The Girl in the Photograph

by Lygia Fagundes Telles

  Lorena is already bringing the tea tray and from her face I perceive she hasn’t heard a single thing I’ve said. She balances her tray on the big cushion.

  “I have a presentiment that M.N. isn’t ever going to call me again.”

  “Then I hung up and kissed my hand, because I wanted to kiss his hand and couldn’t.”

  “Do you agree, Lião?”

  “What?”

  “That M.N. isn’t going to look me up any more. Do you think so too?”

  I pour tea into my cup. She waits, her eyes pinned on me. I take a deep breath, clear down to my heels.

  “You start talking about marriage! He’s afraid of his wife, see.”

  She wraps her hands around the teapot, she always has cold hands. Cold feet.

  “But I don’t want him to marry me, just call me!”

  “It comes to the same thing, Lena. After the phone call you’ll want the wedding, that’s all you think about. With Mama offering the reception.”

  She pushes the plate closer to me because I’m eating cookies, and there are crumbs. But is that all she ever thinks about, the ashes or crumbs that might fall on her rug? Is that all that ever passes through her head? And this M.N. who must be a big turd, oh! Now I feel like howling because she has started rolling up my pant legs, every time I wear these jeans she comes running and starts to roll up the ever-loving hems. I have to laugh.

  “You really are crazy, Lena. But pay attention, I’ve said it a whole batch of times and you didn’t even hear me, my passport is almost ready, I’m going to be traveling very soon. I-am-leaving, you hear? I’m off.”

  “But Lião, so suddenly? I know you’ve been talking about it but I thought it was something more remote, you said that you’ve already got your passport! Overseas?”

  “The place is secret, very secret. I haven’t even told my father yet, I’ll send a letter from Algeria. I’ll be meeting him there.”

  “Him, who?”

  “Miguel! Miguel is going to be released, we’re going to meet in Algeria, I get off the plane in Casablanca. And don’t ask for more details, I’ll give them to you later, that’s enough for now, I’m going to Algeria.”

  “Algeria? But how marvelous, Lião! Why didn’t you tell me sooner? Algeria, imagine! Lia de Melo Schultz going to Algeria! And she says it so nonchalantly, with such tranquility … how fantastic! We’ll take a-look at the map immediately. My brother Remo knows that part of the world pretty well, he lives in Carthage, in Tunisia. I’ve been hearing you talk about a trip sort of bla-bla bla but I never imagined …”

  She jumps up to get the map and opens it on the rug. A drop from my cup falls on Asia but in her excitement she doesn’t see it.

  “Here’s Algiers,” she points out and pushes aside her hair which has uncoiled softly like a ribbon over the map. “Bordering on Tunis, see? And Morocco on the other side. Look at the Sahara. Sand, sand. If I were to meet M.N., I’d go running on the tips of my toes, I’d cross the desert and knock on this little door here, tap, tap!”

  She folds up the world map. I stuff my mouth full of cookies, oh, these sentimentalisms.

  “The problem is this. Dad can’t send me the money until the end of the month—”

  “Yenom, yenom!”

  “The yenom, see. I said that was fine but I’m hoping to go sooner, things have speeded up. Could you loan it to me? The minute my father sends it, see. It would be, like, an advance.”

  “But of course, Lião! Mama deposited a fortune in my name, the famous sports car. I don’t want a car, at least for the moment I haven’t the slightest interest, imagine. Aren’t I going to loan Ana Clara some money for whatever it is she needs? How much is the ticket?”

  “I’m going to find out today.”

  “Take a signed check and fill in the quantity you need but with a wide margin, Lião, for goodness’ sake! A good wide margin for you to get started. I’d never forgive myself if I found out you were going hungry. Oh Lord, it’s wild, this trip of yours! I’m electric!”

  “What about me. I haven’t slept for days, I lie down and start thinking.”

  I open my checkbook as I listen to Lião munching cookies. I’m going to lose her. She’ll never come back, I’m going to lose her. Like I lost Astronaut. My eyes swim and my handwriting submerges, the Leme last, so shaky. Who will interview me now, your name? Lorena Vaz Leme. University student? Yes. Virgin? I turn the page and sign another check. The tears return to their obscure source.

  “I want you to wear a cross there on your chain, promise you will? Come on, promise, if you don’t …”

  I grab her by the wrists, she’s almost ripping up the check.

  “What kind of blackmail is this, Lorena? I’ll wear it, I’ll wear a dozen of them if you insist, no problem!”

  “Promise you’ll leave it there on the chain.”

  “I promise.”

  She kisses me, radiant. With her geisha gestures she goes to get me more tea and fills my cup.

  “One day, all of a sudden, you’ll squeeze this cross in your hand.”

  “Will I?”

  “I’m certain of it, Lião, certain. Your head is completely turned with politics, etcetera, you’re in a whirlpool, dear. My diagnosis: a sleeping faith. Latent.”

  I put the check in the bottom of my bag where the links in the chain of my journey are gradually coming together. Where is this bank? I find one more fingernail to bite. Down near the booking agent’s office. Fine. When I open my eyes, I meet Lorena’s; she’s watching me. I pat her on the head. Oh yes, God.

  “I was an angel in church programs too, an altar attendant, everything. I used to believe fervently, with that beautiful childish certainty. For that very reason, I was reconciled to things, see? I can’t explain it, Lena, but as soon as I started reading the papers, becoming conscious of what was happening in my city, in the world, I got so angry. Furious. Of course He exists, I thought, but He’s all cruelty. From that stage I went on to that of irony, I became ironic, He’s a bricoleur, do you know what a bricoleur is? In my street there lived a Bahian image-maker who would get scrap objects, haphazard fragments with no plan. He would put the pieces together with talent, he was talented, and would create little machines out of those pieces. I started to think that God was simply that, a bricoleur of people. He picks up one leftover bit here, another there, and makes his contraptions. Using what’s available, see? According to caprice. When one bricolage starts to work, when it begins to function for good or ill, he loses interest and picks up another one, millions of undestined little human machines bashing their heads here and there like crazy. Kaput.”

  Now Lorena is lying on her back, arms open, pedaling. I gather the crumbs from the rug onto the tray. One has only to mention machines and she’s already mounted on her imaginary bicycle, shifting gears.

  “Little human machines, Lião?”

  “Little machines that pedal, eat, shit, fuck.”

  She fell on one side, laughing. “How dreadful, my ears almost exploded, dear!”

  “So I’ll use more subtle words. Chier, baiser, doesn’t that sound refined?”

  “I want to know if this idea is your own.”

  “What idea?”

  “The one about the little machines.”

  “I read. French philosophy.”

  She goes “Ho, ho, ho!” and curls herself up, clutching her feet and rolling over in somersaults like a little black ball. One can count her ribs through the clinging leotard. The music on the record player recommences, it is part of all this just like the walls and floor. A cat meows close by, it sounds as if it were under the rug. She frowns expectantly, she must be thinking of Astronaut. Or God. Her perplexed little face is lifted. Although she has pedaled and rolled, she doesn’t show a drop of sweat.

  “And the little machines that dream? Explain that one to me, Lião, what about the machines that dream? I’m a dream machine, can you believe it? Mama, my brother Remo, my aunts, gobs of people, they could be machines. Bu
t my brother Romulo and I were always different. Especially him, he was so extraordinary, my brother.”

  Everything’s behind schedule, lists of things to get done yet today, and here I am partaking in metaphysical digressions, watching Lorena show off in her black leotard. But isn’t this almost good-bye? How many more times will I come up to this room? I take one last biscuit. I know that I’ll remember her as she is now, without dust or sweat, looking inside her vague world.

  “See you later,” I say.

  “But at least you believe in Him. As a bricoleur, but it doesn’t matter, you believe.”

  “We’ll discuss the subject another time, I really have to go. What I think is that you’ll never be like me and I’ll never be like you. Isn’t it simple? And complicated?”

  Lorena went to the door with her, tucking in Lia’s shirttail.

  “You yourself once said that there isn’t such a thing as never again, remember? Aren’t we alive? What if some day I’m executed a las cinco en punto de la tarde in Palestine? And what if you enter a convent in Spain?”

  Lia went down the stairs laughing. When she looked back, Lorena was making faces at her.

  Chapter 10

  Cat sleeps between two daisy-planters, her bursting belly turned to the sun. Will I be here to see these kittens? Mimosa always liked to whelp in the hammock, remember? The blind furless kittens would tumble from between the fringe tassels and she would gather them one by one in her velvet mouth. Miguel doesn’t want to even consider having children, at least for the time being. Of course I agree with him, but at times I feel such a desire to lie down like that tabby cat, full to satiety, filled and fulfilled with my pregnant body, which is so crowded there isn’t room to fit in even a wisp of straw. I’d call him Ernest.

  “Good morning, Cat!”

  She lifts her head, asking to be stroked, and goes back to sleep. Two more calico cats cross the garden which has turned into a cat kingdom, they know that here they won’t be murdered. Even so, Lorena’s cat Astronaut packed his necessaire and took off. Independent Left with Anarchist shadings. I kick the gravel. The idea that I’ll never see this garden again makes me a touch sad. Never again? There isn’t any never again in the present, present meaning unforeseen, everything I can see now. Or in a little while when it’s now again. Algeria! I want to yell. A pretty name for a little girl. Has Algeria come home? Is Algeria calling? It’s a pity that in Bahia they’d immediately transform it into Gegê, the mania for nicknames. If I didn’t have the ticket, I’d swim there, walk. Rivers, hills, valleys, mountains, and an oasis. A month, a year. I’d arrive covered with dust and blood, I gave my shoes to the man with the jeep who picked me up on the road, I gave my shirt to the man at the bar who offered me something to drink, there was another one who wanted me nude and I took off my clothes and afterward he divided his rice with me, is it still a long way? Yes. There’s a desert and after the desert a river. Which saint was it who gave herself to the boatman in exchange for her passage? My mother used to tell the story of this saint who met up with a nasty boatman demanding that she strip and give herself to him. So she removed her mantle, took off her sandals and let him have his way in order to be able to get across the river. She crossed the river and entered Paradise. “If you believe in Man, then you believe in God,” said Mother Alix. I can’t explain it, what I mean is that believing in Man doesn’t make me as happy as believing in the absurd stories that men tell. The simpler and more innocent they are, the more they fascinate me, telling the exploits of saints and heroes, come, Mother, come and fill me with superstitions which don’t enter into my scheme but which nevertheless I don’t forget, come at night to scratch my back and then look through my hair, that pig Ivanilda passed her lice to the whole class. Her apron, the color of coffee with milk, had a songbird embroidered on the pocket.

  I open the gate. Mama’s red Corcel is parked in front, with the chauffeur inside. He’s reading a newspaper.

  “Waiting for Lorena?” I ask.

  “For over half an hour. She asked for the car but then went out and hasn’t come back, she must have forgotten, she lives in outer space. I think I might as well go.”

  “Are you going to her mother’s? Can I have a ride? I have to pick up some clothes there.”

  I get in beside him. A gray-haired mulatto man with the air of someone who has been waiting not half an hour but half a century. Outer space. My grandmother used to talk a lot about people who lived in another world. The lunatics. Lorena didn’t see just one flying saucer in the sky, but a whole squadron of them in formation.

  “Have you worked for the Vaz Leme family a long time?”

  “Oh, so long I’ve lost track. I used to carry Loreninha on my lap. Before being a chauffeur I used to drive the tractor on their farm.”

  This man, for example. Would he be interested in joining the group? Obviously he’s become complacent. His armchair is far more modest than that of his employers, but it’s still an armchair. He’d want nothing to do with us. And his son?

  “Do you have any children?”

  “A girl about your age, miss, and a boy a little older.”

  “What does he do?”

  “He works at the Mercedes-Benz office. He’s doing real well, too. My late employer had a cousin who worked there, he helped my boy get started. Yes, I’m very happy with my son. At the end of the year he’ll be promoted and then he plans to get married, he’s engaged.”

  My eyes are fixed on the little plastic baby hanging from the rearview mirror. Its face leers so mockingly that I can’t stop staring at it.

  “And are you happy with your daughter too?”

  He takes a minute to answer. I see his mouth harden.

  “This fad you young girls have, this liberation business. She’s gotten entirely too free for my taste. Just lately she’s decided to study again, she’s taking one of those short-term courses to get her high-school degree.”

  “And isn’t that good?”

  “I only know that before I’m laid to rest I want to see my girl married, that’s all I ask God for. To see her married.”

  “Guaranteed, you mean. But she could study, learn a profession and get married besides, couldn’t she? Wouldn’t she be even more guaranteed that way? If her marriage doesn’t work out, she’ll be alone and unemployed. Older, with children, see.”

  The leering baby shakes with laughter as the car hits a bump. I discover that it’s not his masturbating that nauseates me but his shiny, satisfied little face.

  “Miss Lorena talks that way too, but you’re from rich families, you can afford such luxuries. My daughter is a poor girl, and the place for a poor girl is at home with her husband and children. Studying will just make her worry her head while she’s doing her laundry at the washboard.”

  The living-room chairs covered in plastic. The television. The soap opera about rich people and the soap opera about poor people, the poor ones more sincere but with more problems. Partially solved in the final episodes when virtue is rewarded. Although two of the cynical characters go unpunished, there were too many people. The conformity to the status quo only darkened by the ambition to own a new car and a bigger TV, a colored one—oh, but wasn’t it a scheme of that sort that I was yearning for a little while ago when I was looking at Cat? My face grows red as I imagine myself dragging Miguel to look at store windows during the spring clearance sales. Closing him in, using up his strength and patience with the junk of everyday life, refusing him an encouraging word on the day he is disenchanted, a negative presence, no! If I am to fail as so many have failed, let the winds blow my airplane with all the force in their cheeks onto the sharpest peak of the cliffs, all the passengers saved except for a young Bahian coed who was plunged into the abyss. End of story.

  “And what if she marries some no-good and later starts walking the streets because she doesn’t know how to do anything else? Have you thought of that? I’m sorry to speak so harshly but you’ll be responsible before God if you start telling her
‘get married right away honey or your Daddy won’t die happy.’ If you believe in her, I’m sure she’ll want to show you she deserves your confidence, she’ll be responsible. If not, it’s because she hasn’t any character, she wouldn’t amount to anything either married or single.”

  There, I’ve made my speech. I get out and slam the car door. He’s a bit confused.

  “But I never thought …”

  “So think!” I say sticking my face through the window. “And something else—if you don’t want to get ground to bits in an accident, yank that baby off the rearview mirror. Who put it there? I can’t explain it, but that thing has terrible vibrations. I knew two people that had trinkets just like it in their cars. One drove off a bridge into the river and the other was sandwiched between two trucks. Both they and their cars got pulverized, fire, shipwreck, everything. Only the plastic babies were found, laughing. Intact.”

  I’m laughing too as I go into the apartment building.

  “Yes?” said the butler opening the door a crack.

  Lia straightened the pile of books under her arm.

  “I’m a friend of Lorena’s. I came to pick up a suitcase of clothes.”

  “Isn’t she coming?”

  “I have no idea, see. Her mother’s expecting me.”

  With an evasive gesture he pointed to a chair in the shadowy vestibule. His gaze once again floated indifferently on the stagnant surface of his eyes. He closed the door and studied Lia slowly, hesitating.

  “I don’t know if she’ll be able to receive you today.”

  “But I called yesterday morning, she said for me to come.”

  “Your name?”

  “Lia. Lia de Melo Schultz. Schultz, my father is German, I can speak German.”