Clarice opened her little woven bag, took out a packet of Vogue menthol cigarettes, and pulled one out. “Got a light?”
“I don’t smoke.”
She tsked and rummaged around in her bag. The sun was setting behind the hill. Teo watched the drunken shadows moving down below. Clarice found her lighter and lit her cigarette, protecting the flame from the breeze with her hand. She took a drag and exhaled in his direction.
“You don’t eat, don’t smoke, and don’t drink much. . . . Teo, do you fuck?”
He stepped back a little, a few inches, also avoiding the mint-flavored smoke. What was he retreating from? Why did that oddball make him feel so self-conscious? He didn’t feel the need to put on an act for her. He liked the blasé way she held the cigarette and said whatever she thought.
“I’m just joking. Relax,” she said, with a little punch to his shoulder.
It was their first physical contact. Teo smiled, his shoulder tingling where she’d touched him. He needed to say something.
“So what do you do?”
“What do I do?” She popped another piece of meat into her mouth and chewed on it. “I drink a lot, eat everything, and I’ve smoked everything too, but now all I smoke are Vogue menthols, girlie cigarettes. I fuck every now and then. I’m studying art history at the university. But I’m not sure if it’s what I want to do. I’m really interested in screenwriting.”
“Screenwriting?”
“Yeah, screenplays. I’m working on one at the moment. I’m not sure if it’s going to be feature length. The argument is ready. And I’ve written about thirty pages of the screenplay so far. I’ve still got a long way to go.”
“I’d like to read it,” he said, without thinking. He was curious to see the result of so much irreverence. He wanted to know what she wrote about and how. Fiction writers put a lot of themselves in their texts.
“I don’t know if you’ll like it,” she said. “It’s a story for women. Three single girlfriends in a car driving around looking for adventure. It’s a road movie of sorts.”
“I can only like it if I read it.”
“Okay then, I’ll show you.” She put out the cigarette butt with the bottom of her sandal and ate another two pieces of meat. “What about you? What do you do?”
“Medicine.”
“Wow, supersquare. My mother would love that. She says art history doesn’t get you anywhere. As if poring through penal codes and lugging around piles of legal documents did.”
“It’s not as square as you think. There’s art in medicine.”
“Where?”
“Well, first we’d have to define art. For example, I want to be a pathologist.”
“I don’t see any art in that.”
“It’s complicated. We can talk about it later,” he said. He was trying to create another invisible link between them.
“Okay. I’ve got to go.”
He didn’t like the fact that she wanted to leave so quickly. He felt as if she were avoiding him for some reason.
“I was just going to get a taxi. Want a lift?” he said.
“No, I live nearby.”
“Could I borrow your cell for a minute? I left mine at home, and I need to call a taxi. I promise to be quick.”
She reached into her bag. “Here.”
As Teo made the call, he watched Clarice. She had let her hair out, and it came down below her waist. The contrast between her long hair and tiny body pleased him.
Two floodlights came on automatically.
“No one’s answering. I’ll get one on the street.” He handed her back the cell.
They walked along the stone path together until it forked into two. “That’s the way out,” he said, pointing.
“I’m going to get a beer and say good-bye to some people. Aren’t you going to say good-bye to anyone?”
He should have made up an excuse, but he wanted to tell the truth. “I’d rather not.”
She nodded, then leaned over and gave him a peck on his tense lips. Then she turned and headed up the steps two at a time, the glass of green liquid sloshing about in her left hand.
• • •
When Teo got home, he felt giddy. He ran to get his cell from the bedside table and sent a text message to his mother. Then he checked his missed calls, savoring the numbers of the last one. He lay on the sofa for a long while, staring at the ceiling, reliving the images. Something had exploded inside him. Something he couldn’t explain, nor did he even want to. Although he didn’t know Clarice’s surname, where she lived, or where she studied art history, he had her cell number, and that made them intimate.
3
Teo wanted to call her the minute he woke up. He punched in her number, which he already knew by heart, but he didn’t have the courage to complete the call. How would he explain that he had her number? It would sound pathetic, childish even, if he told her what he’d done.
He now realized how distant she still was. If he did nothing and just deleted her contact from his phone, they might never see each other again. How often in life do we cross paths with such a special person?
Samson came over, frolicking around his legs. Teo stroked his thick fur and let him lick his hands. Then he pushed him away. He didn’t want to be consoled.
He dressed for church.
“We’re running late!” shouted his mother from the elevator.
He took a deep breath. He didn’t have to go everywhere with her, pushing her wheelchair over the sidewalks of Copacabana like a long-suffering nurse.
He suppressed the thought. “Coming, Mother.”
He got his wallet and cell from the bedside table before leaving.
• • •
May the Lord accept the sacrifice at your hands, for the praise and glory of his name, for our good and the good of all His Holy Church.
Teo found Sunday mass an interesting ritual. The piety of some members of the congregation made him want to laugh: watery-eyed, lips murmuring in prayer, as if God could hear them.
He is among us.
There was also something surreal about it: those same people lived such debauched lives, wallowing in worldly pleasures, and then at the first sign of a problem raced off to pray for a redemption they didn’t deserve.
It is our duty and our salvation.
Sunday mass used to be torture for him. He’d attended catechism class as a child and had been confirmed—Patricia was very religious. For as long as he could remember, he’d resented the fact that you couldn’t question the dogmas of faith.
May your Son remain among us!
But he’d quickly realized that it wasn’t a Catholic’s duty to debate; rather, it was to accept and memorize, as children learn their times tables, and he’d learned to put those sixty minutes to better use.
Send your Holy Spirit!
He knew every line in the prayer book by heart. The congregation didn’t even pay attention to what they were saying. They chanted in unison.
Save us, savior of the world, for by your cross and resurrection you have set us free.
He chanted along with them, smiling at his mother from time to time, while his imagination roamed far from the noisy church. Mass and anatomy class were the moments when he felt most relaxed.
Receive, o Lord, our offerings!
That Sunday, however, his thoughts alighted on Clarice and refused to rise to loftier heights. During the homily, he remembered the previous day, the forward way she had approached him, the plate of sausages and meat, her provocative question: Teo, do you fuck?
May Your Spirit unite us as one body!
Memories depleted, he was beginning to imagine new conversations, scents, flavors. His time with Clarice would be much more special than that he’d shared with Gertrude.
Let us walk in love and joy!
He had an idea. It would have to be thought out carefully if it were to work. Nevertheless, it was already enough to lift his spirits.
Grant us, o Lord, eternal light!
By the end of mass, he had run through it three times in his mind and had it all worked out. Flawless. He knew how to get to Clarice.
Thanks be to God.
• • •
When they left the church, Patricia saw a friend she hadn’t seen in weeks. Teo excused himself, saying he had to study. He bought a phone card at a newsstand and found a phone booth in a square that wasn’t very busy. The inside of the booth was plastered with ads for prostitutes. Black stripes covering their eyes and nothing over their private parts. Velvet mouths and hot vaginas. Those were dirty women. Clarice was different: forward but sweet.
He dialed her number. She answered on the second ring.
Teo hung up. He had to breathe deeply before calling again.
She picked up quickly again.
“Good afternoon. May I speak to Clarice, please?” he said, faking a São Paulo accent.
“Speaking. Who is it?”
“Good afternoon, Clarice. I’m from the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics. Your name is in our system. Could you confirm your surname, please?”
“Manhães.”
“Great, thank you. How old are you?”
“Twenty-four.”
He was surprised that she was two years older than him.
“Please hold while I update our records.”
A bus sped down the street, honking at a car pulling out of a parking spot. He covered the mouthpiece.
“Thank you for waiting. We’re conducting a survey of university students. You attend a university, don’t you?”
“Yes.” There was a hint of impatience in her reply.
“Could you tell me what you study and where?”
“Art history, at RJSU.”
“Is that Rio de Janeiro State University, ma’am?”
“As far as I know, that’s RJSU.”
“What time of day do your classes start?”
“Seven a.m.”
“And are you satisfied with your program?”
“They’ll sue me if I say what I really think of that hellhole.”
“What year are you in?”
“Hey, do you want to know my birth date, mother’s maiden name, and the color of my panties too?”
Teo began to feel pins and needles in his hands. “Of course not, this is the last question. What year are you in?”
“Third.”
“The institute thanks you for taking part in our survey.”
She hung up without answering.
Teo put the phone back on the hook and turned over the information in his mind. A smile spread across his face.
Sunday dragged on. Teo didn’t like Sundays. He wasn’t tired, so he researched Clarice on the Internet for hours. He discovered that she’d placed first in the art history entrance exam, with a high enough score to get into the most competitive courses. He also saw that she’d placed well in other entrance exams, always appearing at the top of the lists. He found a blog on astrology where she’d left some comments. On the social networks, the name Clarice Manhães brought up a hideous-looking woman who obviously wasn’t her.
Before going to bed, Teo set his alarm for early the next day. At seven a.m., he’d be at the School of Art History.
• • •
The black Vectra was a remnant of the Avelar family’s former prestige, from the days when they’d lived in the penthouse in Copacabana. Despite all her cuts in spending, Patricia had gone out of her way to keep the car.
Teo arrived at the university at six-thirty. The art history department was deserted. He pulled the hood of his jacket over his head. Although it was spring, there was an icy draft running through the silent corridors.
“Where can I find the third-year students?” he asked a cleaner. The man didn’t know.
He sat on a bench in the foyer, watching the students come and go. He’d brought a book by Dürrenmatt but was so nervous he couldn’t find any meaning in the words. He read and reread the first page, but it was useless. Pretty girls went past, exotic hair, fair skin, holding laptops, but there was no sign of Clarice.
At nine, Teo went to the office to ask for information. The ill-tempered woman at the desk snapped that it was the end of the semester, they might already be on vacation, and she had no way of knowing.
He returned to the foyer, clinging to the railing of the hazy staircase that connected him to Clarice. He couldn’t see the steps in front of him; the climb was treacherous. It occurred to him to give up and go back to his books and bodies. If Clarice had wanted him around, she’d have found a way to make it happen. She was the kind of girl who always got what she wanted.
His defeat was confirmed by a girl with bulging eyes. “The third-years are finished for the semester. I’m a fourth-year, but I have some classes with them. The fourth-years are finished too. I just came to get my results. I have no idea who Clarice is.”
Teo thanked her impatiently. The idiot didn’t know who Clarice was. How absurd. He headed down the ramp in front of the university thinking that people were unaware of the best things around them.
He was already halfway back to the parking lot when he saw Clarice walk past, talking to a friend. Once the surprise passed, he followed her. He took the coincidence as a sign that he was on the right path, which made him feel strong and powerful. Clarice and her friend went into the office.
Outside, gray clouds were competing with the sun for the sky. Clarice left the office quickly, laughing at something her friend had said. Teo envied the other girl for whatever she had said that was so funny. He didn’t know what made Clarice laugh. Maybe he was better off with Gertrude and her silence.
The girls walked down the ramp. Clarice was wearing a moss-green cardigan over a colorfully striped blouse, and she lit up a menthol cigarette, which she smoked until she got to the metro. She already had a ticket. Teo bought one for himself just in time to find them on the platform. He entered the same carriage, the next door down. A multitude of faces got on and off at each station, but Clarice was indifferent to everyone else, with eyes and smiles only for her friend.
They got off in Botafogo and took a bus toward Jardim Botânico.
Teo hailed a taxi and, enjoying the feeling of being in a film, said, “Follow that bus.”
The journey continued as far as Lage Park, where the girls got off, still engaged in lively conversation. Teo paid the taxi driver and didn’t wait for the change.
• • •
Oblivious to the rain that was threatening to fall, dirty children raced through the park. Uniformed nannies sat on benches gossiping and flirting with the men who jogged past. Elderly couples strolled along hand in hand. A group of young people sitting in a circle were improvising a picnic. Clarice and her friend were graciously included in the scene. They pulled semiprofessional cameras out of their backpacks and began to photograph blue flowers and imperial palms. They took photos of each other taking photos.
Clarice put away her camera and put on some pearl earrings. She smiled at the lens, a nineteenth-century lady, struck poses in the garden and beside the pond, bent to smell flowers, and swanned up and down the stairs in front of the old manor in the middle of the park. She had the eyes of a lioness.
Lit by the sun, Clarice examined the photos with her friend. She hooted with laughter at some and asked her friend to delete others.
Teo wanted to see them, to have them for himself, including those that had been summarily deleted. From a distant tree, he also photographed Clarice, but with his eyes, saving the images in his memory between one click and another.
The two friends ate an apple at dusk. Ten hours had passed without him noticing: he hadn’t even ha
d lunch! Clarice said good-bye to her friend and lit a menthol cigarette. She climbed steep streets, turned corners, and crossed intersections. She walked lightly, a petite girl swallowed by the crowd. She turned onto a short street, took a key out of her bag, and opened the door of a house surrounded by a high stone wall. Teo waited a few more minutes and wrote down the address.
• • •
He caught a taxi to the university to get the car from the parking lot. At home, he greeted his mother with an agitated kiss. He showered, shaved, dabbed on some cologne, and put on the best item in his wardrobe: a green polo shirt that sat well on his broad shoulders.
“You look nice. Where are you off to?” asked Patricia, returning to reality in the commercial break of her soap opera. She was stroking Samson, whose head was on her lap.
“To meet a girl. I’m taking the car.”
It was wonderful not to have to lie. He often made up promising stories about the girls he hooked up with in the back row of the cinema. How to explain that he hadn’t brought home a single girlfriend since his adolescence? How to explain that he preferred to watch European films alone? If he didn’t say he went out with girls, his mother might think something absurd, perhaps even going as far as to assume he was a homosexual. He didn’t relate to homosexuals. They were impure, motivated by sex. He’d rather be a hermit than gay.
Now he could tell the truth. There was no reason to lie to Patricia. Or even to himself. He wanted to be in the back row of the cinema with Clarice. She had kissed him at the barbecue. Why stop? He had become a hostage of that sneaky, stolen kiss. He wasn’t the invader but the invaded, and he didn’t want just to discover but to be discovered. He loved Clarice, he admitted to himself. He needed to be loved.
• • •
Teo was annoyed at the thought that he wasn’t going to see her that night. He’d been in the car for over two hours, watching the lights in the bedrooms, shadows moving back and forth behind the curtains.
Perfect Days Page 2