“How?”
“Dead.”
I sat up then, the spell broken:
“What would be the point if we were dead?”
She drew me close again and placed her lips on mine, and in her urgent desire lay an invitation that was no longer expressed hesitantly, but decisively, brazenly, like a command. It was not just love she wanted, but fusion, annihilation. And I agreed to die, closing my eyes and hurling myself into the unknown, our bodies becoming one. Time ceased to pass, everything vanished into a frontierless world. I did occasionally recover consciousness and with it came doubt and fear. This, however, lasted only a second and, as I plunged back into the dark, I told myself that were it possible to cross the frontier that we each represent for each other, we had made that crossing.
37.
Valdo’s Statement
She stood before me, holding the letter, her hands trembling. My difficulty was explaining how I had happened to burst in on her, for she would never believe me, but it really had been pure chance. I was walking down the hallway when I heard a noise, not very loud at first, but rather like someone moving about between bits of furniture in an enclosed space. The door was locked, and I saw no immediate reason to try and force it. It was only when the noise was repeated, this time accompanied by another sound that seemed to me more like a groan—or a lament—that I decided to investigate. The door wasn’t locked after all, and the handle turned easily. I should explain that it was the door to a small room adjoining my bedroom, one that was never really used. My sister-in-law Ana used to go in there sometimes to store clothing or objects that were no longer needed, at least not immediately. Long ago, my mother had also set up a little shrine in there to Our Lady of Sorrows, and it had become the room’s centerpiece along with a prayer stool upholstered in threadbare velvet for those who wished to kneel. Some of her personal effects had also been stored there. Demétrio hadn’t allowed them to be distributed among the servants, and together they formed the accumulated stock of memories left behind after her death.
When I opened the door, I could not at first make out who was there, only the outline of someone leaning on the chest of drawers on which the shrine had been placed. On seeing the light coming in through the door, the figure turned toward me.
“Who is it?” the voice asked, and I realized it was Nina.
Had I known it was her, I swear I would never have gone in. But now, even if I’d wanted to, it would be hard to convince her that I had appeared there merely by chance, rather than with any firm intention. I considered withdrawing, but that would not have been straightforward either, for I was clearly silhouetted in the open doorway. Then, from where she stood at the back of the room, she immediately went on the attack:
“Oh, it’s you, is it? Why are you spying on me?”
Our relations had for some time been conducted on a level of scant cordiality. I had given up trying to understand her, convinced that there was no rational explanation for the way she behaved. I no longer cared what she did, and although I often found myself watching her every move, or trying to fathom the reason behind some gesture of hers, I now limited myself to trying to prevent any major dispute arising between us. And here, suddenly and inadvertently, I had walked right into one of those potentially inflammatory situations.
“You’re mistaken, Nina. I swear I hadn’t the faintest idea who was in here. I wouldn’t have come in if . . .”
She cut me short, and said in a voice edged with anger:
“If you hadn’t known it was me.”
She waited for me to defend myself or offer some sort of justification, but this seemed to me superfluous, convinced as I was that we would never manage to reach any kind of understanding. So I shrugged and concluded:
“Yes, it’s me. What of it?”
As always, her attitude was one of defiance. And yet, there was something about the situation that made me want to stay. On any other occasion, if my presence really had been undesirable, she would have left the room, slamming the door or whatever. Now, despite her words and the irritated tone in which she said them, there was a certain humility in her voice, perceptible only to someone who knew her intimately: a slight fissure, the hint of stealth and desperation of someone straining to hide a secret that was no longer within her control. Or to put it another way, the Nina I had burst in upon was not the Nina who had slowly been revealed to us here at the Chácara, but the other one, the younger Nina, the one who had seemed so in need of my protection when I saw her in the street that very first time. I know, I know: for me to remember these things with such clarity must mean that I still loved her—this Nina or the other Nina, it scarcely matters. But, even if I live to be a hundred, and learn to hold my tongue and control my feelings, I cannot imagine ever meeting another woman who could make such an impression on me. For me she was not some passing love affair; she was the real thing.
“You’re wrong, Nina. But now that I’m here . . .”
“You won’t leave. Is that it?”
“Not at least before finding out what it is that’s troubling you.”
No sooner had I said these words than I heard the rustle of crumpled paper and saw her quickly concealing the letter beneath her clothes. Then, in the darkness, she moved toward me.
“What do you mean by that?”
I felt her hands touching me. And I took them and held them fast in mine.
“You’re crying, Nina. Why?”
I could feel her shaking and trying to pull away: no, she wasn’t going to succumb to my pity this time. But I made her stay, trying to give more warmth to my words:
“Why don’t you trust me?” I asked. Then, daring for the first time to address the matter directly, advancing into territory where her possible weakness was my only guarantee of safe passage, I added: “Is this why you came back? Ah, Nina, it would have been far better if you hadn’t come looking for me again.”
I realized, with a renewed sense of surprise, that my words did not anger her; she did not try to escape, or indeed react in any way at all. Her cold hands stayed pressed between mine. I think it was this acceptance, real or not, that encouraged me to go further—I felt the ice melting between us, and the first stirrings of a sense of trust that had long been lost. At the same time, superimposing themselves on the sad reality of our everyday lives came a flood of images, wistful possibilities and past conquests. I liked to consider myself a mature man, immune to such waves of hope and optimism. However, clasping her to me, I exclaimed:
“We could have been so happy, Nina!”
Even now, her silence had an air of complicity about it. As I embraced her, however, I heard the rustle of the crumpled letter and was immediately plucked from my reverie and deposited back in harsh reality. Who was it from? Why had she hidden it? The post was usually left on the dining table, from where everyone collected the letters addressed to them. But I hadn’t seen that letter arrive, nor who had left it on the table. For a second, I hesitated to ask, not wanting to ruin that moment of unexpected closeness. But curiosity and my latent jealousy got the better of me:
“What’s that letter? Who’s it from?”
She slowly detached herself from me and, once again, her reaction was not what I expected.
“Valdo, I need to talk to you. But we should go somewhere else. I don’t feel comfortable in this cramped room.”
Whatever it was, I realized we had reached a decisive moment. There was about her a calmness, a weariness, a vulnerability, none of which seemed to me to bode well. Various thoughts rushed into my mind—things I had seen, others I had merely suspected, the occasional concrete fact—all overlaid with images of her and her many shifting expressions; her mysterious reaction on being discovered with the letter now took on a new, incriminating vitality in the light of what she had just said. I don’t know if it was Demétrio’s influence (he had, after all, been full of dire predictions right from the start), but to me the image of Nina was always linked to some disaster waiting to happen
—who knows when—but like all disasters, it would no doubt break upon us when we least expected. And so all my old fears flared up again, and I could see that evil—its name and shape as yet unknown—looming on the horizon.
We left the storeroom and went into the drawing room. At first, I said nothing, waiting for her to speak. For some time, we sat in silence, not an uneasy silence exactly, but one filled with that state of indecision peculiar to those afraid of broaching an important matter, and who merely succeed in increasing rather than diminishing the listener’s sense of foreboding. But soon enough she did begin to speak, in exactly the same tone I had heard in the storeroom: muted and hesitant, and full of that same uncertainty. Fear? Indecision? The more she talked, the more the problem revealed itself. She told me she was ill, possibly gravely ill. (Before I continue, I must confess that, initially, despite everything, I did not believe what she was saying. I remembered Betty saying a few days earlier that Nina had burned all her dresses. I thought it strange and went to the wardrobe, expecting Betty’s story to prove false. But no, it was true—the wardrobe really was empty. Now would a woman who was gravely ill be so concerned about her clothes? What could it mean other than that she wanted some new clothes?) But at the same time, as I listened and doubted, two important factors weighed in favor of what she was saying: first, her tone of voice and, second, the change in her physical appearance. So I tried to find out from her what this illness might be or what form it took. She paused for a moment, as if searching for the right answer. Then she asked if I couldn’t simply accept what she was saying, without her going into any detail. I said she was being cruel, and that she would succeed only in worrying me still more. “That’s not my intention,” she told me. “I just don’t know what exactly is wrong with me.” I came to the conclusion then that she merely suspected she was ill. I said that this was no reason to despair or, indeed, to weep in secret. At other times, in other circumstances, this remark of mine would only have irritated her. Now, in what I took to be a positive sign, she showed no strong feelings; indeed, she didn’t react in any way at all. She just shrugged slightly and said: “I’m so tired of everything.” But then why not tell me? Once again, mistrust seeped into my mind. She lacked for nothing, she had everything she desired, lived an easy, carefree existence. So why was she tired? Tired of what? The thought of some hidden, secret life ran through me like a shudder. I asked if she could be more specific, give me some facts about this hypothetical disease. She replied calmly that it was not hypothetical. I felt confused, and did not know what to think. It was she herself who came to my aid: if the worst did come to the worst, she asked me, what did it matter? It has a strange destiny, the truth. Listening to her speaking, I had the fleeting sense that she was not deceiving me. Something serious was going on. And yet I was so accustomed to her subterfuges that this feeling lasted no longer than a moment. I looked at her once again, and was sure she was lying. But there must be some purpose to what she was saying, some hidden objective? The best thing would be to control my impatience and wait for her to hit the target in her own good time. She began to speak again—and for the first time since we had sat down, I felt ashamed of the feelings I had entertained in the storeroom. What she told me was neither banal nor extraordinary—it was merely exactly what a liar would say, and one who believed utterly in the naïvety of the person she was speaking to. She lied, and because she couldn’t help it, for she believed utterly in my boundless love (she wouldn’t have been so bold if she hadn’t) and supposed it to be prey to all the usual weaknesses, even that of not believing and yet accepting the lie as a possible truth. She went too far, and painted a picture of her illness that seemed to me entirely unconvincing. She spoke vehemently rather than dramatically. And vehemence in that woman, at least in certain circumstances, was a rare thing. I could imagine her dead (or dying, which amounts to much the same thing), but I could never imagine her subject to the afflictions and sufferings of an illness. What she was saying—and even I don’t have the courage to remember all of it—demeaned her. And as she talked and as the words flowed freely, I paid less attention to the meaning of what she said and more to her presence, her proximity, her perfume. She was testing me, and watching her demean herself in her efforts to appear pathetic, I was wondering if I would still find her touch so very troubling. On that occasion, victory was still hers. I closed my eyes, not listening, simply aware of my whole body tensing up. It was at that point, possibly intuiting my feelings, that she said very calmly:
“I must go. I have to go.”
“Why?”
“I need to see a doctor in Rio.”
So there it was: we had reached the decisive moment. Once again, the same old thing: leave, face the world, forget . . .—and yet it astonished me. Ah, how persistently, how identically, suffering befalls us: as if pain were minutely catalogued and always afflicted us in exactly the same way. And it was so absolutely the same as before that I looked up, surprised to feel surprised.
“I never expected anything else,” I said. “I always knew your stay here was only a temporary solution.”
“Let’s spare each other the insults and recriminations,” she said quickly.
I smiled:
“And then? What else? The mistake we made was starting afresh, but you can be sure by now that I am resigned to anything.”
She seemed taken aback by what I said, and put her hand on my knee:
“I need you to believe me.”
“Why? Either way you’ll go, won’t you?”
“Yes, I will.”
We sat in silence. Then, as my desire for argument or revenge subsided, I asked when she would leave, and whether she wanted me to go with her. If she really was ill, why shouldn’t I accompany her? She might need someone by her side. She replied that she preferred to go alone, more than that, she needed me to let her go alone. Her insistence seemed to me to conceal an ulterior motive. I remembered the burned clothes and could not resist asking her why she had done such an odd thing. For the first time since the beginning of our conversation, I realized that I had succeeded in annoying her. “Oh, the clothes!” she exclaimed, and by her tone it was clear she considered the incident completely devoid of any importance. Nevertheless, as an explanation, she declared that the clothes were very old and out of fashion. “But why burn them?” I insisted. “You could have given them to the servants.” She stared at me defiantly and replied, somewhat maliciously, that her illness might be contagious. I said I didn’t believe her and she simply shrugged. She had her reasons for burning them, she said. Then in a softer voice: “They reminded me of a time I didn’t want to remember.” This explanation seemed to me more plausible. Finally, I asked if she intended buying more clothes on her trip to Rio. (This last question wasn’t entirely ingenuous; I was well aware that we had less and less money at our disposal, and that Demétrio, with his account ledger in hand, was forever noting down superfluous expenses and inventing excesses where economies could be made.) To this she replied abruptly: “No.” And there our discussion ended.
We had not in any practical sense come to an agreement, nor had I given my consent. But when I analyzed the situation, I understood that she would in any case act according to her own wishes, and interpret my silence as consent. We did not discuss the matter again, even though I was sure, in the days that followed, that she thought only of her departure. And so it was that one day she came to me and said:
“I’m leaving tomorrow, Valdo.”
I nodded, wondering what on earth I would say to my brother this time.
38.
André’s Diary (vii)
5th – That’s it: she’s gone. I didn’t see her when she left the house, but I ran to a bend in the road and hid behind a tree to watch. It was windy, a warm, sultry wind that brought with it from afar a vast quantity of dry leaves; the dark sky promised a storm that would probably never come. As soon as I heard the wheels of the buggy approaching, my heart began beating so hard I had to press my hands
to my chest. There she sat beside the driver; she was wearing a shawl that, strangely, concealed almost half her face. Dear God, how pale she was, more ghost than human. I couldn’t bear to look at her for very long; my eyes filled with tears, everything grew blurred and I covered my face with my hands. I could still hear the sound of the wheels, though, which gradually diminished, and the pain was as intense as if half of my own self were being torn from me, and the other half relegated to uncertainty and darkness where it would do nothing but weep. Because I was weeping, terrible sobs that shook my whole body. I understood then that the price of all human affection is cruel, irremediable pain; I told myself I didn’t care if my love were sinful or not, and that my sense of utter devastation was proof that my feelings were pure and real—as if I did not already know that all forms of love are a way of supplanting oneself. I wept, and yet those tears brought no relief. I slid to the ground and pressed my face to the trunk of the tree, my eyes closed. (While I tried to silence the tumult unleashed inside me, I searched in vain for silence; I could hear the trees buffeted by the wind, the cries of birds with nowhere to go, the murmur of a stream—and I was amazed that the world should contain so much noise.) I don’t know how long I stayed there, but when I opened my eyes, it was night and the stars were shining. Swift, black clouds were racing along, propelled by the wind. Never had stars shone so pointlessly. I got to my feet, my tears having dried, and began to walk—but it wasn’t me walking, I had no conscious will, and no inner force was driving me along, it was something outside myself, or a simple, uncontrollable animal impulse—or perhaps the same unknown impulse that makes wounded or dying animals head for water. Yes, the stars were shining, but it was as if the world no longer existed for me, and the things I saw around me were mere cardboard cutouts with no reality of their own. If you have never known sadness, then you cannot know what that emptiness is like, that absence from oneself, that stillness, which is not the same as peace, but, rather, the stillness of doomed places, which, despite everything, have yet to experience death.
Chronicle of the Murdered House Page 41