But this isn’t the story of Maria das Dores. Maria das Dores only makes occasional appearances, to wash the dishes or make up the beds. This is the story of Euridice Gusmao, the woman who could have been.
Chapter 3
Euridice was in need of a new project. She needed something to fill the morning hours of idleness and the afternoon hours of anguish, when the children were still at school. When everything appeared not only slightly maddening, everything was hopelessly maddening. In these empty hours she could feel her solitude transform into anguish, her anguish transform into madness, and this madness whispering to her: One day I’ll get you, one day yet I’ll get you.
One Friday, after slamming the door shut on her way out of the house to clear her head (Maria does everything wrong, Maria is an idiot, she stained the towel, burned those pants, broke a glass, lost my earrings), Euridice found herself walking towards Ravishing Coiffeurs. It had been more than two weeks since she’d had her hair done, and a good wife ought to always take care of herself for her husband, or else her husband might leave the house in search of that which he didn’t find at home (curly hair, red nail polish and everything that was to be found between the strands of these curls and the toenails coated with polish).
Seated beneath the plastic mushrooms that housed the hair of Tijuca’s upper-class women, Euridice leafed distractedly through the Young Ladies’ Journal. This time she spent longer than normal on the sewing column. It gave directions for making a dress, with detailed explanations over twenty-three steps. She would need to measure the model, cut the pattern, stitch by hand and by sewing machine, do a fitting, do another fitting, fasten the buttons, sew the buttonholes, finish it off with some ruffles and – would you look at that – it was exactly such a dress that Euridice wanted, not because it was pretty or even because it was a dress, but because it involved a nine-piece pattern and twenty-three steps of something she’d never done before.
The process of convincing Antenor to buy a sewing machine lasted four days. The first time, he said no. The second time, he said no. The next time, another no. And then he said, ‘Don’t start on this business of sewing again, I can’t stand this lament anymore. If it means I’ll have peace again, then buy the damn thing, woman!’
Euridice had learned one of the oldest techniques in feminine guerrilla warfare: to repeat the request until the man gives his consent.
The next day she put on a dress and went downtown to buy her Singer sewing machine. It was tight, her dress, but she didn’t notice. It was a Monday, the day for her to diet, and the truth is that in the weeks that followed Euridice was so engaged in learning sewing-ese that she would forget to eat, and forget to torment Maria. But she didn’t forget her children, she attentively got them ready for school, greeted them with a big smile when they came home in the afternoon, cheerfully helped them with their homework, and asked Cecilia if she didn’t want a new apron, if Afonso wouldn’t like another pair of blue pants, and while Antenor watched the news on his recently acquired TV, Euridice cut the tracing paper for the pattern, added pleats, stitched hems, sewed on zippers, and gave herself entirely to the zigzag of the sewing machine, which to her sounded like music. If there were lyrics to this song, they would sing of hands at work, minds at rest, success and peace.
Now, this wasn’t exactly what Zélia heard with her sharp ears, which she stuck up against the wall that joined the two houses. The zigzag of the sewing machine was the same, but Zélia gleaned a different message from the tack-tack-tack. What could bring a housewife accustomed to visiting the elegant Casa Sloper department store, to buying clothes for her husband at Casa José Silva and for her children at Bonita, what could bring the wife of a big-shot employee of the Bank of Brazil to spend her evenings and, at times, entire nights (Zélia could hear every, absolutely every sound that came from the house) bent over a sewing machine?
Poor woman, she was! The tack-tack-tack proved what Zélia already knew: the couple next door was not in a good financial situation, and Euridice found herself in the unenviable position of sewing her own clothes. Those sumptuous dinners, those fancy home appliances, it was all an illusion. If Antenor were the first on the block to have a TV, he would also be the first to no longer have one. The Gusmao-Campelos simply could not continue to spend like that.
The next day the women on the block bemoaned the fact that Euridice and Antenor were in financial straits. Some of them placed bets that Maria das Dores wouldn’t make it through the month with a job. Others suggested that the maid only stuck around on account of the meals. Many of them have no use for a salary, since they wouldn’t know how to spend it anyway. Not to mention the other expenses. The tuition for the children’s schooling was most certainly late, it was possible that Cecilia and Afonso would have to switch to public school. They would have to buy their groceries on credit, and would never again set foot in the upscale doctors’ offices downtown.
But the family’s financial troubles existed only in the heads of others, and had nothing to do with Euridice’s deep desire to continue her projects. They were good, those months. The children arrived from school to a Euridice whose eyes were full of enthusiasm and whose heart was open.
‘What did you learn today at school?’
Afonso would tell her about amphibians, and Cecilia about the planets.
‘Mama, there are nine planets that orbit the Sun, and the Earth is the third in line. If it were any closer to the Sun, the Earth would be so hot that nobody could survive, and if it were further away it would be too cold and we’d all die.’
‘And the Moon,’ Euridice would reply, ‘did you know that the Moon orbits the Earth, and that there are many moons throughout the universe?’
Cecilia’s eyes grew wide with excitement and Afonso’s did the same because he saw his sister doing it. Euridice climbed on to the stool and grabbed the encyclopedia volume about planets from the top of the bookshelf to explain the origin of the universe, the position of the stars, and the many suns far from Earth. She was such a good teacher that Cecilia soon knew more than all of her classmates, and Afonso learned about the planets long before any of his friends.
Euridice later sought out the encyclopedia volume with articles on amphibians and photos of brightly colored frogs explaining that those animals breathed not only through their noses but through their skin, and wasn’t that fascinating, because we only breathe through our noses and mouths, and when we breathe in the air, it enters our lungs as oxygen and leaves as carbon dioxide. The two of them would learn this later in school, but perhaps they could speed things up a bit; they would see what the encyclopedia had to say. Euridice stepped up on to the stool again and grabbed the volume about the human body, and those afternoon hours passed before anyone noticed. Euridice with a book in her lap, her children on either side of her, the clock striking on the hour without anyone paying attention.
Antenor would arrive from work and kiss his wife on the forehead. He changed his clothes in the bedroom and walked back to the living room in his slippers. The family came together to eat the dinners that now appeared and disappeared from the table thanks to Maria, the quiet woman who kept mainly to the kitchen.
Antenor asked Afonso and Cecilia about school and they told him all about planets and amphibians. He promised to take them that Saturday to the Tijuca Forest, to catch tadpoles at the lake. ‘That way, the two of you can see the kids of these amphibians up close.’ The children jumped up and down with joy and told the news to Euridice, who was sewing at the other end of the sofa. Euridice smiled without looking up from her work and remained focused on each stitch when Antenor took the children to the garden to show them the Southern Cross, Venus, and maybe even the constellation Scorpius.
As soon as they returned home from one of their outings, the children would put on their pajamas and wait in bed for their father to read them stories by Monteiro Lobato. ‘Where did we leave off?’ ‘Chapter Six of The Twelve Labors of Hercules, Papa.’ ‘That�
�s right.’ Antenor would read four or five pages before Afonso fell asleep, and the moment he got up, Cecilia would say, ‘Just one more page, Papa, I want to know more about the centaurs.’ Antenor would read a few more pages until Cecilia began to yawn. It was good to see his daughter taking an interest. He wanted her to complete her studies and, who knows, go to college. And make a good marriage. He would then give a kiss to each of the children and get ready for bed, as the next day would be packed with meetings.
Half an hour later, the entire house would be filled with silence and darkness, apart from the tiny lamp atop the Singer sewing machine belonging to Euridice Gusmao and the soft beat of her backstitch. Euridice sewed until she was exhausted, before falling into a sleep that was free of dreams, because she no longer needed them.
Some months later Euridice was once again overcome with restlessness. She could no longer whip up clothing for the children or new uniforms for Maria, towels for the side tables, or shirts for Antenor. She was in need of new projects, which would not be difficult to arrange. Euridice lived at a time when there were fewer stores than there are today, and on a street that was full of women – two crucial factors in the success of her endeavor.
On the day Euridice went out in search of clients, pity fell over Tijuca. They were sorry to see such a well-dressed woman hitting the streets in search of work. Euridice no longer had just one dress for going out, but seven or eight, or nine or ten. She had one for each day of the week, and another still because she found polka dots beautiful, and yet another because the checkered linen was on sale.
There came Euridice walking up the street, in a red dress with a flared skirt. A dress that before would have taken up the entire sidewalk but that now occupied a very discreet bit of space, since during those months of sewing she had lost two of her chins and many dress sizes, in part because she often thought of work to the detriment of eating and in part because she thought of how beautiful she would be inside that fitted suit.
‘I can make any of the dresses found in the Young Ladies’ Journal or Radio Magazine. I need only see the sketch to copy it down. You can buy the fabric yourself, miss, or I can buy it, the choice is yours.’
‘Very well,’ her client would say, eyes full of relief that she didn’t find herself in Euridice’s situation. A relief that inspired generosity and prompted the reply, ‘Make this model here for me. You can buy the fabric yourself, just add it to my bill. If you need me to put down a deposit, let me know and I’ll pay right now.’
Zélia also ordered a dress of her own, not out of necessity or pity for Euridice, but because she wanted to attend fittings at one of the most interesting places in all of Tijuca: her neighbor’s living room. A place in which Zélia had never set foot, but would now be able to stick her nose because she’d been summoned.
On the days she had fittings for her particularly intricate dress, Zélia fixed her eyes on everything but the garment. The imperial-style, Brazilian-walnut crystal cabinet with five rows of a dozen Bohemian crystal glasses for red wine, white wine, whiskey, champagne and liqueurs; the Provençal buffet with its three drawers and gold-plated steel tongs; the Marie Thérèse chandelier with twenty-four lamps, twelve arms, and thirty-six crystal pendants; the cherrywood table with the glass top and eight matching chairs (one of them, Zélia noted, with a chipped foot); the serving plate with two wrought-silver serving trays, the two rectangular Persian rugs with varied tones of burgundy and beige; and all the marvelous gadgets that Antenor made a point of acquiring the minute they entered the stores because he considered himself to be a man ahead of his time: the radio with its case and toothpick legs, the tiny record player that fit in one of the corners of the bookshelf, the tall floor fan, the television in yet another case with toothpick legs, which, Zélia noted, varied slightly in tone from that of the radio, bringing a certain disharmony to the decor.
Zélia was just one of Euridice’s many clients. The doorbell rang all the time, with women turning up to try on dresses. Maria spent her day making more coffee than one of the local coffee shops that served breakfast. The clinking of the demitasses mixed with the buzz of the clients, because a fitting session was never simply a fitting session. It was a fitting and a question about the children’s school, a fitting and a complaint about the prices at the market, a fitting and a catching-up on the entire neighborhood.
More projects came Euridice’s way. Rumors spread throughout the neighborhood that a certain good family woman needing to supplement the household income accepted special orders in her workshop. For the third time in a month, Euridice had to go to the stationery store to buy a notebook to write down her clients’ measurements and requests. The best month of all Antonio’s life. The bachelor’s days were divided between selling paper supplies and resting from selling paper supplies, which he did in the apartment he shared with his mother, Dona Eulália. He would walk inside the house to hear his mother complaining of some ailment or remembering the good times when her family had money. Eulália spoke so much that perhaps it would be more correct to divide Antonio’s hours between listening to his mother and resting from listening to his mother, which he passed selling paper supplies.
Euridice also increased her visits to fabric stores on the Rua Buenos Aires. One client wanted this fabric, the other wanted that fabric, yet another ordered a skirt on the very day she had returned from downtown with meters of linen and chiffon. So she went back to the stores and the stacks of textiles. She would greet the salespeople and the other clients, and ask if the woman behind the cash register had gotten over her flu. Later she focused on the counters, in search of special promotions.
On one such afternoon, lost amid the textiles, Euridice didn’t notice the young woman next to her, leaning up against a pillar. She had a pained expression on her face and her right hand clasped the medallion buried in her bosom. It would take only one more step for this young woman to make her presence known. Just one more step, which she never took.
Euridice remained caught up in her own world, checking measurements in her little notebook and requesting lengths of fabric from the salesman. She walked to the cash register, paid for the fabric, and went home in a state of pensiveness. She was worried about her projects and deadlines. Afternoons and late nights weren’t enough to take care of all the work she had before her. The solution would be to hire someone to help, and that’s how Euridice came to hire a seamstress named Maricotinha.
Dona Maricotinha used cat-eye glasses and wore her hair swirled across her forehead. Her lips were puckered in such a way that they never moved, and she had been born with her arms crossed. Most of her sentences began with a ‘but’, and only problems came out of her mouth. (‘But Miss, if you want to place the buttons here the dress isn’t going to sit well’ or ‘But Miss, if you make the hem any narrower, the skirt is going to lose movement.’)
Here, the reader must be wondering: Is every woman in this story sad or embittered? Not at all. Some of Euridice’s acquaintances were luckier. Isaltina enjoyed needlepoint and had the privilege of laughing with her perfect teeth, something she did with some regularity since she had a husband with whom she enjoyed conversing and who had the money for dentist visits. Margarida had become a widow and was very happy because God had taken her husband but left her a pension, and what a relief that the opposite hadn’t occurred. Celina never married but had received a hefty inheritance. She also had a good friend, whom she saw on Wednesdays and Fridays.
Dona Maricotinha, meanwhile, found nothing in life to be thankful for. She thought life was absurd. It was absurd to have to work as a seamstress beyond fifty years of age. The blame belonged to her husband, to whom she had never given permission to die of emphysema but who had decided to do so anyway.
Near the beginning of June, the first gusts of winter wind blew through the streets of Tijuca. One of them hit Antenor, who had just left the shower naked to grab a new tin of talcum powder from the bedroom. Had Antenor discontinued the habit of applying talcum powder to hi
s private parts at the same time other mortals had done so, the events that followed would never have taken place. But it was cold, the talcum powder in the bathroom was empty and Antenor liked to give a bit of a finish to his privates, so he left the bathroom dressed the same way he had come into the world. During this short walk, a cold wind hit him in the neck and traveled down his spine, causing him to shudder, which caused him to sneeze, and then caused Antenor to think he was becoming sick.
The next day he dragged his feet to work and dragged them back home. The day after, he only managed to drag his feet to the bathroom and then back to bed. That was all he could do. Even when Euridice brought him hot tea, even when she brought him chicken soup, even when she brought him another hot tea and another round of chicken soup.
That afternoon, Antenor’s fever refused to break. During the hours of delirium, he missed the trolley to work and the deadline to finish a project. He missed the due date for the electric bill and was soon missing his pants. Now the house was dark, and all the neighbors stood before his naked body like a gang of judges. He didn’t lose his kids, but his kids lost all reason, because they didn’t do their homework and were held back a year in school as a result. Euridice – where are you, Euridice? It was Euridice who let all this happen. Why didn’t she tell me the trolley was passing by, that I needed to finish the project? Where was she when she should have been telling me to pay the bills and throw on some pants? Why didn’t she look over our children’s shoulders until they finished their homework? Now they’re going to cut the electricity and fire me too. All because of that woman, the neighbors are going to repeat in unison: failure, failure, failure. And he whispered to himself: slut, slut, slut.
His high fever continued and the doctor thought Antenor was suffering from pneumonia. He prescribed antibiotics and aspirin, and showed Euridice how to replace the cold towel on Antenor’s forehead every twenty minutes. From that afternoon through to the next morning, Euridice switched the cold towel fifty-four times, and if it wasn’t the cold towels that led to Antenor’s recovery it was Euridice and her hands, which remained on her husband’s forehead or in prayer position the entire night.
The Invisible Life of Euridice Gusmao Page 4