What Can I Do When Everything's On Fire?: A Novel (14 page)

after what she did to me and my mother she still had the guts

the gall

the bitch

I looked for her one Tuesday

you didn’t look for her Dona Carole don’t lie it’s a sin

I looked for her one Tuesday, not so long ago, in July not dressed this way of course, I hadn’t shaved for a week, I’d left my eyebrows alone, I walked among the people with an umbrella on my arm

realizing that an umbrella in July

in spite of the umbrella without which they would notice or pay attention to me, a woman looking at me and not just looking, she was looking with interest, words

or am I imagining words

I didn’t imagine words, I wasn’t mistaken, words and the six o’clock light gilding the window frames, me a child in summertime I would nest in the kitchen to watch the light pass by, after my aunt got widowed, my father

—What’s the matter Aura?

and my aunt

—It’s the light

in front of the kiosk I turned and my aunt and the woman watching the light pass, they didn’t recognize me by the kiosk in spite of my not having changed all that much

eight years, nine years?

a touch fatter, half a dozen freckles

fewer

a touch fatter, three or four freckles but my hair just the same, I combed it the way I did before, the part, the sideburns, Tomás’s hair tonic, he wasn’t home and he would have been mad at me

—Do you want to be a man Carole?

I squeezed the lump of it onto the sidewalk in front of our house

I spotted them immediately and a strange joy

the neighbors from before, Dona Eunice, Álvaro, Fernanda, Fernanda’s sister whose name I can’t remember, Álvaro looking at me hard for a second and shaking his head

—It can’t be I must be mistaken

shacks made of aluminum instead of wood, an attic at twenty-three where there was no attic, a girl dressed as a lady with rings in her ears that I must have found as a child

how many years exactly?

I didn’t find

I found

that I found as a child, the steps that separate this walk from the next one where I lived with you and to a third set of stairs with streetlights on, I always liked it when the streetlights went on, my aunt

I can’t understand why

she thought it was sad and I didn’t, she insisted that lighting the lamps reminded her of the dead, bats around them and they told me they screamed but I didn’t hear any screams, a sound of something felt or canvas as they grazed the roofs, at the end of the steps the restaurant also unchanged, bullfight posters for Alcochete and Évora, the plaster matador on the walnut base, the proprietor

he was all shriveled up, poor thing

closing up the menus with the care shown a missal, my wife at the window

how many years Ivete?

plucking off the dried leaves in the flowerpots, going over and searching for something to say, putting a hug together, you’re going to hate me for not bringing a present, a veneered box, a silk neckpiece, maybe from the notions store that closes at eight on Fridays, counting the money in my pocket and going there, I’ve got to get there so I can go back, I go quickly back and my wife still watching me, seeing me I imagine like the woman in the telephone booth even if it might be hard with the streetlights on, to see that I smiled

I smiled, I certainly smiled

I smiled even if it might be hard to see if I smiled just as it’s hard to see if the window that slammed shut was my wife or the July wind that almost always comes on with the arrival of night.

—Mother

my father was on the verge of a faint it was obvious as his hands pulled at the shade all nervous and getting the cord caught in the roller, and he squatted down to peek, the room got dark from top to bottom, the walls disappeared, the crack in the plaster with the shape of a wry face mocking us, fix the crack father, my father checking to see if his heart could take it with his open hand, peeking again, the blind flew up and day came back with a jolt, from bottom to top and the face on the wall with a corner of it behind the molding ha ha

—It isn’t your mother it’s the old lady

the old lady with her bag of corn surrounded by kernels, maybe when my father gets to be her age he’ll be waiting too for whatever the old lady was waiting for, you couldn’t figure out what she was waiting for but she was waiting, she was waiting for what she knew wouldn’t ever be coming and she amused herself with the pigeons while whatever it was took its time in calling her, two or three hours later she would pick up the corn that she’d left on the bench and go off with the strut of a duchess, what would happen if I said

—Hello

I said

—Here I am

I said

—I got here

the small myopic look running up and down the boxwood trees, some little-girl thing in the timid question

—Cesário?

just like my father

—Rui?

forgetting the ironing whenever the key was in the door, the small myopic look a few years from now father, not too many, his glasses falling to the ground and his two sad fingers brushing leaves away to pick them up

not finding them, looking farther off, asking him if I could help and your face father, if you could have seen your face with a smile just like the smirk on the wall except not one of mockery but of entreaty

—My glasses Paulo

maybe even, but it’s not true

—My glasses son

son finally, not nephew, not godson, son, his feeling around like a blind man, discouraged

—My glasses son

on hands and knees around the bench

—My glasses son

and

—Rui

and since there wasn’t any Rui, there isn’t any Rui, there never was a Rui, father, it was unclear what he could have been waiting for but it was obvious that he was waiting

—My glasses son

Rui who didn’t even sleep with him, would come in the morning smothered in scarves and excuses, my father accusing me about the Cape Verdeans, I who didn’t know a thing about Chelas, it was Rui who introduced me to the Mulattoes, an air of mystery, promises, I’m going to show you something come here, just about the time when the face on the wall began to mock us, bring along a bag for the pigeons father, put the leftover corn in your pocket, leave with your little duchess strut, Dona Aurorinha telling my father about the other woman, a doctor, a piano it seems, maids, a chauffeur, Dona Aurorinha’s mother her seamstress on Thursdays, baskets and baskets of clothes, expensive shirts, neckties, and now this idée fixe, giving corn to the pigeons, explain to me why, they’d bring my mother a tray with lunch to eat at the machine and my mother afraid that a pitcher, a piece of crystal, a knickknack on the floor, tapping me on the hands

—Don’t get into anything Aurorinha

paintings on the ceiling of gods and nymphs and now corn for the pigeons, an aunt who gave my mother an egg candy

—For your little girl, Lucinda

my mother in a rush timidly shaking me by the arm

—Thank the lady where are your manners

and while

—Thank the lady where are your manners

a second mouth on the gods, on the nymphs muttering at me with my mother’s voice

—Wait till you get outside to eat the candy, ninny

her thumb and forefinger or those of a nymph on the archway, that chubby one, naked, with a twisted pinch

—That’s the way you little rapscallion I’m sorry ma’am

not completely naked, covered with a sheet, half-naked and angelic, me clutching the candy curious, the nymph with her eye on a goat that was playing a flute leaning against a rock, its hair in braids like those of the aunt with the egg candies and the insistent pinch

—Wait till you get outside to eat the candy, ninny

Rui doesn’t sleep at home father, don’t make excuses, don’t lie, getting up whenever there are steps outside

how many months is it that Rui hasn’t slept at home, his wave of an arm showing boredom, annoyance

Leave me alone Soraia

if his expression could only be seen, if he could only show it to you in a mirror

the niece in a fur cape a little worn don’t you think, where are the gods, the nymphs, my mother’s friend leaning against a board that was changing into a rock and eating a pomegranate

—Aurorinha

my father always got up when there were footsteps outside, he would go over to the doormat not daring to open, the slippers back to bed because it was the slippers that were holding up his body, his body wanted to stay there until the next cough or the next key, the slippers at rest sleeping one beside the other and you in bed smoking, a sigh that came from the pillow, not of disappointment, of weariness

a wish to die father?

take it easy, you’re not dying

—Did you ever see me Paulo?

the cedar tree and the café outlined by the halo of the night, the circles of a flower bed in the shadows, a barrel by the cedar where he told me to wait, the pond where the water was resting without any stuff of dreams, Dona Aurorinha maybe awakened too while people with wings, naked women, gods

—Thank the gentleman Aurorinha

not really naked, their chubby feet stepping and stepping on her, the insistent pinches

—Wait until he leaves Aurorinha

my father on his back

I died in your place father, I left you alive, if I could be capable of forgiving you, accept it, if you want I’ll go with you to the park and maybe at four in the morning the pigeons, my father on his back listening to the rain

don’t you hear the rain father?

me listening to the rain at Anjos and the church clock shuffling the night and forgetting about its hands full of sparrows, insomnia’s gigantic strolling, noises that were scolding me

—Thank Mr. Couceiro be polite

—Have you lost your manners Paulo?

—Cat got your tongue Paulo?

and me with my tongue out

—I do so have manners

the distance to the infinite window, the light switch I don’t know where, would you like a syringe father

would you like a heroin fix?

would you like to fly?

Dona Aurorinha’s mother’s gentleman friend offering her the pomegranate

—Soraia

I met Rui and I fell in love period, almost at my son’s age period, fifteen years younger than me period, it never happened to me with the others, I would think it was love and it wasn’t, I would debase myself, let myself be robbed

everything so dark

Rui never debased me poor devil, if he robbed me he suffered more than I did, I would take him to my dressing room to stop him from taking drugs

my father on his back in bed, the bedstead with marble decorations that were obviously pine, the image on the glass of the dresser, listen somebody on the stairs, listen a cough, listen his name

—Soraia

listen the key in the door, the money box for the saint where from time to time a coin for the Easter candle, lighting the wick, pouring wax onto a saucer, sticking the base into the liquid and the candle leaning a bit, too much smoke

a black oval on the ceiling, dark soot swirling on the curtain but the saint grateful which can be seen immediately, if she wasn’t thankful punishment, gallstones, problems with the plumbing, my father on his back forgetting about the annoyance of finding a beauty spot coming unstuck, they swore to me at the boutique that this mark

—We can fix an amputated arm if necessary sweetie

and a lie, the mark in place and annoyance again, give me another handkerchief Paulo this one is a rag, pouring a drop of cologne onto it to soften the sadness because cologne you may not believe it but it helps, Rui opening the saint’s money box with a knife, I took him with me to work to prevent him from turning on, I would go up to the dressing room before the last applause and he would be carefully inspecting the cards in the frame of the mirror, not admirers, a bill for the car, the gas bill, a note from an angry creditor

always angry, creditors

or maybe chatting with Vânia, Vânia playing the flute up on a rock

no, Vânia his age, not mine, on the makeup table swinging her legs, stroking his knee

higher up than the knee

oh to kick Vânia with the tip of my shoe, starting the motion and having to go back and thank the audience, so many nights with empty seats, the workers chatting at the bar with no respect for art, the doorman with his jacket unbuttoned tugging on his suspenders, Dona Amélia who worked on commission walking her candy through the empty seats, only a businessman from the north who threw us kisses or kissed the camellia and threw it onto the stage, the nuisance of picking up the camellia whose petals were dry already

what am I going to do with this?

and kissing it too, putting it in my décolletage and pretending enthusiastic movements with the flower scratching me on the breast, a wave with two fingers as the curtain closed, crossing paths with Vânia and shouting at her I’m going to demand that they fire you, did you hear, Vânia

Marcelino Gonçalves Freitas, I went so far as to protect her, just imagine

shrugging her shoulders why don’t you retire Soraia, Bico da Areia for a moment, my wife finishing dinner, no Vânia to torture me, if we were careful the wages from the jewelry store were enough, the payments on the vacuum cleaner up to date even if I’d suffer sometimes when a boy on the street, not exactly suffering, something else, a guilty desire, wanting to run away, the thing that made me grow smaller on the mattress and my wife

—Why Carlos?

the shape of the legs changing on the sheet, the voice that repeated hurting me more

—Why Carlos?

and the echo trembling inside me just the way I was trembling, Judite, drinking water out here in pajamas I think

in pajamas, I never took off the pajamas

while the pine trees

not the pine trees, something else, an echo that was fading, coming back, repeating why Carlos

—Why Carlos?

pulling the leaves off the gentian one by one until the echo was silent, the house calm, the dwarf from Snow White not daring to accuse me, the glow from the river imprecise in the silence or maybe recalling those animals in a corner of the field afraid of people

a hare or a rabbit but an enormous rabbit

breathing in the darkness, a fever of owls in the strip of woods, the same ones who during the day peck at the sun with a stubborn rage, my first boss at the jewelry store was like that, I was repairing a pendulum and he with his wings folded

—Mr. Carlos

places I was learning about little by little, subway stations, urinals, the beach where there were only men and I don’t dare, I don’t go, I walk by the beach and I dare, going over the dune with my shoes in my hand and I go, sitting down in a corner with my chin on my knees, next to me

—Hi there

and I don’t dare, Bico da Areia, my wife

—Carlos

maybe I can make it with her, I’m going to make it, I’m sorry Judite, I don’t know what’s in me, I don’t want to go, I’m not going, even not wanting to go and an impulse to run away Alcides

—I’m Alcides

with a silver ring in the shape of a snake, an initial gesture of coiling himself, a chuckle that hurt

—Why all the rush?

feeling that I was getting rid of an uncomfortable lie when I got rid of the wedding ring, it took my wife a week to notice, she couldn’t believe it, she looked for my finger again, poured herself more water and more water

—What happened to your wedding ring Carlos?