Neither the friendly expression on Andrea’s face nor her attempt to laugh at herself was enough to mask what she was really trying to say.
“Don’t worry, Andrea,” Diana said. “I already know that I write like a crow.”
“I didn’t mean it like that, Di, I just—”
“Well, girls, now isn’t the time to argue,” Isabel said. “What about tonight?”
Neither Diana nor Andrea replied.
“Di, we should really get going now,” Isabel continued. “We have to go try on our graduation outfits. But we’ll call by this evening to pick you up, let’s say at around 8 p.m. Try to be dressed and ready so we’re all on time. And then we’ll take you to Olympia—or what about Da Mario? And if you like, to Pulana, okay? A few calls and the old gang will get together. How’s that for a plan?”
“I’m in!” cried Andrea.
“Well,” Diana said, “thanks a lot, both of you, for coming. But today, I really do want to be alone.”
6
WHEN ISABEL AND ANDREA had gone, Diana stayed on the terrace for a while longer, thinking how little they knew her. For years they’d been friends; they’d laughed and had fun together, sharing so many good times . . . So how was it that these two girls didn’t truly know her or understand her dreams? But then, what did it matter if no one understood a dream she’d decided to let go of?
She thought of the question her mother had asked in her letter. “What is it really, darling, that’s preventing you from pursuing your greatest dream?”
Diana knew that if she had a thousand lives to live, in every single one of them she’d still want to be a writer. The only reason she’d chosen law was because of the dreaded scenario she envisaged for herself if she were to become just a mediocre writer . . .
To begin with, those around her would think she’d wasted her qualifications. In spite of this, however, they’d politely conceal their real opinions and tell her what an interesting and exciting profession she’d chosen. But there would always be a hidden disapproval and disdain behind their words and soon she would become the subject of gossip. People would whisper the news about the heiress of the international hotel group and one of the most prestigious hotels in Rio de Janeiro—“the unfortunate Diana Oliveira”—who had once been the envy of all the young people in the city, admired by everyone, but who eventually ended up as a writer whose books nobody read. Those who would once have given everything to be in her place would pity her, thinking that she’d wasted her life.
Diana had never told anyone that it was only because she didn’t want this scenario to come true that she’d chosen a career which those around her would approve of. So maybe it was her own fault that her friends didn’t know how she really felt. But hadn’t she tried to tell them about her hopes and dreams? Of course she had.
Yet whenever she’d tried, they’d judged her. It was as if they knew what was best for her and always swamped her with advice about what she should do, how she should think and even how she should feel. They never tried to understand.
How was she to face being left all alone in this world, with no one to understand her?
To still her tired mind, Diana eventually decided to take an evening walk in the park—as she’d always done with her mother.
7
THE PARK WASN’T too crowded. To get as close to the sea as possible, Diana walked along the shore.
Just how many times in the past had she and her mother walked here together? What would she not give to have one more stroll here with her mother? Just one more . . .
Lost in her memories, she walked for perhaps another quarter of an hour. When she reached the marina with its sailing ships, she turned for home.
She usually chose to return home by way of a shortcut across the park, mainly because she enjoyed seeing the unusual people along the way: people with hair dyed every color of the rainbow; people with piercings on the least expected parts of their bodies; people with skin so decorated there didn’t seem to be enough room on them for yet another tattoo.
As usual, the pathway was crowded with vendors of knick-knacks and kitsch, with tattoo artists, strolling musicians and beggars.
As Diana went past the beggars, she heard a deep voice: “Hey there, little lady!”
Not sure whether the voice was addressing her, she glanced around, but couldn’t see anyone else who might answer the description. Then she caught sight of an old beggar staring at her. Once more he called, “Hey there, little lady!”
She had often seen the man with curly gray hair at this corner, sitting cross-legged on a piece of straw matting. What made him different from his fellow beggars was that, although his small black eyes seemed constantly to be searching the crowd for something, he never harassed the passersby. Another difference was that on the corner of his ragged mat was written: “Fortunes told: $9.”
Diana was surprised; she’d passed by this fortune-telling beggar perhaps a hundred times before, but never once had he called out to her.
“Were you talking to me?” she asked the beggar, pointing to herself.
“You’re searching for her?”
“What do you mean?”
“Her!”
“Who’s her?”
“If you don’t know, how come I should?”
“What!”
“Her, I’m saying!”
She shook her head. There was no need to go on with this strange and pointless conversation. Perhaps he had been waiting for someone to play a joke on, or perhaps he was simply testing a new way of attracting the attention of a possible customer. Whatever the reason, it was enough to make Diana decide to walk away as quickly as possible.
She wanted to continue on her way as though no words had passed between them, but she paused when the beggar called out to her once again: “See here, little lady, I’m ready to tell your fortune for nothing. Come, maybe your luck will tell you where she is.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about and I don’t want to know, either.”
At that moment, quick as a wink, the beggar tipped something resembling ashes into the glass of water in front of him and began to peer at it intently as the water turned a grayish color. Then, “Oh, my!” he said. “What do I see, what do I see? She’s looking like you. Just like you!”
Diana froze where she stood.
“Who looks like me?” she asked, swallowing hard.
“That’s better, little lady, come sit now.”
Diana did as she was told.
The beggar swirled the water with his forefinger before brushing the tip of it on Diana’s face. Without waiting for her reaction, he said, “Whether you are searching for her or not, she’s looking like you. Just like you! Same age, same height, same eyebrows, same eyes . . .”
Diana felt a cold shiver run down her spine. She hardly knew what to do or what to say. But there had to be an explanation. There was no such thing as fortune-telling, no such thing as mind reading. There was no chance that this man could be talking about Mary!
To prove he was just a charlatan, she asked, “So, where is she?”
“Not far away.”
“Where exactly?” she asked, raising her voice.
The beggar took her hand and poured a little of the dirty water into her palm. After examining it attentively for a minute, he said, “She comes from far away to near. Soon she goes far away, but she comes back again.”
Then, he lifted his head and fixed his gaze on something at the other side of the pathway. Diana turned to see what he was looking at.
About twenty yards ahead, a street artist was watching them. When the artist realized they were looking at him, he quickly turned back to his easel. Diana gestured questioningly at the beggar.
“That girl who’s just like you,” the beggar said,
“she’ll meet that artist someday.”
Diana sprang to her feet. It had been a mistake to sit down there in the first place. It was obvious he was just having a joke at her expense. She should have realized it long ago; there had been a sly expression of amusement on his wrinkled face from the very beginning.
As Diana hurried away, the beggar called after her, “Read. Open what’s written and read.”
Open and read! The words sped like a treacherous arrow into Diana’s retreating back.
Was this also a coincidence? Could these words be related to Mary’s letters, which she’d never opened, let alone read? Her head was in a whirl, but this time she went on without a backward glance.
Even though she wanted to get home quickly and leave all this behind her, her steps involuntarily slowed as she passed the young street artist. As he stood facing his painting, she took a quick look at this unkempt youth, to see if she could make any sense of what the beggar had said.
Probably a few years older than her, the artist was tall, well built, with tanned skin and untidy brown hair. He was wearing an old maroon T-shirt and a pair of blue jeans, worn into holes at the knees. His sandals were too dusty to guess their color.
Propped against the iron railing that surrounded a nearby palm tree stood his paintings for sale. They were all much the same in theme—sky, sea and a seagull in each. Each one had a price tag of $150 hanging on it. Although the quality of paint looked poor, the paintings themselves were appealing.
The artist became aware of Diana’s gaze as her eyes wandered from himself to his paintings and back again. He turned his big hazel eyes on her. “Can I help you?”
“Oh, just looking.”
“But can you see?”
“Excuse me?”
“Well, do you like the paintings?”
“I like your choice of colors.”
The artist remained silent.
Diana, who’d expected at least a “thank you” for her compliment, said, “So . . . Bye, then.”
The artist merely waved and, without waiting for Diana to leave, became engrossed in his painting once again.
Diana wasn’t going to mind the manners of a street artist. At least not today. But as she walked away with steady steps, she couldn’t help thinking how rude his behavior had been and how unlikable he was.
8
ALL THAT WAS LEFT of the moth which had been flying around the room was a slight haze of smoke around the lamp and a faint smell of burning. Looking at the wisp of smoke, Diana wondered what had driven the moth to throw itself into the light.
It must have followed an instinctive call to fly away from the dark, Diana thought. The urgency with which it flew must have been a rebellion against the gloom that enveloped it. A rebellion against uncertainty. It had chosen to melt away in the fire instead of a lifetime of flying in perpetual darkness.
Wouldn’t opening and reading Mary’s letters be much the same as the moth throwing itself into the flames? Would it be an escape from the darkness she’d fallen into by ignoring her mother’s last wish? And, if so, to escape from such darkness, uncertainty and disloyalty, should she face the risk of being extinguished like the moth?
Diana didn’t know what to think anymore. She didn’t know why she was in the dark, how she’d ended up there or whose fault it was . . . Was it her own fault for not acting upon her mother’s wish? Or her mother’s for placing such a heavy burden on her shoulders? Her father’s for splitting the family in two? Maybe the blame should be put on Mary since she was the one who’d sent that selfish note to her mother. Or maybe on God, who had taken her mother from her. Perhaps everyone was to blame, perhaps no one . . .
She didn’t know the answer, yet she could feel how the reins of her life had long since slipped from her grasp. It was as if events beyond her control were determining her thoughts, feelings and actions; as if decisions about her life were being made somewhere, at some unknown place, and put into effect without her knowledge or consent.
Was it fate?
And if it were, could those strange words of the beggar who’d never spoken to her before also be a part of that fate? If she got up now, opened Mary’s letters and read them, would it be of her own free will? Or would she simply be obeying another command of fate which was dragging her toward the unknown? Perhaps the two were the same thing. She didn’t know.
However, there was one thing she did know: she respected that moth.
DIANA SUDDENLY GOT to her feet. She walked straight to her mother’s jewelry box, took out the key to the antique chest and went to the room where it stood. She opened the chest and found Mary’s letters wrapped in a piece of cloth. With the bundle in her hands, she returned to the living room.
Sitting on the floor, her back against an armchair, she unwrapped the cloth. Inside it, she found four large and one smaller envelope, all in different colors. In the smaller envelope was Mary’s last note to her mother. The larger envelopes had all been numbered in her mother’s handwriting in the order she’d received them.
The colors of the envelopes were, in sequence, red, green, white and silver. She noticed that the first three had been posted in São Paulo, while the fourth, as well as the one in the smaller envelope, were postmarked Rio de Janeiro.
So Mary must have come to Rio, thought Diana. She suddenly remembered the old beggar’s words. “She comes from far away,” he’d said. “She’s not far away.”
If Mary had come to Rio, then why hadn’t she come to see her mother? Could she still be here? Did she live in São Paulo?
As Diana battled with such questions, she noticed that the silver envelope—the fourth one—was empty. The question of where the letter it had contained might be only added to her confusion.
In the hope of finding some answers, she read through the letters. Then, she picked up the first one again and began to read it carefully a second time.
LETTER 1:
“OBJECTING TO OTHERS”
14 February
My beloved Mother,
Outside, lightning is flashing and thunder rolling. I’m reminded of the nights when I would curl up in my bed shaking with fear, longing for the refuge of a mother’s comforting arms.
Just when I’m about to be overwhelmed by your absence again, my father comes into my room to confess that you are alive! Holding out your address to me, he says I can write to you.
The storm outside suddenly becomes my friend. The lightning bolts become camera flashes photographing my joy. “At last,” I say to myself. “At last, I’ll be reunited with my mother!”
Yes, Mom, it’s unbelievable but true. My quest for you, which began such a long time ago, is about to have a happy ending. In exactly one month’s time, I’ll be coming to see you!
The thought of meeting you after so many years fills me with such indescribable happiness. Yet I feel my happiness is incomplete because you don’t really know me.
I have recently begun writing a novel to help me introduce myself to you. The story is based on the things I experienced in my search for you. Oh, Mom, if you only knew what I’ve lived through during this endless search. I’ve objected to Others, crossed an ocean and even spoken with a rose!
I wish I could send you a copy of my novel right away, but it isn’t finished yet. However, I’d still like to share my story with you. To give you the feel of it, I’ve decided to send you a letter once a week, telling you about the different phases of my search.
I call these phases: “Objection,” “Path” and “Annihilation.” The last phase, “Rebirth,” will start as soon as we are reunited.
Let me begin my story with the phase of Objection . . .
I was quite young when I asked myself this question: “Why don’t I have a mother?”
But no matter how hard I tried, I could never find the answer.
However, if there was a question, there had to be an answer. Of course, I wasn’t old enough then to reason like this; but at the time, I could still hear the voice of my heart.
“Don’t ask, ‘Why don’t I have a mother?’” my heart said. “Ask the right question, ask, ‘Where is my mother?’ Ask this of Someone Who Knows.”
Someone Who Knows . . . Someone Who Knows . . . Someone with knowledge . . . My father!
“Dad, where is my mother?” I asked.
After hesitating for a moment, my father said, “Your mother is with God, my child.”
Surely, that had to be the truth. Because God would live in the best place and my mother, too, would be worthy of the best place.
And so, “Where is God?” became my next question. My father looked at me as though I’d asked the oddest question in the world. Then, he answered: “I don’t know.”
Hoping that maybe Others would know where you were, I asked them, “Do you know where my mother is?”
“Your mother doesn’t exist,” they said.
“What does that mean?” I asked.
“Well, she died; she’s not here anymore.”
How was this possible? This thing, your dying, your being “not here.” How could they suggest your absence when I felt your presence so strongly? Once again my heart spoke to me: “You feel your mother’s presence, so she must exist.”
I went up to Others and said, “My mother is alive!”
They gave me a different answer: “Your mother is someplace far away.”
I wasn’t convinced by that, either, because I felt that you were very close.
They came up with yet a different answer: “You can only see your mother in the next world.”
No! There had to be another answer.
“I’ll go and search for God, then,” I said to myself, and asked Others if they knew where He was. If I could find that out, I’d also find out where you were. But soon, I realized that people’s views on God were very confused. Some said, “God doesn’t exist”; some, “God is some-place far away”; and some, “You can only see God in the next world.”
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