Antenor opened his eyes the next morning. It was a relief to know he hadn’t missed his trolley or his deadline, and his pants were hanging in the closet. The children were at school and his wife was at his side. Euridice was not a slut, after all. Euridice gave meaning to all the parts of his life that, without her, would be undone. And it was then, at that moment, that Antenor loved his wife more than at any other moment. It would be good to be able to believe that Euridice was telling the truth about their wedding night or – better still – believe that it didn’t matter. But Antenor could not. He simply could not.
That morning Antenor remained in bed. He fell asleep and woke up a few times, and accepted the chicken soup, the hot tea, and his wife’s care. The window overlooking the street remained half-open and it was nice to nap to the sounds of the street in the middle of the week, sounds unfamiliar to him: the pot-and-pan salesman offering his wares, the baker selling buns, the knife sharpener grinding knives.
After lunch, Antenor listened to other noises throughout the house. Women talking, coming in and out – he had no idea that Euridice had so many friends. And how was it possible to hear the sound of the sewing machine when Euridice’s voice was coming from the other corner of the room? It was all very strange. Antenor got up from the bed and walked towards the living room without dragging his feet, already feeling better.
It was the shock of the scene before him that restored him to health.
In front of the mirror was Zélia, dressed only from the waist down and inspecting the pieces in the crystal cabinet, while Euridice marked the hemline of her neighbor’s skirt with pins. Another woman, dressed only from the waist up, was having her measurements taken by an older, bespectacled seamstress. Two other ladies were drinking coffee and eating dry biscuits on the sofa. A black woman with nappy hair and a cheap cotton dress was working away on Euridice’s sewing machine. The center table looked like the counter at a textile store on the Rua Buenos Aires. The Persian rug was covered in fabric scraps, pieces of thread and measuring tapes. On the dinner table were patterns cut in tracing paper, scissors, rulers, spools, and two sewing baskets.
‘What is all this mess in my living room?’
Zélia cried out, one of the women spilled her coffee, and the other rushed to cover herself with scraps of fabric. Euridice looked at her husband and then at the floor.
‘I’m making some dresses for my friends…’
Her explanation made no sense. Antenor would not give his support to that project, the transformation of his living room into a workshop, the transformation of his house into a circus, all that coming and going of women; it was worse than a doctor’s office. And who was that black woman parked in front of the sewing machine?
‘This is Damiana, she was recommended by Dona Maricotinha…’
‘And who is Dona Maricotinha?’
Euridice thought it wise to confess everything at once. Dona Maricotinha was her assistant, and Damiana was an assistant to her assistant, because now she was sewing for women across the neighborhood and had no way to take care of all that work by herself. And you know how it is, besides the sewing, one needs to talk to the clients about patterns, take their measurements and carry out a fitting, and while she did one thing her assistants were doing others, so they could work at a faster pace.
Her rudimentary description of the production chain didn’t please Antenor at all. While he listened, his nostrils flared until he looked like King Kong. At the same time, everyone in the room said they had to leave: the butcher’s was going to close, it was going to rain, it was getting late. The only one left was that black woman with her eyes drilled into the side of the sewing machine, and she only stuck around because she needed that day’s pay to buy her supper.
Euridice had been worried that Antenor might do that. During the days he was sick, she canceled her meetings with clients, but after the third day they showed up anyway. They had dances to go to, a dinner at the Tijuca Tennis Club or a party at the Club Bragança, and where else were they to get the scoop on the goings-on in households other than their own?
When everyone was in the room together, Euridice asked them to speak quietly, which they did not do. Then she began to think that Antenor could come down to join them, become acquainted with the project and think it was interesting, but she knew deep down that would never happen either.
During the months Euridice worked as the Most Talented and Affordable Seamstress in Tijuca (and Muda, Penha, and Vila Isabel), Antenor had remained aloof to his wife’s productive ambitions. This time, Euridice had made use of another tactic of feminine guerrilla warfare: combat by omission (which keeps men from saying no).
She knew that at some point she would have to tell her husband about her plans, but his reproval was a given. She then thought about postponing the conversation until, who knows, the end of time.
In the early afternoon, the living room was transformed into a workshop, and shortly before five, Maria and Euridice would transform it back into a living room. Patterns, magazines, and fabrics vanished from sight, and if some scrap or other was left behind, it wouldn’t be a big a deal. Antenor didn’t pay attention to things at home. In Antenor’s mind, there was a nearly tangible line drawn between his areas of the house and Euridice’s. In the house they shared, he moved only through those spaces designated for him, never traveling beyond the route that consisted of bedroom–bathroom, bathroom–bedroom, couch–dinner table, dinner table–bedroom, bedroom–bathroom–kitchen table–hallway. Whatever existed beyond these limits was of no interest to him. Antenor’s familiarity with the house was almost nonexistent. He had no idea what was in the refrigerator or the kitchen cabinets, much less the kitchen sink. He wasn’t concerned with the contents of the credenza and only once in a while cast an eye over the bookshelf as though it were partly his, on account of the Stories of Monteiro Lobato he read to the children.
Everything else was everything else, and everything else was the domain of Euridice. Antenor was there to bring home a paycheck and to dirty plates and rumple the sheets, not to know how the clothes were laundered and the dinner made. As a result, he never discovered the endless meters of fabric stored in the credenza, or the pile of sewing magazines stuffed away in a drawer, or the fifty-seven patterns hidden behind the sofa. Seeing all this for the very first time, Antenor felt once again like a deceived husband, with the advantage that this time he was right.
When Antenor’s nostrils could not grow any wider, that black woman with nappy hair thought it might be better to go hungry that night.
‘Dona Euridice, I am going to take the dress on the ironing board to finish it at home.’
Antenor had never been so angry. The only reason he didn’t throw the sewing machine, assistant and ironing board out the window was because he was worried about what others might say. It was also because he was worried others might say that he didn’t want his wife sewing dresses for the neighborhood. They would think he was less of a man because his wife had to work.
The sewing machine and the assistant may not have flown through the window, but the neighbors had plenty to say about the yelling heard that night. Zélia had no need to put her ear against the wall to hear everything. So I kill myself working at the bank for you to have the best of everything only to discover you’re running a county fair at home? But Antenor, I like working. Your work is taking care of the house and the children. But I already do this, Antenor. Oh yeah? And why is it you never make those turkey medallions for me, huh? The ones with that brown stuff on top. Because you always said they made you burp after eating them. Don’t you start with the excuses, Euridice. That’s what you said, Antenor, you said that you didn’t want to eat them anymore, that you couldn’t eat anything with onion in it after five o’clock, not even if the onion was chopped into tiny pieces. I need a wife who’s dedicated to her family. It’s your responsibility to give me the peace of mind to go out and bring home a living. Do you have any idea how difficult it is to work in the loan
department? No, I don’t. You never talk about your work. I don’t talk about it because you wouldn’t understand. Don’t look at me like that, Antenor, I’m a good wife. A good wife doesn’t go looking for side projects. A good wife doesn’t worry about anything but her husband and their children. I need peace to be able to work, you need to take care of the children.
And then something interesting happened. Antenor couldn’t stop repeating the same phrases over and over. ‘Did you hear me, Euridice, did you hear me? I go out and work, you take care of the children. You hear, Euridice, you hear? I go out to work and you take care of the children.’ He didn’t even wait for his wife to say that she’d heard him. He simply began to repeat the phrase again, and again. ‘I go out to work, you take care of the children.’
When Antenor managed to stop repeating himself, something stranger still occurred: with each new round of yelling, the children’s problems multiplied. Cecilia had dirt beneath her fingernails, Afonso’s hair was too long. Their noses were always running – a lot, they never stopped. Green, yellow, purple snot. They hadn’t had a decent meal in weeks, don’t think he hadn’t noticed. Those poor kids only ate cornflour rolls. Cornflour rolls! And that was when they actually ate. They were children whose lives were thrown to the mercy of God, delivered to the fortune of Providence. Soon people would confuse them with street children.
Chapter 4
We haven’t yet mentioned someone who has played an important role in Euridice’s life since the very beginning. We’re talking about the Side of Euridice that Didn’t Want Euridice to Be Euridice.
The Side of Euridice that Didn’t Want Euridice to Be Euridice had tormented her since her school years. At that time she still thought the world was a beautiful and interesting place, with its numbers, letters, and infinite combinations of letters and numbers. She developed an intimacy with words long before her classmates. By the first grade she always left the house informed, after reading the back of the newspaper that hid her father’s face. Euridice’s mother, Dona Ana, saw a future in her daughter’s progress.
‘Very soon this girl will be able to help us at the greengrocer’s.’
Euridice’s teacher, Clara, was a sweet young woman. She would smile when her students gave a correct response and would smile when they were wrong. As a result, everyone wanted to give the correct response but no one was afraid to be wrong. Clara was never seen wearing anything but a blue skirt and white shirt, or with any expression on her face other than a smile. Her clothes smelled of coconut soap, everything about her smelled of coconut soap. Each day after class she washed her shirt and set it out to dry. She also washed shirts that weren’t hers, which her mother then ironed and returned to the mansions of Rio Comprido. One cloudy and chilly day, Clara insisted on wearing the uniform, even if it was a little damp. First she caught a cold, then she developed the flu. She later died of pneumonia, and except for the good she did for her students over the course of three years, she had passed through the world unnoticed.
Her replacement was Dona Josefa, a woman who would live on forever in her pupils’ nightmares. No one prepared students better for life beyond the classroom. Dona Josefa taught them the rudiments of sarcasm and hierarchy. She developed obsessive-compulsive personalities among her pupils through sentence repetition that filled countless notebooks, afternoons, and the aforementioned nightmares. I will not arrive late to class, one student wrote for an entire hour after lunch, even if the following day he would once again arrive late, since the line for the bathroom in his tenement house during the early morning hours was comparable to that of Central Station at the end of the afternoon, and since he was only a boy it fell to him to be the last in line.
It took a while for Dona Josefa to impress her pedagogical methods on the young Euridice. She couldn’t criticize the homework that was completed with great accuracy, or the aced exams. She also couldn’t ignore that irritating little hand that shot up all the time, either to ask a question or give an answer. She discovered how to proceed during the third week of school. It was the last class of the morning and the students were copying a text by Camões from the chalkboard. Euridice had already finished copying the paragraph. She asked permission to speak.
‘Teafer. I haulf to ufe the bafloom.’
‘What?’
‘I haulf to ufe the bafloom, teafer.’
Dona Josefa didn’t respond. She stood up from the desk and walked from one side of the room to the other. The best way to discipline Euridice was suddenly right there in front of her eyes.
‘I didn’t understand what you said.’
‘The bafloom, teather.’
Dona Josefa stopped, raised her hand to her chin, and squinted.
‘This word, bafloom… I’ve never heard it.’
The entire class burst out laughing. Euridice felt a knot in her stomach, something she’d never felt before. It rose up through her gullet, passed to her throat, and paralyzed her tongue.
‘I ne… I nee… I nee… I need… to go.’
That day, Euridice was only allowed to go to the bathroom if she learned how to pronounce her ‘THs’, her ‘Rs’ and her ‘Ss’. She peed at her desk, and felt the warm urine slowly grow cold. She had to remain at school until the middle of the afternoon so she could write ‘I need to use the bathroom’ on the chalkboard two hundred times. For the rest of the year she still had to use the bafloom but was able to avoid the girl’s room at school. She stopped drinking water after six in the evening and refused to drink milk with breakfast. It was a good strategy. On many days, Euridice had to control her bladder until long after the end of classes as she spent more than an hour and a half writing on the chalkboard that the man who discovered BRaSil was PedRo ALVarez CabRal, and that the correct names of the Amazon River tributaries were PuRús, NegRo, MadeiRa, and JapuRá.
Leaning against the desk on the little stage at the front of the classroom, with Euridice’s perfect exam in her hands, Dona Josefa wrested laughs out of Euridice’s classmates.
‘You think you’re smart? Then repeat after me: Dom PedRo pRoclaimed THe founding of THe Republic in the PRaça da Aclamação.’
It didn’t take long for Euridice to understand that it would have been better if Dom Pedro II hadn’t founded the republic. Better if it had been Dom João or Columbus. The girl learned to smatter her tests and homework with mistakes, to escape Dona Josefa’s rage. That’s how the Side of Euridice that Didn’t Want Euridice to Be Euridice was born.
When the Side of Euridice that Didn’t Want Euridice to Be Euridice was already quite developed, Dona Josefa left the girl alone. It was more or less around this time that Euridice learned to say pRoblem and pRejudice correctly, forgot the puRsuit of knowledge, and understood that the world was a pRecaRious place. Euridice had learned about the distorted notion of pRogress that people have. She understood exactly where this pRogress of BRazil’s would lead.
Dona Josefa’s contribution to this split existence of Euridice’s was reinforced in the autumn of 1943. Euridice was turning fourteen, and, that January at least, everything seemed promising. The weekly open-air market that had been held one block from the greengrocer’s moved a few blocks away. Local residents had no desire to walk up and down more hilly streets, and business at the store picked up. Senhor Manuel was so excited with the unexpected increase in profits that he bought Euridice and her sister Guida gold chains with medallions of Our Lady of Fátima.
‘Here is a piece of jewelry to be part of your trousseau,’ their father said, somewhat awkwardly.
The two little boxes lined with white satin seemed to be gleaming, as they lit up the faces of the young girls who opened them. Euridice and Guida hugged their father, and then left the stiff man in the living room to have a look at themselves in their mother’s dressing table. They felt special, as though the qualities of the necklaces had extended to them.
‘Wait a sec, something’s missing,’ Guida said, and ran to the bathroom. She returned w
ith red lipstick, which she applied to her puckered lips.
‘I want some, too,’ said Euridice.
‘You’re still very young to use lipstick.’
‘But I want to.’
‘So, then go like this with your lips.’
Euridice imitated her sister. After applying the lipstick to Euridice, Guida made a mark on each cheek. She spread the red line around with her hands.
‘Now we’re talking. You look like an actress!’
Euridice opened her eyes wide and looked into the mirror.
‘Make my hair look just like yours, Guida.’
Guida walked over to the closet and returned with curlers and pins. She began to style her sister’s hair as though she knew exactly where each strand should fall. The strands were transformed into brunette waves that fell across the girl’s shoulders.
‘Where did you learn to do hair like this?’
‘Around…’
‘Around where?’
‘Around, Euridice.’
It hadn’t been long since their mother had decided to allow Guida to go to the cinema with her friends, which the young girl did not only to watch films but to admire hairdos and dresses, those of the movie stars and those of the audience. Guida was unable to change her dress each time since she only had one outfit for going out. But her hair – this she could do up however she wished, and do it differently each time.
Euridice truly believed her sister had the authority to do all of these things. In her imagination, the around Guida spoke of was a place of exotic locales, interesting people and different experiences. This around was home to everything that existed beyond the walls of the school and the greengrocer’s, the only world Euridice knew.
The Invisible Life of Euridice Gusmao Page 5