Seeing Guida there in the bed wasn’t enough to free Marcos from his nightmare. Money certainly did buy happiness. Happiness was a bedroom without mosquitoes, even if this bedroom was found in the macabre mansion in Botafogo. Marcos got up, put on the clothes that hung over the chair and left, leaving a message for his wife on the little table next to the door.
The message was his wedding ring.
‘And that’s what Marcos did to me, Euridice. He abandoned me then and there, left me to my own devices.’
Ooh, that story was better than a radio soap opera, Maria thought to herself. She had heard everything from behind the kitchen door.
Guida knew that Marcos was leaving when he got up that night. She was awake, and lay there quietly, eyes half-open. There was no sense in holding Marcos back. She’d lost him months ago; the end had begun with the constant material decline in their married life. Let it be, she thought. Everything that goes away one day comes back. I give him less than two weeks before he’s back here on his knees, swearing to God and to me that all this will never happen again, begging to be taken back into this house full of pests but without any of those ghosts from that old world in Botafogo.
When two weeks had passed and Marcos hadn’t come back, Guida began to think she didn’t know as much as she thought she did. What she did know, however, was that she was pregnant. The young woman spent days feeling nauseous, feeding herself corncakes with malagueta peppers and thinking that she needed to tell Marcos that he was going to be a father. As soon as she felt a bit better, she went to look for him at his practice.
She left the house in high heels and a bordered dress. A flower on her lapel and red lipstick to draw attention to her mouth when she said Come back home with us, Marcos. She walked into the building in the Bandeira Square and asked for Dr Marcos Godoy.
‘He no longer works here,’ the doorman replied.
‘That can’t be, senhor. He’s a tall man, with a white lab coat. A doctor. Light eyes.’
‘The very same, senhora. Every now and then people come looking for him. The other day it was a lawyer, and then a woman who was absolutely outraged, with a daughter wearing an eye-patch.’
Guida felt her heart race. She jumped on the trolley to Botafogo, only to be told at the mansion gate that Marcos had not turned up there. She went to the city hall and asked after Marcos at the mayor’s office. She waited two hours, only to receive the news from a secretary that Senhor Godoy had no idea as to his son’s whereabouts.
It was already getting dark when she took the trolley back to Piedade. She counted the money they had put away inside a flour jar for emergencies and calculated that it would be enough for two months. She looked around at the items inside the house, considering what she could sell. Marcos’s wedding ring would be the first to be pawned. He had also left some very nice shoes and pants, which must be worth something. Finishing her calculations, she was overcome with an urge to wax the floor and clean the bathroom. She passed wood oil over the furniture and used a broom to sweep the cobwebs from the living-room corners. She shook out the rug and wiped the windows with some old newspaper. She changed the bedspread, washed the sheets, and hung them out to dry. She soaked the dishrags and brushed the aluminum pans. She chopped onions for the rice, fried two eggs in olive oil, and sat down to eat her first meal in days.
After tidying up the kitchen, Guida sat down and rubbed the medallion of Our Lady that hung across her chest. Who said she couldn’t have the child on her own? She could delay paying rent and flee in the middle of the night, moving to some place where she couldn’t be found. She would maintain appearances with the ring on her finger, telling the neighbors she was a widow in search of a job. She needed to find work before her belly became noticeable. By the time her employer discovered her pregnancy it would already be too late, he wouldn’t have the courage to send her away. After giving birth, she would find someone to help with the child and would go back to her job.
It will work out, she thought to herself. She could make it happen. She switched off the lamp and stood up to go to bed, perhaps too quickly. She felt her head spin and fell back on to the sofa.
No, that would never work out. What a harebrained idea. How am I going to pass myself off as a widow? Who would give me a job? And even if I managed to find one, who would keep me around after I gave birth? I could say Look, Mr. Bossman, I need to stay at home for a while, maybe three months, who knows, and you’ll continue to pay my salary and wait for me to return. And who would the baby stay with? As though there were such a place in the world where women could leave their children in the morning and pick them up after work!
None of it made sense. What made sense was to go back to her parents. Swallow her pride, tell them what had happened, and ask to be accepted back into their home.
The next day, Guida did herself up to go out, this time without high heels or red lipstick. She caught the train, a bus, and the trolley that climbed up to Santa Teresa. The closer she got to home, the greater her desire to no longer be a mother but a daughter once again. She wanted to fit on Dona Ana’s lap, to feel her mother’s fingers running through her hair, and to sleep like a child who knows that the next day will be every bit as good as the one that has just come to an end. She wanted to be woken up again by her father tickling her, she wanted to eat warm porridge with Euridice, every morning of the week.
She hadn’t yet stepped off the trolley when she caught sight of the greengrocer’s, and Senhor Manuel’s eyes. Her mother and her sister must have been at home making lunch. Father and daughter turned to face each other as she drew closer. Senhor Manuel lowered his gaze when Guida entered the store.
‘Papa?’
…
‘Papa?’
…
‘It’s me, Papa. Your daughter, Guida.’
Senhor Manuel didn’t look up, and only parted his clenched teeth to put an end to the situation.
‘I only have one daughter. Her name is Euridice.’
Guida moved to Estácio in the middle of the night. She was wearing black as she opened the window of her new kitchenette early that morning. She introduced herself to the neighbor as Guida Gusmao, a widow without relatives who had come from the countryside. She told the neighbor across the street that she was looking for work.
After lunch, she left the house to get to know the area. There was a general store and a bakery. Two bars and a few stores selling bric-a-brac. I could work in one of those, she thought. In the afternoon, she was overcome with fatigue. She returned home and crept between the sheets.
The move, the search for a job while two months pregnant, the whole thing still seemed a harebrained idea. What she really needed to do was to get rid of her child. Yes, that was it. Guida went to the kitchen, boiled some cinnamon sticks, and poured the liquid into a coffee cup. She only need drink that tea and she would miscarry. Then she would have a new life, and even if this new life wasn’t so amazing, Guida knew that one day it would be better.
The tea was scalding, so Guida waited for it to cool. When it had cooled a bit, she still thought it was too hot. Better to wait a little more. Then the tea became cold, too cold. She held the cup with both hands, her gaze fixed upon the liquid. She was overcome again with fatigue and the need to sleep. I’ll worry about this tomorrow.
The next day Guida inquired whether help was needed at the general store.
‘Do you have any experience?’
‘My departed husband had a greengrocer’s, which we sold off to pay debts.’
‘You know how to operate a cash register?’
‘Yes, senhor.’
Senhor José told her the pay and Guida said that sounded just fine. It was good for business to have a pretty young woman at the cash register, and it was good for Guida to be able to pay her bills.
In the months that followed, the pretty young woman began gaining weight, and Senhor José pretended not to notice, until the day Guida called her boss into a corner to tell him in between tears h
ow her husband had left her in that condition before passing away. Her tears softened the heart of Senhor José, who replied, ‘That’s all right, my child, keep doing your work and later we’ll see what we can do.’
Guida knew what to do. She would put the child up for adoption. This was no harebrained idea; it was the only way to carry on with her life. Her belly continued to grow and Guida didn’t so much as glance at it. Her bump began to move and Guida pretended it had nothing to do with her. When a tiny foot kicked her in the ribs, she warned the little culprit: ‘It’s from here to the hospital and from the hospital to the orphanage.’
The first part of the plan worked well. One Sunday morning Guida felt the beginning of her labor pains, and since they were still bearable, she decided to walk to the hospital. She arrived at the square across from the hospital unable to keep her legs together. She couldn’t remember what happened next, but she had the impression that she spent two hours (or four, or six) sitting alone at the end of a hallway (or was it a waiting room?). Her body coiled when the pain grew unbearable, until she felt a pain that went far beyond unbearable. She looked down to see her son’s head. Nurses appeared and she was taken to the delivery room. She remembered screaming some more and following the orders of people who didn’t even know her name. The cry of a child, the filthy floor, blood that seemed to flow from white clothes, people coming and going as though they were out in the bustling streets. Someone put her on a stretcher (or was it a wheelchair?) and she reappeared in a hospital room. When she finally thought that she would be able to rest on the bedsheets full of hairs and fresh stains from other women, they delivered her a little white package.
‘I don’t want this baby here.’
‘We have a shortage of cribs at the hospital.’
The old Guida would have thought it was a curse to sleep alongside the cancer that had just been extracted from her belly. But at that moment, Guida was capable of opting for death if breathing meant she would have to make any extra effort. She found a comfortable position next to the child and began to fall asleep, but as soon as she closed her eyes she opened them again in desperation. The little package is going to fall! She turned around to embrace her baby. If earlier she had wanted to lose her son, now she felt willing to lose everything but her son.
Guida nestled the baby against her breast and felt peace.
It’s so good to have you here, Francisco.
Never again would she be alone.
Chapter 8
When Guida returned home she found a bag full of tiny clothes and cloth diapers at the door. A crib appeared from nowhere, along with a pacifier, some baby bottles, and a little rattle. At that time, any child of a single mother in Estácio gained the whole neighborhood as godparents. Guida hadn’t been the first to appear alone with some madcap story. There were many young girls deflowered and lost, many who changed marital status overnight following some lapse.
Everyone who could help did, and in a case such as Guida’s, everyone could, and did, help. The neighbor across the street sent a pan of porridge (‘It helps with milk production’). The next-door neighbor offered to do the laundry (‘You still don’t have your strength back’). Yet another neighbor brought a crocheted blanket and little red shoes (‘For good luck’). She asked if Guida knew Filomena.
‘Filomena?’
Filomena had been the most sought-after prostitute in Estácio. She wasn’t the most beautiful or the most experienced, but she had such a beautiful smile that the men liked to lay their heads on her breast afterward. Until the smile disappeared, along with her teeth full of cavities. The syphilis appeared next, leaving her face covered in rashes. She lost all her clients, and only avoided starving to death because the neighborhood rallied round her, repaying the food and shelter she had provided over the years to those who had nowhere to turn. As far as Filomena was concerned, money was like air – sometimes it came in, sometimes it went out.
Filomena had no plans to live off favors, so she began to take care of a child here and there while their mothers worked. Both mother and child were so pleased that other mothers soon took note, and then others still. Filomena became the most sought-after babysitter in Estácio. Her three-bedroom house took in children night and day.
‘I don’t care for more than seven at a time,’ she said when mother number eight appeared at her door. ‘Try Maria da Penha. Or Efigenia.’
The mother smacked her lips and asked when Filomena would have an opening.
‘When these I have now reach school age, I’ll let you know. Put your name down in this notebook.’
The mother wrote her name, beneath a list of others.
Filomena had unique methods of discipline, which didn’t involve spankings. She had the voice of a siren, capable of making anyone obey. At naptime, the children only wanted to sleep at her side. Filomena cuddled one on her right, the other on her left, set a third on her chest, arranged a few others around her and they slept together in the bed, the woman caught in a web of children. She walked through the house with a train of kids, since none of them wanted to be far from her.
The prostitutes and the factory workers didn’t mind leaving their kids in the care of such a ravaged woman. The children would beg to see their babysitter and throw a fit when it was time to go home.
‘Don’t cry, Paulinho, you’ll be back tomorrow,’ Filomena would say, prying herself free from a little blond boy.
No one had ever seen Filomena sad or grumpy. She was always smiling or laughing. She covered her lips so as not to scare others, but if something really made her laugh she would forget, and her chuckles revealed tonsils and rotting cavities.
Filomena couldn’t refuse a single mother, especially one as weak as Guida. ‘Give you just a poke and you’d fall right over,’ she said when they first met. The woman also had a weakness for newborns. When she took one up against her breast she remembered the eight children she’d had. Five had been sent for adoption and three had been suffocated by her companion of circumstance in the back of the tenement building.
‘They’re my little angels waiting for me in heaven,’ she would say, with a toothless smile and awful bad breath.
Filomena invited Guida to spend some time in her home until she recovered from her pregnancy. Guida accepted, not only because she was alone, but because that woman brought her a peace she hadn’t felt for ages. It was a peace like the one she’d felt when she was still single, when she would nap in the living room to the sound of Euridice’s recorder. A peace that she didn’t know how to identify until much later, when she no longer had any.
It was there, in a bedroom in Filomena’s house, next to a tiny white crib with iron bars, to the sound of children playing in the living room, that Guida finally managed to rest.
Filomena taught Guida to place a piece of damp cotton on her son’s head ‘to cure the hiccups.’ She told the young mother to avoid beans, ‘so that the boy doesn’t get colic.’ She ordered Guida to spend three months cramped inside a compression garment, ‘because you may be recovering but you’re not dead, and the men think they are holding a post if they embrace a woman without a waist.’ The baby had to eat fish mush twice a week, ‘to grow up an intelligent boy.’ It was Filomena herself who chose the fish heads for Chico’s mush. She would arrive at the farmer’s market for the pre-closing sell-off, and the vendors set aside the best of the worst parts of the fish that were headed for the trash.
‘I thought you weren’t going to show today, Filomena.’
‘How could I not, Senhor Joel? My little Chico needs his fish. See what I can take for fifteen réis.’
Filomena would return home with a smelly package, smiling at everyone she met along the way.
The months passed. Guida was up and running around, Chico was able to walk supporting himself against the wall, but there were no plans to leave Filomena’s house. Guida began to help with the children, because whoever can care for one can care for two, three, or four. Filomena accep
ted this permanent guest, because whoever can feed one mouth can feed two, three, four, or ten. Guida canceled her rent, called a man with a hand-pulled cart to take her few belongings to Filomena’s house, and hung a painting of Our Lady of Aparecida on the wall above Chico’s crib. And so a new family was formed, composed of Chico, his two mothers, and his numerous siblings.
First, Guida recovered from childbirth, and later, from her abandonment. Who said she couldn’t raise her child without its father? She was already doing it. The young woman once again stood up straight and proud, holding her head high as she walked the narrow sidewalks of Estácio.
So much self-assurance struck men dumb. When Guida walked by, they couldn’t close their jaws. They would take advantage of their already open mouths to venture an invitation to go out, which only ever resulted in Guida turning her head, closing her eyes, and putting an end to the conversation.
She didn’t want anything to do with love affairs. The only man in her life was Chico. When the boy woke in the middle of the night he would run to Guida’s bed, and it was so good to be together with his mother that he began to wake up every night. After months of nights spent snuggled up to one another, Guida had to assume a firmer stance. ‘You’re a little man now, you have to sleep in your own bed.’ Chico went back to sleeping in his bed, and then it was Guida who would wake up in the middle of the night, feeling the absence of her boy.
If Guida had a better half, it was Filomena, half-sister, half-mother, and half-associate. Guida instituted professional standards to Filomena’s business, which up until then had worked on a pay-when-you-can basis. As a result, when the time came to settle the bills, all was up to a God have mercy. The price for childcare went up and now there was a cut-off time for dropping off the children in the morning. Once a week, mothers were to send clean towels for their children’s baths, and whoever showed up after pick-up time paid a tad more.
The Invisible Life of Euridice Gusmao Page 10