He stared at me, perhaps trying to work out how to expose my flagrant lie.
“Ah, so you’re the husband,” he said simply, realizing that there was nothing now he could accuse me of. “In that case, what would you like to know?”
“Whether . . .” My voice trembled and I could go no further. I felt as though I was violating a secret, which, when all was said and done, did not belong to me.
It was this hesitation, however, that saved me: he could see from my evident emotion that if I wasn’t the husband, I was at least someone very close to her.
“Yes, her condition is untreatable,” he said (and he said this almost emphatically, almost proudly, as if he were praising a particularly fine painting). Then, with a despondent shrug, he added:
“It’s too late, alas.”
I hung my head, and a whirl of thoughts, memories and echoes raged within me: those long-ago evenings, the room where I used to play cards with her father and where I would so often torture him by not telling him what he was so desperate to hear, and all because of the passion which, day by day, was growing inside me. Then her, her face then, and now. But this lasted no more than a moment. The little bald man was still standing there, staring at me:
“Would you like a glass of water?” he asked.
“No, thank you.”
And in a final effort, I asked:
“Did you tell her everything?”
“There was no need. She already knew.”
“But . . . it’s so sudden,” I said, lacking the courage to ask the question directly.
He looked at me in surprise:
“Sudden? She’s been coming here for nearly two weeks.”
Two weeks! She had been in Rio for nearly two weeks and had only gotten in touch with me yesterday. What had she been doing all that time? Who had she been with? Ah, how vain are our efforts to penetrate the mysteries that surround certain people’s lives! We descend ever deeper into the bottomless pit of our discoveries. I went slowly down the stairs, leaning on the bannister. The street seemed extra bright, the people strange. What a bizarre and absurd thing life was. With a heavy heart I began walking aimlessly. My steps took me to the hotel where she said she was staying. Why shouldn’t I go up? There could be no more insults or reprisals. I asked the doorman. He said:
“Madame? She left last night.” (So just a few hours after she had been with me.) “And goodness, what a lot of luggage she had, sir!”
I thanked him and left. That’s how it was, and that’s how it would always be. What was the point of judging her? I accepted her as she was, for that is how I had loved her. And I sensed, painfully, that the previous evening was perhaps the last time I would ever see her. And indeed it was better like that, since I could then return her to the pedestal from which she should never have stepped down.
40.
Ana’s Fourth Confession
Here I am again. In this room where no noise enters, I am writing, as usual without knowing to whom, and what initially caused me such pain, now brings me a certain tranquility. I can say things better when I don’t know who I am talking to; there are no impediments, no obstacles, and what I remember emerges unadorned and undisguised.
It’s windy, and from here I can see the trees in the garden being ceaselessly buffeted about; and yet the weather is still dry and there are constant clouds of dust along the roads in the distance. So, nothing new, as if it were the repetition of a scene watched many times before. Old fragments of myself come together in a brief harmony, one with which I will quickly find fault. I, Ana Meneses, am a mere repetition of myself. There is nothing original about my jealousy—for how else can I describe the feeling that still wounds me—and nothing original about my loathing of all the others. I am monotonously like anyone else who may have suffered the same misfortunes. And so I get angry neither with the wind nor with the clouds of dust, because their indifference completes my landscape, they are part of me and of the despondency that shapes me. I will go on then, and I sense that other future moments, possibly identical, will come and superimpose themselves on this precise moment in which I am alive, holding this pen and putting my ideas in order so as to set them down on paper, and in which the same Ana, only different, will repeat these same words, which though mysterious to others, for me are filled with meaning. Let us be clear, and I will be brief now so as not to annoy any future reader: what I want to express is the terrible indifference of being alive, which, in a flash of lucidity, someone very sensibly described as a task for mediocrities.
I confess that I felt this most keenly on the day “she” left. It was as if I had been suddenly relegated to silence and abandon, to exile from any manifestation of life. They should not have done that to me, because the feeling that nourished me, whether negative or not, was as strong, as dominant, as friendship or any other enthusiasm of the heart. It was the one thing that kept me alive. But have I not already described all this in painful detail, have I not, in different circumstances, woven and rewoven my inner web? What’s left are the facts, and that is what I want I set down here, in a mechanical attempt to travel, yet again, the road that has just come to an end.
I was entirely unprepared, no one had said anything about her departure, and it caught me completely unawares. As has become more frequent of late, Demétrio had complained that morning of feeling unwell, saying he had slept badly and kept waking up in the night with a headache or unable to breathe; he then asked me to make him an herbal tea that was supposed to be good for the kidneys.
“How strong do you want it?” I asked.
“Not too strong,” he said, “and with as little sugar as possible.”
I took the bunch of herbs and was about to leave the room, thinking how everything in that family was a matter of habit—the tisane was the same one his late mother used to drink, and which he would go on drinking, even though it had been shown to be completely ineffectual—when I heard voices in the hallway outside the drawing room. This was so unusual that I turned and looked at my husband.
“What’s going on?” I asked.
He was reading a book or pretending to, and, looking distractedly up at me, said:
“Didn’t you know? Nina’s leaving today.”
“Leaving?” And that word emerged from my lips almost like a scream.
Demétrio closed his book and stared at me as if astonished by my reaction. Ah, how well I knew that calm air, that closed, expressionless face, that way of seeming perpetually amazed by other people’s excesses or afflictions, and how well I knew, too, that this was merely proof of how detached he was from his own innermost self, and how sick I was of him, knowing, as I did, that his air of scandalized surprise was entirely calculated and hypocritical. Crushing the herbs in my hand, I shot him one last glance and left the room. I was trembling, my heart racing. She was leaving, she was leaving again. But why? To what end? Why was she abandoning the house she had fought so hard to reconquer? However closely I scrutinized recent events, I could see no hint of a drama, no hidden plot (those that existed were there for all to see!) that might provoke such a desperate gesture, because I was in no doubt that this was a desperate gesture. And while I was pondering these insoluble problems, I was surprised, too, that she had so easily escaped my vigilance. Was she perhaps simply tired and in need of a holiday, or was she leaving for good? I would have to investigate and piece together the whole plot in order to assess the significance of such an unusual decision.
I went into the kitchen to prepare the tisane. A few of the servants were standing around the big iron stove and talking about something in low voices. As soon as I entered, they fell silent. One of them began scooping up the ashes from the grate. I went over to the sink and untied the bundle of herbs.
“Anything wrong?” I asked as casually as I could.
The cook appeared from the other side of the room:
“Ah, Dona Ana, we were wondering . . . People are saying Dona Nina’s so sick that . . . Is it true?”
I continued to wash the herbs in the sink. Sick? So that was it. But what illness was it, how had it appeared? Since the cook was waiting to hear my opinion, I asked her to fetch me a pot and then, like someone simply picking up the thread of a conversation, I said:
“No, it’s nothing serious.”
“But, Dona Ana!”
I continued putting the washed herbs into the pot.
“Why? What are people saying?” I asked.
“That’s not what they say at all, Senhora. They say she’s so sick she’s going to see a doctor in the city.”
Bent over my task, I was trying hard not to appear surprised. I wanted them to think I was absorbed in my work, and the cook, taken in by this charade, went over to help the other maid cleaning the oven. After a pause, she sighed and¸ clearly unconvinced by what I had told her, said:
“Poor Dona Nina.”
“She’ll be fine,” I said.
She continued to work very slowly, as though thinking how full the world is of deceptions and frailties, traps and lies. Then, after a few moments, still holding the shovel she was using to scoop up the ashes, she said:
“The other day, she burned her dresses. That’s not a good sign.”
“Burned her dresses?” I put down the pot and turned to her, making no attempt now to conceal my surprise.
“Yes, didn’t you see? Out there in the backyard, behind the house. There was so much smoke, we could hardly breathe in here. Burned the whole lot, she did,” she concluded with another sigh.
I continued my preparations, but my thoughts were far away. How strange. Why had she burned her dresses, just when she was thinking of leaving? The idea was growing in my mind that certain things had been deliberately kept from me.
“And when is she leaving?” I asked, still feigning indifference.
The cook looked at me in amazement:
“Didn’t you know, Dona Ana? She’s leaving today. The buggy’s waiting for her down below.”
I could contain myself no longer then, and handing her the pot and the herbs, I said:
“Put that on to boil, will you? I’m going down there and will be back shortly.”
I did not go down to where the buggy was waiting; instead, I hid behind one of the pillars on the verandah; the wind helped me by setting the thin stems of the climbing jasmine flailing about, and thus allowing me to see everything without being seen. There was the buggy; and the driver, José, appeared to be asleep, despite the wind that set the bells around the mules’ necks clanking. Carried off on the wind, that melancholy sound was like a long, distant tolling of bells, announcing a funeral. It may just have been my imagination, but I felt my heart contract; I looked up at the sky, and saw not so much as a sliver of blue; the sky was solid gray, growing darker, almost black on the horizon. A few vultures were circling above, gliding on the wind. I told myself this was simply a sign that rain was imminent, but my heart felt like lead. Voices approached, and I hid behind the pillar, so close to the jasmine that a rebellious stem brushed against my face. Nina soon appeared; when she paused to speak to Valdo, I was surprised to see that he was evidently not intending to go with her, given that he was still wearing his pajama top. I was able, though, to get a good look at her. Was she ill? Possibly, but there was no indication that she had anything very serious wrong with her. She did look different, but only superficially: she had no makeup on and her hair was drawn back in a bun. She was certainly not the beautiful, triumphant Nina I had always known, and despite this, I again experienced the feeling of rancor, antipathy, and jealousy that always swept over me in her presence. I could not and would not see her cast down and vanquished, because I needed her strength, her beauty, her omnipotence in order to live. Even her lack of vanity, her modest appearance seemed to me a betrayal. What lengths would she not go to in order to gain the pity of others?
The scene lasted no more than a few seconds: Valdo clasped her to him, and she, cold and indifferent, allowed him to embrace her, then offered him her cheek for a lukewarm, conventional kiss, as I had always imagined she would on such occasions. Then she went down the steps alone. From the top of the steps, he waved a friendly goodbye. She got into the buggy, holding just one piece of luggage. She would not be away long then. I noticed she was wearing an exceedingly modest black dress, far inferior to the many others she had given to Betty as presents. Either because of the wind, or in order to hide from the townspeople, she was wearing a shawl over her head, which made her look even paler. I could not help but smile. It was all so brilliantly thought out! This was yet another of her extraordinary performances, and the worst thing was that the victims were always the same. I assumed she would maintain that same erect posture beside the driver, but before she reached the pond, almost in the middle of the garden, she turned, cast a long look back at the house and gave a final wave to Valdo. He remained standing, a few feet away from my hiding place, and watched the buggy until it had disappeared through the main gates of the Chácara. The bells, though, continued to ring out sadly for some time, carried back on the wind.
Two weeks later, when she returned, the wind was not as strong, but it was still blowing intermittently, as it does in dry regions that begin to grow still drier with the approach of summer. There had not been a drop of rain, but huge, slow, black clouds were moving southward across the sky. The dark strip on the far horizon had turned bronze, which made one think that the hot weather would soon be here. Swallows, late arrivals, were slicing cleanly through the air. As I went down into the garden, to pick up some fallen mangos, I saw the buggy pull up outside the gates—not our buggy, which was driven by José, but the one that was for hire in Vila Velha. It came through the gates, up the main avenue, around the pond, and stopped by the steps to the verandah. From where I was standing, I immediately recognized Nina, even though she was hiding her face not beneath a shawl, as she had when she left, but beneath one of those traveling hoods, which I knew, from the ladies’ magazines, were highly fashionable. I was about to go and meet her, but once I was confident of not being seen beneath the canopy formed by the mango trees, I decided to stay where I was. I was surprised to see her back so soon—just over two weeks!—and again I could not suppress a smile, thinking that the trip, which had raised speculation about some really serious health problems, was merely a front for her frivolous desire to buy some new clothes. I noticed, too, as the buggy passed in front of me, that it was full of suitcases and trunks. That was obviously why she had burned her old dresses. Valdo and the Meneses could foot those very large bills—what did she care if they were ruined, if the warning letters from the bank kept piling up on Demétrio’s desk, or indeed if all that luxury was inappropriate given the very quiet, dull life we led at the Chácara. What did she want, what was she after? Who was she trying to impress, which ghost or phantom wandering the rooms of that house was she hoping to seduce? One or, at most, two minutes later, Valdo appeared at the top of the steps. I drew farther back, not wanting to miss a single thing. I could not deny that his face brightened, that he looked happy, almost relieved. Even after all those years, he still loved that woman. (He—I realized then—was possibly the best and most likeable of the Meneses, and his silent nature was a sign not of cold egotism, but of a certain distinction of character. His one sin had been the result of his weakness, when he met and fell in love with that woman. Seeing him and the pleasure with which he welcomed her back, it was impossible not to consider him responsible for the decline of the house, which only by a miracle remained standing and, as it cast its shadow over him, accompanying him to where the buggy had stopped, appeared to be condemning him.) The meeting was as brief and informal as the departure: he kissed her forehead uneffusively—the Meneses men were only capable of loving or being affectionate in a paternal way—then they exchanged a few words, doubtless equally banal. I expected him to notice the suitcases and packages, but he only did so in passing, as if it were a pure formality, then, his arm about her waist, they went up into the drawing room. How ma
ny defeats and retreats must that painful, humiliating apprenticeship in love have cost him?
André, who had come out shortly after his father, took charge of the luggage. I then abandoned my hiding place and went over to the buggy to talk to the driver, who was an Italian from the town.
“Goodness,” I said as innocently as possible, “did she bring all that?”
“There’s more at the station,” he said. “I’ve got to make a second trip.”
He climbed back into the driver’s seat, cracked his whip, and set off for the gates. Alone, André and I looked at each other, or, rather, I noticed him looking at me, as if he were expecting me to say something. Instead, I stared down at the piles of boxes and suitcases, all of which bore the labels of fashionable shops in Rio. I could not help asking myself that same question: where would Valdo find the money to pay for all that? Without turning to look at my nephew, I went up the steps and into the house, but I could feel his eyes on me all the time, examining me and the baggage, and thinking exactly what I was thinking.
Supper that evening was a slightly more solemn affair than usual. Nina lived up to expectations and appeared wearing a dark green, low-necked gown. It was easy to see that she was trying to revive her first years of living at the Chácara, when she would wear outfits that provoked a mixture of shock and admiration. Ah, but she could no longer shamelessly show off her beautiful shoulder blades; her bones were now too prominent, and that alone was enough for me to see how much she had changed. What’s more, for someone like myself accustomed to submitting her to long examinations, it was easy enough to see she had been crying, for her eyes were red and puffy. For that reason, her pale complexion seemed even paler, and there were lines at the corners of her once seductive mouth, lines that had not been there before. What a strange thing time is—there was a haste, a hunger to destroy, which seemed to be the secret sign of Providence. I remembered Father Justino’s words: “What do you know of the misfortunes God holds in store for her?” I looked at her again, hard, intently, and was filled with an unexpected moment of enlightenment: for the first time, I believed in that illness. God was revealing himself, and I had been given the grace that would once again make me believe in his existence. And yet were those apparent signs enough to guarantee my belief? No, there was something else, and that was possibly what underpinned my certainty. She had entered the room with a carefully rehearsed flourish, she had clearly prepared herself, and was trying, by sheer force of will, to recover her old aplomb. And she had succeeded, the flame was again burning inside her, but it was, alas, only a borrowed flame. She might deceive the others, but not me, because I knew every little thing about her, as if she were my personal territory, because while she might deceive me about other things, I knew all there was to know about her extraordinary capacity for lying and pretense. And that was why I felt so certain about her illness: her need to lie, to dissemble. So, it was true, then, she was gravely ill. I watched her sit down, watched as she achieved an entirely artificial and rather strange phenomenon: purely by dint of wanting to be beautiful, she did almost succeed in glowing just as she used to. But hers was now an unsteady light, and there was no spontaneity or confidence in her movements. Demétrio greeted her unemotionally:
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