Chronicle of the Murdered House

by Lúcio Cardoso

  “Tell me, Betty. One day, I will have to be told everything.”

  Again, she averted her gaze, saying:

  “I can’t, André, I can’t.”

  “Why not?”

  Her voice became faint as a sigh:

  “I promised . . . I swore . . . a long time ago.”

  “Who did you swear to, Betty?”

  “To your father.”

  There was a pause, during which I tried in vain to catch her eye. Betty was driven more by duty and by the fact that she had sworn an oath than by a genuine feeling that she should not talk about the tumultuous memories filling her mind. I did not need to ask again, for she began then to speak, and her soft voice gradually unfolded before me the panorama I had so often dreamed about.

  She could no longer remember when it was exactly that my mother had left. One evening, she was sitting beside my cradle when my father came in, shutting the door behind him.

  “Ah, it’s you, Senhor Valdo!” she had said.

  He had grown very thin and he stood beside her in silence, staring down into the cradle. After a while, he had sighed and gestured to Betty to follow him:

  “I need to talk to you, Betty.”

  They had both left the room and, once in the hallway, he had pressed her against the wall. What he had to say was very serious and required all her attention. Betty nodded. Then, slightly awkwardly, he asked if she had heard about or even witnessed certain strange incidents that had taken place at the Chácara. Yes, she had, she said, and had been most surprised by some of what she had heard. Senhor Valdo placed one hand on her shoulder: that was precisely it. He needed her to swear, and to swear on whatever was most sacred to her, that she would never, ever, under any circumstances, mention to the child now sleeping in that room the name of the woman who had been his wife. He wanted the boy to know nothing about her, not even that she had existed. Betty had duly sworn by the thing most sacred to her—the memory of her mother. And she had never broken her oath: if she was doing so now—may her late mother forgive her—it was because André was no longer a child.

  When she finished this account, she turned to me, her eyes brimming with tears:

  “Do you understand now why I cannot possibly . . .”

  Yes, I understood, but the pain overwhelming me was no less intense for that. I moved away from the window and fell onto the bed. There was no point in trying to hide, in burying my face in the pillow: there they were, the same obsessive questions: Who was she, where was she, and what great sin had she committed? No one would answer me: outside, the sandy paths glittered in the moonlight. My one consolation was to think that, once, she might well have walked that path, not distracted or absent, but with a heart as heavy as mine.

  9th – Today I had one of the biggest surprises of my life. I was on the verandah, cleaning the barrel of a rifle, when my father came over to me.

  For reasons I had never attempted to understand, there had always been a certain awkwardness, a certain unease between us. He was not the most expansive of people and usually kept his distance, and for my part, I never liked him enough to make him my friend. I did as I was told and even satisfied some of his whims. In the matter of sports, for example, I took up whatever interests he advised, even though they went contrary to my true nature. I collected all the rifles and shotguns he gave me, but never fell in love with hunting. I accepted his gifts in order to please him, because as he always said, firstly, any boy born into the Meneses family had to practice a sport and, secondly, any normal adolescent should take part in some violent game if he wasn’t to turn into a spineless creature like Uncle Timóteo. However, the truth is that, although I became a reasonably good shot, I never really enjoyed hunting, much to my father’s disappointment.

  “It’s good to see you engaged on such manly tasks,” he said.

  “I like to keep it well oiled,” I answered, thinking that, as on so many other occasions, the conversation would end after that banal exchange. I was wrong though, because he stayed where he was and continued to watch me work, as if he found the task deeply interesting. Troubled by his continued presence, I removed the ramrod from the barrel and was about to put everything away, when he said:

  “Could you spare me a moment?”

  Only then did I realize that he had not come simply to watch me maintaining my rifle. I put it down on the edge of the verandah and looked at him: he seemed paler than usual. His usually frowning face betrayed some secret fear.

  “I have something very sad to tell you, my son,” he said with a sigh.

  He pointed to the wicker chairs and invited me to sit by his side. I obeyed and my heart began to pound in much the same way as certain atmospheric changes indicate an approaching storm. We sat down, and he stared into space for a moment, as if trying to dredge up some fact from his memory, or searching for a way to begin the conversation. We were sitting so close that our knees were almost touching, and I was able to examine him in detail, and he really did seem much older, with lines around his eyes. “My father,” I was thinking, searching my mind to see if, somewhere deep inside me, there was even a remnant of some tender feeling. I felt nothing, my heart was silent and indifferent. I certainly did not consider him to be a monster, but neither could I forget how I had been brought up, without any show of affection, and handed over entirely to Betty’s care. Ana, with whom I spoke one day, told me that I had not been born at the Chácara, and that she, on my father’s orders, had gone to Rio de Janeiro to fetch me. I found this odd and wanted to know more details, but, as if regretting that untimely confession, she immediately reverted to her usual mute state. So not even my birth had aroused his interest; he had not even been the one to bring me to the Chácara, and I was horrified now by those events that had shaped me—I don’t mean having been born far from here, but being brought back to the Chácara instead of being allowed to remain with my mother. Had he just realized this, was he hoping to make up for that deception, was this an attempt to get closer to me? I felt this would be a vain enterprise, and that even if he did make the effort, we would simply become still more alien to each other.

  “I see you’re planning another hunting trip,” he began, like someone finally determined to take the bull by the horns.

  “No, I’m not,” I said. “I was just cleaning this particular rifle.”

  “That’s a shame,” he said, “because you going off on a little hunting trip now would suit me perfectly.”

  “Why’s that?” I asked, studying his face in the hope of uncovering his real feelings.

  “Because . . .”

  He stopped, and I could see that he was waging an inner battle. For a while, he sat with eyes downcast, perhaps trying to find the right words to express his reasons—the reasons of a proud man, who never normally had to justify his preferences or desires.

  “Because it’s necessary, André, that’s all,” he said abruptly. “Don’t ask me why, because I can’t tell you right now, but I need you to stay away from the house for one or two days.”

  This was the first time he had ever spoken to me in that almost pleading tone. It was the first time, too, that I had seen him almost humbly admitting that his motives were not entirely fair. Then a flash of intuition lit up my mind, and it was so quick, so bright, that I sprang to my feet:

  “Is it her?” I asked.

  And then without waiting for a response:

  “It is, I’m sure of it. It’s to do with her.”

  He looked at me in amazement, and I feared for a moment that he might withdraw into his customary reserve. However, this time, he nodded slowly:

  “Yes, it is to do with her.”

  What other words did we need, what other possible explanations or explications could there be? A sudden feeling of serenity took hold of me, and I said:

  “Then I won’t go, Father, I won’t go hunting.”

  He continued to study me as if he were thinking: “So that’s how it is, is it? She means that much to him.”—and he showed
no surprise at all. He, too, stood up and took a few steps about the verandah, his hands behind his back. The deep frown line between his eyebrows seemed to indicate that he was searching for some way of resolving the matter. Finally, he turned to where I stood waiting.

  “If you think I want to stop you from seeing her, you’re wrong. All I’m asking for is a little time.”

  “So she is coming, then?” and my voice died in my throat.

  “She is.”

  He hesitated, then went on.

  “I think she may even be coming back for good.”

  In that case, what did I care about a breathing space of two or three days, or even a month, when I had already waited all those years? And when I made as if to speak, unable to contain the throng of feelings inside me, he told me to say nothing, because he was going to explain everything. In fits and starts, struggling to find the right word and often failing, he said he had forgiven a past full of errors, and that she would soon be back home. He was worried about our first meeting because it would inevitably trigger all kinds of emotions, and she was, as he understood it, still very weak. This was why things needed to be handled very carefully. He said, too, that, according to the letter he had received, she was suffering from a grave illness, which is why he had agreed to forgive her. He wanted at least one day’s respite so that Nina—and when he spoke that name, his voice faltered—could readapt to the house and to the situation. If I was in agreement, then I should go off on a hunting trip that would last just long enough for her to settle in. He was counting on my good sense and understanding, to protect an already frail person from a succession of emotional shocks.

  That, at least, is what he said, but what did I care what he said? What did anything matter, as long as she was, at last, about to arrive? The time was approaching when all barriers would fall, all oaths be broken, and I could finally satisfy my curiosity—no, what am I saying, my passion. When we were alone, and that ineffable moment would surely come, I would tell her that I had known her for a long time and had always felt her presence around me. I had never been deceived by the silence of the others and knew that their thoughts were equally full of memories of her, and that the house itself, its stones and pillars, had only remained standing because she had once lived there. My father must have sensed the turmoil inside me, because his eyes were following the changing expressions on my face with a mixture of unease and astonishment.

  “Do you swear . . . swear that she will never again leave us?”

  He replied very simply, in a voice of total surrender:

  “I swear.”

  Then I didn’t mind leaving or even forgetting about her for a few hours, knowing that when I returned, she would be eternally there to quench my thirst for her presence.

  “Don’t worry, I will go hunting,” I said.

  He held out his hand:

  “Thank you.”

  He stood up, and I felt that he could not forgive the joy in my eyes, which despite myself, revealed an intensity of feeling that had sprung up in secret and spread its roots throughout my whole being.

  10th – I left at dawn, having said that I preferred to go alone and without a servant. When she heard this, Betty came out into the garden to tell me to be very careful with the gun and not to venture too far into the wilds. I promised her that I would not be going for a long ride, and then, without a backward glance, I spurred on my horse and rode off like a man in flight. I wanted to be alone with my own thoughts. Giving my horse free rein, I took the path that led to Fundão. At that early hour, the thicker vegetation still lay in shade, although here and there, the pools I passed were already glittering in the pale pink morning light. Above me, the sky was still dark, and Venus was guiding me with her silken blue glow. “This is the last time that planet will shine on me in her absence,” I thought. And this prompted me to take up the reins again and ride more quickly, as if that would make the time pass faster.

  Two or three huts emerged out of the mist and familiar voices greeted me. I had ridden by there so often and yet never before had I felt my heart beating as it did then, as if this were the first time I had noticed the harsh reality of country life, and it touched my heart. (Written in the margin of the diary: This all happened years ago, those huts no longer exist, and the valley is dry and barren. From this hill I can see the whole of Campo da Cruz Vazia; I peer through the mist—the mist at least hasn’t changed—looking for traces of the adolescent I was then and I feel nothing, hear nothing, see nothing, because my heart is no longer light, and not even the purity that once was mine can bring back the sweet music of that moment.)

  Riding on, I saw before me the trees laden with blossom and mistletoe, the white ginger lilies—and I imagined making a bouquet of all these things and placing it at her feet, as a homage from the countryside. She probably liked flowers, and so on some mornings, I would ride out, exploring the caves and the hillsides in search of rare specimens. Or else we would go together and she would ride ahead of me, while I, filled with pride, would glance at any passersby as if to say: “She’s my mother.”

  The parakeets and the saracuras would fly happily about and dazzle the woods with the flapping of their wings. The nightlife in the heart of the marshland would be abuzz with joy. And I would not raise my rifle against that life, not because I respected it, but because, since the arrival of my mother, nothing else mattered to me. I don’t know if this is how other people experience love, if they all feel like this about their mothers, but for me it was something unique and all-consuming, something that absorbed every ounce of warmth and will. And besides, what did I care about what others felt? As far as she was concerned, it was that thirst that had always driven me on, even if it was only now that I knew for sure it had not been in vain, that I had not squandered my love on a ghost. What did the others and their reasons matter?

  I felt full of energy, I knew that the world was waiting for me, my whole being was as alive and vibrant as if a clarion call were echoing through it. Nothing else existed, nothing else counted but my fever, and so I set my horse galloping ever faster along paths and tracks, over plains white with dew; in the distance, the tops of mountains were waking to the dawn, while everything inside me was dawning too, and the day was becoming ever brighter, slipping into my inner self—and I rode faster still, my horse drenched in sweat, its mane flying, and I felt sure there was little difference between my sun and the one lighting up the landscape.

  ....................................................................................................

  At last I saw her. It was already dark by the time I arrived home the following day. When I reached the garden, I could see through the tangle of foliage that the verandah light was on. A very dim light which was never usually lit, even on really important occasions. “It’s her,” I thought, advancing through the leaves as cautiously as a hunter following a trail. Farther on, I noticed that the main drawing room door stood open, although there seemed to be no one on the verandah. I crept up the steps and suddenly I saw her, she was lying, very still, in the hammock. She had her faced turned so that it rested on one of her arms and her eyes were closed, although it was clear that she was not asleep. I leaned against one of the pillars and stopped to look at her. She was not the creature I had imagined, she was paler, more languid, and much older than I had expected. At one point, she set the hammock swinging, moving her arm and letting her head loll back. Then, when the light fell on her throat and the curve of her breasts, emotion overwhelmed me. What strange sorrow pierced me? I tried to get a clearer look—and realized that the sudden feeling of pity rising up in me was provoked not by what was there before my eyes, but by the atmosphere surrounding her. She was a beautiful woman, of that there was no doubt, a woman who, above all, had been beautiful, and yet she appeared to be carrying a secret guilt, some stigma that seemed to forbid her human company. (Written in the margin of the diary: Only much later did I understand this; at that moment, she seemed like an island, complete and i
naccessible, swept by winds that were not of our world. She could get up, talk, and even laugh as others laughed, but some force separated her from other people and created around her a troubling field of light from which she was constantly reaching out to those who passed.) I drew back, my heart pounding. I had never seen such a solitary, needy creature, desperate for affection or for male attention. So powerful was this impression that, for a while, I could not move—meanwhile, the night, with its myriad stars, boomed around me.

  When I finally summoned up the courage to move, she started and opened her eyes and sat on the edge of the hammock. The atmosphere slowly dissipated, like a threat retreating into the shadows.

  “Who’s there?” she asked.

  I moved closer, not daring to respond. She came to meet me:

  “You’re André, aren’t you?”

  “Yes, I’m André.”

  “I knew it,” she said, and there was such certainty in her voice that I stared at her in astonishment.

  She gazed at me from out of her world, as if wanting to lessen the distance between us. And without another word, she took my hand and made me sit down beside her.

  21.

  André’s Diary (iv)

  10th – I spent the whole night awake, still under the influence of that first meeting. Leaning at the window, eyes wide open to the darkness, I was turning over, one by one, the words I had heard, remembering the sound of her voice, the light in her eyes, her gestures, all the elements, in short, that formed her presence. They were certainly not the words I had hoped to hear, nor those I had dreamed of hearing during the long years of waiting, but they were as full of warmth and tenderness and sympathy as I had imagined they would be. There was also a touch of inexplicable anxiety, and sometimes I even felt that she was having to make a real effort to surface and to utter the banal words essential to human relationships, as if some dense, magnetic force in the very depths of her nature were holding her back. I was the only person awake in the house, and I went over and over what she had said, which was really very little, a few simple words of affection, the occasional more personal question or fond observation. It was not what I had so anxiously been waiting for, and which seemed to fit the image forged by my imagination and gleaned from what other people had told me. No, but what did this matter given that she actually existed and had sat by my side, and I could touch her, as one can touch those things that are closest and most sensitive? The day might come when she would say the words I was hoping for; the moment might come when I could fully understand the mystery that was there in her consciousness. Until then, it was enough to know that she was only a few steps away from me. If I got up and went to her bedroom door and pressed my ear to it, I might even hear her breathing, and if I called, she would rush to my side, alarmed, smoothing back her disheveled hair with one hand. What more could an impassioned heart like mine desire?