The Girl in the Photograph

by Lygia Fagundes Telles

  “What did you talk about?”

  “Assorted biscuits. At times she pretends to be innocent, but she’s as much aware of everything as we are. Or more so, the woman is really something. The main topic was Ana Clara.”

  “Oh Lord. I have to go immediately, I actually forgot about her. And my exam tomorrow morning at eight. But what’s the matter, Lião? Why are you staring at me like that?”

  The family photograph albums are in the trunk in the garage, Ana said she saw the oldest one with the velvet cover. On top of the trunk, covering it, are old chairs, rolls of carpet, boxes, frames. The octopi guard the mystery of the sunken ship.

  “There’s no more time, see.”

  “For what?”

  “Research,” I say and watch Lorena jump out the window with the elasticity of a ballerina. She grasps the bundle of jeans and balances it on her head, glancing toward the window of her room.

  “What are we going to do, Lião! About her. If only this famous fiancé would show up.”

  “I bet this famous fiancé doesn’t exist.”

  “No?” she fixes terrified eves on me. I turn my own away.

  “Who knows. She’s so confused. Can I borrow Mama’s car tomorrow early? I’m going to take my suitcase to a friend’s house near the airport. And do one or two other things.”

  “Of course dear. Mama must have taken kilos of tranquilizers, she won’t wake up until late.”

  I watch her cross the garden, carefully choosing where she will step like a cat wearing gloves. She pauses in the middle of the driveway and listens, then proceeds. Only a silhouette cut out of the fog, a fog as white as her sandals has gathered. I lean over the windowsill. Just a few more hours. I should tell Lorena that I won’t even be here long enough for those clothes she’s washing to dry. I remember the broken hourglass, once I went into Dad’s office to get a red pencil and bumped into a glassful of time. I panicked, seeing time arrested on the floor, two handfuls of sand and the broken glass. Past and future. And me? What became of me now that the was and the will be had been smashed to pieces? Only the narrow funnel of the hourglass had survived the fall, and in it was a grain of sand in transit, it hadn’t yet committed itself to either side. Free. I am, I say and feel like running to Lorena and advising her that if we keep on woolgathering at the present rate, we can participate in the next philosophical convention wearing little silver owls on our shirt collars, oh! I take a deep breath and look outside. In the lighted window Lorena is making frenetic signals to me, she’s beckoning me with her hands, her head. When she sees me start toward her she disappears. I trip over two cats who flee in the direction of the wall, trample the daisies, and get halfway up the steps. I’m out of breath. My legs buckle as she bends down, leaning out of the open window. Our faces are so close that I don’t even need to go up another step to hear her.

  “She’s dead.”

  I extend my hand wanting to grasp her voice through the fog.

  “What, Lorena. What are you saying?”

  The whisper is as icy as her minty breath.

  “Ana Clara is dead.”

  Chapter 12

  “Did she faint?” asked Lia. “Was that if?”

  She waited for an answer, still immobile on the stairstep. “It’s impossible, it can’t be. Can’t be can’t be,” she whispered to the garden below, which seemed to be a garden from another time, seen under the same circumstances, with a voice from beyond the window telling her in a whisper that someone was dead. The same fog. The same hollow feeling in her chest. But now the night smelled like peppermint lozenges. She turned to the window: empty.

  “It’s impossible,” she said, entering the room.

  Lorena was mounted on Ana Clara, massaging her heart. There was still the cool odor of mint. Or was it camphor?

  “I gave her an alcohol rub but it didn’t help. Let’s try this, oh Lord.”

  Crossing her arms against her body, Lia tried to control the tremor which was causing her to shake from head to foot. She clenched her jaws in order to speak.

  “You don’t know what you’re doing Lena, let’s call a doctor. The emergency clinic, call the emergency clinic. Mother Alix has the number. You don’t know how to do this!”

  “But I do. I’m doing exactly what should be done,” said Lorena, massaging with determination. She turned her face to Lia without interrupting her movements and lowered her voice as if afraid that Ana Clara would overhear. “She’s dead. I’m only trying, can’t you see? Oh Lord, Lord, Lord.”

  But didn’t it seem like a joke? “It can’t be,” thought Lia letting her bewildered gaze wander about the room. The silver-buckled shoes placed side by side at the bathroom door. The patent-leather purse on the floor, next to the head of the bed. The red-and-green plaid blanket covering only Ana Clara’s feet, a good thing because she didn’t want to see her feet. She stared at Lorena astride her waist without the slightest weight, knees dug into the mattress, features hardened in the effort of concentration. A cup with a little leftover tea in the bottom. The box of talcum powder with the yellow puff, Lorena hadn’t had time to clean off the talc that had fallen on the table. She glanced again at the purse; it was half-open. Again the cup and her stare fell unresisting on the dead girl’s face. “Dead? But she isn’t dead!” Lia wanted to scream. She came closer. Ana Clara watched them through the green crack of her eyes. “You’re kidding us, right, Annie?” The half-moon of cross-eyed glass was almost ready to open, the half-smile of the mouth was ready to say something, rehearsing something funny to say, why didn’t she say it? As if suddenly she found it funnier not to say anything. Lia took her hand, opened it. In the palm, a little talc ingrained in the cracks. And the memory of warmth like an electric iron unplugged—how long ago?—preserving the heat in its metal plate.

  “She was sleeping in the same position as when I left her,” said Lorena jerkily, out of breath. “I was happy because I was afraid she might wake up and try to go out, she must have had a date with somebody. I put her dirty clothes in the hamper and laid my hand on her forehead, a strange chill. Then I called her, shook her, pounded her on the chest, that works sometimes … nothing. Nothing. I even did that test with the mirror, I got my little hand mirror from my purse. Oh, Lião.”

  “But was it before you went out? Do you think it was before?”

  “How should I know? She came in shouting that she had a fencing foil stuck into her chest, it must have been a pain in her heart, I don’t know, I don’t know, Lião, for the love of God, dear, don’t talk to me just now.”

  Lia drew nearer. She pressed Ana’s static pulse with such intense searching that she only transferred to the dead girl the throbbing of her own inflamed fingers. Had she said the dead girl? She surveyed the half-naked body beneath the red bathrobe, how thin she was! Only now did she realize how much weight Ana Clara had lost, she paid so little attention to her. The purple bruises on her breasts and arms. What had been done to her? What had she done? Wait, wasn’t she breathing? Didn’t that gasp come from inside her?

  “Go on, Lena, don’t stop, I think she’s breathing!”

  Lorena’s voice was the murmur of a mother who, already tired out, calls to her daughter hiding in some dark corner:

  “Ana, Aninha, can you hear me? Ana, come on. Come back, Ana. Do as I say, I know you’re there, I know you are. Come on, come back.”

  She steadied herself on her knees, squeezing Ana’s flanks between her feet, pointed toes turned inward. Her hands pressed strongly against the other’s kidneys; she galloped lightly without touching the saddle, only her hands moving up and down to the rhythm of artificial respiration.

  “Thousands of times she came in drugged, see. Thousands of times! What was it she took this time?”

  Beneath the blind curtain of hair, Lorena’s voice rose and fell with the movement of her hands, at times reduced to a whisper:

  ‘“Come, then, Advocate: turn your merciful eyes upon us.’ Upon us!” she exclaimed throwing her hair back over he
r shoulders.

  Are they crazy, these two? What kind of a sinister joke is this? thought Lia. She wanted to say something but couldn’t; she was accompanying the variations of the massage. Lorena was creative, she was inventing movements like this caterpillar one, her wrists glued to Ana Clara’s chest, only the fingers opening and closing like caterpillars burrowing in the ground, slowly outlining the obstinate heart.

  “Lena, what if we called them? The nuns have experience!”

  “They wouldn’t do any better than I’m doing. Close the window.”

  Why bother with the window and not the record player playing that saxophone music over and over? She ripped her cap off and her hair sprang outward, electric. She pulled the cap on again, jerking it furiously down to her neck, and whirled around on her heels. The tremor was back; she hugged herself hard. Oh, the absurdity of that saxophone howling like a damned dog. Yet at the same time. She couldn’t explain it, but wasn’t it the music that somehow created an atmosphere of expectancy? As long as there was the saxophone and as long as Lorena continued to perch on top of her, battling. Silence would be the worst possible thing. She splashed some whiskey into a glass and gulped it down with her eyes shut, if she could only scream the way people do on the mountaintops. Or in the ocean, scream until her voice gave out, drain herself screaming and, beaten, go on screaming though only the voice of the opponent could be heard. “Shit!” she said between her teeth, almost crushing the glass in her hand.

  “I should have done something to help her and what did I do? Made speeches. This bitch of a habit of making speeches.”

  “There was nothing anybody could have done, dear. Nothing.”

  And Lorena dominating the situation, tense but contained. Oh, Lena, go ahead, make her work like that miserable clock that would stop out of caprice even when it had been wound, if you had quick fingers you could hold the pendulum and swing it back and forth, once, twice, go on by yourself now, go on! She pounded the wall with her fist. Seen from behind, gasping over the body, Lorena appeared to be trying not to make her breathe but to take part in some desperate erotic game. Lia needed to bite her lip not to scream, “Enough!” She drew closer. A drop of sweat ran down Lorena’s forehead and fell on Ana Clara’s breast. It rode sweetly, softly, in an abandon which contrasted with the tension of the rider galloping firm and fast above.

  “Nothing, Lena? Let me see.”

  With difficulty Lorena straightened her body and raised her hands so Lia could put her ear against the exposed breast. The cold smell of camphor, and beneath, the talc almost as intimate as sleep.

  “I thought she was reacting. Hm, Ana Clara? You really aren’t coming back?” moaned Lorena wringing her hands. “Mother Alix will be sad, or my Lord, give me inspiration, for the love of God, inspire me,” she pleaded and jumped to the floor: “Let’s check with the little mirror.”

  “Enough, it’s no good,” thought Lia covering her face with her hands, oh, the dreadful scene of the little mirror luminously reflecting the doll’s mouth, she had learned this from her uncle, he had done the same thing with Grandma Diu, did Grandma go on a long journey? There was no answer, he couldn’t look her in the eyes. She doubled up her sob-racked body.

  “It’s so senseless!”

  “Be careful, Lião, you’re going to wake up the nuns!”

  “So what? Can’t I cry out loud? She’d dead, Lena, she’s dead! Why are you whispering? Why all this mystery?”

  “I have an idea, I’ll tell you later, but for now don’t yell, for the love of God be calm.”

  “Calm? But aren’t we going to call Mother Alix? Wake her up, wake everybody up immediately? Isn’t that what we’re going to do?”

  “Wait, Lião we’re not going to wake up anybody yet, I already told you, I have an idea. Take it easy, okay?”

  I rub my face against the cushion and before my eyes overflow again I see Lorena take up her missal, she has discarded the mirror and opened the black missal. During the massage she was pinkish, but now she’s pallid again, hair thrust behind her ears, lips pursed. Ana Clara too is now in a formal position, the robe closed, her arms folded across her chest. Simply taking a rest after the bath and the talcum powder. Lorena must be satisfied, she managed to give her a complete bath before she died.

  “You mean we’re going to hang around waiting for the nuns? And the police? Is that what you want? Celebrate her death with whiskey and biscuits? We have to wake up Mother Alix, Lena! To explain that there wasn’t any miracle, she was hoping for a miracle, isn’t that sweet? A small miracle,” I say and stuff the cushion into my mouth, oh! if I could only howl from pain and anger.

  Just a minute, please, motions Lorena with that gesture I know so well. She is standing straight, praying from the missal, her lips moving almost silently, eyes transparent. Total beatitude. I wait, desperately eating cookies from the tin, I would explode right now if I didn’t have something to chew on. In the midst of her imperturbable reading, she places her hand on Ana Clara’s forehead.

  “‘Agnus Dei, qui tollis peccata mundi, dona ei requiem sempiternam.’’”

  I feel like hurling the cushion at her head, now she’s playing Mass. I pour more whiskey down my gullet and almost come apart from coughing. My voice feels like a flame coming out my throat:

  “Lorena, use some sense and stop these theatrics, see. You’re going to call Mother Alix and I’m going to disappear, give me time to close my suitcase and get out, I can’t be anywhere in the neighborhood when this death explodes and the police install themselves in this place! The papers will say she died of an overdose of barbiturates, you know what that means, don’t you? I’ve got to get out of here,” I say drying my eyes on my shirtsleeve, I don’t want to cry but my eyes continue to flow like waterfalls. “You’re perfect, the nuns are saints, but what about me? We’ll leave the body in her room, we won’t call anyone, or better yet, we’ll carry the body…”

  I can’t go on. I pull off the cap and wipe my face: Ana Clara has become the body. Names, nicknames, they’ve all disappeared and only the body remains. I said the body; I accepted her death. And Lorena taking charge of things with hardly any affliction, if she cried at all it was only a few sparse tears I didn’t see, Loreninha completely composed, lighting her incense and telling me to be calm.

  “Of course you have to disappear, dear. Leave the rest to me.”

  “The rest?”

  She blows on the lighted stick of incense. The smoke begins to escape in tenuous threads through the holes in the gold incenseburner.

  “I have an idea, I tell you. Leave it to me.”

  “But dammit, I want to help you! It’s best she be in her own room, we can take her now, afterwards you come back and lock yourself in here, tomorrow you go take your exam, you don’t know anything. I left yesterday, you didn’t see me, I want to Bahia, to Alto do Xingu, I wasn’t in town when she died. End of story. Isn’t that what we’re going to do?”

  I kick the cushion. No, it isn’t. The idea is something else.

  “Go on, Lião, don’t worry about me, you can go.”

  “But first I want to know what you’re planning, I’m not going to run out on you like a rat, I want to help! What marvelous idea is this you have?”

  She has opened the closet and is choosing a dress. So the wonderful idea is to dress Ana? Of course not, she must have more things up her sleeve, she looks at me with the air of a priestess. A stained-glass tone of voice. I squeeze Ana Clara’s hand. Is it colder or is it only my impression? Her hair uncurls as a I stroke it between my fingers. The smell of soap is very much alive. I pull her by the ear and her head slides obediently in the direction I pull, oh, Annie, what confusion, girl. The night before I leave.

  “But what happened, Lena? Didn’t you say she was better after the bath? That she talked, laughed? Wasn’t she better?”

  Over the chair Lorena spreads a long black dress with silver embroidery starting at the high collar and following the line of buttons down to the hem.r />
  “She talked, laughed, cried, the same old delirium with something lucid in the middle, oh, how could I have known? She saw God, last time she saw Him too … She called for Mother Alix, for the boyfriend, she thought he’d been arrested, I calmed her down. She asked for whiskey, I promised I’d pour it into her tea. She wanted her purse, I gave her her purse. Then she asked to hold my hand, the last thing she asked for was my hand, she wanted to hold it.”

  She bends over to look for something in the drawer, her shoulders shaken by silent sobs, the same slow crying as Mama. Whiskey, she had wanted whiskey. And the purse. I whip my head around as if there on the floor it were a snake instead of a handbag. Half-open, exactly, half-open. While Lorena was making tea, changing the record. It was inside her purse, she thrust her hand down to the bottom and got it, see. My head throbs. Lorena dries her eyes with one of those handkerchiefs of hers, she gave me two, what ever became of them? She doesn’t want me to see her crying, she has to give me a good example, she hides her tears by pretending she’s still looking for things in the drawer but she already separated the smoke-colored pantyhose and the lace lingerie. I grab her by the shoulders from behind:

  “Lena, I was horribly rude, forgive me. Will you forgive me? I lost my head, this trip, her dying, the best and the worst all at the same time. I feel like I’d taken a beating.”

  “I had an intuition that something like this was going to happen. And what’s more—” she murmurs touching the dress. She’s livid. “My brother Remo sent me this kaftan from Morocco. I swear I thought, Annie can wear this, I’ll never use it because it isn’t right for me, imagine. It’ll be Annie who wears it. For always, I intuited. I actually trembled when I shut the closet door, it was as if I were closing her coffin.”