by Luiza Sauma
“Yes, I have. Though I probably shouldn’t tell you that.”
“How do these rules get passed on? Was there one day when someone decided that empregadas can’t sit on sofas?”
“My mother told me when I was young, but I barely remember being told. It’s just something you know. You can’t relax in front of your employers. It’s been that way since the beginning of time, don’t you think?”
“Then why are you sitting now?”
“You asked me to.”
Her white uniform was bright and hard against the soft green velvet of the sofa. Bare brown legs, still stretched on the pouf. Above her, on the wall, hung a folkish painting of a naked dark-skinned woman, lying on a bed, surrounded by bright flowers.
Helping Luana with the laundry, then listening to music, became a regular occurrence. She didn’t need my help—in fact, I slowed her down—but she didn’t refuse it either. It could be a Wednesday evening, when Rita had taken Thiago to one of his many activities, and my father was working late. It could be a Saturday morning, when I wasn’t needed at the surgery, or a Sunday, when it wasn’t her day off. Rita would go to the market and occasionally take Thiago. Sometimes I would encourage him to accompany her, telling him that I’d seen a man selling puppies on the street, or I’d give him money for ice cream.
One Saturday, everything fell into place. My father was working, Rita was shopping, and Thiago was at his football club, so I went and found Luana in the laundry area at the back of the kitchen, with her basket of clean clothes.
“Thiago’s clothes,” she said.
“Good. I can’t say I enjoyed hanging up my dad’s underwear last week.”
She laughed that sweet donkey laugh and brought down the rack. I took an item from the basket—Thiago’s Superman pajama top—shook it, and pinned it up. She took the matching trousers and hung them up too. We carried on like this, quick and silent, going through the basket. Even now, I can still smell the soap, its faint coconut scent. The damp coolness of the laundry, hovering above us. Her brown arms picking and pinning, with elegant grace. The view outside the window, of concrete buildings, humming with life, and dark mountains beyond. Soon only a single sock was left in the basket. We looked at each other and reached for it at the same time. Our hands touched lightly, a thumb to a finger, but we didn’t move away. Just stayed there, feeling that small bit of skin. Then I was holding her hand. It was as if our hands had their own objective, which we could only follow.
Luana turned towards me, and I towards her. A light sweat on her skin. Those green eyes. Damp laundry. My pulse was beating in every part of my body, from my eyes to my penis to my toes. Fear as well as excitement. I touched her lips with mine. Luana smelled of coconut soap and sweat, and faint perfume. A hot ray of sunshine from the open window scorched the back of my neck, until Luana covered it with her hand, pulling me closer to her, so that she could feel my erection against her stomach.
She pulled away. “What are we doing? We shouldn’t do this.”
“I know.”
We kissed again, for several minutes, until my lips felt raw.
She put a hand on my chest and pushed me away. “That’s enough. This is weird.”
“I know.” What else could I say but I know, I know, I know.
“I’m sorry, André.”
“I’m not sorry.” I tugged at her sleeve.
“We can’t be together.”
I wasn’t intending on being together. Not then, anyway. I was on the cusp of my eighteenth birthday, kissing the most beautiful girl I had ever seen.
“Then I’m sorry too,” I lied, and started walking to the kitchen door.
She stood there, in her white uniform, just looking at me. In my bedroom, I jerked off and listened as she cleaned the flat, prepared food, did her job.
That evening, as she and Rita served our dinner, both of us were subdued, but only my mood was remarked upon.
“What’s wrong with you?” said Papai as he spooned salad onto his plate.
“Nothing.”
“Nothing!” said Thiago.
“I’m just tired.”
“Tired from sitting around all day at home? Are you going out tonight?” said my father.
“No.”
He raised one eyebrow and gave me a confused look.
“You wanted me to concentrate on studying, so that’s what I’m doing.”
“You need to get out once in a while. Have you even left the house today?”
“No.”
“Well, go somewhere. What are your friends doing tonight—that girl you mentioned?”
Luana was eating in the kitchen with her mother, with the door closed, but I wondered whether she’d heard that.
“Don’t know.” In fact, I knew exactly what my friends were doing because they had invited me: they were knocking back beers in Baixo Gávea, west of Ipanema. They’d invited me on Friday, at school, and I lied and said I was busy because I didn’t feel like it. But as we ate the rest of our food, now in silence, I realized that I had to get out of the flat. It was too much, being there, so close to Luana. I would stop being such a bicho do mato—a lone, wild animal—as Mamãe used to say. After we finished eating, I changed from shorts into a pair of jeans and left the flat without saying good-bye to anyone.
Nossa Senhora was a fashionably shabby bar in Baixo Gávea. Walls covered in posters and mirrors, lights low, chairs mismatched and scattered about. I felt like a tremendous square as I approached, wearing my baggy T-shirt and glasses. My friends were sitting at an outdoor table, sharing large bottles of beer in small glasses and laughing hysterically. Isabel was sitting on Rodrigo’s lap, kissing his cheek.
Carlito, leaning dangerously back on his chair, noticed me, squinted in the dark, and gave me a wave. “Ei, André! Pull up a chair.”
Daniela was sitting next to him, arms knotted across her body, avoiding my gaze. She was smiling in a suspicious, unreadable way. I asked the curly-haired hipsters at the next table if I could take one of their unused chairs, and they said, “Of course, cara.” I wanted to place it next to Dani, but she didn’t move to make room, so I sat between Carlito and Gabriel.
“How’s it going?” said Carlito. “I thought you weren’t coming.”
“Too much studying,” said Gabriel.
“I thought I could give myself a break.”
“Such a nerd.”
“Well, at least he’s gonna make something of himself, cara,” said Rodrigo.
“I’m going to make something of myself!” said Gabriel.
“I am too!” said Carlito, raising his glass.
When the boys outnumbered them, the girls barely spoke. Sometimes I would spot them in the school corridors, shrieking with laughter, but when the boys were around, they were supporting characters.
“How’s it going?” I said to Dani.
“Fine.” She masked her feelings with a closed smile. “And you?”
“I’m very well.” I thought of the kiss with Luana. I glanced across the street, and for a moment I thought I saw her in her white uniform, but, no, it was just another girl with curly hair and brown legs; she was wearing a white dress, not a uniform, and laughing with her friends. She wasn’t an empregada, I could tell.
“What are you looking at?” Dani glanced across the road. “Checking out girls?”
“No.”
“More beer?” said Carlito, and we all shouted yes.
We got wasted. I had been drunk several times before—mainly during long, hot afternoons on the beach, when the cold water, the sun, and the salty air pulls you back from reeling into oblivion—but that night I got drunker than ever before. After getting bloated on several large bottles of beer, we moved on to caipirinhas, and Carlito handed out cigarettes, all of us sucking and enjoying the mix of booze sweetness and tobacco bitterness, despite the fact that none of us were real smokers yet. A forró band started playing inside the bar—the hipsters were in the band—and we swayed to the music on our cha
irs. Isabel and Rodrigo got up and danced together on the pavement, keeping perfect time, but then they would stop and their poise would fall, and they would slump in their seats, rubbing their faces, laughing. I found myself sitting next to Dani, then putting an arm around her, then dancing with her clumsily.
“You dance like a gringo.”
“What do you mean?” I swung her around. “I’m the new Fred Astaire.”
“Who’s that?”
We carried on dancing until it felt as if my clumsiness had given way to debonair ease. We clung to each other, close as can be. Then we were kissing and our friends were cheering and we smiled at them sheepishly. I looked at my watch and it was midnight. I thought, I’ll just stay for a few minutes, but the next time I looked, it was two in the morning. The bar was in no hurry to close. Conversation became garbled, nonsensical. Carlito was ranting about something political, something to do with the dictatorship, and Gabriel was saying, “Cara, I don’t even notice any difference—they’re all escrotos.” Daniela was sitting on me and stroking the back of my neck.
Sometime in the morning, when the street cleaners started sweeping around us, I stood up, said, “I’m going home,” and hugged everyone good-bye.
Dani said, “I’ll go too,” and everyone went, “Oooh.”
“Let’s get a taxi.”
“No, let’s walk for a bit. I feel like walking.”
Rio isn’t like London; people don’t walk much, especially not late at night. But we were drunk and didn’t want to end the night, so we linked arms and walked east towards Ipanema, trying not to fall into the road. Even at that hour, there were cars, cabs, and people in the streets. Bars still open, still going. We passed through the neighborhood of Lagoa, where lights glinted off the surface of the dark lagoon. Sometimes we would stop to kiss against walls, then slop back into walking, bumping into trees and bins. We both nearly tripped over when a white cat streaked across our path.
“We had a cat,” I said. “She ran away to live on the Arpoador.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Nothing.”
“You’re such a weirdo.”
Half an hour later, we hit the Avenida Vieira Souto, the beach, and the ocean, sloshing blackly under a fat, white moon.
“Let’s walk on the beach,” she said.
“Why?”
“Why not?”
She dragged me by the hand, down the steps leading to the empty beach. The sky wasn’t quite black. It would be dawn soon. I felt her soft, moist lips on mine and laughed. We were at the edge of the beach—where it meets the pavement, six feet above us—so we were hidden from the street by a wall.
“Why are you laughing?” she said, annoyed.
“I’m having fun. Aren’t you?”
I wrapped my arms around her and she wrapped hers around me. I didn’t know if I was going to come in my pants or puke into her mouth. I thought the former would be preferable, so I tried to silence my lurching stomach and dizzy brain. Dani pushed me up against the wall and got to her knees, unbuckled my belt, pulled my jeans and underwear down to my knees, and put my penis into her mouth. Again, I laughed.
“Stop laughing,” she said with my dick in her mouth, which only made me want to laugh more.
Ripples of pleasure and sickness were shimmering through my body as her mouth went up and down. I groaned without reserve and then came in her mouth, just as a voice came from the street: “Go fuck in your bedroom, you goddamn perverts!”
Dani spat the semen onto the sand and shouted, “Vai tomar no cu!”
My mouth tasted sour. Probably not as sour as hers. In silence, we took the steps back up to the street. No sign of the Peeping Tom. Daniela’s face was lit yellow by the streetlights, and she looked serious.
“Are you all right?” I said.
“Yes.”
I put my arm around her and felt her body relax. Then I walked her to the gate of her building on Rua Barão da Torre, a few blocks from the beach. Beyond the gate, through a glass door, I could see a bored porteiro, watching a tiny television. He looked up, recognized her, and buzzed her in. I kissed her before she went inside. Her kiss was salty, which made me feel ill, but I swallowed down the bile until she had closed the gate, then ran back towards the beach and vomited into a gutter. Blood pounded in my ears, bam bam bam, as I heaved onto the pavement, and on the other side of the road the ocean roared like a lion.
I woke the next day with my father standing over me, shaking his head. Who knows what time I had gone to bed. All I know is that I collapsed into a dreamless sleep and woke up thirsty, with a stabbing in my head and my father’s face staring down, saying, “Wake up, wake up!”
“Leave me alone.” I turned my back to him.
“You’re coming to work with me.”
Just the thought of it—blood, sliced skin, stitches—was enough to make the puke rise to my throat. I breathed slowly, which only made it worse.
“You’re the one who told me to go out.”
“Going out doesn’t mean getting completely hammered like some animal!”
His shouting just made my headache worse. “Please, Pai. You don’t need me there. It’s Sunday.”
“Fine. You smell like a tramp.”
He left without closing the door, which forced me to get up, slam it shut, and fall back on the bed. I pulled the sheet over me and passed out almost immediately.
SEVENTEEN
When I woke up, the flat was quiet. I went down to the kitchen, where Luana was cooking a feijoada. The clock on the wall read 11:22 a.m.
“Where is everyone?”
“Oh, hi.” She looked up from the stove. “My mother took Thiago to the market.”
I looked down and remembered I was just in my underwear. A year ago, this wouldn’t have been a problem, but now it most definitely was. She turned back to the stove. Her neck was the color of doce-de-leite, and perfectly smooth. A stray ringlet hung out of her ponytail, just touching her white collar. The feijoada smelled rich, dark, and stodgy. There’s no better hangover cure.
“How do you feel? I heard you coming back last night.”
What did she hear? Crashing chairs, fridge door opening, vast quantities of mate being gulped straight from the jug.
“Yeah, not so good.” I rubbed my eyes. “I drank too much.”
I laughed, but Luana didn’t laugh with me. She didn’t even look at me—just carried on cooking.
“Did you have fun?” she said mechanically.
“I think so.”
Had Luana ever had a night like that? Maybe in Vidigal, on her days off, which were so rare that I only have vague memories of them—reheating the food she and Rita had left behind; sometimes I would peek into their empty room out of curiosity. What did Luana do on her days off? I wondered what she acted like when she was drunk, whether it made her wild or gloomy, or both.
“You went out with that girl,” she said, her voice softer.
“How did you know?”
“I didn’t.”
“Does it bother you?”
“Why would it bother me?” She stirred a pot, still looking away.
Steam rose around her. It was as if my mind took a picture, just then. The red tiles. The steam. Luana’s hair. Her white dress. Her brown neck.
“I don’t know,” I said, though of course we both knew.
Why couldn’t girls just say what they were thinking, instead of expecting you to read their minds? I left the kitchen and went to the TV room, turned on the set, and switched between channels for a while. Everyone on TV seemed to be shouting: the ads, with people screaming at us to buy things; the presenter Xuxa in a neon-pink outfit, surrounded by kids doing a choreographed dance; news anchors barking the news: people shot, gang leaders arrested, everyone hates the president, the usual shit. I turned it off and lay there, feeling my sweat soak into the sofa, there to remain forever.
Lunchtime came, and still no one was at home. Luana had set the table for one. The foo
d was already on my plate—feijoada with rice, greens, orange slices, and a salad—and she had placed a glass of water next to it.
I opened the kitchen door and saw her sitting alone at the plastic table, already eating. “Do you want to eat with me?”
“What?”
“Why don’t we eat together?”
“I’m fine here, André. Thank you.”
“I’ll eat in the kitchen then.”
Before she could say anything, I zipped back to the living room, fetched my plate, and brought it to the kitchen. I sat on Rita’s seat—the one that faced the stove. Luana said nothing, just looked down and kept eating.
“It’s delicious.”
“Thank you.”
“I’m sorry if I was rude earlier.”
“Were you?”
I couldn’t think of anything to talk about. It was the kiss, blocking the conversation, letting nothing else seep past. We ate our lunch in silence, then I helped her put the plates in the sink.
“Need any help with laundry today?”
“I can manage it.”
“Are you sure?”
Half an hour later, we were standing under the damp white cloud of laundry with our arms around each other.
When we pulled away, she said, “Your breath tastes disgusting,” but we carried on kissing. I wanted to remove her uniform and throw it on the floor. But when I tried to unbutton her dress, she stopped my hand. “No.”
“Why not? Have you ever done it before?”
“Yes.”
“Really? With who?”
“I had a boyfriend, César.”
“I didn’t know that.”
“You don’t know anything about me.”
“Well, you don’t know me either,” I said, fully aware that the opposite was true.
She shut me up by pressing her lips to mine. I felt my hands up her body, and she allowed me to place one on a small, firm breast. My consolation prize.
We carried on with our laundry hanging and our kisses, performed more regularly and with more abandon every day. My father or Rita would leave a room, and we would kiss. In the TV room, watching novelas, Thiago would turn away for a few seconds and we would kiss quickly and silently. One time, we kissed behind the sheets in the kitchen while my father poured himself a glass of water.