The Invisible Life of Euridice Gusmao

by Martha Batalha

  Euridice was disrespecting one of the basic principles of the Neighbor Statute, which stated that the happiness of a group is only possible when everyone in this group is alike, from the size of their bank account to their aspirations.

  Upon learning from Zélia that the tack-tack-tack was the sound of Euridice’s typewriter, and seeing Euridice walking through the neighborhood with her arms wrapped around a stack of books, the Corporation of Women of the Environs of Rua Uruguai felt as though they’d taken a direct hit. Euridice’s behavior displayed an arrogance that could only be explained by a loss of reason.

  The evidence of her dementia was ample: she no longer respected the laws of morality and good sense by continuing to greet Silvia after her separation. She didn’t want to participate in the Tijuca Council against Communism, founded by Dona Agnes. Euridice refused an invitation to become treasurer of the philanthropic committee of the América Football Club, engaged in eradicating poverty worldwide through the production of crocheted shoes for the bare feet of the black children who lived in the Borel slum.

  One time Dona Efigenia asked Euridice what she was carrying in her bag from the Da Vinci bookstore, and Euridice had the nerve to tell her she’d bought the Complete Works of William Shakespeare and an Oxford English Dictionary, because she thought Shakespeare ought to be read in its original language.

  Poor Euridice, the neighbors lamented. Now she’d lost it in two languages. They all felt such pity for the woman. When she began to wear a sea-green turban, they were filled with happiness because they could redouble their pity. Euridice no longer bothered with her appearance. She didn’t bother spending an hour in front of the dressing table, or two inside those mushroom caps in the beauty salons, just to parade through the neighborhood with her beehive, the kind that made a person look like she’d rolled up a camisole, stuck it on the crown of her head and covered the whole thing with hair.

  It was shortly thereafter that everything changed. A truck rolled up in front of the Gusmao-Campelo household. Men in overalls walked out holding boxes, and more men in overalls with even more boxes. The bystanders couldn’t do anything but keep watching and begin to feel their blood boil.

  It took Zélia an hour and a half to send out her first report. Antenor was all nerves as he watched the package containing his TV, Euridice was transfixed by the package of dishes, the delivery men were focused on developing hernias by carrying so many boxes full of Euridice’s books.

  Yes, they were moving, Zélia said. And where were they going?

  Zélia did her best to hide her face full of disappointment.

  ‘To Ipanema.’

  To move to Ipanema in the early sixties was not merely to shift one’s residence by a few kilometers. It was to pass through time portals, to live in a place that made the rest of Rio look like the past. Ipanema was a neighborhood full of writers, poets, and musicians. Actors, painters, sculptors. Journalists, dramaturges, and cinema directors. Ipanema was also a family neighborhood, full of houses surrounded by low walls, buildings only a few stories high, and comfortable apartments that occupied entire floors, the most expensive in Rio.

  It was to one of those apartments that Euridice and Antenor moved. Six living-room windows framed the Atlantic Ocean, the extensive hallway led to four rooms with built-in closets and a view overlooking the tops of the almond trees.

  The move confirmed the neighbors’ suspicions, prompted by the Gusmao-Campelos’ abundance of domestic appliances: the family had become rich. They were no longer subject to the rules of Tijuca’s middle class, and a new evaluation was made of Euridice. She was not, in fact, nuts. Euridice was an exotic creature. Exotic with her turban, exotic with her writing. Exotic because there were no longer any parameters on which to base a comparison.

  Euridice left Tijuca without looking back. She wanted nothing more from the neighborhood, not even the dust left behind on her shoes. When the boxes were loaded in the truck, she climbed into the family car and they made their way to Ipanema. Antenor pulled out into the street and Euridice crossed her arms in one big up-yours, though she swears to this day that she was only using her left hand to toss the wrapper for her cough drop out the window.

  Ipanema, she would soon discover, also had its Zélias. But it was a new neighborhood and she was a new Euridice. And that, she knew, made all the difference.

  ‌

  ‌Chapter 13

  After her marriage to Antonio, Guida faced yet another challenge: her mother-in-law’s idle moments. These moments were composed of all the seconds of all the minutes of all the hours of the day, and were used only to make Guida’s life a living hell. Dona Eulália hadn’t accepted the fury of initiative that had befallen Antonio, her Antonio, a boy who for half a century had behaved so well. His marriage to Guida was a blow that compromised her health but also served to make her immortal. Eulália promised herself that in order for Antonio and Guida to stay together they would have to do so over her dead body, and dying had never been in her plans.

  In the beginning, Guida did what she could to please Eulália. The bath was cold? She filled the bathtub with hot water. It was too hot? She tossed in a bucket of cold water. Now it was just a bit cold? She threw in some more hot water. Now it was just a bit hot? She tossed in some cold water. Guida’s resilience frustrated Eulália, since she could hardly complain about the bathwater being wet. The beans had too much broth? Guida would heat up the pan so the water would evaporate. Now they were too thick? Guida would add more water. It was the seasoning that was wrong, and Guida stood next to Eulália, taking orders to add garlic and olive oil. If she had been able, she would have counted out the grains of salt to add exactly the number her mother-in-law wanted.

  She soon understood that she couldn’t count all the grains of salt every time Eulália made a demand. It was the bath, the beans, the way she ironed and folded the clothes. How she arranged the food in the refrigerator and the invisible layer of dust lingering in the house.

  So Guida appealed to the heavens. The woman would light a candle every seven days in the apartment bathroom and pray for a solution – to Jesus Christ our Lord; to Saint Sebastian of Rio de Janeiro; to Saint Anthony, the Wonder Worker; to Saint Rita, Patron Saint of the Impossible – while Dona Eulália pounded on the bathroom door, telling her daughter-in-law that she had to come out that instant because she had a urinary-tract infection and couldn’t go more than five minutes without using the toilet.

  The only effect the candles had was to turn the bathroom ceiling black. It was Chico, not some saint, who consoled Guida in the evenings when Eulália laid it on thick with her criticisms. ‘It will get better, Mom,’ he would say, just to say it.

  In the following months, Dona Eulália’s urinary-tract infection grew worse. She couldn’t so much as make her way to the bathroom without relieving herself in the hallway. Guida would clean the floor, change her mother-in-law’s clothing, and settle her on the sofa. She washed Eulália’s panties in the sink and then walked back to the living room, just in time to be told that she was using too much water.

  Life-or-death moments were common on weekend evenings. Eulália would agonize when she heard the first notes of ‘Bésame Mucho’ coming from the dark living room. ‘The end is nigh, the end is nigh!’ Eulália would scream from the bedroom, and Antonio would run to the bedroom only to see once again that his mother was not dying. Guida would turn on the light and cross her arms. She tapped her foot to the sound of the bolero, waiting for her husband to return. The song would come to an end with Antonio still in his mother’s bedroom.

  When her mother-in-law began to unload her intestines in places other than the bathroom, Guida decided to speak to Antonio. Dona Eulália seemed very sick, wouldn’t it be better to take her to an old folks’ home, so that she could receive specialized care from capable professionals?

  Antonio stared at Guida as though she had antennas growing out of her head. He would never abandon his mother. How could he sleep knowing that the woman wh
o had dedicated her whole life to him was in the company of strangers, that she could die at any moment, and that he, only he, was responsible for such cruelty?

  Guida stared at her husband like someone recently cured of myopia. Antonio would always be tethered to his mother. The umbilical cord had been cut at birth, a time which her mother-in-law had had the terrible gall to survive. But in her husband’s head, the cord would never, ever be severed.

  Guida spent the next morning lost in unprecedented thoughts, while her mother-in-law sucked on sweet coconut balls in front of the television. Any truce between the two would only be possible through death. If their dispute took into account the number of years lived, Guida would hold the advantage. But if it took into account the comparative resistance of the two parties, Eulália would be the victor.

  Guida soon found herself thinking about something that she didn’t really want to think about, but which began to pass through her head. It was as though she’d heard a summons, which she still swears she never did. And since this something neither passed fully through her head nor was banished, it soon put down roots. Guida didn’t much like to think about this something but she also didn’t do anything to stop thinking about it. It was, in reality, a hypothesis, an idea, something that could happen. But if someone were to ask her if this hypothesis would one day come to pass, she would say no way, that would never happen. And that something was the following: What if I were to kill my mother-in-law?

  She began to look at Dona Eulália with renewed interest. In the morning, the old woman drank her coffee together with eight pills. She complained about the crumbs on the table, or the sun creeping through the window. Later she turned on the radio or sat in front of the TV, eating sweet coconut balls. She would complain about the lack of light (‘Why on earth did Guida close the shutters?’), about the noise made by the steaks in the frying pan, and about her favorite sofa pillow lying so far away, there on the other end of the couch. She lunched at noon in the company of eleven pills. She complained about the dessert – ‘Jell-O again? Give me a real dessert, my time here is short. Pudding on a Tuesday? Do you want me to die of diabetes?’

  In the afternoons, Dona Eulália alternated her TV programs with long periods spent in front of the window eating sweet coconut balls. She only abandoned her post to go to the bathroom. ‘What a smelly bathroom, Guida. What are you using to clean this place, wishful thinking?’ She would eat dinner at six, accompanied by nine pills and complaints about the seasoning of the steak.

  That’s how things stood – Guida with the idea in her head which wasn’t hers, and Dona Eulália as the sovereign queen and occasional dying mother – when one Wednesday afternoon a black woman passed through the street peddling sweets.

  ‘Do you have any toffee?’ Dona Eulália yelled from the window.

  ‘I sure do, ma’am,’ the black woman responded, and Dona Eulália sent Guida down to buy some.

  Guida came back with the toffee and went to the kitchen to grab a serving plate. ‘That will only dirty the plates,’ Eulália said.

  The younger woman sighed – in those days, Guida never breathed, she only sighed – and went to the kitchen to season the beans with three garlic cloves, half a chopped onion, three spoons of olive oil and two pinches of salt, according to her mother-in-law’s instructions. She could hear a smacking sound coming from Eulália’s mouth as she ate the toffee. Smack, smack. Smack, smack. Smack, smack.

  That was when the idea that wasn’t exactly Guida’s returned, and everything became a bit confusing. Guida began to think that she could make the toffee herself, and could make it all the time, knowing that if she made the toffee her mother-in-law would love it, and knowing that, who knows, perhaps, she would die choking on a piece.

  Dona Eulália didn’t even bother to criticize the toffee that Guida began to make every morning. The old lady looked like a cocker spaniel, staring at her daughter-in-law with a plea on her face for more. If dentures could develop cavities, Eulália’s would have turned black. She spent the whole day making a smacking sound with the roof of her mouth. Smack, smack. Smack, smack. Smack, smack. When a larger piece got stuck between her teeth, she stuck her finger in her mouth to dislodge it. When she ate an enormous piece, her dentures shifted out of place, and Eulália popped them back into place with a krrr-eck. Smack, smack. Krrr-eck. Smack, smack. Smack, smack. Krrr-eck. Smack, smack. Krrr-eck.

  The toffee candies brought a truce between Guida and Eulália. A truce that occurred shortly before the final battle. It all happened on a Tuesday. Guida was preparing steak Milanese in the kitchen, Dona Eulália was in the living room sucking on a piece of toffee. The smacks coming from the living room were as consistent as a metronome. Smack, smack. Smack, smack. Smack, smack. Krrr-eck. Smack, smack. Smack, smack. Smack, smack. Krrr-eck. Smack, smack. Smack, smack. Smack, smack. Krrr-eck. Until the living room suddenly grew quiet, and Guida heard something fall to the floor, followed by an argh, argh, argh.

  That’s where the story starts to get fuzzy.

  When Guida heard this argh, argh, argh, she thought the same thing that you, dear readers, are thinking. But then she thought that it wasn’t exactly that she was hearing, and decided to toss the three remaining steaks in the flour as she hummed a bossa nova tune. She wasn’t sure whether she thought it wasn’t happening because it was an implausible hypothesis or if she thought it wasn’t happening because she wanted it to happen so much, and for that to happen she would need to toss the remaining steaks in the flour. Argh, argh, argh, she heard from the other room. That’s when Guida came to her senses and ran to the living room and yes, what she both wanted and didn’t want to happen was in fact happening. The picture frames from the table were all over the floor and Dona Eulália’s eyes were coming out of her head, toffee lodged in her throat.

  Guida became desperate. She stuck her hand full of flour down her mother-in-law’s throat, but the toffee wouldn’t budge. She threw Eulália’s dentures across the room, and nothing. She pounded on her mother-in-law’s back, turned the old woman upside down, yelled through the window for help, and went back to pounding on her mother-in-law’s back. The toffee stayed put, in some unknown location. She knew she had to find a way to help Dona Eulália breathe again, that she need only cut a hole in her neck for the air to pass, but the only thing she could remember from biology class was that the jugular vein also ran along the neck and that this vein was to be found in a location as mysterious as the toffee.

  The neighbors arrived next. Some had the opportunity to slap Eulália’s back. Others only saw the body. The ambulance arrived half an hour later.

  Guida’s tears at her mother-in-law’s funeral were genuine. She cried for Antonio, who hiccupped with distress, and who could have been thought of as the only orphan in the entire world with coronary problems and hairs in his ears. The mourning period in the couple’s apartment lasted a week. That Saturday night, Guida gave Chico some money to go to the movies and put ‘Bésame Mucho’ on the record player. That was the night Antonio stopped being an orphan.

  Life in Tijuca in the beginning of the 1960s was tranquil, perhaps even too tranquil. It had been months since some young girl had become pregnant and disappeared for a week to have an illegal abortion, or for nine months to give birth to a bastard child. Not a single maid was sent away because her belly grew, left with nothing more than the clothes on her back and the certainty that she would never again find work. Not a single family announced a trip abroad by the man of the house, ‘abroad’ meaning a trip to the Hotel for Bachelors in Santa Teresa. Zélia became addicted to pulling at her cuticles, she was so bored. That’s when she learned of a story that was the Best of the Year, perhaps even the Decade.

  At her cousin’s invitation, Zélia went to a church festival. At this festival she talked with a friend of a cousin who was married to a watch repairman. This watch repairman had a client who lived in the neighborhood of Muda, and this client had a half-sister, who for her part had another half-sister, who to
ld her a story she had heard from a friend, about a neighbor of hers in Estácio who had vanished in the night. What caused this woman’s story to pass from tongue to tongue was the fact that she was as beautiful as she was bold. She was a single mother, who declined her favors to men in need, and who lived with a former prostitute – and who knows what they did together under the same roof. It’s said that the former prostitute died a hideous death, perhaps paying for her sins, and that the single mother was a bit too lax when it came to caring for her son, because the boy soon became very sick. It seemed that this single mother performed favors for the owner of the local pharmacy, and that her disappearance was related to the man’s trip to the hospital after consuming too much of a laxative that, according to those in the know, was hidden in a chocolate cake, or cornbread muffins, or an egg-white pudding, brought to him by this woman during one of their sinful encounters. To this day, the pharmacy owner clenches his fists at the memory of the woman, whose name was Guida Gusmao.

  So it’s a family trait, Zélia thought to herself. Euridice wasn’t the only slut, immortalized in Antenor’s cries. She needed to reveal the truth to all interested parties as soon as possible.

  Zélia set to work spreading the news, but even after a week the news hadn’t managed to reach the principal targets, Guida and Antonio. After Eulália’s death, the new family nucleus wanted nothing to do with social events. Bankrolled by his mother, Chico discovered the pleasures of the cinema while Antonio discovered the pleasures of marriage.

  When Zélia showed up at the stationery store, only the black boy Tinoco was to be found behind the cash register.

  ‘Do you know where Senhor Antonio is?’

  ‘He was here just this morning, but said he wasn’t feeling well.’

  A few weeks later, the members of the new family returned to their routine. They were once again able to pay attention to what was happening around them, opening their eyes and ears to other people’s stories, and making it possible to hear from these others the stories about their own family.