by Monica Ali
‘You had a good journey? From Portimão, you said? Well, it’s fast now, isn’t it? Too fast. Wham, bam, you’re here. Right in the middle of nowhere. All that EU money, they spent it all right. New tracks, new trains. You can really get nowhere fast.’
Silvio tossed his butt out of the window. ‘Too breezy for you in the back?’
The man didn’t say anything.
A lot of fares today, Silvio thought. He could feel it in his bones.
‘Want me to raise the window?’
‘Up or down. Doesn’t matter,’ said the man. ‘It’s all good to me.’
‘Wish some people had your attitude.’ Silvio slowed the car so he could spit without getting it on the door. ‘The way some people go on.’
‘Some things are important,’ said the man. ‘Most things aren’t.’
‘Every little thing! My God! As though it’s the end of the world.’
Silvio nodded and kept on nodding. He thought he didn’t feel too bad, considering. But tonight he would not drink. Give it a rest for a while.
‘So you’re not from round here? Knew it from your accent. Not from round here myself.’ He checked on his passenger; he was obviously listening, most people looked out at the grass. ‘The wife’s family, you see, Alentejanos. That’s how come we’re here. Up in Porto, the first few years. Well, you know that’s where life gets lived. Had my own business, everything sweet, all the extras, but the minute things get a little bit complicated she’s screaming because she wants to come back. Business, you know, it’s complicated, but she just wants to run away.’
‘Natural instinct,’ said the man and Silvio could tell that though he understood that did not mean he approved.
‘You a . . . what? . . . psychologist or something?’ It was the cape that gave it away. ‘Anyway, so we’re here but that’s not good enough either. I drive this taxi ten, twelve hours a day, and all her family expect rides for free and I’m telling you there are a lot of members of that family, lot of free riders all round. Most times, like I was saying, up at daybreak, at the station, nine times out of ten. At least. And she’s still going on. “Silvio, we’ve got to do something. Silvio, what about that mess we left behind? Silvio, you’ve got to stop wasting money.” I’m a very patient man, you see. Very, very patient.’ Silvio breathed through his mouth. There was a pain in his stomach, a stitch, like he’d run all the way up a hill. He put a hand beneath his T-shirt and massaged the soft, furry flesh.
‘Yes,’ said the man.
‘Extremely patient,’ said Silvio. ‘I keep telling her, “We left our troubles behind. It’s what you wanted, isn’t it? Don’t push me too far, Jacinta.” Every man has his limit, you know.’
‘It’s been proven many times.’
‘Hey, you speak like a professor. We don’t get a load of those round here.’ Silvio laughed. He saw his brown teeth in the mirror and the blackheads dotting his nose. They annoyed him but he looked forward to squeezing them later when he got home. If Jacinta was still out he’d sneak back to bed, just until his head cleared. It wasn’t professional to drive with a hangover. Except in emergency cases like this.
‘You heard the one about the Alentejano,’ said Silvio, ‘he has a race with a snail?’ He bashed the horn to let a car know he was overtaking and was rewarded by the sight of it swerving. Must have made him jump. ‘Who wins? You’re thinking the snail, right? Has to be. No, the Alentejano wins. The snail is disqualified after two false starts.’ He laughed and turned round. ‘Ha, ha, ahaa . . . you’ve heard it before, I guess.’
The way the man looked at him, it was like he’d heard everything before. Not hostile or bored or anything. Just prepared. For whatever it was.
Silvio scratched his head. ‘Listen, Professor, tell me the truth. What’s the point, coming to a place like this and then always nagging your husband to do something. It doesn’t make any sense. If you were me, would you open a business? I mean, what would you try to do?’
‘The only advice I give is never give advice.’
‘Right,’ said Silvio warmly. ‘Wish other folks felt the same way.’ He chewed it over for a couple of kilometres. ‘Yes, I really do.’ After another few minutes he said, ‘I got the feeling I saw you already, once before, maybe. Is it Porto you said you’re from? No? Well, I don’t know. You probably just got that kind of face. I bet people say that all the time.’
The sign on the window read Congelados Aquários but the fascia declared Internet Café. At a hole-in-the-wall place next door a donkey was being shod. The man paused for a moment and went inside.
‘Marco?’ said Eduardo, squinting. ‘Marco! I’ll kiss you. You’ve come. Is it you? Marco! Of course it is.’
‘It’s good to be back,’ said Marco. ‘I’ll give you a kiss, here, like this.’
‘Everybody! It’s Marco. My cousin has arrived. We didn’t know when you were coming but everything is ready. Will you be staying long? Sit down, sit down. He just this second walked in the door. Armenio, get some coffee. You remember Armenio, Marco? He was only a little kid when you left. Big kid now, he is!’
‘I remember like it was yesterday,’ said Marco.
Eduardo looked round the room. He clapped his hands together. ‘Hear that. Like it was yesterday. He remembers us so well.’
On her way to do the shopping Telma Ervanaria stopped off for a pastry and a cup of apple tea. Dona Linda was there, sitting at a computer and pulling her bottom lip inside out.
‘What is that you’re looking at, Dona Linda?’
‘It’s a bench in the main street of a village called Little Rock in Canada.’
Telma Ervanaria looked closer at the dark, grainy blur. ‘I can’t see anything at all.’
Dona Linda sighed. ‘That’s because it’s the middle of the night.’
The woman was obviously crazy. ‘Wake up, Dona Linda. It’s ten in the morning.’ Telma Ervanaria grabbed her arm and gave it a little shake.
‘There,’ said Dona Linda. ‘It’s the middle of the night there.’
‘It’s a photograph?’ said Telma Ervanaria, pulling up a chair.
Dona Linda shook her head. ‘It’s a film. There’s a camera fixed to a tree or a lamp post or something and it films everything that goes on. And it all gets sent through the air or the wires or something to every single computer in the world. Armenio explained how it works.’
Telma Ervanaria put her nose up to the screen and snorted. ‘But there is nothing going on. Oh! Little Rock, that’s where your daughter is.’
‘Little River. But I thought maybe they were close together. I mean, what if I see her walking down that street? She might sit on that bench.’
‘In the middle of the night?’
‘Telma Ervanaria, how do you think I raised my daughter? Of course not the middle of the night.’
Telma Ervanaria took a bite of her pastry. She thought day or night she would not care to travel all the way across the world just to sit on a bench like that, which, even in the dark, any fool could tell was no better than the very worst bench in Mamarrosa.
‘If you press on this bit here,’ said Dona Linda, ‘it tells you the temperature. The actual temperature it is right now.’
‘So cold!’ said Telma Ervanaria. In Paris sometimes it was bitter but it was never as cold as that.
‘Ladies, may I remind you,’ said Eduardo, coming across with arms raised as though to chase ducks from the porch, ‘eating is not permitted at the computer stations.’
Telma Ervanaria took another bite. ‘It’s a café, isn’t it?’ she said.
‘No it’s not,’ said Eduardo, who would tell you that black was white, ‘it’s an internet café. Is a table just a table?’
Telma Ervanaria stared at him. She didn’t like the way hair grew out of his nose, in curls. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘It is.’
‘That’s where you go wrong. A table over there,’ he said, pointing, ‘is a table. A table in a school is a desk. A table beside the pulpit is an altar and this ta
ble here is a computer station. No eating allowed.’
Telma Ervanaria swallowed the rest of the pastry. ‘No eating, OK, I get it. But in future, if you want an argument, go and find Vasco. I won’t argue with you, Eduardo. I’ve got better things to do.’
‘May I turn to marble,’ said Eduardo. He said any old thing to try and sound clever.
‘What?’ said Dona Linda. ‘What did he say?’
‘Doesn’t matter,’ said Telma Ervanaria. You were never sure if you’d heard him right; sucking in his words like that instead of spitting them out like an honest man. She stretched her stout legs and crossed her ankles. ‘Now tell us about Marco. He’s settling in? Told you all his plans?’
There was a crafty look on Eduardo’s narrow face, like a child with a slice of cake behind his back. ‘He’s come home. That’s all we care about, those in his family, I mean.’
She looked him over like a piece of gristle on the side of her plate, searching for some meat to extract. ‘He’s at Armenio’s house, I hear. Has he found a place to buy?’
‘He’ll live in his hotel, I expect,’ said Dona Linda. ‘No sense buying a house as well.’
Dona Linda reckoned she was common sense incarnate, but she never thought things through. She cut her own hair because it was only common sense but look what she did to her fringe. ‘The hotel,’ said Telma Ervanaria patiently, ‘is going to be at Porto Covo or Praia de Malhau. You think there’s going to be a four-hundred-bed hotel right here in Mamarrosa? No, of course, he’ll buy his own place here. Or maybe he’ll build something new.’
Dona Linda licked the tip of her finger. She had no idea how crazy she looked. ‘Four hundred beds? No, no. It’s not going to be that kind of hotel.’
The less people know, thought Telma Ervanaria, the more they talk.
Sure enough, Dona Linda went on, ‘It’s a rural tourism thing. Horse riding and looking at birds and going for walks through the hills. My son told me. Why not Mamarrosa? Mamarrosa is as good as anywhere. A lot, a lot, a lot of new jobs. Maybe your husband could have one. Put in a word, Eduardo. Poor Telma Ervanaria is at her wits’ end.’
Telma Ervanaria set her not inconsiderable jaw. ‘So much more convenient not to have wits at all.’
‘Ladies,’ said Eduardo. He undid and then did up again two buttons on his waistcoat. ‘Ladies, when the kestrel lands on the roof the sparrows are all in a spin.’
‘What?’ said Dona Linda.
‘He says we are sparrows.’ Telma Ervanaria watched Eduardo, still fiddling with his buttons. The fabric around each buttonhole was shiny with misuse.
‘Hark at him.’
Eduardo snatched up Telma Ervanaria’s plate and also her cup, though she had not quite finished. ‘All I am saying is – patience. You’ll see soon enough what he plans.’
Telma Ervanaria lowered her voice when Eduardo had moved away. ‘Marco hasn’t told him anything. I can see it in his eyes.’
‘Two weeks he’s been here now,’ whispered Dona Linda. ‘His own flesh and blood but he doesn’t say a thing.’
‘Eduardo’s a slathering idiot. With a man like Marco behind him, Armenio could take over more businesses. I mean, Marco could really shake up this place.’ She would make Bruno go and see Marco and ask him straight out for a job. Ask him straight out, she would tell him. Don’t be a sparrow like everyone else.
‘Electrical appliances,’ said Dona Linda. ‘That’s how he first got rich.’
‘Dry cleaning,’ said Telma Ervanaria. ‘Maybe electrical appliances after that.’ Bruno worked in Paris as an electrician. Somehow it augured well.
Dona Linda pulled her bottom lip and let it go with a plop. ‘He doesn’t look like a rich man, does he?’
Telma Ervanaria laughed. ‘What does a rich man look like? Those who have don’t flash it around.’
‘I heard he chopped logs for Senhora Carmona, all into tiny pieces for that itty-bitty stove of hers.’
‘He was at Nelson’s calving on Tuesday. Heard he stayed all night.’
They stared at the screen, at Little Rock, Canada, their heads together, tight and low. ‘There’s something strange about him, though,’ said Dona Linda. ‘I don’t know what it is.’
‘That cape he goes about in? Everything is strange about him. We’re not used to people like that.’
‘I know. But I mean something else. Look. What’s that on the screen? Something’s happening now.’
‘Snow,’ said Telma Ervanaria. She’d have to force herself to get up or she’d sit here all day, staring at a bench. ‘It looks like they’ve got snow.’
‘I know what it is,’ said Dona Linda, her voice rising in excitement. ‘I’ve just realized what it is. I’ve sat and watched him at least three times and he never, ever blinks.’
Antonio drove off the track and into the woods. They were way out past Covo da Zora. Mud splattered up to the windscreen, the brakes squealed and Teresa gritted her teeth.
He got out and opened the back door to let her climb in first.
‘Let’s talk for a while, OK?’
‘Talk to me then,’ he said.
She cupped his chin, blue with stubble, in her hand and turned his face to hers. In three days she would be going away. Every minute had to count. ‘I love you.’
‘Teresa,’ said Antonio, kissing her hand. ‘Can we talk about something else?’
‘Fine. We’ll talk about something more important. Head gaskets or exhaust pipes or something interesting like that.’
Antonio lifted his knees against the back of the driver’s seat and slumped down, his jumper riding up in a hideous hunchback around his neck. ‘Go on, make fun. That’s it. I’m not good enough for you any more.’
Teresa sat forward. ‘I was just saying that I love you, you . . . you . . .’ She smoothed her skirt and pulled her ponytail. ‘You silly thing.’
She put her hand on his knee but he didn’t respond. Thank God she was going soon. It was all too painful now.
With a sharp intake of breath she said, ‘I’ve got to tell you something. That Marco is a son-of-a-bitch.’
‘Cars aren’t boring,’ said Antonio. ‘If you knew anything about them, you’d know.’
‘He’s going to buy up thousands of acres. He’s going to kick everyone off. People who built their own houses when they were working on the land.’ A picture came to her mind of João, walking across the field with his pig. ‘It’s terrible. Just terrible. There should be a law against that.’
‘There is a law,’ said Antonio. ‘He’ll have to wait until they die.’ He put a finger in his ear but caught her eye and took it out again. ‘He’s going to make a nature reserve and breed Iberian lynxes. They’re an endangered species. He’s into the environment, all that.’
‘João is an endangered species,’ she shouted. Tears pricked at her eyes.
Antonio went fiercely at his ear. ‘What are you talking about?’ he said.
She looked out of the window at the cork oaks, the acorns littering the ground. They were all taken in by Marco. Marco with his sand-and-sea voice. ‘He can’t just come here and change things. What gives him the right?’
Antonio got out of the car and slammed the door. He walked away, straight through the mud. He walked back and yelled through the window. ‘What do you care, anyway? I thought you were leaving us all.’
‘Brown Eyed Girl’ came on the jukebox for the third time. Stanton looked around to mark the culprit. Senhora Carmona was over there, shuffling and trembling, studying the floor with her cloudy eyes as though it might give way.
‘Surely not you too, senhora,’ said Stanton, turning back to the pinball. Another ball loaded and Stanton squared his hips. This time, he said to himself. This time. He pulled back the lever and released it with a smack. The ball flew up, hit a bell and danced round the machine like a firecracker. Save it, thought Stanton. Wait. Now. He slapped both the buttons at once and the ball bounced off a dragon’s head and ricocheted into a spaceship. A light flas
hed, something buzzed and the ball vibrated on an indent before crashing down and out of the game.
Stanton checked his score. He loaded in more coins. Every day for the last two weeks he woke up and thought about standing here. He wanted his name on the highscorers’ screen.
He downed his brandy and nodded to Vasco. The funny thing about Vasco was he was fat but he didn’t look heavy. He walked round on his tiptoes like he might at any moment float away. It was his voice as well. It made you think of helium balloons.
Stanton was finally in the zone. Burning up. These few months he had been wading through the writing but now he was truly ready. That’s why he couldn’t leave, not yet.
You can try and take it with you, he thought, but it might not want to come.
The ball slammed round the machine, setting off alarms. Right hand, left hand, thought Stanton. Not both at once. The ball skidded across towards the dragon’s mouth. Stanton slapped both buttons. ‘Filho da puta,’ he said. ‘Fuck.’
Vasco put down a drink. ‘What has that pinball done to you?’
‘Not now,’ said Stanton, ‘not now.’ Instinct, not reason, he said to himself, narrowing his eyes. Go, go, go. The ball flew and kept on flying. Whatever, whatever, whatever. That’s what made it work.
To Mercy, Pity, Peace and Love, All pray in their distress, to Mercy, Pity, Peace and Love, All pray in their distress . . . The words chased round and round his head, creating the chasm he desired.
Two months to finish a second draft. Once he got started it was going to roll.
Now he’d lost the knack. He fired another ball. The lever was sticky in his hand. Everything in this whole place stuck to you. Made you feel like Vasco’s cloth had rubbed over every bit of your skin. The rain had started up again too, after a few days’ truce. It got so that you never felt entirely dry. Even the bed felt damp.
Stanton swallowed his drink. He thought he would play just one more game. It was another reason not to leave. He wasn’t leaving until he beat this bloody thing.