We are going for our own walk now—Isadora had said.
Later later, when Richard was sitting in the living room with Vovô Felipe and Vovô Cecília, their wet gloves on the radiator, the baby asleep on a blanket, he got a call on the house phone from Isadora.
She said—We bought so many things and we ran into Kalpana, you know my friend from the hospital, and she invited us for dinner so we will be very late. Richard, will you tell my parents?
Richard—
She held the phone against her face.
You will be alright with the baby and my parents
This is what happened.
On Boxing Day they had gone back to the clinic where Isadora worked. Not to see Dr. Kalpana this time, but a second doctor.
Ana Paula sat down in the small white room with the second doctor who had said—
Well which is it, Ana or Paula? A-nuh or Por-lah?
And Isadora had said—It’s Ana Pau-la, Ana Paula, like Ka-Pow like pow-er
And then Ana Paula put the biggest most jumbo sanitary pad in her underwear and Isadora got them a cab, and when they were home while their parents were in bed Isadora ran her a bath and then wrapped her up on the sofa and Ana Paula put the news on with the sound off.
Suco de Cajú
Do you want to hear a funny story? A funny story about your father about your father’s first trip here
Do you remember? No I guess you can’t no no claro you were a little baby or maybe you were walking I don’t know can’t remember, can you remember? No of course not you were a baby.
We were all at the beach, you know like we always do, and we went for lunch in a restaurant, nothing too formal, one of those restaurants where they don’t mind if you’re wet from the beach as long as you have a shirt on or a canga round your waist, and you sit in plastic white chairs. Your father was sunburnt all glowing sea salt in his eyebrows his reading glasses on and trying to work out the menu in his rudimentary French. Batata frita, potato, frîtes—like that. We were staying in the little yellow house. You remember the yellow house? Yes yes obviously.
What happened in the restaurant was—and now that it’s been explained to him he can laugh at it too but at the time—what happened in the restaurant was that obviously your father loves to cook, loves to garden loves planting plants—he would wander around the garden asking what was the name of this tree? Did anybody know the name of this tree? Was it a blublublabla? Insisting on sitting in the sun.
So your father every time we went out he would want to try a new juice. And obviously there are so many juices and fruits that he had never seen before
Açaí
Maracujá
Acerola
Jabuticaba
Cajú
He was always asking—But what is that in English? What is it like? Is it like a berry? How would you say “berry”?
So we were sitting in the beachside restaurant on the white plastic chairs holding the laminated menus, and he jumped in his seat, pointing at the menu, saying—
Soo-coh dee Kah-joo!
And I turned to him, and I turned to him, and said—Uh huh, suco de cajú, it’s—
Juice
Yes
Juice of
Yes it is a juice
Juice of cheese!
Detective linguist your father was thrilled and outraged.
Juice of cheese!
Can you believe it? Oh it was very funny. At first not everyone had heard or understood what your father had said, and I was crying laughing hysterically, so your tia translated for them, and the whole table burst into laughter. The whole table was laughing, my sister, Vovó, Vovô, the family that owned the house next to the yellow house.
And all this time the waiter was waiting for us so when the waiter approached, pad in hand, and I turned to him and explained. And so he began to laugh too.
Your poor father this whole time was very perplexed, I put my hand on his shoulder and I said—No darling.
Queijo, like kay-joo is cheese.
And even then your father was still nodding, agreeing with me, saying—Yes. Exactly.
But cajú, like kah-joo is cashew fruit, like cashew nut in England.
Ah. So your father adjusted his glasses, looked around the table and then began to laugh. Poor husband.
No, but he found it very funny eventually when he understood what had happened. And he was so sunburnt. Your father can laugh at himself. Little lobster head.
1997
Vovó Cecília, A Love Story
Did you know that your nails grow faster in the heat?
The baby looked at her nails.
The baby looked at Vovó Cecília.
They were in the Shopping. The baby had gotten too big to sit in the trolley and be pushed around, so she walked next to her vovó down the deep long high up aisles of sugar and flour and breads and baubles and cheese and shelves of nappies and shampoos lined with tinsel and the boxes of panettone and the boxes of panettone.
Vovó Cecília held the list in her hand.
We need sugar. It is over there can you get it?
Yes!
It will say A-Ç-U- with a little tail on the C
The baby frowned.
Bring back the middle-sized bag, not the small one or the very big one.
The baby ran down the aisle and brought back a middle-sized bag of sugar. She put it in the trolley. She looked up at Vovó Cecília—Next!
Okay—Vovó Cecília put her glasses on and held out the list—next we need butter. That’s in another aisle where it’s cold.
I know I know where that is!
Vovó Cecília clapped her hands.
Excellent! Lead the way.
The baby led them through the aisles past the eggs and the pasta and long legs of meat and the frozen pizza.
As they passed the fruit section Vovó saw the baby looking at the pyramid of grapes.
Let’s get some grapes—would you like that?
Yes!
Let’s pick a good bunch. Which do you think are the ripest?
Vovó paused to compare two bags.
The baby, her face much closer to the pile of fruit, touched one of the bags, knocking off a grape. She looked around and kept it in her hand.
I think these look the ripest. Do you approve querida?
The baby nodded.
They moved to the refrigerated aisle.
Butter!
The baby held the grape in one hand and the front of the trolley with the other.
Here here! Butter—M-A-N-T
She looked up.
Yes! You found it! Thank you querida.
Only—Vovó Cecília bent down to read the labels—only for the brigadeiros we need unsalted butter. Can you see if there is one that says sem sal?
Um
S-E-M S-A- —
The baby opened her mouth and then ran down the aisle away from the butter.
Vovó Cecília put her glasses on and began reading the labels.
A lady in the supermarket uniform approached Vovó Cecília. She spoke with a lisp because she was wearing braces although she looked about twenty-five. She held out a hand the same colour as Vovó Cecília’s hand—Excuse me senhora can I help?
Ah yes, I’m looking for manteiga sem sal but I can only see salted here
Would that be for a savoury pie or a pudding
No no
Or for general cooking
No não I
And how much would you like, will you be cooking a lot with it? In your own house or at your—
I don’t cook!
Vovó Cecília laughed.
The lady in the supermarket uniform nodded.
No I do not usually cook at all!
Vovó Cecília tapped her little heel shoe on the hard floor. She laughed.
No I do not usually cook.
Oh
But today, today I’m cooking brigadeiros with my neta.
Claro. I understand senhora
&n
bsp; It is a special occasion. She has come all the way from London—which is in England—so I’m going to make brigadeiros with her. You can see her over there—
Claro
But it is an exception.
The lady from the supermarket looked over at the baby
The baby squished the grape into her palm.
I have a cozinheira who cooks for me
The supermarket lady closed her mouth over her braces.
Would you like me to get you that butter senhora?
Yes. Fetch it for me. Unsalted. Unsalted.
Unsalted.
Vovó Cecília looked at the baby, who was standing at the end of the aisle.
Yes because this section is very unclear and I do not have time to be running around.
Of course not. I am so sorry.
Yes you should rearrange this section.
We should.
It is badly organised.
Yes.
Please tell your manager I think it is badly organised.
I will be back in a minute with your butter.
Yes. Unsalted.
I’m sorry.
Well
Vovó Cecília pushed her lips together.
The baby, seeing the two women were no longer looking at her, put the grape in her mouth and wiped her hands on her top.
On the way back from the Shopping in the midday sunlight, as they waited for the big gate to lift so that Vovó Cecília could back into her garage, a woman in her forties wearing sunglasses and jeans and walking a poodle said—Senhora! Dona Cecília!
The woman tapped on the car window. Vovó Cecília wound it down.
Melissa! Bom dia.
Bom dia Dona Cecília!
Melissa, this is my neta I told you about her—from Londres!
Melissa said the baby’s name like a question. She bent her body to look into the car, and smiled at the baby.
Melissa said the baby’s name like an answer.
But of course I hear all about you!
Then looking up again at Vovó Cecília—Que fofa! Ai que linda! Aqueles olhos claros.
Vovó Cecília nodded.
How long is she here for?
Ten more days, we are going to the praia tomorrow. She is here in São Paulo just one more day.
Que pena. My nephews are about her age and they go swimming every day in the pool in their building.
Oh yes. What are their names?
Pedro Paulo and Roberto.
Oh yes, now I remember.
Next time.
Yes, next time.
Vovó Cecília called to the baby—Do you want to play with Melissa’s dog?
And she speaks Portuguese?
The baby climbed into the front seat, where there was no child lock on the door, and let herself out of the car.
Yes claro, she speaks Portuguese.
The baby pulled the poodle’s ears.
Yes my daughter visits every year so she speaks with us.
Yes! She looks just like your daughter. I forget is her name—Ana Paula!
No no não—she is not Ana Paula’s daughter!
No?
No, this is the daughter of my oldest daughter, Isadora. She lives in London with her husband who is English. She has lived there many years now. Yes you can tell because of the light eyes.
Melissa looked at the baby.
Lindos.
My daughter Isadora is a doctor, you know Melissa, and so is her husband. At a very large hospital in London.
Oh how spectacular
Yes
But it is hard. My only grandchild my netinha so far away, can you imagine?
What kind of doctor is your daughter?
Well
Vovó Cecília’s house was on the slope of a hill in this city that was full of hills.
It was on a road that was all flat wide houses, looking out at the city that was all bars and blocks of concrete scraping the sky and turning from white to pink and grey in the pollution sunlight.
The house was wide with two low storeys. On each side of the house there was a high white concrete wall topped with triangles of broken glass that mirrored green into the top floor rooms. At the front there was a lawn thick with big bladed grass and enough space for two cars. Behind the house against the high white wall there was a second building that looked like it might have one or two rooms. Sometimes there were clothes hanging on the line outside it. The baby never went in there.
The front doors opened onto the big room with wide windows onto the garden. Around the windows the inside walls were white and covered sparsely with photographs, some in frames, all of them portraits. Some had more than one person in them but most of them did not.
In the middle of the room there was a plush cream sofa and on one side of it a small television and on the other side a dark wood dining table with a fruit bowl and another crystal bowl for sweets, and behind that a dark wood bookshelf holding the whole heavy Encyclopaedia Britannica set and leather-bound photo albums.
The baby had seen the pictures in the photo albums many times. They were the photos that the baby’s mum had sent her parents, which lived also stacked in piles on shelves and in albums in London.
The photographs repeated themselves. Her, a tiny newborn baby, purple and eyes closed covered in cloth two hands almost the length of her body around her. Her, a set of little fingers reaching out of a pram, her father pushing the pram with one hand, then with much longer hair and hairy skinny legs propped out of shorts, the big jungle plants falling behind him, Kew Gardens, facing the camera. Her, oh my god face no front teeth by the snake enclosure at London Zoo. Tia Ana Paula, in a raincoat that didn’t fit, standing outside Tooting Broadway station.
Her, on a swing in the playground by the tennis courts on the common, pink hood coming off, pigtails almost blonde, eyes closed in the air.
That afternoon they made the brigadeiros. There were only three ingredients and it would have been simpler to just start cooking and adjust as they went but Vovó Cecília used a recipe. It was handwritten in pencil in an A4 notebook. The baby looked at it and tried to follow but Brazilian handwriting was so curly it was hard to read.
They wore aprons, both of them white and pink and the baby’s one going all the way to her ankles. Vovó Cecília rolled up the baby’s sleeves and tied up the baby’s hair. She arranged the unwrapped butter and opened cocoa powder and can of condensed milk on the kitchen counter. She got out a pair of scales and a big bowl. She put a chair in front of the counter for the baby to stand on.
I will read out the quantity and you will pour, tá bom?
The baby nodded.
200 gramas.
The baby gave the packet a tentative shake and cocoa powder fell out, filling halfway up the bowl.
The needle on the scale moved to 100.
The baby looked at Vovó Cecília.
Vovó Cecília nodded.
The baby poured in a little bit more cocoa powder and looked at the needle.
She poured in a little more.
And a little more.
She looked at the needle. And then she looked up.
Perfeito! Now we can start.
They had a gas stove that burnt gas from the big blue metal canisters that were delivered on a truck. Vovó Cecília lit the stove and put a pan on it. The baby stood in front of the stove on a chair and Vovó Cecília stood behind her.
You can help me do the cooking but you mustn’t lean forwards over the fire, understand?
The baby nodded.
Vovó Cecília gave her a spoon.
Now put one spoonful of butter into the pan.
The baby put the spoon into the butter and then dropped the yellow lump into the pan where it began to melt.
Well done!
Now—Vovó Cecília picked up the pan and tilted it round—now I’m doing this part because it’s dangerous. She moved her wrist and the butter slid all around the bottom of the pan and the sides until there was no spoonful
lump left, just shine.
Have you got your spoon?
The baby held out the spoon.
Now I’m going to pour in the leite condensado and you’re going to stir.
The slow thick leite folded into the pan and the baby ran the curve of the spoon deliberately around the curve of the pan.
Perfeito! Lindo! Keep going just like that.
The baby would have smiled but she was concentrating, using both hands to stir.
I’m going to pour in the cocoa powder now. Ready?
The baby nodded. Ready.
Vovó Cecília shook the bowl of cocoa powder over the pan and as the sprinkle powder became wet and fat and darkened the baby curved it into the centre of the hot leite condensado. And in stripes and strips the leite began to turn brown.
The smell of chocolate and hot condensed milk filled the kitchen.
Mmm! Is it making you hungry?
The baby nodded. Mmm hmm.
Me too.
The baby looked at her.
We need to keep stirring it right until when you pull the spoon back, until when you pull the spoon back like this—she put her hand over the baby’s hand and drew the spoon to the side of the pan—until the leite holds for a couple of seconds and you can see the bottom of the pan.
The baby pulled the spoon back across the pan—Like this?
The brown folding sugar leite swelled up over the spoon as it moved.
No, not yet.
Okay.
Look—you can’t see the metal.
The baby watched the pan, stirring.
When this is done, we will put it into a dish and leave it in the fridge so that it goes hard. Then we have to be patient again. Then comes the fun part.
But tell me if your arm hurts and I can take over.
The baby nodded.
She watched the liquid shift around the moving spoon.
Before dinner they sat at the table and Vovó Cecília put kitchen towels over the lace tablecloth and fetched the dish of set chocolate from the fridge. She also brought the unsalted butter, which she had left out and was soft, and a plate of crunchy sprinkles.
They sat at one corner of the dining table.
Stubborn Archivist Page 5