was that, Lolo? Hold on, Marco, your cousin is talking to me…” For what felt like an eternity, the two women talked in a highly specialized jargon. “Lolo is asking if you can get her a bottle of nail polish. She can’t find it anywhere, and it’s called Sea Breeze. Lolo says there’s one similar named Ocean Breeze, so don’t get them mixed up, okay? Thank you and have a safe trip, dear. Enjoy your vacation and take care.”

  “You take care too.”

  Marco hung up quickly and shove
d the remaining items into the suitcase. In his memory he stuck a yellow Post-it: bring two plum cake baking pans for Aunt Carmina and a bottle of Ocean Spray for Lolo. While he printed booking confirmations and picked up his passport, Marco thought if one day he found a genie of the lamp, he must remember to wish Aunt Carmina never, ever called him again when he was running late to catch a plane.

  He departed to purchase dollars and faced a line at the currency exchange and traffic on the way to the airport. He had half an hour left for checking in and now began to worry about missing the plane. São Paulo’s traffic was hell on earth. On one occasion, it took him three hours to reach Guarulhos International Airport, only sixteen miles away from Downtown. In a rainy day, the travel time could go up to four hours.

  The expressway clogged almost to a halt. He had twenty-eight minutes left… twenty-six… twenty-five… Now he squeezed through the bottleneck, almost reaching the exit to the highway. Done! Seventeen minutes left to arrive at the airport. He flew, dropped the car at the parking lot, ran to the airline counter. Luckily there were no queues at that time. Marco managed to dispatch his suitcase exactly thirty-six seconds before the check-in deadline.

  He rushed to the boarding area. At the security check, he was detained. The X-ray showed a suspicious object in his luggage, and a bored gate agent asked if he was carrying any liquid in it. Marco had no idea. They turned his backpack inside out: book, papers, sweater, an inexplicable roll of string, and at the bottom, the villain—a bottle of aftershave lotion he had forgotten to check in. The aftershave lotion tossed in the garbage, all the rest entangled back into the backpack, the zipper wouldn’t close, pull it, pull it… okay.

  Free to go, Marco walked fast, increasingly fast through the endless corridor in the boarding area. His gate sat on the farther end. When he saw it, he also saw the employee from the airline company, a brunette in a navy-blue uniform who was stepping away from the gate.