Stubborn Archivist

by Yara Rodrigues Fowler

  And then, as Vovô Felipe stepped forward to shake his hand, Vovó Cecília’s eyes widened and she felt herself pressing down her own grey lightened pulled back hair with her manicured hands, and she felt all the faces from the family photos that hadn’t been on display since she got married suddenly in the corridor with her.

  And Isadora stood next to her mother and said—Mãe, isn’t he handsome? I think he is almost as handsome as Richard.

  It was an English Christmas. Not like the ones that Richard had grown up with—oh no!—and the dinner was served on the twenty-fourth like in Brazil, but it was cold wet dark outside, and they were in the misted up inside with the heating on. In the corner of the sitting room, there was a huge Christmas tree, and when the baby shook it real pine needles fell onto the carpet.

  They sat at the oak dining table in Tooting to eat Richard’s Christmas dinner, served on Brazilian silverware. Richard tentatively put a Bob Dylan album on. Isadora suppressed a smile. The baby sat at the bottom of the table in a blue dress and white tights.

  Richard carved the turkey. It was an organic turkey from Somerset that he had ordered and prepared especially. They sat quietly at first. And then they spoke English.

  Vovô Felipe began. And where did you go to university, Marcos?

  Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro.

  That is a good university.

  Yes.

  What did you study?

  Law.

  And now?

  I would like to find a job at a bank.

  Ana Paula looked at her parents.

  Do you think it will be easy to find such a job?

  No papai of course he wouldn’t find it hard.

  Marcos looked at Vovô Felipe. I don’t know. If that doesn’t work out I will go back to Brazil.

  Looking around himself he said—I want to buy a property and I don’t know how realistic that will be here.

  Richard swallowed his turkey. Yes. Well—he looked at Isadora—we were very lucky.

  Yes we were very lucky.

  It just depends what happens. With me. If I can get a job then I can get a visa and then—Marcos held his palms up and nodded.

  Vovô Felipe nodded.

  Marcos gave them all handpicked homely presents. They opened them after dinner, sitting on the sofas under the flashing fairy light of the Christmas tree. A long white wool scarf and gold earrings for Ana Paula, smooth carved wooden cooking spoons for Richard, a shawl for Isadora and Cecília, a pen knife for Felipe and a kid’s book in Portuguese for the baby, which, if Ana Paula had thought about it properly, she would have realised he must have got his parents to post over weeks ago.

  Marcos, who had five sisters, was a domestic kind of guy. After the dinner he offered to wash the dishes (something that he and his family never did for themselves at home). Richard told him not to worry, no not to worry—and with a hesitant hand on his shoulder—no not to worry the dishes could be done in the morning.

  Marcos talked in Portuguese to the baby. Called her—amiga, senhora, Dona Amado—and at first she scowled and frowned, then she learnt to reply—but tio that is not my real name.

  And of course—even before the Christmas dinner, when there were no tubes or buses and it was so cold outside—Isadora and Richard let Marcos stay over in Ana Paula’s bedroom, something else which would never have happened in his mother’s apartment in Rio. And without question or hesitation he preferred to be in the house with them, despite his nice flat in Euston and the long length of the Northern Line.

  And in the week before Christmas, in the red green festive fuzz, he had gone to the Science Museum with her and Ana Paula, and when the baby said she had something special to show him, he had said—Oba! He was so excited! And when they stood under the Boeing 747 he reached for Ana Paula’s hand.

  Marcos, who had five sisters, was a domestic kind of man. And so during that winter when they dressed and undressed for bed and when he went for runs on the common and when they undressed and dressed in the morning, Ana Paula would go downstairs to have breakfast with him and in that way she began to brush her teeth again. Marcos handed the floss to her like it was the most natural thing in the world.

  There had been one evening.

  They lay in her bed. Not for the first time in the room overlooking the garden in the big house in Tooting, in the English winter darkness that was closing locking around the autumn. Neither of them had ever seen a season do that to the tree leaves or to the length of the daylight, pushing people indoors to put on kettles and buy thick coats and walk around with wet soaking feet and their heads in umbrellas.

  She hadn’t known him more than six weeks. She had only been in London four months—really she was barely getting to grips with the underground zones and peak times and only knew part of one bus route—

  They lay in her bed. They were both clean smelling of soap and mouthwash, him wearing light blue cotton pyjamas and her in an LSE T-shirt and shorts. Outside was dark and the window glass was misted wet. The house was warm but the bed was warmest.

  He lay on his back, his eyes closed no glasses. She turned herself in the bed towards him, a hand under his ear.

  She had begun by saying his name.

  And he had turned his head to her, his hair crush against the pillow, his eyes about to open.

  She whispered his name—Marcos

  And, her hand under his ear, she had asked him—Marcos, do you have plans for Christmas?

  He looked at her. Ana Paula. She was imagining that he might be alone. He closed his eyes. And in that moment, he cancelled all his own plans and flights and said, simply—

  Não.

  Ana Paula leant into his clean-smelling smiling body.

  With him she began to re-feel how slow motion erotic the way that another person moves their mouth could be. And the way they take off their glasses and close their eyes. They slotted into and onto each other. He ran his thumb down the inside curve of her body and the skin where he kissed her was like where the rain falls on snow.

  This was Marcos.

  Coragem Alfredo

  We were medical students living in the city.

  We had a lovely little apartment me and Edi and this guy called Alfredo. I must have been what nineteen or twenty

  Duda had the most chaotic flat down the road in Vila Madalena, near the bridge that was this dusty pink colour. Her flatmates were proper punks, like they used to steal my tapes from my car and when I asked for them back they said no because I was studying to be a doctor and would have more income than them. Redistribute! they said.

  Anyway

  Edi is Edi you know Edi he lives in Salvador now. He works in psychiatry at the university. Lives with his partner Maurício.

  But Alfredo. You don’t know Alfredo. I lost touch with him twenty years ago. In fact I don’t know what happened to Alfredo. But Alfredo had just come to live with us. He came from a little town in the interior called Tatuí where he had trained to be a priest. Yes he had trained to be a priest went to priest seminary school had robes—he showed us pictures of him wearing the big Catholic robes, a teenager really wearing the big purple priest robes—but he left. I can’t remember why but anyway he left. Maybe just he didn’t like it or maybe he fell in love with someone. But he left. He left and came to São Paulo which was where he met us.

  So Alfredo was new to the city. I can’t even remember what he was doing. It was the early eighties, everything was chaos you know the ditadura and we were all students so you know so we were fighting fighting fighting—you know, fist in the air—clean water, free press, democracy bla bla

  Me and Edi and Alfredo wanted to do graffiti. Yes paint messages over the public walls—in secret at night of course because that was the only time that you could really do it, those were difficult times

  So we bought the paint and we had our black night clothes and things—I used to be very fit you know, just like you, rode a bicycle, whatever—and we were all ready to go with our paint and
black clothes in the middle of the night when little Alfredo said he didn’t want to come anymore. He was too scared. Poor Alfredo he was new in the big city and they were very scary times, very scary times if you were caught

  Anyway

  So we left the flat, me and Edi, we said that’s okay Alfredo bye bye Alfredo. We went out into the night. We had decided before that we would paint political slogans and then poetry also. Because we read a lot of poetry, as well as Marx and Engels and Lenin. Sometimes things are both of course.

  There was a huge wall under a bridge near where we lived, it was a sort of a late night dusty pink colour. So we painted on it in huge black letters—

  C O R A G E M A L F R E D O

  And it became like, what do you call it now, a meme. Lots of people saw it. Everybody saw it. It stayed there for ages, huge big black letters across the wall under the bridge. Everybody in the city saw it. And people would say to each other would say and they would whisper coragem!

  Coragem Alfredo!

  Leaving (Coming)

  You were sitting in the kitchen with Jade, Elena and Gee. You had ordered food, so when you felt your phone vibrating in your pocket you started walking to the front door but it turned out it was your mum calling to say that Vovô Felipe had died.

  Your mum had just got off the phone to your tia Ana Paula. Mum had known something was wrong as soon as she saw the São Paulo number come up on the house phone. Ana Paula hated international calling rates, she hated the fuzzy line, she hated house phones. But you can’t tell your sister that your dad has died via WhatsApp. She hadn’t called the house phone since you were a kid.

  Mum was looking up flights and crying.

  For tomorrow. I found a flight for the morning. We can pay. We knew this was going to happen. Okay baby? I love you.

  I love you too.

  You stood alone by the front door holding your phone. Fuck.

  When you walked in the kitchen door the three of them were holding plates and cutlery and setting the table. But when they saw your face they piled on top of you and you snotted into Elena’s hair as you told them that your vovô had died.

  You said—My mum called. We’re going to Brazil tomorrow.

  Elena stroked your hair.

  I have to tell work.

  And then Jade said—We’ll help you pack.

  Okay.

  Yeah we’ll do it together.

  Let’s do it now.

  Okay?

  Let’s do it now.

  Thank you.

  Jade held your hand.

  The four of you sat in your bedroom. You lay on the bed with your head touching Elena’s knee and Jade’s hand on your face and for a while no one spoke.

  And then you stood up, wiped your nose and took a case from under the bed and opened it. Elena was smiling at you. You began slowly to pull things from the wardrobe and put them into piles. (Tops, shorts, pants, dresses, shoes, sandals, earrings—bikini? Bikini?)

  Your phone rang again, and you all looked at it, but it wasn’t your mum, so Gee said—I’ll get it, I’ll get it.

  Elena went to get plates and forks and when Jade came back with all the food Gee spread it out on the bed around you.

  How you feeling?

  Sad. You rub your face. But also—you throw some pants into the corner of the case—but also this is what is meant to happen, you die when you’re old and you’ve built a family and a house and a life.

  Yeah absolutely.

  He did what he wanted to do with his life

  That’s kinda great.

  Yeah he has one daughter who’s a lawyer and another who’s a doctor in England, that’s the dream right?

  Jade, who was a third generation kid, confirmed—Yup that’s the dream.

  You knelt to roll the pants into the corner of the case.

  What about your grandma?

  Gee said—Would she come live with you here?

  No way.

  Because it’s too far?

  No. And it’s not because of the language either. She won’t go live with my aunt. She’s just got things set up there. She has some people on her street she plays cards with, a lady who cooks her food, she leaves out bananas for the hummingbirds every day after breakfast.

  That’s nice.

  Yeah it is. For her it is.

  Elena looked at you.

  How long were they married?

  Sixty years? They got married when she was twenty-one, I think. Vovô was a bit older like twenty-four.

  Jade pursed her whole face with distaste. Elena and Gee looked at her.

  Jade covered her mouth with her hand—Shit.

  Pause.

  You started laughing—Sixty years of marriage does sound kind of fucking grim!

  Jade started laughing—I’m sorry—

  You laughed.

  Elena’s hand, which was holding a pot of moisturiser, started to shake as she laughed.

  You laughed so hard.

  But—Gee said—But if I had to get married now to have sex, I would.

  I don’t know.

  Jade scrunched up her face.

  Elena shook her head.

  Well, I’d definitely consider it.

  Even if there were no condoms?

  Jade was shaking her head. Sixty years though.

  Gee nodded. Yeah I reckon so. She passed you a pair of socks.

  Elena spoke for the first time. Even if there were condoms I wouldn’t do it.

  She shook her head.

  The sex would have been shit, thrust thrust thrust ughh

  You laughed. Because now it’s so different!

  It can be—Gee said.

  Also people did have oral sex and whatnot back then too. Jade held a pair of havaianas in the air like a question mark. What do you think lesbians were doing?

  Okay, yes obviously.

  Well exactly.

  Gee resumed—Okay, okay but if you wanted to have sex with a man or didn’t want to do it in secret and be ostracised, then you would have to get married? And then do you think that married women were not having good sex?

  I don’t know. Do you think they were coming?

  Jade offered—Maybe.

  Elena said—Not from their husbands.

  Gee said—Well my granny had three husbands, the last one when she was seventy-five.

  Jade looked impressed.

  Granny Penny had three husbands?

  Yup.

  Jade nodded her head. You know this is something I think about a lot.

  Jade paused and looked at you. I think about all the couples I used to idolise.

  What like your mum and Andy?

  There’s my mum, and my aunties, but also I think about all the couples historically. Like whether Darcy was going down on Elizabeth—

  No!

  Yes!

  You gagged on your food.

  But but after giving it a lot of thought I think he was because, because—Jade held her hands up like a teacher, asking for silence—firstly, he takes pride in fairness, secondly he’ll go out of his way to please her, and likes to get a job done—“nothing would be done that he didn’t do himself” and thirdly, the whole second half of the book is about how he learns to follow her instructions. Right? Like I don’t know about Bingley going down on Jane. And there’s all those scenes of Mr. Darcy bathing, so we know that they have access to good hygiene for the time. Colin Firth from the lake definitely was doing it anyway. That’s what that whole lake scene is about you know. Diving in, navigating the underwater bush, getting wet . . .

  Pause.

  You are so right.

  Yeah! Thank you.

  You are so right.

  Like I don’t think anyone was going down on Daisy in Great Gatsby. And that was Gatsby’s downfall to be honest.

  True.

  So true.

  Although she had been quiet for a while it felt like Elena was repeating herself. She was sitting on the bed surrounded by plates and tissues. But eve
n now it’s normal for women not to come.

  Not like every time.

  Or like not most of the time.

  Jade said—I don’t climax from just penetration.

  Gee looked surprised.

  You said—Me neither. For me sex is cool, but coming is something I do alone.

  Really?

  Jade said—You never told me that.

  But when you went out with Leo

  It just didn’t happen.

  They looked at you. You sat on the case with clothes on your lap.

  It just didn’t happen.

  Elena said—But you were with Leo for ages

  You shrugged.

  Like years

  You shrugged.

  You never told me about this.

  Or me.

  Or me.

  It’s fine.

  You stood up to take a dress down from the wardrobe.

  And after what happened—I just didn’t want to for ages.

  Everyone was quiet.

  Don’t be weird

  Sorry—

  Oh

  And anyway there’s a good ending—you looked at the clothes in your lap—I mean it’s cheesy. I was googling this and there are all these recommendations for couples to try like go on holiday or wear special underwear or whatever. So I left it because I didn’t have a partner. But recently I had some money from my job and living at home and whatever so I spent some time researching vibrators—because there’s a lot of them and they’re all quite different—and I found one that was very highly rated and I bought it and some tingly lube and I booked out a fancy hotel room in the countryside, and just went by myself.

  Oh my god are you kidding. Jade sat with her mouth open.

  Nope. It was amazing like purple mood lighting and silk sheets and bath salts.

  Fuck off!

  How much did it cost?

  All together? Three hundred pounds, for the room, train tickets and the vibrators.

  What!!!

  Oh my god

  Best three hundred pounds I ever spent.

  Seriously.

  Jade was lying down covering her face laughing.

  Gee was crying with laughter and shaking her head.