by M J Dees
Waking up late on a weekday was always enjoyable for Teresa and staying at home in the knowledge that everyone else was working was a nice sensation. She felt a little guilty that someone at the school had to cover her lessons, but the delight of not having to leave the house but being able to enjoy being at home with the cats easily offset this. It would be perfect if she didn’t have a splitting headache and stomach cramps, but then if she weren’t ill, she’d have to be at work taking abuse off ten-year-olds who thought they were better than she was.
Teresa decided that while she was forced to stay at home, she would try to sort her life out. She opened her laptop again and decided to start with her finances. She checked her bank balance and then opened a spreadsheet to list all the expenses she would have this month. Rent, bills, credit card payments, store card payments, the fee to the University for the distance course she was meant to be doing. The result was more disappointing than she had realised. Once she had added up all her outgoings, Teresa discovered that her salary did not cover everything after all.
She knew she would have to do something she had been trying to avoid for a long time. She would have to sell her car. That would give her enough money to pay the bills and pay off some of her cards and overdraft. She didn’t use the car that often anyway, she travelled to work by bus and Metro and she would also save on tax, insurance, maintenance and petrol. Teresa decided she would strike while the iron was hot, she would get dressed, clean the car and take it to a car dealership to see what they would give her. R$13,000 seemed a reasonable amount.
She felt like she had a mission. A purpose. She felt that things were going to start to improve.
Her mood changed at the car showroom.
“R$6,000? But it’s worth at least twice that,” she complained.
“Sorry darling, but the market is very depressed at the moment.” said the gorilla with whom she had been trying to negotiate.
‘No kidding,’ she thought, feeling very depressed right now.
“That’s the best offer I can give you.” he continued.
“It’s OK,” she answered. “I’ll have a look around.”
“You won’t get a better offer than that,” he warned.
He was right. After a day of traipsing around the showrooms of half a dozen almost identical gorillas, six thousand was by far the best, and she returned to the gorilla and accepted his offer.
Chapter Eighteen - The Bus - 10th February 2015
“Sorry.”
It wasn’t that she didn’t have any money, she had R$6,000 in her backpack after all. It was just that she had financial problems of her own. At least she wasn’t begging on the street to buy nappies if that’s why he wanted the money.
“Do you know how expensive nappies are?” he asked.
“No.”
“A pack of eighteen nappies costs R$25. And my three-year-old needs three packs a week.”
Teresa raised her eyebrows but thought it unlikely that a three-year-old would need 54 nappies a week. Teresa couldn’t quite do the maths, but it was more than seven a day. One every three and a bit hours. She supposed it was possible. Annabel would get through 6 to 8 a day, she remembered but because she was trying to be an environmentalist, she washed them all.
“This is all I have,” she said, pulling all the loose change out of her pocket.
The bus came, and she was able to escape her intimidating new friend.
The bus was a brand new air-conditioned bendy bus, and when Teresa climbed on board, there were not many inside. She went in, past the bendy bit and sat on one of the cushioned seats. A marked improvement on the hard plastic seats to which she was accustomed.
At the next stop, the bus started to fill up. Teresa turned her head toward the window in the hope that no-one would look at the dressing on her forehead and that no-one outside the bus would bother to look in.
“Excuse me.” someone said as they sat in the seat beside Teresa, but Teresa kept her head down and gazed at the bendy bus outside that her bus had just started to overtake.
She considered whether it might have been quicker to take the metro, but that would have involved changes and lots of walking whereas with the bus Teresa could just sit down and ignore people until she arrived at her destination.
The bus crawled through traffic, weaving its way around cars that had ground to a halt trying to change lane. It turned between tall glass towers in which Teresa imagined well-dressed executives were working unsociable hours to justify enormous salaries. She tried not to dwell on her financial difficulties or the ridiculous offer she just had to accept for her car, the car that she had grown attached to, grown to love despite its scratches and bumps and occasional mechanical issues.
At the next bus stop, even more, people got on until now they were stood in the aisle and by the doors.
In a tooth cavity, Teresa could feel a piece of bread that had been stuck in there since breakfast. Teresa had tried to brush it out before she left but it seemed well lodged, and she feared to be too aggressive in her attempts to remove it in case the tooth started to cause her pain again. She needed to go to the dentist to get it fixed.
At the next stop, even more, people got on the bus, and now all the standing space was solid too. There was a delay at every stop as new passengers got on. Nobody seemed to get off. Teresa didn’t mind the delay. She was not in a hurry to get home. Of course, the cats would be waiting for her, but they wouldn’t love her any less if she arrived a little bit later.
After accommodating what looked like an impossible number of passengers at the next stop, the bus moved on around a square in the centre of which stood towering palms, a small grass area and some chipped stone furniture which all looked like it might be pleasant to sit in to read a book and eat a Brie baguette with a bottle of chilled Pinot Grigio if it were not for the plethora of discarded beer cans and other detritus which littered the place.
‘Such a shame people don’t look after the places where they live,’ Teresa lamented to herself.
The bus turned the corner of Avenida Brasil, and Brigadeiro and the monument on the corner of Ibirapuera Park looked beautiful illuminated in the enclosing darkness.
The bus climbed Brigadeiro, past more litter, graffiti-tagged walls, piles of rubbish sacks, a dirty looking hotel with a single doorway through which Teresa could see a young man and woman checking in in front of a beaded curtain.
Business people climbed uphill toward the metro. Joggers ran downhill. At every bus stop, fat women with their hair tied back in tight ponytails, bags over their shoulders and hands resting on their bellies stared into the distance awaiting the arrival of their full bus which they would have to squeeze onto and complain about the terrible state of public transport in Brazil.
Weary commuters took a break from their journeys to buy soggy sandwiches, bars of chocolate and a variety of salt or sugar-filled snacks.
A man in a second-hand bookshop watched the stream of pedestrians walking past, ignoring his goods.
Near the top of Brigadeiro where it meets Avenida Paulista, half the bus passengers alighted for the metro. It had already taken Teresa almost an hour to get this far, but she was enjoying her seat.
Commuters filled the pavements of Paulista, most of whom wore the ubiquitous small backpack. Customers filled tables in front of cages, enjoying a beer after work even though it was still early in the week.
As Paulista turned into Vergueiro the class of establishment, the bus passed became less classy. Paraiso looked anything but a paradise. Dirty looking men sat against graffiti-stained walls smoking cigarettes. Every available surface seemed to have a tag sprayed on it.
As Paraiso became Ana Rosa which became Vila Mariana, the walls became duller and the overhead electrical wiring more anarchic. At the station, the bus population halved temporarily as those who alighted were replaced with new fodder.
Vila Mariana reminded Teresa of the time a pigeon defecated on her head. It seemed like poo; it was white like b
ird poo is, but it was very runny.
The shops in the backstreets of Vila Mariana became more budget in nature and the bars catered less for trendy professionals and more for aged alcoholics older than her.
An old man in a combat jacket leant against the entrance to a car park. A grandmother pulled a young girl in ballet uniform along the street. Cars stopped at petrol stations to fill up while their drivers complained about the price of fuel. On every other corner stood a pharmacy with shelves filled with coloured packs of nappies. Teresa felt a little guilty. But not very.
Strawberry cream cakes rotated at the entrances of bakers. An empty Lebanese restaurant advertised for a chef. Cars negotiated each other in supermarket car parks. Neon lights flashed the word Hotel on the front of an establishment that charged by the hour.
Teresa had lost her bearings a little. It didn’t matter, though. Her stop was the last one. Revolutionary heroes had given their names to streets. Even the pharmacies had independence-themed names.
The flame burned at the foot of the Independence monument in Ipiranga where the placid margins smelled of the polluted drain running alongside.
When she reached home, another bus ride from Sacoma terminal, Teresa contemplated her options. Her car sale had done little to alleviate her financial difficulties, and she was beginning to regret it.
As she stared at the figures on the spreadsheet, trying to find some way to make them work, an idea occurred to her. She set the laptop down on the sofa, being careful not to place it on top of a cat, and walked over to the bookshelf. She scanned the volumes and then selected The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho. Opening its pages, she pulled out a small white envelope and, opening the envelope; she removed a gold band and a second gold ring with a solitaire diamond, the remains of her marriage. Neither summoned happy memories.
Going back to the laptop, Teresa googled the price of gold, £24 per gramme. Then she googled the exchange rate and almost dropped the computer. One pound could now buy 4.68 Reals; the rate had been 2.7 when she had returned to Brazil just over three years ago. Another web search told her that an air ticket which might have cost R$1500 was now over R$4000. Her dreams of going back to England to visit Annabel were now very much in tatters.
Noise at the door, another letter, another bill. This time the rental insurance R$2,400 split into four instalments. Teresa sat back down on the sofa unable to even begin to think about how she could even start to get herself out of this situation.
Maybe she could apply for another credit card. Maybe she could get some tax back. She had all the documents she needed to do her return. She went to the Receita Federal website and started downloading the application. Then she rushed off to her pile of papers and found the tax statement the school had given her. When she returned to the laptop, the application had already downloaded, so she installed it and started typing in the details. She completed the quick and straightforward form and pressed calculate. The application thought about it and then announced that Teresa owed Receita Federal R$1,800. How could this be possible? She opened the form requiring more specific details and entered all the fields relevant to her. Teresa took a deep breath and pressed calculate. The application thought about it for longer and then announced that Teresa owed the Receita Federal R$8. It was much better than before, but it wasn’t going to solve any of her financial problems. Maybe she should start teaching English lessons after school again as Mariana did. She didn’t understand why Mariana taught private lessons; she certainly didn’t need the money. Teresa decided to make another cup of tea.
Chapter Nineteen - The Doctor - 11th February 2015
Wednesday rained all night, and by the time Teresa got up, drops of water were collecting on the bathroom ceiling and taking it in turns to dive into an expanding puddle on the floor. Teresa called the property management company who apologised that the earliest they could get someone round to look at it would be Saturday. Teresa left a bucket collecting the water.
The fridge was still not working, and the limited contents were beginning to smell. Teresa searched online for someone nearby who might be able to come and look at it.
“Saturday.” declared the telephonist. Saturday it would have to be then, and Teresa consented.
By the time Thursday came. Teresa was bored of life without television and was relieved to get back to the school. After three days it felt strange crowding on the bus and metro with all the other commuters. She didn’t get a seat. Most of those with seats seemed to be sleeping, trying to sleep or pretending to sleep so that they would not have to relinquish their seat to anyone older, more infirm or more pregnant than themselves.
Questions bombarded Teresa from the moment she walked through the door of the school. Both from staff and students. About what had happened to her head, how she felt and what could anyone do to help?
Teresa rolled off her stock answers and tried to find a corner to hide in which was, of course, impossible.
Thursday morning was always school assembly. Classes would take it in turns to present what they had been learning in class. This week it was the turn of one of the classes to present what they had been learning about explorers.
Children in Columbus costumes, like ships, as the first explorers, to arrive in Brazil, as natives who seemed happy to accept smallpox and influenza of the conquistadors in return for gold. The class had a mix of confident performers who would deliver their lines at full volume accompanied by exaggerated gestures and children who looked like they might urinate themselves if someone on the back row whispered ‘boo’. The performance was the usual mix of monotone lines delivered at lightning speed or languid torpidity. The enthusiasm of the minority as usual far outweighed the apathy of the majority and the cute factor of nine-year-olds trying to remember their lines or arguing with each other over who should say what and when ensured that, as usual, the assembly was an unmitigated success.
On the way back to class Teresa bumped into Mariana who thrust a present into her hands.
“I saw this and thought of you,” she said. “I hope you like it.”
“Thanks.” Teresa started to say, but Mariana had already gone.
At break time she unwrapped the present. It was a book. Wreck this Journal by Keri Smith. Teresa was expecting it to be a novel but when she opened it most of the pages were blank except for random instructions such as ‘attach your shopping list here’ or ‘compost this page’. Teresa turned back to the introduction and started to read. It appeared that the book was a kind of creativity development workbook with lots of interesting and creative ways to destroy the book.
“Do you like it?” Mariana asked during the morning break, dropping into the seat opposite Teresa.
“It’s great. But you don’t have to buy me presents.” Teresa protested.
“I know I don’t, but I wanted to,” Mariana said, applying cream cheese to the cracker on her plate.
Brenda joined them, sighing as she slumped into the seat next to Teresa.
“Mind if I join you,” she asked.
Teresa shook her head, in any case, it was a bit late if she did mind.
“Hey, are you coming to the protest on Sunday?” Mariana asked Teresa.
“Protest?”
“Yeah, at Paulista. There’s going to be a protest against Dilma. You coming?”
“I’m not political,” Teresa admitted. “I’m not for or against Dilma.”
“But what about the corruption?” Mariana argued. “President Dilma and her cronies are robbing the country.”
“All politicians are corrupt.” Brenda joined in without being asked for her opinion.
“So who do you vote for?” Mariana asked.
“The Green Party,” Brenda admitted.
Teresa wasn’t going to admit that in the second round of the presidential election in October she had voted for Dilma.
“If all the politicians are going to mess things up then you may as well have someone messing things up with a chance of a little benefit to the p
lanet.” Said Brenda.
“You know the Green Party has no chance of being elected. It’s a wasted vote,” said Mariana.
“When faced with the same corrupt leaders it is always best to vote for the candidate on the left on the basis that, no matter what else goes on, there is a chance that the poor might benefit, “Brenda continued. “However, voting for the right means that, no matter how wonderful the economy becomes, the people that will benefit are the rich. The same corruption goes on, but under a different name, meanwhile they cut social programmes, the poor get poorer, and the rich get richer.”
Teresa didn’t want to join in.
“Dilma and her party are robbing the country.” Mariana continued.
“You have to admit though that over the last ten years, they have lifted millions of Brazilians out of poverty,” Brenda argued.
“Those Brazilians would have been lifted out of poverty anyway,” countered Mariana. “It was Cardoso who introduced the family allowance benefit system before Lula, and his Workers Party were ever in power. Lula just benefited from the economic success that Cardoso started.”
Brenda had no answer for Mariana.
Teresa was fed up with the news programmes, filled with stories about corruption and the struggling economy. But what made her angry was the state of the currency, the Real, which was at a shocking low against the dollar. This meant that a trip to England to see her daughter was beyond her reach.
“You have to come on Sunday,” Mariana pleaded. “I’ve invited someone and told them you’d be there.”
“Who?”
“You remember the doctor who sewed up your head.”
“What?” Teresa was astounded.
Brenda raised her eyebrows.
“Come on Teresa. You have to come.”
Teresa was feeling like a bit of protest against the government, and she had nothing better to do on Sunday, so she agreed to go.
“Thank you, thank you, thank you,” Mariana blubbed. “I owe you.”
That evening, on the way back to the Faria Lima metro station, Teresa passed three students performing what looked like some protest art. One student held aloft a piece of cardboard with ‘body in change’ written in large letters. A second student, dressed in washer women’s clothes stood by a large bowl of soapy water in which she had soaked a large São Paulo state flag which she was slapping on the paving stones in the fashion of washerwomen beating clothes on rocks by a river. A third student sat looking bored next to a large bottle of water and an assortment of bags which Teresa imagined might contain their supplies of snacks – even radical students never devolve themselves from consumerism. Teresa wasn’t sure of the exact meaning of the art, but she liked it. She felt her creativity workbook in her bag and promised herself to start being creative as soon as she got home