What Can I Do When Everything's On Fire?: A Novel (18 page)

—Take a look

the light was dimmed and the signs of the zodiac were fluorescent on the ceiling, down below we were blue, skin, hair, envy, pointing to Sagittarius, Libra, soda crates with small knitted cushions serving as chairs, Micaela a tiny character floating head down from Capricorn to Gemini, not a person, a planet with no orbit in a blue immensity, indifferent to the pawn tickets piling up on a spindle

—Isn’t it beautiful?

just the way Rui was floating at Fonte da Telha, indifferent to the train that was going off on its toy rails through bushes, willows, the mastiff who was nipping his pant legs, the ever-so-distant voice of someone beside him and he didn’t care whose it was

a fisherman, the cook from the seafood stand on the beach, a tramp with a battered bucket hunting for mussels at low tide

—What’s this?

Juditinha leaning over to check the stone and advance along the chalk marks, sounds that came and went without belonging to the cemetery or the waves, it might be people calling, footsteps, Rui’s aunt on the telephone with a friend

—Listen to this, Pilar

an attention full of raised eyebrows, her hand completely covering the surprise on her mouth

—I can’t believe it

my aunt putting down the phone, crossing the room and Fonte da Telha, leaning over me as I hid the syringe in my pants

—Really Rui what a dumb thing to do, killing yourself

going back to the phone shaking her head and then telling Pilar

—Listen, Rui committed suicide

eyes on the wall as though she were listening with them, her hand sliding down her face

—Are you serious?

covering the water, the beach, the sun wasn’t a cloud, it was she, Pilar’s buzzing as she knitted comments together, the disapproval from the Chinese masks in the niches on the shelves

—I swear I never would have thought it Rui we gave you everything didn’t we?

the Indian rugs, the English easy chairs, the first floor where the study and the bedrooms are, the plastic giraffe floating motionless in the swimming pool, the chauffeur in an apron with a rake

—We gave you everything didn’t we?

tidying up the garden, we gave him everything, schools, vacations in Switzerland, a place in the business

the cop

—
Do you know him?

and Paulo

—
I don’t know this man

and look what happened, you put us through such shameful situations with your awful friends

—
I know Rui, I don’t know this man here

he sold the apartment we’d bought for him he stole from us

playing hopscotch on the gravestones, shelves with doilies, paper flowers, curtains

they told us about drugs, strange goings-on, a wretched woman twice his age

a man aunt, a man

be quiet, a wretched woman twice his age in a beggar’s hovel on Príncipe Real

explain to Pilar it’s a man aunt, I’m living with a man

a beggar’s hovel on Príncipe Real, naturally we forbade him from coming into our home

the gravel path, the lignum-vitae warrior just inside the door

Corvo Pico Faial, Corvo Pico Faial

his uncle had them tell the gardener not to let him come looking for us, it seems that the wretched woman

—I can’t believe it

I swear to you that the wretched woman

and her hand completely hiding the surprise on her mouth

—Are you serious?

hiding the water, the beach, the sun, it wasn’t a cloud or the albatrosses who at this time of year, the albatrosses, it was she, the chauffeur who knew me as a child not on Príncipe Real, in Ajuda, at that time a first floor in Ajuda with Tapada left behind

—Boy

surprised at the beat-up stove

I’m just brushing my teeth or getting lunch or ironing and the taste of pumpkin sweet on my tongue

a wig on the cane stand, Soraia in a bathrobe straightening the padding on her breast

—Your uncle sends word that you shouldn’t try to look for the boy

I don’t know him, I don’t know this man here, it’s not Rui it’s a sneak thief with a stolen cigarette in my father’s dressing room putting it out between his fingers, the cigarette that Dona Amélia

—
A little gift for the one you’ve chosen, sir?

or candy, or perfume, my father with a flourish of refusal pushing away the tray

—
Chocolate is fattening

and not just the beat-up stove, the lunch plates that didn’t match, the cheap wine, my aunt coming back from the telephone

really Rui what a dumb thing killing yourself, we’ve given you everything, schools, vacations in Switzerland, an apartment that you sold for drugs, a job without any responsibilities or

the mastiff barking at the waves, won’t stop barking at the waves, pulls at my socks with his teeth

—
Rui

easy work in the firm, we brought you to us after your father’s accident, you never lacked for anything, right, we’ve never treated you badly and now

well done

the train that was going away toward the beach on little toy tracks through reeds, weeping willows, and now you see, everything far away from you, an unawareness of what, the difficulty of seeing only shapeless silhouettes

—What’s this?

or maybe tramps with a battered bucket in search of mussels at low tide while Paulo at the movies with the maid from the dining room, the blouse with fish and anchors, the cologne that reminds me of Bico da Areia and my mother waiting for my father opening her décolletage a little, noticing me, closing it, it seemed to me that one of the Gypsies’ horses is beside the wall or maybe it’s the marigolds in the flower bed, my mother noticing me again and opening it again

how old is my mother?

—Carlos

the mouth of the maid from the dining room

in spite of the noise from the film

sketching out one by one the letters of my name

plane trees, plane trees and doves, a coin for a cup of coffee friend

—Paulo

the broken-down wall in Chelas and the two notes of the jackdaw, the little handbag that must have belonged to you mother, your older sister’s earrings, Rui going up to the dressing table

—They say your old man’s sick they say he’s going to die Paulo

her body getting smaller on a corner of cement and bricks, sure that just like my father a wig

—You lied to me you lied to me

artificial eyelashes, the enormous eyelids lamenting, protesting

—You scared me Paulo

sure of a clown with me, the beat-up stove, pages from a magazine on the walls at Ajuda, grabbing her head, breaking the chain

—You’re a man aren’t you, you’re a man aren’t you?

and you not saying anything because, scared because, crying but why, wanting to please me, for me to marry you, to live with you in Bico da Areia or at Príncipe Real or in Ajuda

—You’re living with me in Bico da Areia or on Príncipe Real or in Ajuda don’t be disappointed don’t get mad I’m going to be a woman I promise stay with me Rui

Paulo, my name is Paulo

stay with me Paulo, sell the chain and the cross to the Cape Verdeans but stay with me Paulo, wait for me in the dressing room, go home with me, help me along the Rua da Palmeira because I’m tired Paulo, I haven’t grown thin, my clothes don’t bag on me around the waist or across the shoulders, it doesn’t take me longer than usual to fix myself up, the lace doesn’t slip out of my fingers, I still have a lot of years left Paulo

I still have a lot of years left Rui

I still have a lot of years left Rui before I get old, stop dancing, a lot of years for us to go to Fonte da Telha, take the little train along the beach through reeds, weeping willows, turning the dog loose and watching him run alongside the waves, stop, call us, chase a gull that lingered there, bring us a piece of seaweed as a present, a piece of willow, a twisted branch, really Rui what a dumb thing killing yourself, hear the manager’s nephew calling me

—They’re all waiting for you Soraia

so if you’ll excuse me I’m going down on stage and if you peek through the curtain you’ll see me, in the middle of a tango, saying good-bye to you.

—Stop playing with your fork Otília

every day of the week

(and us with plenty of days of the week to spend, Fridays, Thursdays, Sundays, I can’t remember a greater number of Fridays, for example, except during those times

—Stop playing with your fork Otília)

Wednesdays and Tuesdays and Saturdays, what we had plenty of were days, ask me about just any one of them and I’ll fill you up a whole stack of them right away, take Thursdays, Wednesdays, take Sundays with Otília playing with her fork at dinner, as soon as she stopped playing with her fork she got married, my father got run over, and the petal in the shower never turned into a full corolla again, America must have begun because movies and all that, as soon as my father was gone my stepfather arriving with his suitcase

—Good evening

my mother to him

—It hasn’t been a week since I got rid of Otília and now I’ve got the other one with the same manias, leave that fork alone Gabriela

I started working in the dining room at the hospital and the number of days began to get smaller right away, if you ask for any Mondays I’ll have to steal them off the calendar because I have almost none left, on payday morning my stepfather would go to the office with me and collect the money

—I’m going to hold it for you don’t worry

and he would hold it so efficiently that I never got to see it, from my sister now and then a pair of shoes, a blouse with anchors and fish that her husband doesn’t like, I imagine Cabo da Roca and the crags and the wind still there far away sometimes on the Malveira road, my father on the bus with nostalgia for the sea

—When are we going to go look at the waves Gabriela?

I don’t know whether I was intrigued or happy looking for him and nobody there, the conductor

—Did you lose something miss?

my father back from his grave number two hundred forty-eight in the Sintra cemetery, no gravestone, just earth and a number marked on a stake among lots of numbers marked on stakes, continuing on to the old station where we pretend they still sell tickets at a window with no grating, going into the vacant lot where the circus was in December, if you were quiet you could hear the tigers at night, a Chinese man with a pencil behind his ear was feeding them chickens, with me opening my mouth and wanting some chicken too and my father insistent, forgetting he was dead, and my mania of going there and not getting to touch him I caught his smell, I saw the full corolla of gas

—When are we going to go look at the waves Gabriela?

a chair at the table that squeaked all by itself, the tureen moving and nobody else noticing it, the bushes where the world begins bent over in the living room, the schoolteacher’s tiptoe caravels at anchor on the high seas and no mother no stepfather

—What’s all this?

no mother no stepfather

—A whole lot of Wednesdays for what?

long, terribly slow, full of multiplication tables and rivers, father unscrewing a light bulb and the soup growing dark, his place isn’t here, be patient, go away, this guy is here haven’t you noticed, you’ve got grave number two hundred forty-eight waiting on the strip of land next to the circus, stay with the trapeze artists, have some fun, rest easy, my stepfather checking my pay

—Who are you talking to, Gabriela?

my father mocking him

—Who are you talking to, Gabriela?

my mother who hadn’t let out a sound to me

—Are you looking for a slap in the face, you fresh kid? an invisible dog in the yard just before ours, nothing but a black snout between two boards, teeth showing, throwing his body toward me unable to get to me, above the yard a window with no light and hiding behind the windowpane my father maybe fighting against the wind

—Where the world begins Gabriela

laid out so nicely in the coffin, so distinguished, so serious, a proper dead man that my mother was proud of

—He looks like a doctor don’t you think?

the flame of the candles was pouring light over his face and changing the shape of his features as though he was speaking, maybe he was speaking, making his silent speech about Cabo da Roca, the bushes, the cliffs, the poor little tiptoe caravels looking for a latitude, if I think about it today I can picture my stepfather in the chapel among the neighbor women and the smell of the vinegar they clean dead people with, my sister

—That’s him

pointing to my stepfather, to the cap he was twisting in his fingers, the suitcase in the center of the living room, that is

—Good evening

taking charge of everything, regulating my time, stopping me from going out

—I won’t stand for much foolishness Gabriela

a desolation of wind and bushes with no Uruguay or Canada, the plane trees around the dining room at the hospital, my fellow worker laughing with me at a patient in the yard, not Paulo yet, a little old man with an untouched basket of peaches and a wife whining

—Have you lost your appetite Dionísio?

imagining my mother in her Sunday clothes begging for explanations from the orderlies, the doctors

—He’s lost his taste for peaches

buying cigarettes because my father had rejected the basket, a butt friend, and at that point Paulo with a woman I took to be his mother and the woman

—I’m not his mother I’m his aunt

a princess or an actress my fellow worker was envious of her necklaces, her hair

—She must be an actress Gabriela

a young fellow Paulo’s age with her and the woman

—My boyfriend

one of the waiters whistling in derision and she not hearing it with the disdain of a queen, perfume so thick you could grab it in your hand, it carried into the building and covered the frying smell from the kitchen, my fellow worker, actresses are like that, boyfriends too young or too old trailing after them with trained love, the plane trees that never noticed whatever it might be, agreeing, of course, they said that nothing mattered and with their lack of personality

—Obviously

the young man Paulo’s age spent a long time in the visitors’ bathroom taking a spoon out of his pocket and he came out after what seemed like years stumbling through the pigeons, glowing as though his cheeks had been polished with an oily cloth, his smile going along all by itself ahead of his lips, Paulo made me think of the cabins at Cabo da Roca that protected you from the wind and maybe that was when I took an interest in him, all those cliffs, those bent-over bushes, a swirl of rain toward Sintra and him standing in the yard, not asking for cigarettes, not asking for money, accepting a peach from the wife with the basket and lingering as he rolled it in his hand, the actress

—Paulo

the caravels moored to a promontory or an island when they finally found that latitude they could trust, the actress’s boyfriend not looking at anyone, rubbing his arm and leaning against the trunk of a tree while his smile billowed out and traveled over nameless oceans with him, the actress waving her fans and gold jewelry about, me, poor me, the solemn communion chain and the ring my godmother had given me as a child and my stepfather

—Let me see, it’s fake isn’t it?

he sold it, I know because my father from grave number two hundred forty-eight

—He sold your ring Gabriela

Madrid and France didn’t exist for now, a Europe with roads that didn’t lead anywhere except to eucalyptus trees and villages of emigrant workers on the slopes of mountains, the dog ready to bark at me, bite me, the eye between the boards turning into my mother’s eye serving my father and me our meal

—Are you looking for a slap in the face, you fresh kid?

not to my father because there wasn’t even a picture of my father on display, dead, my mother was thinking, and me without her hearing that’s a lie, he’s not, we go to Cabo da Roca, we have long talks, she must have thrown away the pictures, the stamp collection, the Spanish razor, but forgot and kept the jacket he wasn’t wearing in his coffin

not the Sunday one, the one I like best, with diamond shapes in the weave

and my stepfather was wearing it, my father was leaning against the doorframe with my mother mistakenly thinking it was me

—Doesn’t he look just like a scarecrow Gabriela?

my father who when he was alive, during the time when we had plenty of days, lots of days, more days than you could shake a stick at, Fridays, Thursdays, Mondays and with us not knowing what to do with so many idle hours, the silent memory of the tweezers and the album trading stamps from Singapore for some from Denmark, maybe my mother

—Aquiles

he would raise his head and the magnifying glass at the same time and look at her with an enormous eye, lids larger than window shades in the glass disk, a very normal body that is but on top of the neck the eyeball that made my mother draw back with a sudden fright

—Aquiles

the magnifying glass would be lowered a little and the mouth with no end was rolling pebbles around, giving off a normal, ordinary voice instead of thunderclaps

—What’s the matter?

hairs on his chin as thick as fingers, gulleys in his cheeks and after his mouth his shirt collar suddenly growing large, the stamp album bigger than everything else around, a hero from Denmark, modest up till then, taking over the whole planet, the lens poised over the album and the universe in peace, my mother walking prudently and avoiding the glass

—Will you please put that thing away in the drawer, Aquiles?

the magnifying glass that she’d wrapped in a handkerchief with outstretched hands, turning her head away, and had buried in the drawer, for weeks

every week with hundreds of days, Fridays, Sundays, do you like Sundays please help yourselves

I caught her watching my father, eyes, mouth, collar, with nervous apprehension, just like the actress with her boyfriend who would have floated about the yard if she hadn’t taken him by the wrist

—Rui

he gave a little leap or something like it and flew away, Paulo on the other hand, holding a peach, was earthbound and calm, a kind of plane tree except he was spilling milk on the bar, I helped him with the sugar, I wiped his chin with a cloth, I stopped the cake crumbs from dribbling down over his pajamas

I remember the too-sweet milk and their ordering me

—
Drink it

a cat in a bramble patch, their wiping my chin, I don’t remember you or maybe I only remember you coming into the dining room or in my father’s funeral chapel with a bowl in your hand
,
the two coffins side by side and you in an apron and headscarf not knowing what to do, upset by the clowns

—
Excuse me

or me upset by the clowns and yet laughing, calling you, your clogs on the stone floor of the chapel, plane trees or candles alongside the coffins while you were wiping my chin with a rag and the doctor shaking off a pigeon that was hanging from his throat

—
They lose their sense of reality get all confused get everything all mixed up it’s so hard to get them back into life again

life Mr. Couceiro waiting for me that is, Dona Helena at the door and meat tarts and cheesecake and luckily you’re here and

—
My son

so I don’t know if I feel like getting back into life again

my sister when I asked if I could borrow a pair of stockings

—So are you going to the movies with a patient at the hospital Gabriela?

the stockings a size smaller than mine making me walk slower and Paulo waiting for me at the entrance to the theater with a bouquet of gillyflowers like the ones for dead people, eyes that bug out with the drive of animals trying to kill us