The Besieged City

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The Besieged City Page 12

by Clarice Lispector


  The young man’s eyes shone with intelligent laughter:

  “Who? come on now! the walk went for a walk!”

  How quickly he’d understood! she hurried to correct him:

  “What I said was a joke, you know, sometimes I even pretend that the trinkets belong to São Geraldo, imagine that. But they belong to people, naturally, you’re so silly” — and since it was hard for her to lie so much, she added laughing — “but no one knows to whom, buddy . . .”

  “I know,” said Perseu just to say something.

  Seeing however the gaze of curiosity that was thrown toward him, he rose like a demon in a burst of joy, leaned against the wall getting ready to flee if necessary:

  “Well I know, I know!”

  “But you’re just ridiculous!”

  Though really humiliated by the insult, the young man didn’t budge from his position at the wall, his arms apart in the form of a cross — he just cowered a bit and turned his head, wounded. “I know,” he repeated this time in anger.

  “Whose are they?” she finally asked with effort.

  They remained for a moment in silence, staring at each other.

  “God’s, for example, . . .” Perseu said, he too disappointed, drawing in his arms and shrinking.

  But she was now the one who seemed ready to advance, bristling.

  “They’re not even God’s, they belong to themselves, idiot!”

  “Fine, fine!” the fellow was spooked.

  They remained in careful silence. Without making a sound, he returned to the chair avoiding insulting her with a glance.

  At last, when he imagined everything must have calmed down, he lifted, cautious, his eyes.

  With surprise he saw that Lucrécia Neves had not only composed herself but was seated imperiously.

  Feeling observed, the girl imagined this would be the time to quash the young man’s plans to make changes, if he wasn’t already defeated. Entirely calm and indifferent, she started peering at her own hand as if it didn’t belong to her, turning it around and around and moving her fingers as if waving or running them like rats over the arm of the chair: showing Perseu her juggling ability. When at last she got from him the old look that said terrified: you’re extraordinary!, she forsook herself satiated.

  But now it was he who wouldn’t forsake her.

  He was staring at her in a deceptive way, almost about to jump on top of her.

  Lucrécia Neves had irritated him. He could marry her one day and transform her, the way a man can give a woman a beating; but he still had the courtesy to leave the job to someone else.

  Which didn’t keep him from being so annoyed that he might, in a grand and single swipe, break those dirty trinkets!

  Just then the young man seemed to understand that she liked them a lot, and he detested her and detested them, for after all! he was a man! he couldn’t stand courtesies any longer, and would sweep away in a single gesture the smart little ladies of São Geraldo, their trinkets, their whims — and be alone.

  This was the fellow’s cruel desire, looking at her with ferocity. Lucrécia, under threat, was growing larger in defense, both of them staring at each other in rage, but the truth sneakily transforming itself: he with his wrinkled brow, she already frightened, he masculine, she feminine, she light, he heavy, she bad and he good. Realizing before he did the situation they were in, the girl looked at him in defiance. Perseu recoiled.

  Both stared at each other disappointed and alert.

  Oh, he really wanted her, Perseu felt; suddenly she was necessary to him just as the girl seemed to need furniture, trinkets; was he needing her in order for her to make some thing concrete with her presence? in a fleeting, almost negative, movement, that’s how he understood her for an instant.

  Meanwhile Lucrécia was reigning looking at her fingernails. One day he’d touched her shoulders in order to show her some thing and felt the bones of that person who thought herself a queen . . .

  He quickly started to tell her about the plans he’d made for an outing, the reason after all for his morning visit:

  “We’ll take the trolley at the market, get off at the second plaza, from there we’ll take the road to . . .”

  Soon, interested, she was following the plan.

  And soon, both of them distracted, they once again seemed to think about the same thing, about the love that had failed a few minutes ago — and she’d never forgive.

  And he knew he’d done what he had to in order to continue down his slow path that was calling him more than a woman. But he was ashamed of hitting the mark.

  They fell quiet at the same time. The girl was examining her fingernails, the fellow his shoes.

  “This morning I was sleeping” — she said suddenly like a child — “when some thing woke me, but then I fell back asleep, and dreamed that someone was giving each person their lost sleep, in order for us to get it back, you know? then they asked me if for me it was a thousand or two thousand years of sleep, so I said two thousand, then they closed my eyes again and so I . . .”

  “But who?” interrupted Perseu Maria shifting in his chair.

  “Who what?” she asked annoyed. “Didn’t I say it was ‘some thing’? — well then” — she kept smiling once again in gluttony and haste — “I was closing my eyes and going back, back, until this was I sleeping, I mean” — and she grew irritated for having to explain even without his asking — “this was I being asleep.” — She stopped disappointed. — “And you?” she asked after the pause in a rivalry that curiosity was winning.

  “Nothing, I didn’t dream anything!” he answered ardently, so bothered he was by Lucrécia Neves’s dreams.

  Disillusioned, she stared at him trying to read into those sweet eyes, into that timid and dark-skinned figure in which, whatever ugliness it had, was beauty on Market Street. She might never find such a beautiful man, she thought with regret lowering her eyes to hide a certain greed:

  “If my mother died I’d go live with you.”

  “What!”

  The young girl descended from her own absorbed gaze and managed to look straight at him in the midst of imagining:

  “We’re not going to get married, but we’re like fiancés.”

  And that’s how it was. He was astonished with wonder: “it’s true,” he mumbled looking at the ceiling, his mouth looking as if about to whistle.

  “What do you think, should I leave?” he finally asked, miserable.

  “Yes, go,” she said with much courtesy.

  Since he wasn’t getting up Lucrécia Neves added with kindness:

  “Mama cut her finger you know with what?”

  “With what . . .” he asked with distrust.

  “With paper . . . It was fine paper. It sliced her so that her flesh didn’t even open up. It just scratched her and blood came out.”

  “That’s a lie,” he said shrewdly.

  “You always think anything you don’t believe is a lie,” the girl answered with haughtiness. “She even put disinfectant on it. Paper can cut, too, buddy, go ask your dad . . .”

  “. . . I’m leaving,” he retorted upset extending his hand. She laughed:

  “People like us don’t need to shake hands!” and she was trying to muffle her laughter because Perseu had blushed and withdrawn his hand, but she couldn’t. And as she was laughing while showing her separated teeth, he left almost at a run in horror, bumping into the shelf.

  Alone, so suddenly, the girl hardly had time to finish laughing.

  The sun, nearing noon, was beaming into the mirror. From the balcony was coming a smell of train, of trees and of coal — the smell of invaded countryside that São Geraldo had; she herself drew back lazily, travelling jolted in the room. And finally, beneath the noise of wheels, her senses dulled until she dozed off.

  Had her unfettered spirit join
ed the wind through the open window? and growing more and more distinct, she was an object of the room: her feet were resting on the floor, her body revealing itself in its sex and shape. Everything that had been supernatural — her voice, her gaze, her way of being — had ended; what was still left is what was making the house shiver. This would have been the moment for someone to look at her, and see her. And for the person’s eyes to be wounded by the hard shine of the little ring on her finger, whose stone was gathering within itself the power of the room.

  The door opened and her mother woke her:

  “You called me . . .”

  Lucrécia Neves opened her eyes, peered out without understanding. Much time had passed.

  “Are you all right?” worried Ana. “Your face is so flushed . . .”

  “I don’t know . . . I’m hungry,” she said loudly, scratching herself with difficulty.

  “Hungry,” thought the surprised mother.

  She’d never heard this daughterly voice. Yes, Ana said pulling herself back together with difficulty into new maternity, she’s hungry, she repeated, foolish, for others to hear and judge, and to know that her daughter had said, in her most childish and selfish voice, that she was hungry. Ah, girl, your health is back, she said hesitantly, your health is back, she repeated as she left to get the milk, dumbfounded, a bit bitter.

  Lucrécia Neves was smiling in mystery and stupidity. She was hungry, yes, and was scratching her face with her nails; she really looked fat; in fact she’d reached an age.

  From now on she might not have anything else to lose. Now it would be too late even to die.

  Smiling, pretty, looking at her right hand where she soon wanted to see an engagement ring. More than a ring of engagement, of alliance.

  8 The Betrayal

  A month after selling out São Geraldo, she went with Mateus’s friend to deal with the paperwork for her marriage.

  The friend said:

  “Wait on that corner while I go into the notary’s office.”

  The girl then answered:

  “Of course, sir.”

  And on the corner she stayed, clasping her purse. She was calm though suspicious.

  With careful consideration she kept looking from side to side, calculating and measuring this new city she’d bought.

  But she wasn’t some sacrificed innocent. Lucrécia Neves wanted to be rich, own things and move up in the world.

  Like the ambitious girls of São Geraldo, hoping that their wedding day would free them from the township — that’s how she was, serious, dressed in pink. New shoes and hat. To some degree attractive. To some degree enigmatic. Smoothing out a crumpled crease in her skirt, tapping a bit of dust from her sleeve. Occasionally giving a polite sigh.

  But, perhaps led astray by the wind, perhaps because she was standing on a street corner — soon she was cracking open lips that the air was drying, and smiling. Modest in her crime, guiltless. Sometimes she’d clutch her purse, sighing enraptured.

  And when the lawyer turned up again so busy, she looked at him from afar almost foolish, set loose on these streets that were not her own, with a man who was speaking and leading — a lawyer! The first element of Mateus’s that she really was getting to know.

  And the first technical manifestation of this new city where she was going to live. The dust was creeping over the sidewalks and the light wrinkling her face.

  Lucrécia was all decked out. Ana had helped her get dressed, weeping — while she herself was still keeping back a feeling with which to just start off the wedding, a feeling she didn’t know how to initiate and it was already almost time . . .

  “. . . right this way,” the lawyer was informing her looking at her quickly, once again surprised at the backwoods bride that Mateus, always unpredictable, had discovered — then Lucrécia Neves replied with a grave smile.

  It’s destiny, she was whispering to herself while following him as fast as she could in that kind of shoe, clasping the hat that the wind wanted to whisk off — it’s destiny, she was saying pleased to be subjugated. Happy though anxious because she found the lack of danger odd.

  On the sidewalks full of people nobody was looking at her, whose pink dress would nonetheless be charming in São Geraldo.

  She also wanted to waste no time and look at the new city right away — this, yes! a true metropolis — that would be the outsider’s prize — every man seemed to promise a woman a bigger city.

  She was seeking a way all her own to look and that’s how, through the triangle formed by the arm that was keeping her hat on her head, she saw a man running to catch the trolley . . .

  In fact the new things were the ones looking at her and she was passing between them running after the lawyer. Once outside the township, her type of beauty had disappeared, and her importance had diminished. Anyway she didn’t have time to think because the lawyer was inviting her for a coffee. She then became solemn, accepted with a nod, reproaching herself for getting distracted at times like this. She was pleased to be starting off right away the ritual of the new life, with forethought she sat on her pleated skirt. Even cakes came to the table . . . She ate one, with her pinky raised and the other hand catching crumbs. How frightened Ana would be! Both cake and mouth dry. And inside the cup the coffee was trembling at the passing of vehicles.

  Some thing without interest to anyone was happening, surely “real life.” Meanwhile in this “real life” Lucrécia Neves had started by being anonymous. Which in the end wasn’t so bad; at least it was much broader. The dog entered the café, headed straight for the girl, touching her high heels.

  “Go, go,” she said firm and smiling, “go, go.”

  He didn’t. And, miserable, he was sniffing her patent leather shoes with sadness, thoroughness and need. Amongst all those people he’d recognized her — “go!” she exclaimed so tragic and exhausted that the lawyer asked:

  “He’s bothering you that much?”

  “Yes, he is,” she answered with a broken voice, smiling . . .

  He said:

  “Out!,” shooing him with his hand.

  The dog immediately left in no hurry.

  She laughed surprised.

  “He left, sir . . .”

  The lawyer however was no longer looking at her, once again occupied with his stack of papers. Then Lucrécia Neves took back her smile. She coughed a little in a sign indecipherable in its subtlety. She was ceremonious and happy on the threshold of the big city. A fire-truck siren was going by announcing her.

  9 The Exposed Treasure

  There wasn’t so much as a gesture that could express the new reality.

  And, amidst this wealth, was Lucrécia Correia disheveled in a “robe de chambre,” unable to rule over the treasure, scarcely guessing how far the magnificent basement extended. She’d now lost certain cares regarding herself, intensely happy, dragging along, peeking out, trying to inventory the new world that Mateus had unleashed with the diamond on his middle finger.

  She finally seemed not to have time for anything, the way people don’t.

  The hotel, where Mateus and Lucrécia had set themselves up, offered an already old-fashioned comfort. None of the guests however would trade it for something more modern. Even the tattered drawing rooms reminded them of the time of poverty and abundance in the family — and above all “the other city” from which they’d all come.

  In the “salon” decorated with palms the friezes on the walls were already revealing the rotten wood behind them, and the flies in the dining room brought the big city back to the age when there were flies. Though, in a few days, the recently married woman felt it had been years since she’d seen a cow or a horse.

  It was in this setting, favorable to a ripening and a decomposition, that Mateus regally set up Lucrécia Neves. Right after the first lunch she came to understand her husband’s ring.

 
“I hope you’ll be happy here,” he said to her, and he had the modest appearance of having shown part of his character.

  To Lucrécia, the remains of a poorly buried ostentation were as fascinating as the continuous noise of that city.

  For if in São Geraldo the engines were invisible, here they’d emerged, and you couldn’t tell what was an engine and what was already a thing. Lucrécia came to consider herself the most inexperienced member of the city, and would let herself be led by her husband in visits to “places,” with the hope of soon understanding the taxis crossing amidst cries of newspaper boys and those women with nice shoes jumping over the mud.

  Because this city, in contrast to São Geraldo, seemed to be displaying itself all the time and the people were displaying themselves all the time.

  Mateus Correia took her to the Museum, to the Zoo, to the National Aquarium. That was how he kept showing her what he was made of: showing her things he’d seen; patient, waiting for that woman to become just like him.

  She understood everything attentively, as if being taught where to hang her dresses, where the bathroom was and where to turn on the light.

  At the Museum, arm in arm — they’d seen old machines in their lengthy evolution until becoming that essential thing: modern. She was understanding everything, admiring her husband.

  But at the National Aquarium, as much as she tried she couldn’t figure out what “thing of his” Mateus had seen. And tired of rummaging through her spouse’s soul — which seemed to have spread all over the city, plunging into this end only to turn up different and unmistakable at the other — already tired and finally taking a break, she looked on her own: the fish.

  Several times Mateus tried to pull her away. But she, in a sign of future cruelty, stood firm. With a touch of rage she was seeing in the aquarium inserted into the wall the surface of the water — from bottom to top. From bottom to top — seeing fish almost touching the surface and returning with a gentle swoosh of the tail, and again advancing smoothly, trying with insomniac patience to go beyond the line of water.

 

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