What Can I Do When Everything's On Fire?: A Novel (19 page)

he handed me the gillyflowers with a dozen blossoms waving and taking on manias, how can I get hold of the spreading flowers, how can I get this thing calmed down, a mess of stems and fingers hard to separate, thirty fingers and fifteen stems and fingers hard to separate, thirty fingers and fifteen stems coming out to meet me, petals, fingernails, leaves, knuckles all mixed up, intertwined, falling to the ground, arms chasing after all those petals, messed up, awkward

—Take it

two left arms, no right arm, my sister

—Is he the one?

luckily I don’t know where my father is maybe in grave number two hundred forty-eight, maybe looking for the magnifying glass in the sewers in Sintra, my mother sold the stamp collection for a song

—Not even his stamps are worth anything

and I found my father rummaging under the bed, digging in the cupboard, maybe if I told him

—All we have left of yours is the jacket with the diamond-shaped weave don’t you know that you’re dead?

he didn’t believe me, he went off offended, I called him

—Father

and he went down the steps with a little good-bye wave, taking the bus to Cabo da Roca with the idea of being present at the beginning of the world, and I forget about my coat and close the street door

—Wait for me father

my stepfather with a piece of meat between the plate and his mouth, my mother

—Where do you think you’re going Gabriela?

if only there was a light on the landing and he waiting for me, going into the movies I noticed the gillyflowers and Paulo’s eyes not angry, defeated, seeing me, I’ll put the sugar in your milk relax, I’ll help you with the cake, I’ll watch the movie with you, I’ll protect you from the plane trees, from the orderlies, from the pigeons, whenever the actress went away my sister was puzzled

—You call that thing an actress?

I think some sound, I don’t know what, like horses or Gypsies or pine trees by the hospital fence, bottles in a cistern, a woman

who?

counting wrinkles in a bureau mirror, Paulo smashing a car with wooden wheels

I’m not going with my father, I’m staying here, I’ll help you

Paulo following her as though he hated the actress

—You call that thing an actress?

or as though he hated himself for hating the actress, my fellow worker not noticing the pine trees and yet the needles, the treetops, for her there was nothing but the fence and the patients and a butt friend

a butt friend, be patient friend, a coin friend

—Horses?

and as a matter of fact there were horses, the horses were perfectly perceptible and only afterward the hospital again, the woman by the bureau and my fellow worker

—The woman by the bureau?

fading into the air, don’t put on that face, wait, didn’t you get to see her fade into the air, why don’t you like the actress Paulo, who’s the woman by the bureau Paulo, who owns the plot with the marigolds that are drying up and Paulo’s eyes not angry, defeated, I’ll get the gillyflowers out of your fingers don’t get upset, you can hide your fingers in your pockets, keep them there all through the movie in spite of my blouse with anchors and fish, the stockings my sister lent me, we’re in the dark and no horses, right, the lights going out and I thought music and the actress on stage dancing

—Do you like being the nephew of an actress Paulo?

in my family the closest thing we had to performers was my father, he played the accordion when he was young before I was born, then he got arthritis and the accordion was left in a corner, whenever a shoe touched it the bellows would deflate and a long drawn-out moan brought chills to the whole building, my mother traded it in at the store for a flatiron that never gave anyone any chills, on rainy Sundays

you like rainy Sundays, ten rainy Sundays, you can keep your rainy Sundays and deliver me from winter, from this shawl on my shoulders

my father would glance at the empty corner and move his hands as though he was running them over the keys, the building would shake with all the afflictions of days gone by, my mother would put her fingers in her ears

—You’re out of tune Aquiles

I’m fooling, I would put my fingers in my ears

—You’re out of tune father

my father with his head tilted to the left agreeing, correcting the note with his little finger and my mother and my sister surprised, sometimes I feel like

I’ve bumped into some metal object and a sigh comes from the bellows, a pause, that moan again, my father’s knuckles all deformed, red, he doesn’t complain about the pain, he moves them back and forth asking

—How about a little tune Gabriela?

we would take the knife from him and cut up the apple, we would bring a bowl with sodium borate, my father would settle into the chair with his head down

—How about a little tune Gabriela?

even during the funeral, belly up with a handkerchief over his face

what happened to your face father?

a rosary wound around his fists and the priest blessing this side and that, putting the straps over his shoulders and an anxious wait a deep sigh, in grave number two hundred forty-eight a little tune Gabriela, my mother

—This wind

and no wind mother, admit there’s no wind, the laurels not moving, beyond the wall Europe, Madrid, butterflies in the boxwood trees, the gillyflowers falling, Paulo’s knee in the movies avoiding my knee, or my elbow and his slipping away, my sister let me sprinkle her perfume on my blouse and after the perfume I was worried that I wasn’t me, I was her, swearing to Paulo I’m me, check me out, I’m me, I went to the hairdresser this afternoon, I put on lipstick, if it bothers you I’ll wipe if off with my arm and get rid of it, but I’m me, give me your hand because my father in a soft voice

—Don’t be bashful give him your hand Gabriela

Paulo’s hand growing smaller in mine and a big hand but without any bones, a piece of soft meat resting on my leg, eyes popping out in anger, silently barking inside the film, my stepfather staring at me and my mother in the kitchen or at mass, my father

—What’s all this?

but what could my father do starting with the moment they covered him with a handkerchief and handcuffed him with prayer beads, I’m eighteen years old, I’m grown up didn’t you notice, play the accordion father, don’t be nervous, footsteps on the floor above pounding down on me, with every one my stepfather closer, there aren’t any trees on our block, there are blocks under construction, cement mixers

where the world begins

my stepfather clearing his throat a bit, grabbed me around the waist and the cross on the chain quick, hiding in my blouse embarrassed

—Did you say eighteen years old Gabriela?

I borrowed some money from a fellow worker and went to the hairdresser this afternoon, he gave me a beauty mark with a kind of pencil

—Be careful now and don’t go ruining it

and I grew older, twenty-three, twenty-six years old, luckily the hand came to life you might say, muscles, tendons, a vibration of gills, a kind of crab at low tide going along diagonally with tickling claws, my stepfather far away, my mother coming from the kitchen or from mass, I remember you with brown hair, how do you explain this, at a baptism with my father, what happened mother, I can’t believe that one of these days I’m just the same, bladder, gallbladder, blood pressure Dona Gabriela, rhinoceros ankles, pick up your accordion father and give us a tune quick, his body lonesome crags, bent-over bushes and grave number three hundred fifty-seven or three hundred ninety-one or four hundred eighty-nine waiting for me, not the sea like at Cabo da Roca, a grave and me surrounded by gillyflowers that drown out my sister’s perfume like here at the movies, the seats rising up, the screen dark, my stepfather eighteen years old Gabriela and that little mocking clearing of his throat, Paulo’s hands taking refuge in his pajamas, the actress all bracelets and pigeons and him going around a plane tree, his eyes up against the grating threatening her

—No

—
Why do you hate your aunt Paulo?

—
I don’t hate my aunt I don’t have an aunt there’s a brother of my father’s but I haven’t heard anything about him for years he doesn’t look us up he has no interest in us

his eyes against the grating, us outside and Paulo

—I’d like to show you a place

I found out where he was working, I looked him up at his job, they told me to wait in the office, coils of wire, stickers, a Coke can serving as an ashtray, mechanics who were setting off torches in an echo chamber, no satin cushions, no dress, no jar of cold cream, a man completely different from my father, a cut from shaving growing dark on his cheek, tugging off his glasses

—I’d like to show you a place

with one of the braces bent, fogged over at first and then something growing on them, a film of tobacco from his tongue

—I’d like to show you a place

on the wall a torn ad for a brand of mufflers, with half of it falling off

—
If you’re Carlos’s son you can get the hell out of here he didn’t go to the funeral, he must have read about it in the papers and

—
All right

his little finger was missing, I wonder where he could have lost his little finger, go back and ask him where he lost his little finger

—
Why do you hate your aunt, Paulo?

—
I don’t hate my aunt I never had an aunt

—
If you’re Carlos’s son you can get the hell out of here

he wasn’t going to say Carlos he was going to say

—I’d like to

another name, right? he was going to say another name, his glasses quivering in his hand, his lungs stormier than the sea at Cabo da Roca where the world begins, the words galloping along with the clouds, I forgot the workshop uncle

I didn’t forget, Avenida Afonso III, you go by the police station, the Jewish cemetery where the trolley turns, more and more buildings

visit the model apartment

and still poor people, old people, little shops, the barber without customers with mustaches to be trimmed, I won’t punish myself by saying the other name, all these years my mother who confused him with me or with the tops of the bushes, she’d repeated it a thousand times worked up by wine, the owner of the café who took pity on me

—
Judite

Avenida Afonso III between the insurance company and the medical clinic, people with X-rays, tests, three weeks now a small pain when I press here

cough

when I press here

a deep breath

just a little higher up, doctor, a jab when I press here, Mr. Couceiro diabetes, urea and Dona Helena doesn’t it hurt when I press there, the day they die just me and Noémia at home staring at each other, the vase without any flowers, the bicycle in the laundry room, the crocheting left on the easy chair

nothing

less than nothing

his eyes against the grating with us outside Paulo

—I’d like to show you a place

only he and Noémia at home staring at each other, the bicycle in the laundry room, the crocheting left on the easy chair, nothing

less than nothing

to show you a place on Príncipe Real and the cedar and all that, not the church in Anjos, farther on, the smell of gillyflowers and my sister’s perfume

—Are you going to the movies with a patient Gabriela?

sure that the hairdresser’s hairdo has come undone, I still had the blouse with anchors and fish and the chain with the little cross, they promised me a new blouse for my birthday

—Did you say eighteen years old Gabriela?

and in the end an insignificant package, and in the package an imitation-leather change purse and a pair of woolen gloves, I counted the candles on the cake and two were missing

—It’s missing two

my mother opened the fuse box, searched among the fuses, brought out the candles we used when the lights went out, stuck them in the frosting which didn’t have my name written in chocolate