If I Close My Eyes Now

by Silvestre, Edney

  He fell silent when he realized the old man was muttering something under his breath. Eduardo kept quiet too.

  ‘In 1952,’ they heard him say in almost a whisper, still not looking in their direction, ‘the dentist must have been in his forties, well into them.’

  The lighted tip of the cigarette was close to his fingers. Eduardo was going to warn the old man, when he heard him say, in a slightly louder voice:

  ‘Anita … or Aparecida, was fifteen …’

  He stubbed the cigarette out with his shoe.

  ‘How old are you two?’

  ‘Twelve,’ Paulo said quickly.

  ‘I’m going to be thirteen,’ Eduardo boasted. ‘In ten months’ time.’

  ‘My birthday’s earlier. In January.’

  ‘Only a month earlier.’

  ‘Forty-eight days!’

  The old man stared at them. Or perhaps only in their general direction.

  ‘It doesn’t make sense.’

  ‘I’m not as tall, but I’m older,’ Paulo insisted. ‘And I’m going to grow. My brother’s almost one metre eighty tall. So is my father.’

  ‘However mercenary, however venal those nuns were …’ The white-haired old man went on muttering, as though talking to himself. ‘Even so, it doesn’t make sense.’

  ‘What are you talking about?’ asked Eduardo.

  The matchbox came out of the pocket again. The stub of the cigarette was placed inside it, and then the box went back into the jacket pocket.

  ‘How did the nuns at the orphanage allow a … a girl who was only fifteen to marry a man of almost fifty? I’ve never heard of anything so ridiculous, even in a Mexican melodrama.’

  ‘Perhaps the dentist was her father?’ Paulo suggested.

  ‘And he told the nuns the secret!’ Eduardo elaborated on his friend’s fantasy. ‘And they got married so that she could inherit his fortune.’

  The old man stood up and walked off towards the bandstand.

  ‘A man who’s a bachelor until well into his forties,’ he murmured, ‘suddenly marries a girl of fifteen …’

  The two boys followed him. They embarked on a whirl of extravagant theories.

  ‘Dr Andrade was in love with her mother, but she died …’ said Eduardo.

  ‘… he lived with her for ten years, she betrayed him constantly, but that didn’t bother him …’

  ‘The dentist killed her mother.’ Now it was Paulo’s turn. ‘No! He killed her father! Then, out of remorse, he married the daughter!’

  ‘… and he paid no attention to the gossip going all round the city …’

  Paulo had a new hypothesis:

  ‘Her father was a Nazi!’

  Eduardo joined in:

  ‘And her mother died in a concentration camp!’

  ‘… ignoring the malicious comments whispered by the sanctimonious faithful when they went arm in arm to mass on Sundays …’

  ‘She was the daughter of a nun and a priest!’ Paulo fantasized.

  ‘… pretending not to see the lascivious looks when he crossed this square with her, out for their Sunday promenade …’

  ‘She was his youngest sister!’ suggested Eduardo.

  ‘… sleeping alone at night in his single bed …’

  ‘The nuns! It was the nuns who killed her!’ Paulo crowed.

  ‘… while she was out with other men. Always much older men.’

  ‘She was the lover of the priest who was the nuns’ lover too!’ said Eduardo.

  By now they were inside the bandstand. The boys were walking round in circles with the old man. He came to a halt, and they looked at him expectantly.

  ‘I don’t know about the priest. But my friends in the bar told me she went with the mayor. And with the textile factory owner. With the estate owners. With all the city’s powerful men. And always, always, with men much older than she was. As if they were passing her from hand to hand. Did you see everything there was in the drawers at the dentist’s house?’

  Eduardo wasn’t sure, but he thought they had.

  ‘Did you go to the maid’s room?’

  Paulo said there wasn’t one, and that the couple didn’t have any domestic help.

  ‘Did you take anything? Any jewellery?’

  ‘We’re not thieves!’

  ‘I didn’t find any,’ the old man went on, ignoring Paulo’s protest. ‘Nothing. No rings, bracelets, not even a medallion. I’ve been told she never wore any. Only her wedding ring. How is it that the wife of an important man doesn’t wear jewellery? A necklace, earrings, even a brooch. And they didn’t have a maid?’

  ‘Perhaps the husband was stingy?’ Eduardo suggested.

  ‘Tight-fisted!’ Paulo concluded.

  ‘A miser!’

  ‘Possibly. Even so …’

  The old man did not finish his sentence. His eyes roamed over the empty square. The shadows engulfed the outlines of the ancient trees, framing them like a dark bell-jar, as if the world beyond did not exist. Eventually he asked:

  ‘Did none of those rich men ever give her anything?’

  Neither Paulo nor Eduardo knew what to say. Or even if the old man expected them to reply. Only adults were familiar with the world of degradation and rewards he was talking of. Then another question occurred to Paulo. He asked the white-haired man: what if she didn’t want to own anything?

  5

  The People Out There

  HE COULD SEE the outline of young breasts, some of them just starting to bud, nestling in brassieres. A glimpse of backs, a flash of arms. Bare feet pulling on white socks and canvas pumps. Navy-blue uniform skirts being taken off, white gym skirts being put on. The smooth skin of pink or tanned thighs, some of them freckled.

  But it was as though he wasn’t really seeing any of this. He didn’t even feel the thrill of transgression. Why not, if he was enjoying a sight the other boys didn’t have? Wasn’t this a pleasure only he and Eduardo shared after discovering this secret place? Weren’t they in the forbidden tower again? Hadn’t they managed to climb on to the school roof without being seen, among all its rat droppings, dust, bits of cloth, electric cables and building debris. Wasn’t the girls’ changing room down below? Weren’t they spying on them through the grating of the ventilation shaft? And yet. And yet. He wasn’t really there. He could see girls. Young girls. But he was thinking about a woman. Her. Anita. Aparecida.

  Without saying a word, he turned to his friend, who was staring downwards. He wanted to tell him what was going through his mind, but couldn’t really explain. He remained quiet, until he heard Eduardo whispering to him. Eduardo was still peering at the changing room. Paulo thought he must have been mistaken, and his thoughts returned to Anita. Aparecida. Then again he heard Eduardo asking him something. Paulo wasn’t sure what he had said.

  ‘If I was what?’

  ‘Poor.’

  ‘But I am poor.’

  ‘No, Paulo, I mean really poor,’ said Eduardo, his eyes still on the activity down below. ‘With no home. No father, no mother, nothing to eat, no—’

  ‘But I’m going to be rich. I’m going to study, go to university and become a famous scientist. I’ve already told you that.’

  ‘You told me you were going to be a writer.’

  ‘And a scientist.’

  ‘But if you were poor: if you were a really poor girl …’

  ‘White or black?’

  ‘What difference does it make? Poor is poor. It’s the same for everyone.’

  ‘No it isn’t, Eduardo. It’s much worse if the girl is black. A white girl could be adopted, live with a family, go to school and all the rest. A black girl is going to live and die in an orphanage.’

  ‘But Anita was white, and no one adopted her.’

  ‘Look down there. Do you see any black girls?’

  ‘No, but …’

  ‘How many black friends do you have?’

  ‘You don’t have any either!’

  ‘My father doesn’t have any black fr
iends. Does yours? Does your mother have any black customers? None of my brother’s friends are black. There’s only one black girl in our class.’

  ‘Are you a racist?’

  ‘Why do you say that?’

  ‘Because of the way you’re talking …’

  The last girls left the changing room. Eduardo and Paulo sneaked down from their hiding place. They soon returned to their discussion.

  ‘It’s true though, isn’t it, Eduardo? The teachers are white. The inspectors are white. The headmaster is white. The mayor is white, so is the police chief. The priest is white …’

  They went down the corridor to the sports yard. They could hear the PE teacher shouting, giving instructions. They headed for the boys’ changing room: Paulo pulled off his tie and lifted his shirt out of his trousers, balancing books and notebooks in his other hand.

  ‘If you were a woman married to a rich man, wouldn’t you like to have jewels and—’ said Eduardo.

  ‘The dentist isn’t rich.’

  ‘He’s not poor either. He’s got that house, he has antique furniture and those statues, he’s got pictures, and his consulting room …’

  ‘But he doesn’t have a maid.’

  ‘And isn’t that strange? A man in his position, a dentist, a friend of all the other leading figures in the city? And with that big house that must have belonged to some rich ancestor, stuffed with all the things we saw? Why no maid? To allow your own wife to cook, wash, iron …’

  ‘I doubt if she did the washing.’

  ‘I bet she did, Paulo.’

  ‘Not washing the clothes.’

  ‘All right then, so she had a washerwoman who went there to wash the clothes for her, and iron them. But she had to look after the house.’

  ‘All women look after their houses.’

  ‘All women have help. It’s only if they’re very poor that they don’t. My mother has someone who comes twice a week.’

  ‘And they know everything that goes on in the house.’

  Eduardo paused, thinking he had made a great discovery. Paulo went into the changing room on his own. He dived into the chaos of a couple of dozen sweaty, noisy boys who had just come in from a game of football. They were too busy shouting opinions and insults to notice the arrival of a dark-haired boy with crumpled clothes, or of another skinny, pale-faced one a few moments later.

  ‘What did they get up to that they didn’t want even a maid to know?’ Eduardo wondered.

  ‘Black magic. Spells with the teeth he pulled.’

  ‘If you were the lover of rich men …’ Eduardo went on, ignoring Paulo’s suggestion, ‘wouldn’t you ask them for things?’

  ‘Money?’

  ‘No, not money. Presents.’

  ‘What kind of presents?’

  ‘The old man mentioned jewels. Rich men give their lovers jewels.’

  ‘She didn’t have any. We talked about that yesterday, remember?’

  A new group burst into the changing room: a volleyball team. Some were laughing, others pushing and shoving, all of them shouting. They were pleased they had just won their game. Eduardo was tying his running shoes when a big, tall boy almost knocked him over on his way to the showers. The boy didn’t even notice.

  Eduardo finished changing. Now he was wearing blue shorts and running shoes with a white T-shirt and stockings. He folded his other clothes and stowed them in one of the yellow Formica lockers lining the wall. He locked it, put the key band round his wrist. Paulo, who was wearing identical sports kit, threw his clothes into the bottom locker, but didn’t bother to lock it. As he was heading to the exit, Eduardo took him by the arm:

  ‘You say you’re poor …’

  ‘I am. You know that.’

  ‘But you want to be rich …’

  ‘Don’t you? Everybody does.’

  ‘That’s right! Can’t you see? That’s why we can’t understand Dona Anita.’

  ‘Aparecida.’

  ‘Dona Aparecida. Everyone wants to be rich, and yet she … She only went with rich people; she even changed her name – she changed it from a poor person’s to a rich woman’s name … she must have wanted to be like them. She must have wanted to have things of her own, nice things, things every woman wants. She was the lover of the factory owner, the mayor, of the …’

  ‘Rich people.’

  ‘So she ought to have wanted … things, shouldn’t she? She ought to have …’

  But yet again he couldn’t complete his reasoning. Yet again he came up against the brick wall of the adult world, behind which operated rules beyond his comprehension. They walked on in silence.

  ‘There are people who don’t want anything,’ said Paulo. ‘My father’s like that. He’s got no ambition, no desires, nothing.’

  ‘But he’s old. He’s at least forty.’

  ‘Forty-six.’

  ‘There’s no point wanting anything by the time you’re forty-six. You’re not going to change anything at that age. But the dentist’s wife was twenty-four. She wasn’t old yet. So why … ?’

  ‘Have you noticed that all we do is ask questions and more questions?’

  By now they were out in the corridor again, indistinguishable from the other boys in sports outfits pushing their way along to the yard. They mixed with their classmates. The girls were lined up in an orderly fashion, in pairs, threesomes, quartets. They were giggling or whispering in each other’s ears, while the boys glanced at them out of the corner of their eyes and gathered on the far side of the yard. The PE teacher’s assistant soon came to organize them in groups according to how tall they were. This always annoyed Paulo, because he was inevitably put with younger boys.

  ‘We could go back to the scene of the crime and …’ said Eduardo. ‘And …’

  He couldn’t think how to finish his sentence.

  ‘Again?’

  ‘How about the dentist’s house then?’

  ‘Once more?’

  ‘The orphanage?’

  ‘What for?’

  ‘To find a lead.’

  ‘What lead?’

  ‘That’s where she was brought up.’

  ‘That’s not a lead. She was a child. She was still called Aparecida. The blonde woman the rich men knew was born later. And besides, they wouldn’t let us in.’

  ‘Perhaps we could go back to the municipal archive. Maybe there’s some secret document about the dentist?’

  ‘If it’s secret, how are we going to know it exists?’

  ‘We could look.’

  ‘In which bit of the archive?’

  ‘In the … in the …’

  ‘In the what?’

  No argument could outweigh Paulo’s annoyance at the sight of their younger classmates lining up spontaneously like a trained flock of sheep.

  A burly adult in a tracksuit came out of the corridor and trotted over to them. Everyone fell silent.

  ‘What if our old man …’ Eduardo started to say, when he saw the assistant coming over. He had to be quick, before he and Paulo were separated. ‘Have you taken your first communion?’

  Paulo didn’t understand.

  ‘First communion, catechism, religious studies? Do you know Father Basilio, the one from that little church near your house?’

  Lined up with the smallest pupils, Paulo had to keep his eyes to the front, as all the boys in the line were doing. He couldn’t be sure, but he thought he heard Eduardo whisper something more about that ridiculous question concerning catechism classes.

  The nun took two glasses from the tray with the liqueur bottles, filled them with the golden, sticky liquid, and brought them over to the armchair where the white-haired man was seated.

  ‘Rose liqueur,’ she explained, holding out one of the glasses. ‘Prepared by our sisters here in the orphanage.’

  He hesitated. Do priests drink? Could he accept it?

  ‘You’ll like it,’ she insisted, without being sure exactly which direction his eyes were pointing in. ‘It’s very smooth.’


  The cassock was uncomfortable. The coarse material was itchy, and made him sweat. There was not much furniture in the director of the Santa Rita de Cássia orphanage’s windowless office. Faded paint was flaking off the walls. There were four battered metal filing cabinets with patches of rust on them.

  ‘We depend on donations,’ said the nun, noticing him gazing erratically around the room. ‘As you can see, there haven’t been that many.’

  ‘I wasn’t …’

  ‘Everything has become very expensive since they built Brasilia. The inflation in recent years has hit us badly. In hard times, charity is the first thing people cut back on.’

  She brought the glass closer to him.

  ‘It has a very delicate flavour, Father …’

  ‘Basilio!’ he quickly added, using the name of the priest whose cassock Paulo and Eduardo had stolen.

  He took the glass, sipped the liquid.

  ‘Father Basilio da Gama. As I was saying, I was her confessor. Dona Anita’s, that is.’

  The bloom of youth and health on her black skin was emphasized by the starched white bandeau round her face. She was still standing next to him.

  ‘I never knew the lady. Anita. Or Aparecida. That’s her name in our files. As you perhaps were aware. Were you? I imagine so. I never saw her. I don’t know many people in the city. Not yet. I’ve only been director here for five months. I came from Andrelândia: do you know it? It’s about three hundred kilometres from here, in the state of Minas Gerais. I know few people here. I go out very little. We go out very little. Our work is inside the orphanage.’

  ‘So you don’t know anything about her?’

  The liqueur was sweet, cloying. He drank it down in one gulp: it was easier that way.

  ‘On the contrary. I think I know a lot. Would you like a little more?’

  Without waiting for a reply, she took his glass and walked over to the drinks tray. She filled it, and brought it to him. She had not touched her own.

  ‘As her confessor, you must have heard of the … In confession that lady must have told you the … hmm … let’s say the … most physical part of the life she led. The carnal aspect. I’m not judging, Father Basilio. Let’s be clear. I’m not doing that. That’s not for me to do. And I wouldn’t do so. No, absolutely not. Besides, I never even saw her.’