“Be careful of the sun, Lorena!” says Sister Priscilla.
Is it Sister Priscilla’s voice? I open my eyes. Sister Priscilla coming up the steps. I advance toward her on my knees and reach for the letter she holds out to me. Her porcelain face opens in a rosy smile.
“From my brother,” I say.
Her hands shade her eyes which seem to melt in the light.
“The sun is very hot, dear. Did you wash your hair?”
“And it’s dry already, look there.”
“Such beautiful blue skies and this girl hidden away in her room. Mother Alix asked if you were all right, she was a little worried.”
“I’m fine, Sister. The Department is on strike, I have nothing to do there. If my love telephones, I’m going out to dinner with him. Didn’t anyone call?”
Her small teeth are rounded and white, a little separated. The smile of baby teeth.
“Before you go out with your boyfriend, stop by, there are honey caramels.”
She has hope. I throw her a kiss. People are good, yes, wasn’t it beautiful what she said? An unarguable point that he will phone and we will go out together. Positive thinking. I do my solar respiration through my right nostril and go back to my step. I squeeze the letter which isn’t a letter, it’s a postcard. I put off the moment of reading it like I used to put off eating the first mangos back on the ranch. Dear Remo. The embassy is in Tunis but his house is in Carthage, does Carthage still exist, Remo? Yes, it exists. A gorgeous suburb with gorgeous houses in the middle of the Roman ruins. “In the garden through which Salammbô walked there are jasmine trees just like the ones on the ranch,” he wrote, sometimes he gets poetic. There are olive trees planted in the orchards, the olives are picked right off the trees. And the dates come in clusters. “Like the beggars,” interrupted Lião when I read her the letter. “The beggars go around in clusters, like in the Northeast.” I didn’t even answer, what good would it do? You can’t talk about anything pleasant or beautiful because Lião has to attack with the Northeast. Remo only associates with diplomats and banker friends of Bourguiba, what would he know about beggars?
“Was that the telephone?” I ask getting up. I grab the banister and lean over it. “The phone?”
The wide windows of the old house, open to the garden, were empty. On the driveways that curved around the planters, the small stones glittered like lumps of salt. Lorena’s perplexed gaze searched the windows. Never had the house seemed so empty as at that moment. “But didn’t I hear the telephone?” Cat came up tranquilly to Sister Bula’s garden basket, touched her apron experimentally with a paw, and lay down on it. She rolled herself up forming a perfect circle. “She’s catted around all she wants and now she’s resting,” thought Lorena, threading her fingers through the warm-damp tangle of her hair. The wind brought a few chance scraps of voices. But behind them, total, dense, was the voice of Jimi Hendrix repeating the same thing over and over on the phonograph, he’s soaked in sweat and desperate but he doesn’t stop, he has to tell it fast! “Listen, everyone, before I go away, quick!”
“I already know,” she said picking up the plate and glass from the floor. She covered them with the napkin. In the screaming darkness of the bedroom she opened her dazzled eyes wider: Blind thus she could hear even better the silent voice repeating itself, like the record, “Why, M.N., why?”
If even Fabrízio would telephone. The four-to-six movie. A hamburger with beer, he loved beer. Tu quoque, Fabrici? His bearded face. His hair standing on end, his way of walking a little like a caveman, “Hi, Lorena.”
It was night, and rain was pouring down in bucketfuls. He arrived all wet, laughing and shaking himself all over like a big dog who doesn’t quite know where to put its paws, his boots heavy with mud, his notes dripping wet. She threatened to carry him so he wouldn’t mess up the rug and in the end was carried herself, whirled in his arms about the room. “Who says you can handle me?” “You don’t weigh anything, see there?” When she felt the crispness of his beard on her face, she stopped laughing and pretended to be fragile, melting between his muscular arms as she used to in her father’s. The certainty that he had taken a bath recently made her tender; wasn’t that the smell of lavender soap? She felt again that exciting dizziness and opened her mouth, struggling weakly against him, “Let me go, let me go!” she cried pulling his hair and thinking at the same time that they would become lovers that very night. Lovers. Was it that word that caused her to panic? She untangled herself. “Shall we have some tea? I know how to make delicious tea.” He held her back by the hand. He had lost his air of a big happy dog; now he was serious, his eyes low. His voice low: “Sit down here, Lorena, sit here.” She ran off to fill the teakettle with water, tea wouldn’t take any time at all, not five minutes. It took almost an hour. First it was the electric ring that didn’t want to work, I called him to help me, he studies electronics as well as law. When the coils of wires started to work, lightning struck somewhere or other ana all the lights in the block went out. Thousands of nuns bringing packages of candles, screams through the neighborhood, Sister Priscilla falling down when she went to rescue Cat, who meowed dreadfully in the darkness of the garden, an umbrella—was it Bulie’s? that escaped, open, and went flying off in the wind. When the lights came back on, there was a certain peace around us, the peace of things accounted for, of verification. On the roof, a modest drizzle. Peaceful. I felt that tea was really necessary in order to build a certain atmosphere of confidence, love made to conform to the tea ritual. But isn’t there a one-legged demon who gets inside the teapot and blows on the water? I threw the tea in before the water boiled, not that I was nervous, imagine, but I’ve already said that tea isn’t so good with water that has boiled. When, finally, we were face to face without tea and without words, guess who arrived. She never looked so big as on that night with her ancient raincoat and tempestuous hair. She carried under her arm the newspapers and a briefcase full of statistics, that was during her statistics phase. She sat down in her favorite place, which is the rug, asked for a whiskey and took off her water-soaked tennis shoes. I gave her a towel to dry her feet after offering her a bath, which she refused. I love to dive into a hot shower after being in the rain, ah, the sensation of well-being that talcum, perfume and dry clothes bring, I get happy to the point of tears. But Lião doesn’t take a bath before or after. She was excited about the interview she’d had with two prostitutes. She talked a little about the questions in her discursive tone, and after touching lightly on the bourgeoise decadence, including the decomposition of our generation and the false morality of the older one, she tore a piece of newspaper off to line her shoes with. The sight of her gathering up her belongings that she had scattered over the rug in preparation to leave gave me such happiness that I offered her the bottle of whiskey which was still half full, take it, dear, I have more. She accepted it joyfully because there was going to be a meeting of her group and with the rain at least two must have caught cold. She was clearly in love with Miguel, he was still free, poor thing. “After the meeting I have an interview in private,” she said making a suggestive face. As soon as she went down the steps in her three jumps, I went to the record player, Bach, it should be Bach. Fabrízio was smoking, serious, his arm under his head, stretched out on the floor, here only the nuns use the chairs. Then I heard footsteps. “I’ll kill myself if it’s Ana Clara!” And I had what people call a wan smile when she came in in a black suit, very dignified, she spent more than two weeks that way without wearing makeup, talking for hours with Mother Alix, meditating, and drinking milk. She asked for a glassful, refused the cigarette Fabrízio offered her and sat down on the little armchair, I forgot, Annie also prefers chairs. She wanted to borrow some books, she was about to reopen her registration in the Psychology Department, she says she’s in her second year but I suspect that she never finished half a semester of her first. We’re having exams, I said pointing to the pile of notes that Fabrízio had left to dry near the electric ring. We have
to read through all that, can you believe it? She took her glass of milk and went to the chair beside the bookshelf. She turned on the lamp, took her glasses out of her purse, every time she stops drinking she goes back to wearing glasses: “I won’t bother you, I’ll stay here looking at some books.” And without the smallest ceremony she started unwrapping the one I had bought that morning, God Exists, I Found Him. Fabrízio looked at me. I turned off the record player. When we turned the last page of the notes, it was four-thirty in the morning. Ana Clara had covered herself with my shawl and was sleeping profoundly, all curled up in the chair. The rain had passed. “I’ll come back tomorrow,” he said without the slightest enthusiasm as he mounted his motorcycle. I closed the gate. Tomorrow I met M.N.
I squeeze Donald Duck, a present from Fabrízio. Quack, quack! I kiss his beak. My poor clumsy big dog, I think as I hug the duck, be faithful and guard me like that dog in the commercial (a police dog?) who guards the safe. Before Astronaut I used to like dogs better but I discovered that if dogs interest me, cats fascinate me. No, my poet, it’s not death that is clean but cruel, it’s the cat. I was coming back from the cinema with Annie (sober) when I saw that miserable little kitten abandoned on the corner. I made a bottle out of an old medicine container that Sister Bula brought; he slept on my cashmere pullover, made pee-pee and etc. in my bidet until he learned to go in the garden, even got in bed with me, but do you think he turned into a sentimental kitty-cat? Let me laugh. He would spend the day on his pillow, either sleeping or looking at me with minimal interest. Neither affections nor concessions, an Egyptian. He came inside my shell, but I didn’t get inside his. One day, without word or gesture, he went out through that door and never came back. But he will, I know he’ll turn up someday all dirty and ragged. I’ll bathe his wounds, nurse his illnesses and when he becomes once more a lustrous fat tomcat he’ll run off again. Free, free. Who can hang onto a tomcat? Not his wife who is old or almost old, isn’t the middle son my age? She must be about the age of Mama, who has already had two facelifts and is on her way to the third. Other structures, other spheres. “I am the mother of your children!” she must remind him three hundred and sixtyfive hours a day. Blackmail. My love, my love, how can you allow such blackmail.
“I am destined to live alone,” I say and begin to laugh. I hear this from Aunt Luci every time she ends a marriage, just before she starts another one. I put on a Maria Bethânia record, ah, how she reminds me of Lião’s amenities when Lião drinks and becomes amenable. Before M.N. I thought that I couldn’t live without music, but now I know I can’t live without him. I’d die listening to music, hours, days, months passing by and the record going around and around for all eternity, la, la, la, la … one day they would discover a skeleton more fragile than skeletons generally are, dressed in a shift so tenuous that the breeze would make it fall apart with one puff. And the record player buried under the dust, the music without record or needle rotating in the tiny tummy of a mouse, li, li, li, li … The phone! Oh Lord, the phone.
Chapter 4
“There was this great big clock in the tower and I wanted to grab onto its hands, hold the hours back, why wouldn’t time stop a little? I wanted to hang there, holding back time. Then Mama took me by the hand and led me to the park, everything was so green, was it in London? The musicians were playing and we were sitting in chairs, ‘Listen, Max, it’s Mozart. Pay attention, dearest, Mozart.’ ”
I discover a cookie under the pillow. I chew it slowly because it’s a sugary one and I don’t want to finish it right away I like sweet things so much I can eat all the sugar I want my body is super-elegant I don’t gain weight. I can eat tons of sugar and nothing happens. Lião sure can’t. She’s on her way to obesity, a few more pounds and she can put on her macumba priestess costume. Lorena doesn’t count she’s an insect. Is there such a thing as an insect with a weight problem? An insect.
“The hell with Mozart, I like Chopin. Chopin and Renoir, I want sweet artists. The mouth where the mouth should be, everything where it belongs, everything happy, I’m sick of squalor. That’s what I told Loreninha, she loves to listen to those crummy singers but she’ll only eat English jam on her toast. A snob. Let me laugh, she says and bends backward and goes hah, hah, hah.”
He releases the hands of the clock and lies down again.
“We didn’t come into this world to get up-tight, that’s where the problem is.”
I look for more cookies but all I find is crumbs. I take the cigarette from his hand and the smoke is sugary. His kiss is cotton candy.
“Max, do you like Renoir? Renoir the painter, you like him?”
He takes the cigarette back and stretches his arm toward the ceiling. “Bosch, Hieronymus Bosch.”
“Ah, all monsters, all torment. Shit, a crazy man’s work. I hate crazy people.”
Sitting on the bed, he started turning his arms propeller fashion. He gave a cry of pain when his closed fists hit each other in midair.
“I broke my hand. Aiiyyyy, it hurts …”
“Bastards. I want beautiful things, things that remind me of money. Abundance, prosperity. I adore the United States, why shouldn’t I. Lião is anti-American because she’s hard up, she’ll never have anything, let her stay with her subversive friends, but me! The best hotel. How many stars does the best hotel in the world have?”
“He invented the spaceship, it’s there in those paintings, a whole hell of a lot of spaceships before anybody had even thought of them. The one they put on the moon is a piece of shit compared. They’re all flying, vvrroooooooom …”
“The scaly one likes to travel. Well he’ll travel all right, look here who’s going with him. The best hotels. Next year I’ll start studying English again, I want conversation classes with that guy, what’s his name. That asshole. Oxford accent.”
“Winged devils, look what a mean one … he’s grabbing that woman by the foot, yeah! Let her have it!”
“I could sleep for three days in a row,” Ana Clara murmured slipping in between the young man’s legs. She crawled upward until she reached his chest. “Where’s your glass? I’m sober, Max. Did you give me aspirin? I’m sober, nothing has any effect, I dunno.”
“Eeeeh, that real black one! He has a chamber pot, look, look quick! He can really fly, huh? Go away, go away!” he yelled shielding himself behind her. “He wants to put the pisspot on my head!…” he giggled.
“I’ve lived in a pisspot. Nothing but torment and monsters. I’ve had my fill of it, why should I want more? Now I want things gilded, rich, with cupids. Nice square paintings, that’s what I want, I’ve had enough abstractionism. In reality misery is abstract. At its highest point it’s abstract. Ever experience the abstract in the pit of your stomach? I want a square house, square flowers, roses, I hate exotic flowers, those that. Faces in the place. Shit, Van Gogh. Lorena has a passion for Van Gogh and that other nut. Nha-nha-nha-nha. He paints flowers like meat, you know what meat is? They bleed. Live meat rasped with a file, the blood pours out, confess, confess he would say rasping deeper with his paintbrush. Lião told how her friend was filed over that way. If they’d invited me to join their group when I was a little girl you know I would have? I really would have joined, I used to think so much about justice and stuff, I was a very special little girl, you hear, Lorena? But now I plan to join a different kind of group.”
“Get him out of here, Bunny! Hold me.”
She covered his face with a pillow, rolling a piece of hair around her finger.
“Good idea. Hell, wipe out the establishment. But if now’s my chance to. Wait a little, it’s my turn, okay? Next year darling a new life. I’ll finish my courses and then. I want to be first in everything, you hear? With money you can learn quick, with money it’s easy. I’m intelligent, right? A woman psychologist. The scaly one will buy me a high-class clinic, beggars’ problems don’t interest me. I’ll choose the clientele. A bag of gold. So.”
Max, doubled with laughter, rolled himself up in the sheets.
“There’s one trying to peck at my wee-wee, look at his beak,” he yelled uncovering himself. Peaceful suddenly, he closed his eyes, hid his genitals with his hands, and smiled. “Mon chou …”
Next year he’ll see who’s the petit chou. A new life, my gorgeous boy. Farewell, Ana Clara Conceição daughter of Judith Conceição but is that your last name? Cow. She looked alarmed the cow. Women are really enemies. Did any male professor ever snub me on account of that? Who cares about a name. She did. Cow. Jealous because I’m pretty. You have an incredible resistance to languages Ana! If I had a bag of gold would she have noticed any resistance? Cow. The nha-nha made the same face I know so well when she repeated my name, Ana Clara Conceição? Conceição yes ma’am. So what? Who else worries about names in this city? A wonderful city, there’s no more of that now, you just have to know who has a bag of gold at home and who doesn’t. If you have one, you can have Crapass as your last name and people salivate and hang a medal around your neck. The name business is finished, everything is finished. New times dearie. She likes to joke calling me by my full name, Ana Clara Conceição are you listening to me? Yes, Lorena Vaz Leme. A descendant of the first settlers. Original bandeirantes, old frontiersmen. They raped the Indian women and stuck hot branding irons up the Negroes’ rear ends to see if they’d hidden any sold there. But they were so fantastic. Their enormous hats and their names even more enormous. Who cares about bandeirantes these days? I’ll tear up my birth certificate with the father unknown and unregistered and then I want to see. A new birth certificate, I’ll buy a new birth certificate with the father known and registered. I’ll baptize my father in order to get married shall I? An emperor’s name: Caius Caesar Augustus. Caius Caesar Augustus Conceição. A teacher. Or a physicist? Neat to have a physicist father. A scientist, or better yet, a university professor. Aren’t there gobs of universities spread all over the place? Why can’t my father be. A half-wit. She would even screw the bums in a vacant lot, she knew how to do that, what she didn’t know was how to grab one of them by the hair and take him to the registrar, come on, you’re her father, give her your name because you’re the father. Am I going to be sentimental about her just because she’s dead?
The Girl in the Photograph Page 9