by M J Dees
“What are they doing?” Felipe asked.
“Are you a man or a mouse?” said Teresa.
“Squeak,” he replied.
The group of youths seemed to be having a loud street party. Felipe patted his pocket to verify the presence of his wallet even though the youths were a good fifty metres away.
“Come on,” said Teresa turning into another, an even smaller street which was both dark and deserted. It was now Felipe and not Teresa who looked like he was thinking that his following her to Assuncão might have been an error in judgement.
Not far into the street, Teresa stopped at the front of her house and opened the gate. Felipe had hesitated for a moment before Teresa beckoned him through. She led him through a door which led into her kitchen, being careful to make sure that Oliver and Ramsey were unable to escape. As he followed her, she locked the gate.
They stood in silence in the kitchen. The cats eyed Felipe with suspicion. Teresa scooped them up and shut them in the lounge then returned past Felipe.
“If you need the bathroom it’s through here,” she said as she stopped in the door-less doorway to her bedroom and pointed to the bathroom door on the other side of the room. “If you want to have a shower I’ll give you a towel.”
“Thanks,” he said without moving.
“You can sleep in my bed,” she continued. “I’ll get you clean sheets.”
“No, I’ll sleep on the sofa.” he protested.
“No, you won’t. That’s the only room with a lock on the door, so I’ll be sleeping in there. “Would you like some water?”
“I’m fine thanks.”
“Fine. OK. Well here’s your towel,” Teresa opened a cupboard, took out a folded towel and handed it to Felipe. “Why don’t you have your shower while I change the sheets.”
“There’s no need to change the sheets,” he said.
“I’d rather,” she said, not relishing the thought of a strange man spending the night sniffing her body odour off her used sheets. There was the possibility, of course, that he would rifle through her underwear drawer but it was a risk she would have to take.
He thanked her, took the towel, crossed the room to the bathroom and closed the door behind him. As she changed the sheets, she could hear the shower running and pictured him taking his shower. She took some clean sheets for herself and took them into the living room where her sofa being a mattress on two piles of pallets was very easy to convert into a single bed.
Felipe emerged from the shower dressed in pyjamas.
“You brought pyjamas?” She said.
“Yes,” said Felipe finding nothing strange in the concept of travelling with a clean pair of pyjamas.
“OK…well I’m going to have my shower now. If you want water, there’s a large bottle of filtered water next to the kitchen sink.”
She grabbed her towel and went into the bathroom, locking the door behind her. She undressed and stood naked for a while in front of the mirror. Did Felipe mean what he said about her being beautiful or was it just another load of bullshit? A load of bullshit she told herself and had her shower.
When she emerged from the bathroom in her robe, Felipe had already climbed into bed, but he was propped up on a pillow watching her.
“You know you are very beautiful,” he said.
“Night, night,” she replied and walked through into the living room, joining the cats and locking the door behind her.
Sounds in the kitchen awoke her. At first, she didn’t know where she was. Once she realised she was in the living room, it took a few moments to realise why she was there. The events of the previous night came flooding back to her, and she realised who it must be that was making all that noise in the kitchen. She listened. She heard Felipe placing a pan on the stove. She heard the fridge door open and then after a pause, close again. She heard the rustle of plastic. Something that sounded like the toaster. She heard water running. The sound of plastic parts fitting together. Felipe opening and closing the fridge door. Removing a plastic lid. Refitting a plastic lid. The fridge door opening and closing again
She decided to get up and find out what he was doing. She got out of bed, put on her robe and unlocked the living room door freeing the two curious moggies. She poked her head around the edge of the door and saw him looking at her with a smile all over his face. The fact that anybody could be happy after they’ve just got up annoyed Teresa.
“Good morning,” said Felipe. “Are you hungry? I thought I’d make you some breakfast. Did you sleep well?”
“I did until someone making noise in the kitchen woke me up,” she said.
“Sorry. Why don’t you go back to bed? I promise I’ll be quiet until you get up. By the way, I think your fridge is broken.”
“Doesn’t matter. I’m up now.” Teresa ignored the comment about the fridge and went over and sat at the small white metal table and watched Felipe finish the breakfast. When the toast popped up in the toaster, he put the slices on a plate for her
The cats brushed around his trousers.
“Looks like you’ve won them over,” Teresa said, watching the cats fuss over him like proper tarts.
“Ah, they just think I’m going to feed them,” Felipe said. Teresa thought he was right and considered how cats are such fickle creatures.
The coffee machine started to sound as if it was choking on itself, so Felipe switched it off.
“How do you take your coffee?” He asked.
“Black.”
He poured out two cups.
“Do you have any sugar?” he asked, handing Teresa one of the cups.
“Sorry.” she shook her head.
“No matter,” he said. “Would you like some butter on that toast?”
Teresa looked at the slices on the plate in front of her getting cold.
“Yes please.”
Felipe opened the fridge door again, took out a tub of Qualy spread and handed it to Teresa.
“When you’ve finished your toast, why don’t you have a shower and get dressed and I’ll take you for a proper breakfast?” Felipe suggested.
Teresa did not like being told what to do, but she did like the suggestion.
“OK.” she consented and buttered her toast.
“Where should we go?” he asked when she was ready.
“There’s a reasonable bakery on the way to Area Verde,” she said. “We could go there and then afterwards go straight to get the bus.”
“Sounds like a plan,” he said, following her out of the door while being careful to keep the inquisitive cats inside.
The bakery was like any other bakery in São Paulo. A counter in the centre surrounded the food preparation area around which customers could sit on stools to drink their coffee and eat their toast. Later in the day, the stools would be full of men drinking beer and watching football on the televisions which hung from the walls. Tables and chairs filled the edges of the establishment, and it was to one of these that Teresa chose to sit, and Felipe followed.
At one end was a self-service buffet and at the other end a small selection of groceries. The bakery was still quiet and no sooner had they sat down than a member of staff delivered a menu to each of them.
“Do you know what you would like?” Felipe asked Teresa as the member of staff hovered.
“I’ll just have a coffee and some toast please,” Teresa asked the staff member.
“Are you sure?” Felipe asked her. “It’s my treat.”
“OK, thanks,” she said to Felipe then turned back to the waiter. “I’ll have a bauru and a fresh orange juice without ice or sugar.”
“I’ll have a cheeseburger and a beer please,” said Felipe then realised that Teresa was staring at him. “What? It’s lunchtime already. And anyway, I’m on holiday.”
“I didn’t say anything.” Teresa defended herself.
“You don’t need to,” said Felipe and already it felt to Teresa like they were an old couple who had been married for forty years arguing over th
e same old things.
The waitress brought Felipe’s beer, and Felipe eyed it. The waitress left two glasses.
“It’s OK,” said Teresa. “But it’s eleven thirty. Are you sure you don’t have a drinking problem?”
“Of course I don’t have a drinking problem,” he rebuffed. “I have no problem getting hold of drink.”
Teresa groaned. Felipe’s smile dropped, and he looked her straight in the eyes.
“I promise that, after this one, I won’t drink anymore.”
Teresa began to protest.
“Or any less than I usually do.” he continued, eliciting more groans from Teresa.
“Are all your jokes as bad as this?” She asked.
“Of course not,” he protested. “Some of them are even worse. Would you like some beer?”
Teresa smiled, and he poured her glass.
“You’re beautiful when you smile,” said Felipe, making her blush. “Why don’t you do it more often?”
“Stop it,” she warned him just as her orange juice arrived filled with ice.
“I asked for no ice and no sugar. Does it have sugar in it as well?”
“I… I don’t know. I don’t think so.” said the embarrassed waitress.
“Could I have another please?” Teresa demanded.
“Remind me not to get on the wrong side of you,” Felipe told Teresa when the waitress had left.
“I was quite clear. Wasn’t I?” Teresa checked.
“I heard you. No ice, no sugar.” Felipe confirmed.
“Thank you,” said Teresa. “At least I’m not going mad.”
“As a medical professional, I can neither confirm nor deny that.”
Teresa smiled.
“You see, there’s that smile again.”
“Stop it,” said Teresa slapping his arm. “You’re making me all self-conscious.”
“Sorry,” he said. But he wasn’t.
When they’d finished their brunch, Felipe paid the bill, and the two of them walked up the hill to Area Verde and waited for the bus which would take them to the metro at Sacoma.
“Is everything uphill in this town,” asked Felipe.
“It feels like it,” admitted Teresa
When they arrived at the bus stop, there was a man already there waiting. He was very skinny and between his newish looking trainers and sports socks and a pair of shorts, with more pockets than anyone could make use of, were a pair of the hairiest legs Teresa had ever seen. On his skeletal shoulders hung a small T-shirt, nevertheless still too big for him, and a white and blue checked baseball cap which sat on his head unsupported on any side. The phone he held near his head spoke.
“Hello?” It said in a tinny voice.
“I’m on my way to the hospital.” said the skinny man. Teresa was not surprised.
“You’re at the hospital?” asked the phone.
“No!” corrected the man with a ferocity which took Teresa by surprise. “I’m on my way to the hospital. I’m waiting for the bus.”
“You’re waiting at the hospital?” asked the phone, still unsure.
“No Pedro,” the man said with frustration, now regretting that he had begun this courtesy call. “I am on my way to the hospital. I am waiting for a bus. I will call you when I get there.” He pronounced each word with patronising slowness. “Are you at the hospital?” he asked as an afterthought.
“You’re at the hospital?” asked Pedro again, not grasping the gist of the conversation.
“No, Pedro, I am waiting for, for…look the bus is here I’ll have to go.” he hung up.
Teresa looked. He was right. There was the bus. The 152 to Sacoma. Felipe and Teresa jumped on it. Felipe had got change from the bakery so was able to pay his own fair for once.
Teresa and Felipe climbed onto the bus delighted to find that there were many seats to choose from as was the case on a Sunday morning. Ominous clouds were climbing over the horizon threatening the possibility of rain but were not yet preventing the blazing sun from streaming through the bus window.
At Sacoma metro station there was an enormous queue of people waiting to buy tickets. They were all dressed in yellow, blue and green, the colours of the Brazilian flag, and were already chanting slogans deriding President Dilma and her predecessor, Lula.
Teresa had her travel card, but Felipe didn’t which meant they had to join the end of the huge queue.
“It’s obvious that none of these people uses public transport,” Teresa commented as she observed the line of middle-class couples and families all wearing the Brazilian national team’s football top and carrying assorted paraphernalia which they had bought the previous year during the World Cup.
Felipe apologised for not being a regular user of the metro, but Teresa said it didn’t matter and anyway the queue was moving.
The train was busy for a Sunday morning but Teresa and Felipe still managed to get a seat among the cheering protesters in their patriotic colours. One worried looking young woman wearing red, the colour of the ruling Workers Party, PT, who kept looking around at everyone at a loss to explain to herself why so many people had boarded the carriage wearing Brazilian colours and singing songs about Dilma. Either all the talk and the posters had passed her by or she was a fervent government supporter looking at disgust at the middle classes bad mouthing her president with claims that they, the middle classes, shouldn’t have to support the poor who, let’s face it, have themselves to blame and have no real intention to work as long as the government are doling out handouts which they stole from the middle classes along with the oil money which was also stolen from the pockets of the middle classes and placed in the pockets of corrupt politicians, skiving plebs and Cuban dictators.
At every stop, more protesters got on and the carriage filled with cheers and more suggestions for which areas of her anatomy President Dilma should ‘take it up’.
Teresa had agreed to meet Mariana at Trianon MASP metro station, the epicentre of the protest. It had seemed a good idea at the time, but now Teresa thought that the station would be so busy it would be impossible to find anyone. She sent Mariana a text
“She’s already here,” Teresa said, turning to Felipe and waving her phone at him as they ascended the escalators along with hordes of shouting protesters
“She’s going to be difficult to find among all these people,” he stated the obvious.
They emerged through the ticket barriers where Mariana was stood opposite with her friends staring at Teresa and Felipe approach with a glare so fierce that Teresa wondered whether she had murdered Mariana’s dog and had forgotten that she was wearing it as a hat.
“Hello,” Teresa said as nice as she could as she and Felipe approached Mariana.
“Hello,” Mariana replied. “Did you two bump into each other on the metro then?”
“Well, therein lies a funny story,” Felipe began. “Come on, let’s go and I’ll tell you all about it.” Felipe took Mariana’s arm, much to Mariana’s delight, and with his characteristic limp, led her off, leaving Teresa to follow with Mariana’s friends.
“Come on,” Felipe turned and said to Teresa with a wink she was sure was designed for Mariana to miss. “So, tell me all about what you got up to after I left,” he asked Mariana.
Teresa wasn’t sure why she should be feeling so put out that Felipe was now directing his attention to Mariana. She hadn’t asked him to come up to São Paulo. She hadn’t asked him to follow her home. She hadn’t asked him to flirt with her. But somehow, now he had done all those things and given her such attention, she now missed that attention, the attention she hadn’t felt since she had first started seeing William, her now ex-husband, all those years earlier.
She watched Felipe laugh and joke with Mariana, and she watched Mariana warm to him again as he complimented her and made her laugh. Teresa sighed and prepared herself for the return to her usual life of being ignored.
As they emerged from the entrance to the Metro, Teresa tried to follow Felipe, Mar
iana and Mariana’s friends as close as she could so as not to get lost among the crowds, which were now filling Avenida Paulista. The group tried to snake its way between the army of blue-green, and yellow and Teresa followed as best she could as it made its circuitous way towards the red pillars of the MASP art gallery, beneath which was gathered the centre of the protest.
Parked at intervals along the road, open top buses had their top decks filled with protesters, some with microphones delivering impassioned speeches toward the yelling masses who cheered and applauded and joined in the chants the announcers bawled at them.
As she did her best to stay in touch with the group, she looked around her at the placard-waving, slogan shouting throng of people that were filling the road. Some were waving banners calling for military intervention. Another banner read ‘runaway inflation’ and another, ‘get rid of the communists’. A drone buzzed over their heads.
Through the crowd, Teresa noticed a dirty looking man with bedraggled hair, a blanket wrapped around his shoulders and an old pair of flip-flops on his feet. He was trying to cross Avenida Paulista, annoyed by the crowds of people who had invaded his Sunday afternoon. If anyone, thought Teresa, it is he who should be angry at the government, and yet he seemed the least interested in everything going on around him.
Teresa looked up at the drone which hovered above their heads. They were almost level with the São Paulo Museum of Art, and the others had stopped to listen to an announcer who stood on top of a truck with loudspeakers filling its bowels. He shouted about how corrupt the government was, how the country had had enough of the current leadership about how the people there believed in change.
Teresa observed.
“I know what you’ve been up to.” Mariana appeared, next to Teresa, accusing her.
“I’m sorry?”
“How could you do it?” Mariana asked.
“Do what?” Teresa was surprised.
“I know he stayed at your place last night. How could you?”
“He had nowhere else to stay.” Teresa had to shout over the crowd and the truck’s loudspeaker system as well as over the buzz of the drone which was now hovering above them, close to a tree Teresa noticed as she glanced up in annoyance.