by Luiza Sauma
One night, I asked him what was going on.
“I’m experimenting with some new nonsurgical techniques,” he said. “It’s best to keep them off the books.”
This sounded plausible, but dodgy—what if someone ended up deformed? That night just one client was booked in, for 9:00 p.m., but she was late. I sat for an hour, bored as hell, waiting. Clock ticking, air-con humming, cars beeping, distant night-time laughter from bars and people on the street. I read all the waiting-room magazines and newspapers: Veja, O Globo, an old copy of Vogue Brasil full of cod-philosophical interviews with high-society peruas, patricinhas, models, and actresses. In the newer magazines, the big story was the World Cup, which was a week away, in Mexico. Not that I cared. (Most Englishmen, when they hear I’m from Brazil, immediately start talking about football. When they find out that I’m not interested, they back away, astonished, as though I’ve admitted to some terrible perversion.)
The client finally arrived: a woman in her early forties, wearing high heels, sunglasses, and a blue silk scarf, knotted over her dark hair. She was stinking rich, it was obvious. In Rio, only the superrich spent enough time in air-conditioned cars and buildings to necessitate wearing head scarves. I asked her to wait while I called my father on the intercom. The woman popped Chiclets into her mouth and chewed loudly. Her face twitched with nerves. I tried not to look.
When my father came in, she said in a scratchy voice, “Who’s the kid? I thought it would be just you and the nurse.”
“It’s my son. Don’t worry. Shall we?”
He took her to the operating room and came back a few minutes later. “Go home, filho. It’s late.”
Aunt Lia told me the truth, when Thiago and I were at her flat in Leblon. Lia was Mamãe’s older sister. She had a world-weary glamour, with her silk blouses, bobbed gray hair, her psychoanalyst’s couch—which we liked to lie on—and her cigarettes, which she smoked all day, even through meals. She never married or had children, but she loved young people and treated most adults, especially Papai, like boring idiots. Perhaps she thought Mamãe could have done better.
We were eating pudding, a bright yellow quindim. Thiago stood up to go to the bathroom. Lia’s eyes followed him until he had left the dining room.
“So your father’s working you hard, eh?”
Earlier, I had been complaining about the long hours. “Yes.” Not wanting to stoke her disapproval of him, I added, “But it’s fine, I’m learning a lot.”
“To be honest, I respect what he’s doing.”
I looked up.
“You’re shocked?” she said. “It’s the right thing to do. I’m not a Jesus freak, why should I care?”
I had no idea what she was talking about, so I kept quiet and nodded, hoping she would carry on.
“It’s dangerous, but it’s right. When your government is as shitty and self-serving as ours, you have to take matters into your hands, don’t you think?”
“I suppose so.”
“But don’t tell him that I know. I found out from one of my patients who went to him. Just a girl, poor thing, far too young to be a mother. His name just slipped from her mouth—she didn’t mean to say it.”
“Right.” I was taken aback, but I tried to stay calm.
It was hard to fool Lia, though—she was perceptive. She pursed her lips, widened her eyes, and leaned in to me. “You knew that, didn’t you?”
“Of course, of course I knew,” I blabbered.
“Meu Deus do céu, you didn’t know.” She looked at the ceiling, then back at me. “You didn’t know, did you? Shit!” Her hands became jittery, grabbing at her pack of cigarettes. She lit one with a silver lighter, sucked and blew smoke, and waved it away. “Don’t tell him I told you.”
I agreed, just as Thiago returned to the room.
I told Papai that I knew, but I didn’t tell him how I knew. “I can’t reveal my sources.”
“What are you, a detective?”
“When did you start doing this?”
“It’s been a few years.”
“Did Mamãe know?”
“Yes, but she didn’t like it.”
“Do you really need the money? It’s illegal.”
“It shouldn’t be. We don’t need more unwanted children in the world. Look at the first world—it’s legal over there. We can’t keep up with them because there are too many religious maniacs over here.”
“Aren’t you worried about getting caught?”
“I’m not advertising it to the world. Between you and me, I’ve helped some very important people, which offers me some protection. Can’t tell you who. Very important. But you can’t tell anyone. Not even your friends.”
“What if one of them needs an abortion?”
“Hopefully your friends aren’t like that,” he said, looking appalled.
For an atheist, he had a real puritanical streak. Papai was a backstreet abortionist, but Rua Joana Angélica is no backstreet. He aborted the richest embryos in Rio de Janeiro.
FOURTEEN
Late in the afternoon, several hours after school, I was sitting with my friends on Copacabana beach. My father had given me the afternoon off to study. I took my books to the beach, but left them in my backpack. The sun was on its way down, and I was thinking about leaving. Dani had a fashionable new hairdo—a big, fluffy perm. Isabel told her she looked like a famous actress, but I thought she looked silly. I could smell her hair gel every time we kissed. A tiny black insect flew into her hair, but I didn’t say anything because I didn’t want to embarrass her. I doubt it came out alive.
I walked home alone on the pavement beside the beach, all the way to Ipanema. The sun goes down quickly in Rio and already the sky was blue-black, obscured on the right by tall buildings, and on my left, reaching across the ocean, to the world. People jogging, riding bicycles, women clicking home in high heels, the air light and warm. I passed the Arpoador rock, and I was in Ipanema. The curves of the Dois Irmãos mountains were still visible at the end of the beach. The favelas beneath them were lighting up as people arrived home from work. The ocean was loud and dark. People drinking and chatting, on plastic chairs, at the beach bars. Ten meters away, a mother and two children were sitting on the pavement, looking ragged. And there was my building, on the other side of the road, nestling in the middle of the block. The living-room window aglow, like a lantern in the night.
I heard Luana’s voice as I stepped out of the lift; it was as soft and sweet as a peach, as if nothing could faze her. She was saying something like “Mãe, can you pass me the—” and I felt oddly moved that she was there, preparing our dinner. I opened the door and walked through the kitchen, greeting her and her mother. Rita and I made small talk about the hot weather. Beyond saying hello, Luana didn’t speak or look at me and carried on cooking, her head bent over the stove in concentration or avoidance, or both. I carried on talking, my voice too loud, and my lungs felt tight, as if they were running out of air.
“Don’t distract us, André,” said Rita, in a sarcastic tone.
“OK, OK.” I left the kitchen, laughing.
After showering, I went to the living room. Papai was back from work, reading a newspaper at the table.
“Hello, André. Did you study much?” He raised his tortoiseshell glasses and wiped the sweat from his forehead and eyelids with a napkin.
“A bit, yes.”
“Good.”
I could hear the soft hum of Rita and Luana’s voices in the kitchen, and recognize the rich coconut-and-manioc smell of bobó de camarão cooking on the stove. Soon they would bring the food from the kitchen, and I would see Luana—that’s what I was waiting for. I had seen her thirty minutes earlier, but already I missed her. Thiago joined us at the table, wearing caped Superman pajamas, all ready for bed. His hair was still wet from the shower. He sat down at his usual chair, pulled a comic out of his trousers, and started reading.
“Filho,” said Papai, “don’t read at the dinner table.”
Thiago glanced up and carried on reading.
My father slammed his fist on the table. “Stop it.”
Thiago put the comic on the table and looked straight ahead. Rita brought in bowls of rice and salad. Then came Luana from the kitchen, holding a heavy ceramic pot, eyes downcast. There was an orange smudge of sauce on her white uniform. She put the pot on the table, looked up, and smiled at me for the first time in weeks, or months, making my stomach feel so empty. I smiled back, feeling delirious. I looked at my father and he shook his head, almost imperceptibly. Thiago looked from me to Papai and back again and emitted a high-pitched squeal.
“Shut up and eat,” said Papai, and we ate.
Later on I was reading in bed with my lamp low, so that everyone would think I was asleep, but my father knew better. He entered my bedroom without knocking, flooding it with yellow light from the corridor. Still in his shirt, tie, and trousers, he stood in the doorway, his hand on the knob.
“What are you reading?”
“Fernando Pessoa. It’s for school.”
“Good Portuguese poet. But don’t get any funny ideas. Life is not as simple as a poem.”
“What do you mean?”
He approached my bed.
“Aren’t you hot in those clothes?” I asked.
He waved this question away and stood over me, in the half darkness, with his right index finger raised. “Do not fuck around with Luana,” he said. His voice was barely a whisper—as quiet and raspy as the scuttle of a cockroach.
“What?”
“Do not. Fuck around. With Luana.”
“I’m not doing anything with Luana.”
“Good. That’s how it should be. Understand, André?”
“What are you talking about, Pai?”
“It’s a line you don’t cross.”
“I wasn’t planning to.”
“They’re not like us. It’s not right.”
“OK.”
What had Papai seen? How could he know? Did he hear us in Marajó? Had he been standing in the corridor while we kissed? Worse still, was there nothing I could do, or even think, without his knowing about it?
My father went over to the full-length mirror and looked at his reflection. The pale moonlight (or maybe it was just the streetlight, come to think of it) shone onto his face, casting a shadow on the pronounced curve of his mouth. He took a comb from his pocket and slicked back his thick, black hair. Loosened his tie and looked back at me. My bedroom faced away from the beach, but in my memory of this moment, I could hear the Atlantic, crashing against the sand.
“Maybe we should go to Pará again this Christmas. Would you like that?” he said.
“Sounds good.” Orange bikini, kissing in the dark river.
“Just the three of us.”
Oh.
“Until tomorrow.”
“Good night, Pai.”
After he left, I turned the lamp off and pulled a sheet over my body, but it was too hot, so I kicked it off. I stared at the darkness, thinking about what he had said. If he found out about the kiss, he would be livid. Perhaps he would send Luana away. I must make the effort, I thought, to stop thinking of her. It’s over. That’s that. But as I closed my eyes, Papai’s warning was soon drowned out by thoughts of Luana, of her green eyes, her bikini glowing neon under the river water. I soon fell under a heavy cloak of sleep.
I woke up exhausted. My eyes were crusty, my head heavy, and my nose blocked with snot. When I lifted my head from the pillow, pain shot through my body, and I groaned. As usual, Rita knocked on my door at quarter to six to wake me for school.
“Rita!” I whined.
“Yes?” she said through the door.
“I’m unwell, I can’t go.”
“OK, querido, I’ll call and let them know. Do you need anything?”
“No. I’ll just go back to sleep.”
I heard her flip-flops smacking down the corridor, then two people murmuring in the kitchen—Rita and my father. His heavier, clanking footsteps coming towards me. He came in without knocking and stood in the doorway, frowning at me. I felt broken and pathetic. I could barely open my eyes. My father was only five foot seven—one inch shorter than me—but he looked like an evil giant from a fairy tale. I felt feverish and mad.
“What’s wrong with you?”
“I’m aching all over.”
He strode over, felt my forehead with a dry, warm palm, and nodded. “Stay in bed. I’m off to work.”
He walked out. The sun had just come up. It wasn’t yet hot, though I wasn’t a good judge of temperatures that day. I was sweating all over, but my bones felt like ice. The sheet was mangled around my feet. Painfully, I untangled it with my hands, pulled it over me, and fell asleep. Usually sleep is such a comfort, but not on that day. I plunged into a vivid dream. My mother bent over me, with her long black hair. She folded a little damp cloth and put it on my forehead, cooling me down.
“Poor Andrézinho,” she said, pulling the sheet up to my neck.
“Mamãe, where have you been? I thought you had died.”
“What are you talking about, querido?”
“You—you crashed into a traffic light. I saw you at the hospital. You were dead.”
“Can’t you see I’m here?” She stroked my cheek. Her hands were warm and alive, nails manicured pale pink, wrists jangling with silver and gold. As she leaned in and kissed my forehead, I inhaled the cloying scent of her perfume—now heavenly to me. She was wearing a cream silk dress, a brightly colored necklace, and the gold watch she wore every day. Everything was perfect, even down to the mole on her left cheek.
“Yes, you’re here. But it felt so real. A year went by… . Papai was alone. We went to Pará without you.”
“Urgh.” She smacked her red-painted lips. “Why would you go to that shithole? Your father and his obsessions. It was just a bad dream. Mamãe is here. I’ll always be here.”
I looked around the room. We weren’t in Rio anymore, but in my bedroom in Marajó, except the river was flowing right outside my window, like a Venetian canal. Luana swam past in her orange bikini, looking straight ahead, doing a breaststroke. “But we’re in Pará, Mamãe.”
“Oi, Luana!” said Mamãe, waving at her.
Luana stopped swimming and waved back, smiling but saying nothing. Seeing her, my mood lifted, but then I remembered what Papai had told me: do not fuck around with Luana. I turned to my mother, who was looking at me in a strange, serious way, as if she knew what I was thinking. Luana swam on.
“That girl is far too pretty to be an empregada,” said Mamãe. “Where does she get it from? Rita’s hardly a looker.”
“Don’t be rude about Rita. You were always so mean to her.”
“Lie back, querido. Don’t tire yourself out.” I stretched out my left hand and she took it in both of hers. “You’ll be just fine. All you need to do is sleep.”
“But … the accident. How did you survive? I saw you.”
“How could that happen? I’m such a careful driver.”
I sank back into the pillows, feeling my cool sweat soak into them. “Graças a Deus.” I closed my eyes. “Graças a Deus.”
As I fell asleep in my dream, I woke up in Rio. Helicopters whirred outside, looking for some bandido. It was appallingly hot. Mamãe was gone. No one to pat my head with a cold, damp cloth. No one to comfort me. I cried like a child, with abandon, but into my pillow, so that Rita and Luana wouldn’t hear. The injustice made me want to scream. Why her, why my mother?
“André?” came a voice through the door. Luana.
“What?” I croaked.
“Are you OK?”
“I’m fine.”
“Do you need anything?”
“No thanks.”
Couldn’t she just leave me alone?
“Let me know if you change your mind.”
I turned to my side, pulled my knees up to my chest, and squeezed two more tears out of my eyes, which were feeling heavy again. I clos
ed them and fell asleep, hoping to see Mamãe again, but this time it was a dreamless sleep, or the dreams weren’t worth remembering.
When I woke, it was dark. I could hear distant bar-voices, but they weren’t shouting or laughing that much, so it must have been early evening, before people were properly drunk. The air in my bedroom was hot and stiff. A few seconds later, a soft knock. Lua. Luana.
“André? Are you awake?”
“Yes.”
“Can I come in?”
“Yes.”
The door creaked open, letting in the light from the corridor. She closed the door behind her. “I won’t turn on the light. It’ll hurt your head.” She walked over. She was barefoot—I could hear her feet padding across the wooden floor.
“Would you be able to open the window?” I said.
“Of course.”
She leaned over my bed to get to the window and swung it open. The noises from outside—the bar people, the cars—became amplified. I saw she was holding something. A small white cloth.
“Would you like this?” She held it up. “My mother always puts a cloth on my head when I have a temperature.”
“Yes.”
She shook out the cloth, folded it twice, and put it on my forehead. It was cool and damp, just like in my dream.
“That feels nice.”
“Good. Do you want some soup?”
“Yes, please.”
“OK, I’ll bring it up.”
Minutes later, she brought a spicy chicken soup on a tray, and a glass of water. I drank all the soup and downed the water. She sat on a chair by my desk, in the dark, as I ate. I could just see her outline, still and patient.