The Girl in the Photograph

by Lygia Fagundes Telles

  “You were telling me about the nurse, remember?”

  She pushes back the sheet. One lace strap of the nightgown slides down, exposing her breast. A dark wilted orchid, oh, can it still be daytime outside?

  “The nurse who worked for him, Estella. A real snake-in-the-grass. I got there so cheerful in my turquoise-blue dress, he loves that color, I arrived early thinking that it would be a lighter session, without complaints or tears. I wanted to make him laugh a little with me, say funny things. Have you ever had analysis? Before going in one always thinks about the accumulation of things one’s going to say and then one doesn’t say them but others instead, everything changes. But this time it was going to be as I’d planned, enough lamenting! There’s the little anteroom where one arranges oneself before and after the session, particularly after. The countless tissues I’ve taken out of that box to dry my eyes! I always take a handkerchief in my purse but sometimes I forget. Or lose them.”

  I wait for her to tell me the story of the nurse, but it appears that the story will be as Dona Lã, the retired fortune-teller, used to prophesy: Far in the future a distant happiness … My mother was godmother to her child. On the dressing table is a picture of him wearing sideburns and smoking a pipe. The pose of a movie actor blowing his discreet puff of smoke. How absurd for a woman her age to fall for a type like that. What good did all that analysis do? Seven years. And on top of everything else she falls in love with the doctor who fades away without solving the problem, it remains present and entire.

  “I’d like to die. If I could just die without leaving the slightest trace, I hate the idea of funerals, of people taking us by surprise. Only young people’s coffins should stay open.”

  “Young people’s and vampires’,” I say wanting to lighten the atmosphere.

  No good. The low front does not offer the slightest visibility. “Due to technical difficulties,” begins the stewardess in a cheerful voice just as the airplane loses half its left wing. Everybody tightens their seat belts, fear, fear. I’m a land animal and I’m going to have to go up in one of those. I’ll get drunk, if the damn thing explodes I don’t want to be aware of it. Hell, fasten your seat belt.

  “I have a horror of people who come in without knocking, or come up from behind to surprise one—a horror of being unprepared, and that’s exactly what death does, it doesn’t give us time. I consider it a betrayal!”

  There’s something sinister about that lineless face, doesn’t it resemble one of those shrunken heads, speared on a post? A mummy, see. And the nurse? Wasn’t there a nurse? Now I have to find out what happened with this nurse, Lorena has the same habit of leaving stories half-finished.

  “Why was the nurse cruel?”

  “She always hated me, always. A horrid woman, she doesn’t know how to dress or do her hair, a viper who decided to get old. Is it my fault if I look younger? If I like to take care of myself? She was green with envy of me, she was in love with Dr. Francis, now I’m sure of it, she was passionately in love with Dr. Francis. I think she was radiant over his death, Neither mine nor anyone else’s! Isn’t that a form of victory?”

  Among the pillows of the divan I spy a gold-wrapped box, bonbons? I am almost drooling as I stretch my hand toward it, “May I?”

  “I arrived dressed in turquoise-blue, so lighthearted, almost happy. I looked in the mirror and felt that I was exactly as old as my face appeared; I had a facelift but I know that the important thing is to have inside us the age that is on the outside. I rehearsed what I was going to say. ‘Dr. Francis, today I woke up feeling so well!’ As if during the night a fairy godmother had come to me, one of those good fairy godmothers from the old tales, with a magic wand. Don’t suffer any longer, dear, she said touching my head with the wand, don’t suffer any longer, don’t suffer any longer, she kept repeating and just then I woke up and felt different. I am different, Dr. Francis, different! No resentment toward Mieux, let him have his deceits, his pettiness, isn’t it better simply to say good-bye like two well-bred people whose life together has become insupportable? That’s all. No rancor, no bitterness, isn’t it better that way? He is younger, let him find someone his own age, as he did before we lived together. Let him go away and leave me alone, I’m preparing myself for solitude. Look in my eyes, Dr. Francis, I swear I’m not bluffing, I woke up breathing deeply, my chest open and my head high, the fairy godmother touched my head, remember? Don’t suffer any longer … I don’t want to promise anything Dr. Francis, but I think that today a new phase is beginning for me, I’m feeling splendid. Or almost so. Or almost so,’ I repeated to myself as I brushed my hair, smiling at the mirror, making the face I would make as I went in: ‘Well then, Dr. Francis?’ I heard her footsteps coming from behind me, she always manages to come up from behind. Her rubber-soled footsteps, she wears those nurses’ shoes. I started when I heard her voice at my shoulder: ‘What are you doing here?’ I just stared at her. What? Has she gone crazy? How can she ask me something like that, what am I doing here. ‘Have you forgotten? Don’t I have an appointment today?’ I panicked slightly, I’m absentminded, have I gotten my days mixed up? Isn’t this Tuesday? So then she gazed at me a long time and smiled, I swear she smiled as she put her hand on my shoulder, ‘But Dr. Francis is dead, hadn’t you heard? He died. He was buried yesterday, they say he had a cardiac arrest, how could they not have notified you? The funeral was late yesterday afternoon.’ I grabbed my purse and ran out, I didn’t even wait for the elevator, I ran down the steps with her voice accompanying me, the funeral was late yesterday afternoon. Late yesterday afternoon, oh God. I wonder how such cruelty is possible.”

  I unwrap the third bonbon which is also a chocolate-covered cherry. Besides the invention of Scotch tape, I consider them one of the most important inventions of the century, these liqueur-filled bonbons with a cherry in the middle.

  “I can’t explain it, Mama, but I don’t see how that was cruel. Didn’t he die? If so, then she had to tell you. It wasn’t too skillful, obviously, but I don’t see why cruel.”

  “An excellent occasion to humiliate me with his lovers, the time was hand-picked. Just today the maid answered two telephone calls, the more daring one gave her name, Karin. ‘Do you want to leave a message?’ the maid asked and the little prostitute giggled, ha, ha, ha, no, it was better to give it in person. I’d like him to turn up right now so I could tell him to pack his bags, Pack your bags up immediately and get out of my house! Get out of my life, you wretch! In the beginning, little presents, flowers, how deluded I was by his politeness, there couldn’t have been a more attentive man. He wanted to open an interior-decorating store, so I gave him the money. Then after that he invented an advertising agency, more money, I spent what I had and what I didn’t. Cynic. Scoundrel.”

  This one instead of a cherry has a grape stuck fast in its rose-colored cream. And I don’t really know why there comes to me the phrase of a genial politician: To govern is to grasp. Very refined, as Mama there would say. I wad the bonbon wrappings up into a little ball. Courageously I take a deep breath. Here we go:

  “But are your problems real? If it’s a toothache, what can a psychiatrist do? I want to study structuralism and don’t understand it because I’m too stupid, what good will a doctor do me?”

  I almost say, if your problem is old age, and if old age has no cure, see. She doesn’t see. She stares at me from deep in the pillows but she’ll never see that she is old and that no psychiatrist in the world is going to make her young again. Was the role of this Dr. Francis to help her accept old age? Or to keep the famous flame burning, even letting himself be loved like the character in the novel? Spiritualities. I don’t know, I’m getting exhausted. Another route:

  “Don’t you have faith in God? If so, then He’s more important than Dr. Francis, He’s above all else. I can’t explain it, but what good is it to have God, if in a difficult moment you can’t draw sustenance from Him?”

  She smiles.

  “I’d like to go into a
convent. I think I’d be happy in a convent. I would stay there so quietly, watching the world from far away, growing old in peace, without witnesses, I’m terrified of witnesses. I’ve discovered that what frightens me most about life and death alike are the witnesses. I’m always meeting someone who remembers me on this or that date, the witnesses are so attentive, their memory! Why do people have such memories? I was at a dinner having a lovely time and someone came up and stared at me. He stared hard and then started one of those conversations that make my flesh crawl: ‘I don’t think you remember me … ‘Oh God, when I hear this beginning I go cold all over, it starts like that, I’ll bet you don’t remember me! I look vague and disguise my reactions but it doesn’t help, the witness is a voracious beak pulling the meat off my bones, peck, peck, it won’t turn its prey loose, what voracity! ‘Wasn’t it on…’ the date. Before anything else they recite the entire blessed date. Even the hour. This one wanted me to remember him from my début dance, which coincided with my birthday, remember? I quickly say I remember, ‘Oh, how could I ever forget? I remember everything, I certainly do!’ But he was insatiable, he started reproducing the entire party as if it had been yesterday, we danced to Stormy Weather cheek to cheek, at the time that song was obligatory, just as it was obligatory to dance with one’s faces together, right?’ Mieux was laughing with sheer joy, he was across the room but when he intuited the subject he came running. ‘There was an enormous cake on the table, all white, do you remember?’ I had forgotten the cake entirely but not he, ‘A cake with little doves made of spun sugar, fluttering over a satin bow whose ends reached to the floor. You offered each guest a dove, there were fifteen because you were fifteen years old that day, remember?’ I swear I could hear the wheels turning in people’s heads as they made their rapid calculations, if she was fifteen on that date, then today she must be … Oh God oh God. I had to drink almost half a bottle of whiskey in order to stay at the party until the end, laughing and talking, even smiling at that monstrous imbecile who came up looking like the cat who ate the cream and asked me if perhaps he had committed an indiscretion, ‘You aren’t mad, are you?’ ‘Of course not, I adore you, let’s dance cheek to cheek like on that night,’ I said, wanting to shove his face into the fireplace, let him be cheek to cheek with the fire. Oh God, how awful, how awful.”

  I get up. I want to make pee-pee, walk, get a drink of water, eat something salty. Oh, the session with me was a double one. I begin to see why they charge so much. Kotig.

  “Is the bathroom here? Excuse me just a moment.”

  The night of the bedroom extends into the lilac bath, which sparkles with starlike reflections. I have to leave the door open because she continues to talk as I fight with the zipper which pinches my skin. From the toilet (pardon me, Lorena) from the throne I see the objects glittering on the marble console; they remind me of the ones in the rose-pink shell. Colored bath salts in crystal bottles, ermine powder puffs, pots of cream, gold rings from which hang towels with a large M embroidered in purple, Lena’s L is in pink. Her voice flows heavier and faster:

  “He made me go out with him almost every night, parties, parties, ‘Don’t you want to go? Then I’ll go alone.’ I didn’t want to go but I would, more clothes, more hairdressers, every morning early I’d be at the beauty salon, my scalp was burning from so much hair spray and dye. I got a little relief when I bought five wigs. I’d change my wig, put on my makeup and go running after him, nightclubs, dinners, cocktails, vernissages, he took to investing in paintings, he never had the slightest culture but he thought he was an art connoisseur, he was on the point of opening a gallery. In the intervals, the absolute multitudes of his friends, he’d meet a couple today and tomorrow the couple would be installed here, little drinks, little outings. My eyes closing, my face falling, ‘But do we need to entertain so much, Mieux?’ ‘Of course we do, isn’t it part of my profession as a decorator?’ Later, the profession of advertising also demanded contacts, contacts, and naturally the profession which was to come afterward, that of marchand. Oh God, oh God. ‘But what’s the matter with you?’ he would ask. ‘Are you tired?’ ‘No, of course not, I’m fine!’ I would answer wanting to lie down on the table from exhaustion, I started taking stimulants to withstand the late nights and keep my eyes open, ‘It was wonderful, wonderful!’ He’d laugh that little laugh, how well I know that little laugh. ‘It was fun wasn’t it? Didn’t you enjoy it?’ All on purpose. Pure mental cruelty, my dear. Do you know what mental cruelty is?”

  I open the jar with the powder puff. I unscrew the bottle of perfume covered in mirrors, she collects perfumes like her daughter collects little boxes, bells. Mental cruelty? I was still a child when I heard Grandma telling about the husband who insisted that his wife, who wore false teeth, should try some carmelized guava, it wasn’t sticky at all. Today I’m going to write a long letter home, the more I see of other people’s parents the more I love those two, my German and my Bahiana. Your kind of letter, Mom, full of good judgment and asking your blessing. They’re eaten up with worry over my militancy, I don’t want any more of that, I’ll say this trip is part of my odyssey, Dad read the Odyssey and finds a certain heroism in the gypsy wanderings of youth because of their lack of calculation and altruism. Oh, Dad, I love you but I can’t stand morbid love, mine is wholesome. A Nazi, just as he could have been a Communist, he’s the passionate type too, capable of being moved by a uniform, a hymn. A really crazy German. When he discovered it wasn’t the way he thought, he ran so far he ended up in Salvador, saravá brother!

  She is still talking about mental cruelty, illustrating it with a story that has a caterpillar in it.

  “I have to go, see. What about the suitcase?”

  “Wait, dear, have some tea first, press that button again, what do they do there in the back? Four servants,” she sighs, taking up the mirror from among the sheets. She looks at herself, puckering up her lips as if to kiss her own reflection.

  “And what about Loreninha? We had planned to go and visit Dona Guiomar but it seems she’s in jail, I don’t know why the police persecute these poor people. She has never failed, she predicted that Remo, my son, would go to North Africa, she foresaw the death of Dr. Francis, ‘You are going to lose a very dear person,’ she warned me. She predicted Mieux’s betrayal, she prophesied everything. If Lucretia were still alive she could give me her blessing, I think she was once a slave.”

  “So I can take the suitcase today?”

  “Certainly, dear, Bila packed everything, there are lots of winter clothes, Mieux is worthless but his clothes are very good. You know how to drive, don’t you? Take the car and leave it there with Loreninha, maybe she’ll decide to come. My dear little girl. She was such a well-mannered child, so sweet. She would collect pebbles, leaves. She was always saving some little animal that had fallen in the river. Is she still a virgin?”

  “Yes, still.”

  “I’m so happy to know that she continues to be pure,” she murmurs with an expression of beatitude. But at once she frowns. Her voice becomes fogged over: “Don’t you think she shows too little interest in sex? At times I’m so afraid, do you understand what I mean? Lately there seem to be so many of them, these girls …”

  I chew on a bonbon.

  “I don’t want to be rude, Mama, but I think it’s completely absurd to worry about that. You speak of mental cruelty. Now there’s the worst form of it, a mother worrying whether her son or daughter is a homosexual or not. I understand parents who worry about drugs and so on, but worry about other people’s sex? Taking care of one’s own is hard enough. Excuse me, but I get upset over any interference in the southern zone of others, Lorena calls it the southern zone. The northern zone is already so overrun, so bombarded, why can’t people free themselves and let others be free too? A prejudice as hateful as racial or religious prejudices. We have to love our neighbor as he is and not as we would like him to be.”

  As I say this I think immediately of Ana Clara. I have to love her. Hard,
yes. I get irritated and impatient. But then, am I trying to be a Christian?

  “A woman without a man ends up so unhappy, so full of complexes.”

  With a man too, I want to tell her and hand her the mirror.

  “Full of complexes because everybody keeps nagging at her. That isn’t Lorena’s case, I’m no longer thinking of her, I’m only saying that it’s already so difficult to grow, to be loved by the person one loves. And for someone else to come along and determine the sex of that person—!”

  “And you, Lia? Are you in love with someone? You needn’t reply if you don’t want to.”

  I’m laughing as I answer, it took her a long time to ask.

  “No problem with me, see. I have a lover, he needs me and I need him, he’s traveling just now but we’ll be together again soon.”

  She gazes at me as though from a distance, shaking her handkerchief lightly as if to shoo away flies. She sprinkles cologne over her forehead and neck.

  “I think I’d die of distaste if my son Remo or Loreninha … I want my funeral to be unadorned, simple. She even knows the dress I want to wear. The makeup, we’ve planned every detail. The coffin will stay open only if I’m looking extremely well; if not, nobody will have the pleasure of seeing me dead. Before I used to panic at the idea of him poking through my papers, those old yellow papers that I hate so, a death certificate records your age, it records everything. Just imagine the radiant face he’d make upon discovering my true age, he’s always wanted to discover it but I didn’t let him. I never let him. Dead, I’d be defenseless, do you understand what I mean? But now I can die in peace, my dear little girl will take care of everything, that perverse cynic will never humiliate me again!”

  The maid comes in on a gust of air. I breathe like a condemned man inside a gas chamber.

  “I’ve been calling for hours! All right, all right, I know. Bring some tea at once,” she orders waving the hanky in the girl’s direction. Turning back to me: “This new flirtation of Lorena’s, isn’t he married, by chance?”