The Girl in the Photograph

by Lygia Fagundes Telles

  Consolatrix Afflictorum. I go into my bathroom. If I close my eyes I can imagine myself entering a forest of eucalyptus trees, Sebastiana was very free with the air scent. But the real perfume is different. I sit on the edge of the bathtub and join my thumb and forefinger together forming a ring so that the water from the faucet runs through the middle. With his thumb and index finger, two extremely important digits, M.N. will undo my brassiere, which I never wear since I simply don’t need one, but which is indispensable at this point. Ana Clara told that the German, ripped off her blouse, the fabulous German, the first man, first love, first everything. M.N.’s breathing will alter: It will be as if he had been climbing up a rather long staircase, one of those winding ones, let’s say. I interrupt him because I’m terribly thirsty, I want a drink of water. Which is nothing new; I’ve been that way ever since I was a child: Before leaving the house Mama, the nurse, everyone would ask me if I needed to make pee-pee, etc. No, I didn’t. We’d get in the car, the farm was about fifteen minutes out of town, and before long I’d start squirming. Or we’d be coming out the door of the church. At the exact moment the procession was starting, with the line of angels right in front, I’d run back because I was thirsty or needing to go to the bathroom, which was more complicated because of the wings tied onto my shoulders underneath the satin gown. To this day I don’t know why getting my panties down involved dislocating my wings. “A little whiskey in the water?” he asks, so far he has only taken off his coat and loosened his tie a bit, very good. In spite of the slight heat, my blood pressure must be down in the basement, a drink is indispensable. I ask emphatically for a strong one, I don’t normally drink but at times like these only a drink loosens one up. I drain the glass, glug-glug-glug. The dizziness that begins in the back of my neck ends up in my mouth, in the midst of a slow juicy kiss. In slow motion—everything unhurried—he begins to take off his clothes with the air of someone who wants only to move more freely, “It’s a bit hot, isn’t it?” In spite of the unhurriedness the moment has come for the undershorts, Oh Lord. The horror I have of men’s undershorts, beginning with the word. No matter how modern and fancy they are. I become completely constrained when I see an actor in his undershorts in the movies. “I can’t imagine why he has to wear those white undershorts during the whole movie,” I complained to Lião, the camera would whirl around pretending to focus on something else, and then go straight back to the undershorts, with their telltale bulges. “I want to see his face, too,” I complained. Over a sandwich, Lião gave her own explanation: “I can’t explain it, but it seems that all the film directors are queers these days, and queers have more of an obsession for the prick than women, see?” I told her about my complex regarding undershorts, but she had already branched into politics and by the time we got back to the boardinghouse everything could be blamed on North American imperialism. The dream republic would be a beach, with the two of us in bathing suits, a beach is so much more poetic. Well, it’s no good now, because we’re in an apartment where he has to take off his undershorts with an ease so easy that before I realize it, he’s naked.

  I dive into the bathtub. Delicious, delicious. I open the coldwater tap. Calm down, Lorena Vaz Leme, take it easy. Better to start with the elevator, you just got into the elevator. Alone? Of course, alone. But why doesn’t he get in with me? “Don’t forget I’m married, dear. We can’t take the risk.” I open the bottle of bath salts and pour some into the water. Eucalyptus perfume, still the artificial forest. Foam. Isn’t it depressing, this fear he has of getting caught? It suggests a mask, and I have a horror of masks. I’d like only to be truthful. Honest. “The world of the bourgeoisie is the world of appearances,” Lião is always saying. M.N. and I belong to the bourgeoisie, therefore we are condemned to this world. But are we really? I’d like to exist but I’m going to be tangled in the web of make-believe. “I like it so much when you call me M.N.,” he said. I blow the foam which comes up to my chin. Like it or find it prudent? Only initials. When, just before the rainstorm, he asked the office worker if he needed a ride (he’d gone to the Department to see about his son’s transfer) and the fellow said no, he had a car, and then when he turned to me and repeated the question—when we went quickly out of the half-light of the halls into the dark night, I retained only the impression of a dark-haired man with a pipe. Nothing more. In the car, I became aware of his wellgroomed scent, a light touch of lavender mixed with tobacco, I’ve always loved the smell of tobacco. During the ride I noticed that he had strong, tranquil hands. A discreet wedding ring. I inhaled his essence of a man of medium age and medium happiness, which is worse than complete unhappiness, according to Aunt Luci who has been married various times. I felt at ease there with him. His style of driving impressed me too, I never felt so secure in a car. The storm broke in the middle of a story I was telling him about our ranch. When I got out at the gate, he got out too and before I could stop him, he took off his coat and covered me. We ran together through the garden blue with the lightning flashes that electrified our path, his right arm around my shoulder while with the other arm he held up the raincoat opened above our heads, a canopy in a procession protecting the sacrament.

  Pallium. Incredible how in an instant of disorder a small detail stands out with such force: thunder, lightning and my fingers discovering his initials. I took him by the waist to conduct him and then I felt the letters embroidered on his shirt. “What letters are these?” I cried when I drew away from him to go up the steps. “M.N.!” he answered and his voice became stronger than the storm, M.N.! I stopped on the steps and looked at him. He continued in the same place, protecting himself with the raincoat. “Return, M.N.!” I yelled. He confessed to me the next day with his lopsided smile that he had been in doubt: Was I ordering him to return to the car, or return to see me again?

  The foam of the bath salts begins to crystallize on the surface of the tub. I hug my legs and visualize myself running crazily like the woman in the Canticles, fainting with passion as I search for my beloved with the legs like columns, he plays golf, he must have muscular legs. At the right moment (he will intuit that moment) I see him extend his knowledgeable hands. Refinement and cultivation in his fingertips polished to the utmost, like those of a safecracker perfecting his tactile sense. Tactile with a c to impede precipitant haste; certain words should have their doorsteps as a measure against uncontrolled people, watch your step! He is careful, oh indeed he is. So much so that he already has both hands on my breasts without my even perceiving how they got there. A first touch, the light twirling of the buttons to the left and to the right. A pause. One more almostimperceptible movement and I’ll spring wide open, every secret revealed.

  “The treasure of a young girl is her virginity,” I heard Mama say more than once to the young girls that worked in our house on the ranch. Since she never again gave that warning, I calculate that the treasure was only valid for that time. And for that type of young girl, daughters of peasants or orphans. But what if I should come up to her and say, I have a lover. Pale with alarm, she would stare wide-eyed for several hours, it always takes her a while to adjust to new situations. “A lover?” I quickly look for a decisive argument, You don’t want me to remain a virgin the rest of my life, do you? Of course not, she wouldn’t want that under any circumstances, she’s made thousands of ironic allusions to girls who die virgins and turn into stars. You wouldn’t want me to become a lesbian, if I don’t go to bed with a man, I’ll have to go with a woman, won’t I? She shakes her head, terrified, no, no! Although catastrophic, at this point she’s not thinking about the worst that could happen to me but rather a normal and healthy hypothesis: Why a lover and not a fiancé! I concentrate in order to exposit all of Lião’s theories against marriage. But my arguments are terribly weak, I think marriage is the best thing in the world, I’d marry M.N. in a thousand churches and courts. Oh Lord. In the end I give the lecture with that so-sincere sincerity that seizes us when the grapes are sour. She starts smoking one cigarette
after another, a sign of insecurity. To show how up-to-date she is, she rejoices in unrestrained youth, she’s super-liberal but she can’t help mentioning a few of her perplexities: “For example, I can’t understand this gulf between my generation and yours. Have centuries gone by, or only a few years? The scandal it caused when my cousin had a baby four months after she was married, you’d have thought the world was coming to an end. And how old do you think she is today? Forty-two! Imagine if now anybody would so much as comment if one of your friends by chance—” she leaves the sentence dangling, she’s just remembered that she’s said all this before, there’s not a card-partner of her acquaintance who hasn’t thrilled to the differences between her own times and those of her daughters. Granddaughters. Or nieces, in cases where there isn’t a direct descendant. She grows quiet, thinking. Her expression starts to wax dramatic when she visualizes me in bed with a man, the faces contorted in pleasure, the moans WITHOUT MATRIMONIAL INTENT. Which is a bit like spying, isn’t it? She squeezes her eyes shut. The sponge of bitter aloes begins to drip from her slow smile. Still a child (she thinks of me as being about twelve) and with a lover, an old faun drooling his filthy spittle over her baby. Disappointment slowly is transformed into rage, she paces back and forth with her arms crossed because she can’t bear to sit still any longer nor to look at me. Mea culpa, mea culpa. “I’m an insensate woman, a frivolous creature. To leave my little girl in the midst of people whom I don’t even know and go off to live with a man who ridicules and betrays me as often as he can. If I didn’t drink my tea black, he would have killed me long ago with a dose of arsenic in the sugar. A mother can’t separate herself that way from an almost-adolescent girl, you’ve actually shown a lot of judgment, another girl in the same circumstances …” the self-punishment grows less severe when she announces that the romance with Mieux is truly liquidated. She wants now to live a retired life, without worldliness, “completely centered around my little girl. God forbid that I should ever marry again,” she’ll say, without recalling that she said the very same thing and with equal emphasis right after Daddy was hospitalized. She allows that my friends are partly responsible: “I find them very odd, those two girls who live there. The pudgy one who looks like a lesbian and that other who is so vulgar. Could they possibly be the right company for a young lady?” She squeezes the young lady’s hand to signify her appreciation for my being truthful and not telling lies (she can put her fears to rest on that point) and under the pretext of consoling me (because he’s married) she consoles herself, nostalgic. “But if you’re happy, then so am I,” she says and smiles that wan, melancholy smile to show her contentment. Every time the present becomes distasteful to her (which is happening more and more frequently) she takes refuge in the past. The memories collected without temporal order are always the same ones. “Do you remember, dear?” I am playing at the fountain on the ranch and I have a red flannel scarf tied around my neck because I have a sore throat. Daddy snapped the shutter when I lost my balance and fell down on my bottom in the water. Somebody (Ifigênia?) yells from inside the house, “That child will catch pneumonia!” Now I’m riding on the back of Remo’s bicycle, my face so clear you can see the gap left by the canine tooth that was pulled out the night before. The tooth swings on the end of a string in a pendulum motion, “Where’s the tooth that was here? The cat got it! … Where’s the cat?” My first bath in a silver basin, with gold chains and bracelets in the bottom, through the water I see the gold destined to transmit its shine to me. I told her I remembered this bath and she laughed, “Impossible, dear, you were only eight days old!” But I do remember it. I see the water and the tangle of gold shining in the bottom, I would recognize that jewelry if it hadn’t all been melted down, the thing that lasted the longest was the enormous chain that looped around and around and around and one time around Mieux made off with it. My first day of school, when I threw my lunch pail away and wouldn’t let go of the legs of the bed. She was wearing a white linen dress and had pinned a little bouquet of jasmine to the neckline. “I used to like that dress so much,” she repeats, reconstructing the dress and the rest. She keeps on staring at me. “I should never have sold the ranch, I should have stayed on there. I could have arranged for a male nurse, he wouldn’t have gotten worse the way he did if he’d lived in the midst of the things he loved so much, his plants, his animals. To die alone in that cold sanatorium, without anybody to hold his hand. Romulo dead. Remo so far away he might as well be dead too. My little girl the lover of a married man. And I in the company of a cynic who betrays and exploits me, oh, what punishment, what punishment!”

  I slide deeper into the bathtub. My eyes are swimming, I’ve become emotional, why did I complicate the picture this way? I’m very much moved and I wasn’t supposed to be moved at all. Better not to mention the fact that he’s married, if he isn’t married she might have hope, and to deprive Mama of hope is the last thing in the world I’d want to do. I’ll just say that I don’t have the slightest interest in marriage. She takes heart: “You don’t right now, but you will, all young girls say that but when they start wanting children, then they want to marry too. It always happens. So much more practical, Lorena. On trips, at hotels. And in your life together! You have financial interests, dear. Who could be better than a husband to administer one’s financial interests?” She remembers her own unadministered ones (What, trust that irresponsible scoundrel? That futile turncoat?) and takes my hands between hers, that’s the gesture she uses when she wants to speak to me woman to woman. “You are established, dear,” she says solemnly, she has incorporated the word established into her vocabulary but she doesn’t know exactly what it means in this context. “It’s your decision. Do what your heart desires.” What my heart desires. What does my heart desire? Eeeeeeh, Mama. My heart desires to stay with him even without being married, without anything. She blinks stiffly because of her false eyelashes, my doll used to blink exactly the same way. “But if he doesn’t want to separate from his wife it’s because he’s in love with her, not with you!”

  End of story, Lião would say. I wash the corners and curves of my ears where the Seducer Angel has again distilled the dew of lasciviousness and envy. As if laziness weren’t enough. I open the tap and watch the foam revive under the hot stream of water. Anyone who through action, voluntary omission, negligence or imprudence causes detriment to another, is obliged to repair the detriment. Not fulfilling his obligation, the debtor is held responsible for loss and damage.

  “Loss and damage,” repeated Lorena searching for her reflection in the mirror. Through the dense steam she could only see the dark spot which was her hair and a pinkish section of knee emerging from the foam like a vague spongy plant. “This is a norm, my love. A judicial standard. Through your negligence, I lost my happiness,” she thought as she wrapped the towel around herself. She rubbed her feet on the bathmat and made some faces, without much conviction, at the mirror. “I’m sad.” She powdered her body with talc, spread the towel over the back of a chair, and put on her red bathrobe. Suddenly she felt fascinating, ah, if M.N. could see her now. Running to fetch a book from the shelf, she took a letter from inside it and sat down on the big cushion. The typewriter ribbon must have been nearly worn out; the letters seemed to dissolve into the bluish onionskin paper.

  “Loreninha.”

  She smiled at the young man who had silently opened the door and was smiling at her through the crack.

  “Hi, Guga! Come in. I just finished my bath.”

  “So I see.”

  “Want to take one? If you do, help yourself.”

  “Not now,” he said untangling himself from his canvas backpack. He sat down on the rug beside her. “Are you going to hear the rock band play today? Down at The Shed?”

  “I’m not in the mood, Guga. Are you going?”

  “I don’t know yet. My brother’s the sax player, I’d only go on account of him. But I’m not sure,” he answered crossing his legs and grasping his sandals by the toes
.

  She was looking at the little yellow sun embroidered on the front of his cotton T-shirt.

  “Did you do that?”

  “Yeah. Did it come out all right?”

  “It’s wobbly,” she said leaning over to kiss his cheek. With her fingertips she smoothed his beard. “I know how to embroider a beautiful duck, bring me a shirt and I’ll decorate it for you.”

  “This is my only one.”

  “Your only one? Oh Lord. What poverty, poor Guga.”

  “Want to adopt me? I’m looking for someone who wants to take me in. And love me.”

  “Wait, I’ll go get some whiskey,” she said running to the record player. “Have you heard Chico’s latest album?”

  “I don’t think so, I’m really kind of out of touch, Loreninha. Or, to put it better, in touch.”

  She brought a bottle and a glass, and placed an ashtray near his hand which held a lighted match. They fell silent, sitting side by side listening to the music.

  “In touch, how?”

  He smiled. “In touch. I stopped running around like a madman. I was acting insane, studying without any desire, doing things without wanting to, everything forced, just to prove myself. Now I don’t want to prove anything. I’m at peace with myself. That’s what’s important, isn’t it?”

  “Is that why you disappeared from school?”

  “I stopped studying, Loreninha. I left home and quit school. We rented a basement, me and some guys, each one gives so much per month. We’re living in a commune.”

  “Eeeeeeh.”

  “Why eeeeeh?”

  “It never works out, dear. You’ll end up fighting, there’s always one that’s more confused than the others and messes everything up. Even Jesus couldn’t stand the community He set up, remember? ‘Oh faithless and perverse generation, how long shall I suffer you?’’ He exploded one day, He said that or something very like it. And He was Jesus, imagine!”