A red Corsa pulled up in front of the house and honked twice. Clarice appeared at the door, enchanting in a black dress. The driver got out to greet her. He looked to be in his late twenties, almost thirty. His large rectangular glasses and formal black clothes made him look older. Clarice gave him a peck on the cheek and got into the car.
A few minutes later they were in the district of Lapa. The man got out of the car with a large backpack and walked into the Cecília Meireles Concert Hall holding Clarice’s hand. A flyer on the door announced that night’s program: Young Brazilian Symphony Orchestra—Concerts of Youth. That night they were going to play Antonin Dvorˇák’s Symphony no. 9.
Teo didn’t want to stay for the performance. The image of the orchestra with their serious faces, violins and cellos poised and ready, irritated him. Nor did he want to see Clarice kissing another man. The hand-holding had already been offensive enough.
He ended up buying a ticket. Among the heads of women’s hair, he managed to identify her, sitting next to the girlfriend she’d been with earlier. The man was nowhere to be seen. When the concert began, Teo spotted him in the middle of the orchestra, with his rectangular glasses, playing a reddish-colored violin. Overwhelmed by a strong feeling of antagonism, Teo barely paid attention to the music. An ant wandered over the back of the seat in front of him before his thumb crushed it.
Afterward the three young people went to a nearby bar, where they ordered pizza and beer. Fueled by the bottles on the table, they seemed to have no end of things to talk about. Clarice drank excessively for a woman. The clock showed three a.m. when the man left the table. He walked over to his car, tensely polishing his glasses on his shirt, then slammed the door and drove off. Teo craned his neck to try to see what was going on. The girlfriend was still sitting at the table, drinking and talking to herself. Clarice had gone outside, where she lit a cigarette and stood, arms folded, smoking with brutish movements.
Teo wanted to approach her, but it didn’t seem like the right moment.
Clarice flicked her cigarette butt into the gutter and went back inside. She ordered shots of tequila, which were quickly downed with lime and salt. A few hours later she and her friend paid the bill.
They left the bar with their arms draped around each other’s shoulders, tripping along the irregular sidewalks of Lapa. Clarice hooted with laughter, leaning on her friend, who looked a little more sober. They talked loudly, unafraid of the poorly lit streets. He followed them in the car with the headlights off. Two empty taxis went past, but they didn’t try to flag one.
On a deserted street corner, Clarice and her friend exchanged caresses, which led to breathless kisses, mussed-up hair, and shoes kicked off. They kissed and laughed, mouths thirsty for pleasure. The friend ran her tongue across Clarice’s skin, tasting her fair skin and discreet freckles. Clarice opened her mouth and dug her colorful fingernails into the friend’s thighs as the friend nibbled her neck.
Teo’s first reaction was to close his eyes. How could she? He wanted to jump out of the car, stop them somehow. Didn’t she know when enough was enough?
When a couple turned the corner, Clarice pulled back but continued to stroke her friend’s hair. A taxi drove past, and the friend—now Teo found it hard to call her that—signaled for it to stop. She gave Clarice a noisy smack on the lips and waved at her through the window before the taxi drove off.
Clarice couldn’t even walk in a straight line. A car sped past honking as she was crossing a street, and she came to her senses just in time to throw herself onto the sidewalk, cursing at the driver. She picked herself up with difficulty, blood trickling from a grazed knee. She took another few steps and fell again. She found a dark corner, the doorstep of an old house, and fell asleep right there and then.
Teo approached her in silence, not wanting to scare her. He took her arm and stroked her hair to wake her up.
Clarice half opened her eyes. “What?”
“Let’s go. Come with me.”
“What?”
“You’re sleeping in the street. Come with me—I’ll take you home.”
She accepted, allowing him to support her full weight. He helped her into the Vectra and she leaned her head back. The smell of alcohol flooded the car.
“What’re you doing here?” she asked, her words all scrambled.
Teo thought of an answer, but Clarice went back to sleep, eyes moving rapidly as if in a nightmare. Who was she dreaming about?
• • •
He parked in front of her house. A few people were already waking up for work that Tuesday morning. The light was tenuous and fresh. The clock on the dashboard read five-thirty a.m. He found a bunch of keys in her bag and woke her up.
“Which one is the right key?”
“That one.”
“Let’s go. I’ll help you.”
He got out of the car.
“Watch your step.” He held her by the forearm and caught a whiff of her perfume suffocated by the alcohol. There was some barking on the other side of the stone wall, but the fact that it didn’t come any nearer made Teo conclude that the dogs were locked up. He turned the key and walked in.
Clarice was incapable of walking without falling. She moaned when he turned on the light. Her hair was disheveled, her dress, rumpled. Teo helped her lie down on the sofa in the living room. The room was enormous, with a wooden dining table and furniture, shelves and shelves of legal books and a very large TV.
“Where’s the kitchen?”
Clarice closed her eyes, wrapped in the throw blanket on the sofa.
“Who are you? What are you doing here?”
The woman who had just walked into the room was tall, slim, and somewhat desperate looking. She was wearing a burgundy robe.
“I’m just trying to help . . .” said Teo. “She isn’t well.”
The woman sat down on the sofa. She stroked Clarice’s forehead, feeling her temperature. “Well, she’s drunk, that’s for sure. What’ve you done with my daughter?”
“I didn’t do anything. I didn’t even drink. I found her in the street, by chance. Where’s the kitchen?”
“Why do you want to know?”
“We should give her something sweet.”
Clarice’s mother eyed him suspiciously. She patted her daughter’s cheeks, but she was unresponsive. “She’s in a terrible state. It might be an alcoholic coma.”
“It’ll help if she ingests some glucose.”
“Are you a doctor, by any chance?”
“Medical student.”
“What’s your name?”
“Teo.”
“I’m Helena, her mother. You can go now. I’ll take care of this.”
Helena took Clarice by the arm, lifting her up.
“If you need it, I can help.”
“That won’t be necessary. Thank you.”
“I know Clarice.”
Helena stopped and stared at him. “Oh, so you two are friends?”
“We’re . . .” He struggled to find the right word.
“He’s my boyfriend, Mum,” slurred Clarice.
Teo doubted his ears, and Helena repeated, “Boyfriend?”
“My new boyfriend. Talk tomorrow, Teo,” she said, and he was pleased that she knew his name. “Thanks for everything.”
Helena and Clarice disappeared down the corridor.
Later, lying in bed, Teo couldn’t sleep. He’s my boyfriend, Mum . . .
What did she mean by that? Clarice was fragile. She drank too much and did things she shouldn’t. How else to explain the scene with her friend? Did she know he’d seen it all?
Now that he thought about it, he was certain it was the friend who had taken the initiative: she’d taken advantage of Clarice’s state to force herself on her, to steal kisses and embraces. He would never do such a thing. He preferred to win he
r over discreetly, with small gestures, showing her how they could be happy together.
Talk tomorrow, Teo . . .
4
Teo awoke to the sound of his cell ringing, but the line went dead when he answered it. He didn’t recognize the number and decided to wait for the person to call back. It was two o’clock in the afternoon, and he was in a good mood. There was a certain beauty in the colors of his bedroom. He found a note from his mother on the living room table. She asked why he had come home so late and said she was going to spend the day in Paquetá with Marli. If Teo got hungry, there was some ricotta lasagna in the fridge. He wasn’t hungry or thirsty or sleepy. The only thing he wanted was to see Clarice again.
He showered and left. There was no reason to worry about whether they were going to see each other: she’d said herself that they’d talk the next day. He thought the polite thing to do would be to buy her a gift, so he stopped off at a bookshop on the way there. The perfect book was in the window: a beautifully bound collection of short stories by Clarice Lispector. A five-hundred-page hardback edition. He paid and asked the attendant to gift-wrap it. Colorful wrapping paper, a nice bow, and a card.
He rang the doorbell. After checking his cologne and patting his wet hair, he put his hands behind his back, hiding the present.
It was Clarice who opened the door, looking fascinating in a billowy, comfortable nightgown. She didn’t seem at all displeased to see him. “Hi, Teo. Come in.”
Lying around the living room were piles of clothes. Two pink Samsonite suitcases with wheels were open on the coffee table. Clarice moved some underwear off the sofa so he could sit down.
“How are you?”
“I’m fine. Thanks for the help,” she said. She was taking clothes out of the smaller suitcase and putting them into the bigger one, folding them at a leisurely pace.
“I was in the area and decided to stop by to say hi.”
“I’m glad you did. I wanted to thank you for yesterday.”
“It was nothing. I’m glad you’re okay.”
“With a massive headache, you mean.”
“Or that. It’ll be gone soon.”
Clarice bent down to pick up a coat, and Teo caught sight of the bandage on her grazed knee.
“Are you going away?” he asked.
“Today,” she said. “To focus on my screenplay. Me and my laptop. I want to finish it.”
“Where are you going?”
“Teresópolis. It’s my spiritual retreat, my place for introspection. In Rio we spend too much time, money, and energy on useless things.”
“When do you get back?”
“I don’t know. I think I’m going to stay for a while. Dad’s away on business, and my mother doesn’t have anyone else to nag. She won’t get off my case. I need some time away from people sometimes. And I’m on vacation from university. I’ll probably stay about three months.”
“What about Christmas?”
“I don’t know if I’ll be back for Christmas.”
“I thought we could go out for dinner tonight.”
“I’m going to take off as soon as I finish packing. Maybe when I get back.”
Clarice was slipping through his fingers.
“Will I also have to wait to read your screenplay?”
“My screenplay?” she smiled. “Do you really want to read it?”
“Of course.” She said she’d be back in a minute and headed down the corridor.
Teo didn’t know what to do. The disarray of the living room perturbed and interested him at the same time. He wanted to see Clarice’s room, to know everything about her life right away. Three months was too long.
“I haven’t finished yet. I got nothing done the last few days. But there’s enough there for you to get an idea,” she said when she returned, handing him a sheaf of pages stapled together.
“‘Perfect Days,’” he read.
“That’s the best I’ve been able to come up with so far. The argument is at the beginning, but I still haven’t written the synopsis. I have serious problems with synopses.”
“Want to improvise one for me?”
She narrowed her eyes and thought for a moment. She was beautiful.
“I already told you it’s a road movie, right? Amanda, Priscilla, and Carol. Three friends. Amanda’s just broken up with her boyfriend. Not the other two—they’ve always been single. They go on a trip to Teresópolis together. To the same hotel I’m going to write at. Dwarf Lake Farm Hotel. Heated chalets, fondue, and a lake with pedal boats. No cellphone reception. It’s wonderful there.”
“It sounds like it,” he said. “Go on.”
“Well, at the hotel they meet a foreigner, a Frenchman, and decide to travel with him to an island. They stop at different places along the way. And they have a few adventures, some romantic, some tragic. Anyway, you’re going to read it.”
“It sounds good.”
“I hope it is. I’m open to comments and suggestions. All criticism must be moderate,” she said with a laugh.
“I’ll read it and let you know what I think,” he said. Then, plucking up his courage, he asked, “Can I have your number?”
Clarice stopped packing. She sat on the coffee table, elbows resting on her knees, and looked at him.
“I thought you already had it.”
“Nope.”
“Are you sure you didn’t get it on Saturday?”
“I wouldn’t be asking for it if I had,” he said, trying not to sound gruff.
“You called me on Sunday. From the Institute of Geography and Statistics.”
All the beautiful things he wanted to say to her evaporated that very instant.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“I wasn’t born yesterday,” she said slowly, certain of what she was saying. “I got a weird phone call on Sunday. The man said he was from the institute. His voice and way of speaking were a lot like yours, and he asked me all kinds of questions. But you see, I called the number back later in the day, and an old man told me it was a phone booth in Copacabana.”
“I didn’t—”
“Interestingly enough, the institute had my phone number but didn’t have me in their system. They didn’t know my surname or my date of birth, because the guy asked how old I was. Besides which, I seriously doubt they conduct random surveys on Sundays. Someone tried to trick me and called just to get information about me. So my question is, what do you really want?”
“Clarice, I . . . swear I don’t know what you’re talking about. You must be confusing me with—”
“No, I’m not. You found me in Lapa in the middle of the night. Do you mean to say you just happened to be passing by there too?”
“It was a coincidence!”
“And without asking where I lived, you brought me home. You knew where I lived.”
“You told me your address when you got in the car. You were drunk! Do you think I guessed it?”
He didn’t know what else to say. Was it shame or self-loathing that he felt?
“You’ve been following me. You got my phone number at the barbecue. You called yourself from my cell.” She picked up her phone from the tangle of clothes. “Here it is. Ninety-eight, three, three, two, ninety, ninety. That’s your number. Want me to call it to be sure?”
“You wouldn’t do that—”
“I already did. I called you earlier today. You sounded sleepy. I recognized your voice right away. On Sunday, you called me with that cock-and-bull story and found out where I studied. On Monday you started following me and discovered where I lived. You followed me to Lapa last night. Look, I’m grateful to you for helping me. But don’t you think all this stalking’s a bit creepy?”
“I’m not stalking you. And I don’t know what phone call you’re talking about.”
&nbs
p; She smiled, shaking her head. She seemed so calm as she revealed how she’d caught him out. Clarice was the kind of woman who acted calm even when she was nervous.
“I’ll give you a kiss if you know my surname,” she said.
“Come again?”
“I said I’ll give you a kiss if you know my surname,” she repeated slyly. “And you have to agree, I never told you my surname. But you’re such a lucky guy, you might just get it right, hey?”
“You’d give someone a kiss just to prove you’re right?”
“I don’t want to prove anything. I just want to show you that the things you’ve done are a little insane. We barely know each other, Teo.”
He moistened his lips. Apologizing would be pathetic. Clarice despised him.
“You don’t have to explain,” she said. “I know sometimes people do things that don’t make much sense. But now you need to keep a distance. It isn’t cool. I understand you like me. If you must know, I like you too. You seem like a nice guy. But that’s not the way to get close to me. That’s what crazy people do. Mental institutions, and so on.”
“You’re right, Clarice. I’m really sorry.”
He stood, not knowing why. He didn’t want to leave.
“You’re really very smart,” he said. “Maybe that’s what drew me to you. In the state you were in, it’s amazing how much you remember.”
She went back to her packing, as if the matter were resolved. “I’ve got an excellent memory.”
“Then you remember what you told your mother. When she asked who I was, do you remember what you said?”
“I said you were my boyfriend.”
Teo got goose pimples when he heard her say it again. It felt real.
“So why did you say it?”
“For the hell of it. My mother’s a pain in the ass. She always complains about my boyfriends. That one smokes pot, that one doesn’t have any money, and that one smokes pot and doesn’t have any money. And I noticed she liked you: you have neat hair, you don’t stink or smoke. You study medicine, you’re polite, and you brought her drunk daughter home without her getting raped along the way. She liked you. So why not make the old girl happy?”
Perfect Days Page 3