by Luiza Sauma
“What about her?” said Isabel. “Which one?”
“You know which one,” said Dani, seething.
“Going crazy over an empregada? You losers.”
“You look different, Isabel,” I said. “What is it?”
“You noticed!” she said, beaming.
“Noticed what?”
She turned to the side, so that I could see her profile, and ran her finger from the top to the bottom of her nose. I had never really noticed it before, but I suppose she’d had a small bump, right at the top. The rhinoplasty was perfectly done, but it made her look sort of ordinary. “Look! My eighteenth-birthday present.”
“Very nice.”
“Done by your father.”
“Seriously?”
“Yeah, he did my sister too.”
“Why didn’t you tell me you were going to him?” I said.
“Why would I? Do I need your permission?”
“I work there, that’s why.”
“I asked for it to be done when you weren’t there. I didn’t want you in the room watching me.”
“Do you think I should have one too?” Dani turned in profile. Her nose was small and freckled, like a child’s.
“Oh, stop it, Dani,” said Isabel. “You know you’re perfect.”
Luana came in from the kitchen and started clearing beer bottles away. Carlito followed her, grinning at us and doing a little victory dance, as though he had conquered her. What had he said to her? Had he tried to kiss her? She’s mine, I thought, how dare he. My face burned and sweat trickled down my back, under my clothes. I wanted to punch him in the face, but instead I just clenched my fists and smiled at him, as though nothing were wrong. Luana’s face was flushed and her eyes bright.
“Ei, moça,” said Isabel, shouting to her across the room.
Luana looked up. “Yes?”
“Can I get another beer? This one’s too warm.”
Luana’s green eyes flicked over the cold beers on the coffee table that she had brought out five minutes earlier.
“Those are all warm too,” said Isabel.
“OK.” Luana took the beers from the table. “I’ll put them in the fridge and get you another one.”
Isabel watched her leave the room, a smirk twisting her mouth. I realized that I barely knew her at all. She was just a friendly face in the school corridors, on the beach, talking nonsense on nights out. I didn’t know what she was made of. Dani sat beside her, impassive. Luana brought back a cold beer and Isabel took it from the tray, carrying on with her conversation, not even turning to acknowledge Luana. I watched as Luana shuffled back to the kitchen, and I felt a pang of love for her, shot through with pity. She must loathe us, I thought. I would. This was the way of the world. Everything was an accident of birth. I wanted everyone to leave, so that I could hold her.
Time sped up. The hour between nine and ten had been stretched by sober awkwardness; the hour between ten and eleven felt like twenty minutes, and the next hour like five. I looked at my watch and it was one in the morning, and the end of the night seemed within reach. I hadn’t seen Rita in hours. She’d probably gone to bed, to the room behind the kitchen, and left Luana to serve us.
“We should go to a bar,” said Carlito.
Everyone looked quite comfortable where they were, sitting on the sofas or on the floor, swaying out of time to the music.
“Really?” said Rodrigo, looking sleepy-eyed. “I’m tired.”
“Dude, it’s only one thirty,” said Gabriel.
“Come on, that’s early!” said Carlito. “Don’t you think, André?”
“Don’t look at me, cara.”
“Such a nerd. Come on, everyone,” said Carlito.
“I’d like to go,” said Dani, standing over the coffee table, draining her beer.
“Who else?”
“OK, OK,” said Rodrigo.
Soon everyone was reanimated by the idea of going out. People were standing, getting their things. The Michael Jackson record was playing again, right from the start. I opened the glass doors and stood on the balcony, watching and listening to the waves rolling towards us.
“André?” said Carlito.
“No, I’ll stay.”
He stood next to me, looking at the beach. “Just gonna stand here, writing poetry about the ocean?”
“Come on, cara, I’m tired.”
“I’m just kidding. Happy birthday.”
We hugged and backslapped.
“Thanks.”
I wasn’t looking at Dani—she was just inside the flat—but I could feel her disappointment jabbing me from behind. She came outside and put her arm around me. “Are you sure you don’t want to come?”
“No, I’m all right.”
Carlito went inside, to leave us alone.
“You’re like an old man.”
“Yeah, maybe I am.”
She looked into my eyes with an embarrassing intensity. “That’s why I like you.”
I kissed her because I didn’t know what else to do. I hoped that Luana was in the kitchen, where she couldn’t see us. When I drew back, Dani’s eyes were still closed. What on earth she was thinking of me, I don’t know, but I didn’t deserve it.
“Let’s hang out next week,” she said. “Or tomorrow.”
“Sure. Wait and see how our hangovers are.”
She kissed me on the lips. “Bye, André.”
The other kids slowly, surely, picked their things up and started filtering out of the flat, leaning on each other, singing bits of Michael Jackson. It was now two in the morning, but the bars would be open till the sun came up. I kissed all the girls on both cheeks, even Isabel, who went one further and gave me a hug. When I closed the door on them, I felt relief, but then I stood on the balcony and watched them walk out of the building—talking, laughing, shouting—and felt a pang of envy that I couldn’t be more like them. The living room wasn’t too messy. Just a few beer bottles here and there. The ashtray, which had been overflowing a few minutes ago, was empty. Luana had already started cleaning. She was filling her arms with bottles, her head down, avoiding me.
“Have you been clearing up after us all night?”
“It’s my job.”
“Do you want a hand?”
“There’s not much left.”
I picked up four bottles from the coffee table, carried them to the kitchen, and put them on the counter.
“It’s late,” she said as a hint.
“So why are you still working?”
She shrugged.
“Are you upset about Isabel?”
“Who’s Isabel?”
“She’s just jealous.”
“Jealous of an empregada? I don’t think so, André.”
“Everyone was talking about how pretty you are. That’s why Carlito went to talk to you in the kitchen.”
She didn’t say anything.
“What did you guys talk about?” I said.
“Why do you want to know?”
“Did he kiss you?”
She laughed, incredulous. “Why, would you be jealous?”
I wrapped an arm around her back and tried to kiss her neck.
She pushed me back, roughly. “Stop it.”
“You’re beautiful.”
“I’d rather be like your ugly friend, even with her bad manners.”
“You wouldn’t.”
“Of course I would!” she shouted. She put her hand to her mouth.
“Shh, don’t wake Rita. Come, let’s talk in the living room.”
“Only for a minute.”
I took her by the hand and led her into the other room. The music was no longer playing. Luana sat down, kicked off her flip-flops, and curled her legs on the sofa. Her head rested on her hand. I sat next to her and she closed her eyes, as if she wanted to disappear. I don’t know what she wanted. I leaned in and kissed her, brought her chest to mine. Her heartbeat was quick and light. She put her arms around me and I pushed myself on top of
her. Her eyes were still closed. I unbuttoned her white uniform, popping the silver buttons one by one, until it revealed a grayed-out bra and pants, and her brown, smooth belly, which I hadn’t seen since the beach in Marajó. Finally, she opened her eyes. We stood up and stripped, until we were both naked, standing in front of each other. Her breasts were small and surprisingly white, never seen by the sun. Her hair neat and black.
Luana lay back on the couch. Underneath, she was ten shades darker than Daniela. I lay on top and she guided me, with her hands, inside her and stretched her neck back, over the side of the sofa. Nothing else mattered. We were done for.
NINETEEN
Oi André,
After Chico left school, he moved to Belém. I wanted him to go to university, but he wanted to work. He did all kinds of things: manual labor, emptying bins, cleaning, being a porteiro. Jobs that he was too good for, but I kept my mouth shut. Then he went to catering school, worked in a few restaurants, and got a job as headwaiter at one of the best restaurants in the city, right on the river, in an old building that used to be a palace. The proudest day of my life was when I had dinner there with my husband and daughter. I almost cried when I saw Chico in his black-and-white uniform, but I didn’t want to embarrass him in front of his colleagues. They called him Carioca even though he hadn’t been to Rio since he was a boy and had lost his accent. He was a northerner, like your father.
After the restaurant closed, we stayed behind and chatted to Chico. He was proud of himself, I could see it—giving instructions to the other staff, smiling, standing upright. He had authority, he was a man. He told us, quietly, that he was applying to be the restaurant’s new manager. “Who knows,” he said, “one day I might open my own restaurant.”
Chico introduced me to one of the cooks, Iara, a girl who looked like an Indian. I praised her for the mouth-numbing pato no tucupi we had eaten, and she blushed, telling me that her grandmother had taught her to cook. I knew then that she was involved with Chico. To be honest, I’ve never liked jambu. It’s like eating an anesthetic. Some things, you never get used to. I’m still a carioca, after all.
My next letter will be the last one. It will be the hardest one to write. If you have any humanity left, it will be hard to read too. I hope it will make you suffer, like I have done.
Luana
Luana’s penultimate letter arrived on Bia’s nineteenth birthday, in November. I read it quickly at work, between seeing an old man with a guttural cough, and a toddler with a cold. I read it again, after the mother and child had left, but it was like reading through a pane of dirty glass—I couldn’t take it in. I decided not to think about it.
By then Bia was in Brazil. I spoke to her that evening, after work. I was in the kitchen, on my laptop—blinds drawn to the darkness—and she was lying on a hammock in the sunshine, somewhere in Bahia, talking into her phone. (Soon it would be Christmas. Whom would I spend it with?) Her face was tanned, her eyes excited. She told me about the two weeks she’d spent with Thiago and Jesse, in Ipanema and Ilha Grande, an island off the coast of Rio—how much fun they’d had.
“Why don’t you come and meet me?” she said quickly, towards the end of our conversation, as though she wasn’t sure about asking.
“Meet you? Where?”
Her face froze for a few seconds—bad Wi-Fi on the beach. I just heard “—ém” and then the connection dropped.
I spent the rest of the evening doing paperwork, preparing for the next day at the surgery, for the endless five-minute appointments with local hypochondriacs, idlers, depressives, and overprotective mothers. Where you from? some of them ask. What you doing here, bruv—isn’t it like paradise over there? All them beautiful women. Do you speak Spanish, then? Or Brazilian?
Before bed, I washed down a zopiclone pill with a small glass of whiskey, then lay in bed listening to the traffic going down Albion Road. Counting the cars as the pill took effect. Forty, forty-one, forty-two, and under the water I went. Luana swimming ahead. My legs wouldn’t work. The river pulled me down.
TWENTY
When other people were at home, Luana and I barely talked or made eye contact. But when the flat emptied, we would run to my bedroom, pulling off clothes as though our lives depended on it. A couple of times we fucked in the tiny room she shared with her mother, underneath Rita’s porcelain Virgin Mary—but this made both of us feel awkward, and Luana’s bed was even smaller than mine. Sometimes I would skip school and stay at home with her, just for the hour when I knew Rita was out shopping. Papai worked all hours and often wanted me at the surgery in the afternoon, so I would cough down the phone, pretending to have a cold. The third time I tried this trick, there was a note of disbelief in his voice.
“Of course, you’re always ill, how could I forget?”
Sex was anxious and quick, but afterwards we would linger in bed, talking, the sheets twisted around us.
“What would our children look like?” she once said.
Her question made my insides squirm, but I tried not to show it. “Little mongrels.”
She smiled and her eyes creased into slits. I traced her rosy-brown lips with my finger, the way they slid down in the middle, into a deep V.
“No,” she said. “They’d be more beautiful than the rest. I’m sure of it.”
At the other end of the flat, one of the front doors was creaking open. We leapt simultaneously from the bed and pulled on our clothes.
“My mother is back early. You’re not supposed to be here.”
“I’ll hide and let myself out.”
“OK.” She tied back her hair and smoothed down her uniform. “How do I look?”
“Like the prettiest girl in the world.”
“Lua?” said Rita. “Where are you?”
She ran out of the room, towards the kitchen. I didn’t think it then, but now I wonder whether Rita could smell it on her.
Luana’s seventeenth birthday in November passed without fanfare at our flat. She and Rita spent the weekend at Vidigal. With whom? Family, I suppose. Friends from the favela, whom they never spoke of. Rita’s sister Jacinta, who worked for Vovô and Vovó, would certainly be there. They had eight other siblings, so it was probably a big party. Up in the hills, overlooking the beach, all the way to the Arpoador. The best view of the city, so I’ve heard. The spring sun hammering down. I imagined Luana dancing on a terrace with some other guy—someone like her. Inevitably he would be a good dancer, not like me.
When they returned, their smiles were strained, as if they didn’t want to be here. Papai gave Luana a bunch of flowers, a belated present. She put them in a vase and kept them away from us, in their bedroom, until one day, I found them in the bin, dead and dry.
Throughout those months, I had kept up my relationship with Daniela, more or less. She anchored me to my group of friends in a way I knew I couldn’t manage by myself. We were both planning to study medicine at the Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro, but I imagined that soon I would have a new gang, the friends I had always been looking for. Become my true self! What a ridiculous notion.
“Are we all right?” she said over the phone, the week before the end of school. We were both taking a break from revision.
“What do you mean?”
“Sometimes I feel like we’re not really dating.” She paused. “Are we?”
“What are you talking about?”
“We haven’t had sex in three weeks,” she whispered.
“We have a lot of work to do, Dani.”
“Every time I suggest we go to a motel—”
“That’s tacky.”
“It’s what everyone does.”
“I don’t want to do what everyone does.”
Dinner was over. The plates had been cleared away, apart from mine, which sat alone, half-finished. I’d lost my appetite, so I took it to the kitchen. Rita was there, doing the washing up. I don’t know where Luana was. Maybe with Thiago, watching TV. Rita and I didn’t speak much, not like when I was a littl
e kid. She used to hug me every day and tell me she loved me at least once a week, calling me Andrézinho and querido. I was nothing to her anymore.
She looked up from the sink. “Shall I take your plate?”
“Thanks. Where’s Luana?”
“Why?” she said a little abruptly.
Did she know? Did she? “Oh, nothing.” I couldn’t think of a single excuse for needing Luana. “I’m going to watch some TV. I’ve been revising too much.” I smiled.
Rita didn’t. “That’s what she’s doing. Watching TV.”
Rita never watched TV.
Luana and Thiago were sitting on the sofa, side by side. She had her arm around him, and his head rested on her right shoulder. I felt a jolt of jealousy, then shook it off and sat on the hard wooden chair by the door.
“I thought you didn’t watch novelas anymore,” said Thiago.
“Sometimes I still do,” I said.
Luana turned her head and gave me a small smile. I didn’t know what she was thinking, not at all.
“Did you have a good birthday?” I said to her.
“Yes, a friend from Vidigal had a barbecue for me. It was really fun.”
She used the masculine, amigo—a boy. Her boyfriend? Thiago watched us inquisitively, looking from my face to hers, then back at the screen. He was now eight, and sharper than before. I wasn’t following the novela’s plot. People screaming, overacting, professing their undying love—the usual thing.
The show ended, but I didn’t notice. I only realized when Thiago stood up.
“I’m going to bed,” he said, marching out of the room, his wavy hair bouncing in time.
“Good night,” said Luana and I in unison.
“I’m going too,” she said.
“Already? It’s only nine.”
“Nothing else to do.”
“Just sit with me for a bit,” I whispered, knowing that my voice would carry all the way to my father’s study if I didn’t keep it low.
“It’s not normal for a boy to sit with his empregada, just talking. I don’t want my mother to lose her job.”
“What about your job?”
“I’m just a hanger-on. One day I’ll go and find another family to look after.”