“Nothing but happiness!” he said throwing his arms wide. “If we go under they open themselves up so happily. Life is all sweet and perfumed. A fabulous peace. Joy!”
I stare at Max. He’s sleeping so contentedly, holding his dick. What better thing to hold? Very handsome my love. So then. Next year you’re going to see. I don’t get sentimental just because she. That’s what you don’t understand, Mother Alix. I don’t want to blame anyone, I’m not going to spend the rest of my life accusing but. I don’t know. The filthy scum she used to go to bed with. Lucky she didn’t like Negroes she must have had something against Negroes. I saw everything but. Jorge had that stiff hair he used a cap made out of an old nylon stocking. But he was white all the same. Like the others. “Your type is Italian. Were your ancestors Italians?” asked Lorena. The scaly one asked me the same thing. Italians no, French. Super-chic to have French ancestors. My father was a Frenchman, JeanPierre Lariboisière. Lariboisière? Never mind, I’ll decide when the times comes, I’ll put whatever name I want, I’m paying right? Conceição comes from my mother’s side. After they separated I stayed with her. A loyal daughter. So. But then how. I don’t know. Enough questions, don’t you see my auburn hair? My skin? All authentic, one hundred percent white. Lião is awfully questionable. And even Lorena with her bandeirantes. I shake Max.
“You’re white too, love! We have nothing to do with the poor and underdeveloped, we’re white, you hear?”
“Such a happy morning. A sunny morning. Shake hands with the sun!” I give him my hand, which he holds and then lets go. On Jorge’s hand there was a tattooed letter, was it an R? A ring with a red stone on his little finger. She called him Joge. The nail on his little finger longer than the others why was that? His nylon stocking to straighten his hair falling over his shoulder. He was good at interpretive dancing, he even won a trophy once on an amateur-talent show, One Step to Glory. Queer. He probably offered his ass to the M.C.
“Max, I’m sober, I think I must have taken aspirin. Was it aspirin?”
I search the floor for a cigarette and drink out of the bottle, swallowing until I reach the stratosphere but why this barrier of solid rock? I need to get away from things Mother Alix. I want so much to forget and I can’t. At times she’s right there in front of me, her expression dripping with love, telling the fat woman that Joge could dance any moozic to perfection, and had won a huge trophy on the program. Help me Mother Alix help me help me help me. I don’t want to remember any more but I do. I know my childhood is over, everything’s past and she was a. Next year I’ll start over, it will all be OK and I’ll be able to live as if I didn’t have that background behind me. But sometimes I hear so plainly the beatings he gave her, putting the ring on his little finger to work. The icy room in the half-finished building which never seemed to get built, a good thing too because the day it did. Aldo. It was Aldo. “Aldo’s so good to me,” she used to say but I believe she was still thinking of Joge. “I want to go back to Recife when this damn job is over and be rid of you and your damned kid.” The gray cement and gray rats powdered with lime, the limy shells of the cockroaches and in fingernails hair and mouth lime lime. It would get in the bread, in our eyes and ears, we used to have to blow on our bread and clothes to get it off. Why do you always shake things Lorena asked me. So fine, the powdery lime so white and fine. Subtle, Loreninha would say. One night I looked at Aldo with his nauseous shirt and cap made of newspaper. Lime powder on his face, in the crevices and on his eyelashes. He looked like a statue in the middle of the room. My mother had just been beaten like a dog and was lying down huddled moaning aiee my Jesus, alee my Jesus, aiee my little Jesus. But little Jesus wanted to get as far away from us as he could. So I grabbed the first cockroach that went past the stove and threw it inside the pot of soup. Then I stopped crying, I had been crying with hatred and that kind of crying is stimulating, my best ideas were hatched from hate. I watched the roach swim breaststroke across the lake of soup, portage the wrinkly collard-leaf island and arrive on the other shore wringing its hands and pleading to get out of the boiling pot. It even climbed up on the edge with its long wings dripping dripping and looked at me sentimentally, the way my mother was looking at me, aiee my Jesus, aieee my little Jesus. I took a spoon and pushed the roach to the bottom, no Mother Alix I don’t want to lie now. Not now. I had no pity when she came to tell me she had to have another abortion because Sergio would have nothing to do with the baby, this was the Sergio era. “I want nothing to do with it,” he roared kicking her hard. She howled to high heaven all day long and that night took ant poison. Dead, she was more shrunken than any ant, I never thought she was so small. She turned dark and shriveled up like an ant and the anthill was finished. The back alleys around Rua dos Guaianenses. There wasn’t any lime but there were guitars and soccer. Gaucho used to sing too. A good kicker. Or was it that other one. It doesn’t matter. “He killed your little brother,” she whined clutching her pregnant belly. When I went back that evening the first thing I saw was the open can on the floor. I stared at it. I didn’t even cry, why should I? I didn’t feel anything. Her face was against the black-spotted pillow and her body was shrunken and twisted like the ant advertised on the can label. I turned out the light and left, thinking that if I went to work tomorrow at the florists’ I could bring the flowers with broken stems. But I’m not going back to work at that florists’ I hate that florists’. I don’t want to any more because I hate it. Nobody will ever see me again. I’m all alone now. A starry night with people from the tenements hanging out their windows and over walls. “Is your mother there? The soap opera’s starting, isn’t she coming?” asked Mina, who got pregnant every other day. She would have been thrilled with the Pill. My mother too, but at times it fails.
“Max, I’m pregnant. What will I do, what will I do, what will I do.”
The little devils fly overhead and tease me and I pinch Max who doesn’t even feel it doesn’t even feel it. Is it a party? Forget forget. I raise my head and enter the pure blue stratosphere blue I scream and slide blue to the floor velvet-wombed we should always move this way liquefied and blue along the floor, riverarms flowing and no danger whatever of falling. So much stuff on the floor look there. An ember grinds its teeth and is put out in the water but the adult grasshopper comes up and watches me with his round glasses and stretches out both hands to me, standing in front of me with his black laced-up shoes and white socks. I laugh at his shoes but he is serious, he pleads wringing his green hands, “You promised me, Ana Clara!” I kiss his shoes. Next year Mother Alix. Next year. Everything is all settled, this is just the farewell party, I’m sober am I not? We have to experience all things, go down to the bottom of the well and then take off upward like an airplane, vrooom! My fiancé has a little airplane all his own and. I’ll give you a beach house I’m wild about the sea, look at it there. There was that friend of mine who was cross-eyed, remember? Adriana. See how sober I am? Adriana. She didn’t know where I lived didn’t know anything and thought I could be one of her group we met by chance in line for the movies and afterward had ice cream together and I intuited right away she was rich Loreninha says that a lot, I intuited. Shit, me too. I became as subtle as the rats on moonlight nights they knew the moon lit everything up and took their precautions. I invented tons of things and began to be so alert, intuition guiding me not that way! close your mouth quick now laugh. Now cry. Close your mouth Ana! I was keeping my mouth closed because the bridge was ready to come loose. And the old lady wanted to know why I was so quiet. The house was huge, right on the ocean, nobody but us could go swimming on that beach. So the old lady wanted to know. My father died in an airplane crash and my mother has cancer. She Crossed herself, Dear God, how awful. How awful, she kept repeating and shaking her head and consoling me because I had started to cry. “Oh, my poor girl my poor girl.” I thought it might happen just like in the story of the important lady who adopts the beautiful penniless orphan. And a nephew appears, proud and cruel at first be
cause I’m poorly dressed but right away he falls madly in love and throws himself at me. And Dr. Cotton? I’ll say it happened once when I fell down. No, not a fall, a Negro grabbed me one time when I was on a picnic in the country and tore my dress and I fainted. Dr. Hachibe knows all about it, my analyst. The house on top of a cliff and the mother hating me at first because she wanted her son to marry a rich cross-eyed cousin just like Adriana. The truth Mother Alix my beloved my saint? The truth under miserable conditions looks trashy. The nha-nha has the same mania. If one of those disciples had given Pilate a sack of gold, would he have washed his hands? Never. He would have found a horse and Jesus would have escaped through the back and had a cavalry escort as far as the border to boot. “But is all this really true?” wondered the woman as she worked at her tapestry rug, she was making this rug and demanded as much perfection in her needlework as in her interrogation. Before talking I needed to think but she was stitching so fast I got tangled up in her strands of yarn. “It happened when my father was driving an Opel,” I began and her needle stopped. “Opel? But didn’t you say an airplane?” I started crying again to gain time. First it was the Opel and then. “But did your father have an airplane?” she asked. He was the pilot. The plane belonged to an old man who had dealings in oil. “Oil?” Yes ma’am, oil. “What was this man’s name? This boss of your father’s.” Oh I don’t know, I know he was a very important man, he had an airplane he had a yacht. Ah. “Ah,” she said going back to her wretched rug. “And then?” Then the plane was smashed to pieces on the rocks, a horrible storm had come up and my father lost control, that was it. Then my mother’s cancer got worse and we lost all we had and went to live with my uncle who is a famous doctor. “Doctor? What’s his name?” I started to get mad, why did I have to please her? Yes ma’am a great doctor, very important Uncle Clovis. She was about to ask his last name when in came Squinty holding a shell in her hand. Clovis Sheldon, I replied without batting an eye, Clovis Sheldon. Before she could resume cross-stitch or cross-examination I shrieked and wrang my hand, “A wasp! Eeh, it hurts, it hurts!” Nobody returned to the subject of my unknown father or my mother either because I decided to sit down in the antechamber of death, nothing better than death to wipe out footprints like the waves erase whatever is written on the sand. The scintillating nights. Scintillating nights. Scintillating people drinking and laughing with the ocean there before them, I don’t know why, when I remember that time I think of precious stones and gelatins, blue red green in the nights tinkling with glasses on the veranda. The colors of the dresses, some were as white as meringues, why? Why did those people make me think of things to eat? Puddings and parfaits, as similar as helpings served from the same dish. Turned from the same mold. My mouth would water as if I were looking at a table spread for a feast, may I? No. Not yet. No cousin to fall in love with me? No married man to seduce me? Let me laugh says the nha-nha. The game was between them and the stakes were high. There was only the old woman left over, I would look at her soulfully, who knows but what she might want my company in her castle? I’d go to the ball in my rags but when the prince saw me among the half-witted princesses. In my story there was even the squinting rich friend, already getting standoffish because the comparison was inevitable. “When my sweetheart turns fifteen she’s going to England for her eye operation, aren’t you sweetheart?” And the Sweetheart squinting harder than ever from pure happiness her big mouth laughing laughing. I was thrilled. I agreed that of course Adriana would be a doll but inside I was somersaulting with joy because not even God operating on her would fix that face. Not one of them will be my friend Mother Alix not one. You love me but you don’t count, you’re a saint. In reality. How can they pardon me? Not even Loreninha who gives me presents and money and helps me put on my makeup when my hands shake, not even Lorena who washes my combs. Yenom. That superior little air I know so well. As if I were some hireling. Always referring to her family, the famous branch of bandeirantes with sweeping hats and boots. The lords of the earth who founded cities. And all the Negroes’ asses? It’s not that I don’t like her, I do. But she wears my patience with her manner of being so special, giving advice by insinuation, complicated little hints, everything about her is complicated. Nha-nha. A wardrobe of gorgeous dresses a collection of marvelous perfumes and she wears those little-girl clothes and smells like soap. “I don’t like much perfume, only a tiny drop at times.” Very refined the little insect with her mini-drop of Miss Dior. In reality she means I use too much perfume, that I’m vulgar because I pour it on myself. Shit, I do pour it, so what? The other one, the leftist, smiles her left-handed smile and turns up her nose too. “I can smell your perfume all the way from my room.” Working for the nation. What the hell. Who’s asking her to? Sometimes she stares at me, “What’s that on your arm? A needle mark?” Yes a needle mark. What about it. I’ll stop when I damn well please. I’m going to be on magazine covers. Marry a millionaire. You can shove it because next year. Since I’m nice maybe I’ll even help you and your flea-bitten bunch, I’ll help everybody. I’ll give you a house for your meetings, I’ll give Lorena one too, pretty soon she’ll have nothing left with Mommy running through the fortune, it doesn’t matter no problem. I’ll take care of everything. And then I’ll become truthful. “I ask God only that I might always be truthful,” she said countless times naturally with the intention of. Truthful. Shit, with money I can be too. I’ll turn into a regular fountain gushing truth. It’s easy to tell the truth when you’re rich. It’s neat, famous people recalling in interviews how in their childhood they robbed garbage cans along with the rats very charming such authenticity. Courageous, aren’t they? Beautiful. But you need to have four cars in the garage, caviar in the fridge and a villa God knows where for true confessions to be interesting. You have to spit dollars for the story of the rich man disguised as a beggar to be amusing, yes you do Madre Alix my saint my saint. Not just yet. When I get my structure built I’ll tell everything, I won’t hide it. You know what to structure means? Cover yourself with money. First I’ll have myself sewed up and choose a trousseau since the scaly one likes to show me off to his beer-drinking friends. I’ll find a good psychiatrist I don’t want anything more to do with that Turk. Greedy bastard. I asked him if he had married for love and he answered it was a love which had lasted up to and including the present. Hell, marry for love. If I don’t feel anything with this one here whom I love to distraction imagine what it’ll be like with that scaly prick. I’ll stuff myself full of oil and moan a lot. He’s there peeling the crust off his bread, why are you so late? I was assaulted, period. The guy took me into the woods and if it hadn’t been for Madre Alix’s Agnus Dei medal. I’m out of money all that you gave me’s gone. Ah Mother Alix Mother Alix tell me nothing bad’s going to happen give me your blessing and put your hand here on my head where it’s going scratch scratch, touch me and I’ll forget, like when the foaming waves would wash over me.
“We’re landing! Coming in to land!” yelled Max spreading his arms and falling belly-down on the pillows. “I saw in a crystal window, upon a proud pedestal! Eeh, Bunny, this music, I wish I could sing it all, it’s a doll he falls in love with, a doll in a shop window, a bitch of a doll prettier than Venus herself, in the bazaar of illusions, in the kingdom of Fantasy!” he sang, drowning in laughter.
The red road. I’m happy because the road is red. A dwarf just passed me, I saw him from the corner of my eye but he’s disappeared. The road is red with sunshine, I walk in the sun, I’m contented because it’s warm and breezy. Far in the distance I see the singer, he’s coming toward me with his electric guitar before I see his face I see the guitar shimmering in the sun it’s as if he had another sun hanging over his shoulder. A black man, but I like this one. I like all black people, I like everybody everybody’s nice to me and I’m happy with the sun and the music he’s singing as he comes down the road and the whole world is singing along with him, a crimson joy so warm have a good trip! I call and he waves at me smiling. I lik
e him with his electric guitar that shines so brightly I have to close my eyes he’s a sun! Have a good trip he says in the middle of the red light of the road and now it’s far off his face his guitar. The guitar.
“Where am I? What time is it?”
My eyes burn. I rub them and sit up on the rug. What is this? Max’s foot is hanging over the edge of the bed. I kiss it. My knee is wet. Whiskey? Whiskey, obviously, how could it be spit. Only if I were a crocodile, I stretch joyfully, ah that road. To talk. One needs to talk about everything, keep talking all the time, let the confession run out like one lets out piss. I need to piss, I crawl to the bathroom now I’m a creeping vine. The stool is too high I have to do it in the bathtub, lift up one leg like Lulu. The only decent thing I had the only thing that ever loved me c’mere Lulu I would call. C’mere. And he’d come running and turning himself inside-out from pure joy. Let’s go for a walk Lulu! Walk. When I saw the beach I remembered him first thing. Lulu would love to run here on the beach. The ocean. In the ocean I forgot my unforgettable mother Jorge’s rancid hair pomade under the stocking pulled down to his ears, was it during the Jorge period? The Dr. Cotton period, the bridge was already wiggling back and forth in my mouth but the foam would come and cover me and I could laugh without a past without pretense one wave after another and the bits of cotton drowning in the froth. In the ocean I was free because I stuck everything in a bag and tied it shut like Mila did with the kittens and threw it far out where the boats pass, my mother, the room where the men slept, the roaches, the clothes. But not Lulu, Lulu I buried in a white-gold coffin nobody’s going to throw my dog in the garbage come back Lulu. Come back. I’ll give you a golden bone, come back and lick my hands my face ouch that hurts. It’s cold I want the rug. Come on Annie come here, up on the rug I call and I obey. Don’t cry I’ll give you. Don’t cry, come on. The bottle floating on the wave has a message inside if I just crawl a little farther. I reach out and drink the message which says. I float and the sun shines coming and going on the sea of green gems, on each wave so many emeralds. Green stones, a huge mine of jewels all green, I tear off a piece of ocean and wrap myself in it, shit I’d like to know who has a dress like mine now. Who. I’m lighted up by a spotlight focused on my womb. I slide away and the wombdoor takes me to the caverns where I penetrate myself and hide. Careful! A voice tells me and I duck my head and row bent-over because the ceiling is very low. I hear the plash plash of water slapping against the walls. The dark cracks. The bubbles of the shady creatures who stick to the leaves, the biggest one peeks at me through the undergrowth of thick live hairs. Fins. I raise the oar and hit him hard but the leeches wrap themselves around my hands and pull me to the deepest bottom let go! I bite through the threads and keep beating at them until the pain becomes unbearable. I wake up, drenched in sweat. I stare at my throbbing abdomen, clean my face on the rug. Did I have to get pregnant? Yes. Fool. Getting pregnant just the same way. But next year I’ll take off like a jet there’s the difference she turned into an ant but me. I’ll shed this skin and grow another without the slightest blemish. I push away the bottle and laugh, all golden inside. After the sea, the milk, and I-don’t-know-what-all, it won’t matter. I’ll say I was late because that Negro on the road who was so friendly all of a sudden turned around and grabbed me tearing my dress, look there at my torn dress. What was there about Dr. Cotton that reminded me of Negroes? His nails? His nails. Lião gets all worked up over blacks, she has a passion for them. Soccer fan. She said it was abominable to talk that way and only didn’t quit speaking to me because she was my friend but if I’d kept on. I understand dearest I understand but I wonder if you’d marry one and she got hysterical of course she would and if she didn’t it was because she wanted nothing to do with marriage but if someday she fell in love with a black man did I think. I did think. I do. Or I don’t know. You and your whole crowd hate blacks. Worse than me. Everybody hates them. But they don’t have the courage to say so and pretend to be so nice. Next year. I’ll open my registration and have a brilliant academic career I’m very smart. A fashionable house on the beach I’ll entertain, invite everyone, they can live there I’m not selfish I’ll share it with you all. I want jewels, everything glittering.
The Girl in the Photograph Page 10