What Can I Do When Everything's On Fire?: A Novel (20 page)

—There

two long candles and sixteen tiny ones, in my father’s time they were all the same, his wiggling his fingers as though it was a real accordion

and a real accordion, I’m sure keys, buttons, the silver decorations, grave number two hundred forty-eight deserted

—How about a little tune Gabriela?

the wind where the world began, all of Europe behind us, no train with laborers returning from France, passengers waving their arms out of windows looking like castaways, bundles, baskets tied with cords, the islands and promontories to be discovered, only a desolation of escarpments and the sound of the waves, Sintra yes, the Moorish castle yes, bus twenty-nine with no empty seats, me hanging from the pole with dozens of other passengers

let’s imagine café owners, Gypsies, pups stepping on me, pushing up against me, London and Russia not for now, my stepfather at the cemetery, he watched the lid being screwed on, the coffin going down, the spadefuls of dirt, he grew calm, my mother with the knife over the birthday cake looking uncertain, the deserted chair

—Do you hear an accordion Otília?

she put down the knife to listen better but the waltz had stopped, a drunken argument in the beer parlor, or a dog against the planks of the fence in the yard, my sister picking up the fruit again

don’t play with your fork Otília

—It was the dog

if I told you it wasn’t the dog you’d disappear down the steps, never visit us again, exorcisms for a week, prayers, pins in a wax doll to kill ghosts, Paulo’s eyes through the grating, he was walking slowly because his leg hurt or he was imitating the gentleman with the cane who was looking for him at the hospital without the courage to come forward, to speak

—
Is he also your uncle Paulo
?

—
I haven’t got any uncles shut up

so dreary, so old, he would secretly give cookies, jam, and juices to the orderly, go away through the mud of the swamp dragging along buffaloes, roots

—Is he also your uncle, Paulo?

and his eyes strangling me, shouting

—Shut up

a syringe, a rubber band, a box of matches, Paulo showing half a lemon and hiding it again

—I’d like to show you a place

not really a place, a spot in Chelas with blacks, small gardens with lettuce and archways of palaces from where the world begins, if only my father and I could live alone with a lettuce garden or in a palace where the world begins, I suggested to him

—Father

but he pretending not to hear me or on the other side then

grave number two hundred forty-eight

letting myself hang back so Paulo wouldn’t notice

—Don’t pretend you can’t hear me daddy

gardens, palaces, pilgrims counting coins and receiving pieces of newspaper in exchange, huddling on a slope with brambles that scratched their penitent state, asking my sister to stick pins in wax dolls, pray for them, bless them, pour water from Fátima over their heads and they’re cured, the Mulattoes who took coins for newspapers unemployed, one of them opening and closing a jackknife leaning on a corner greeting Paulo, my sister trying to hold me back

—Gabriela

and I imitating my father pretending not to hear

—I can’t hear you mother

how did she find out about me, how did she find me in this neighborhood so far away from Sintra, my stepfather

—Did you say eighteen years old Gabriela?

Otília in a blouse with no anchors or fish and her six-month-old son in her arms

you promised me you’d be his godmother and I wasn’t

—How did they find out about me how did they find me?

not on the path that went along the slope, in a small alley closed in by little windows, doorways, a corpse on one step, maybe not a corpse because he blew his nose and died again or maybe a corpse awake for a moment

my father?

showing me missing teeth and a silent accordion

—Father

no accordion, a beggar who’s snoring, Paulo the actress’s nephew

where does your aunt perform Paulo, what theater, what stage?

he came back with a piece of newspaper too, I can imagine your aunt in a scarlet dress singing, showing me missing teeth and a silent accordion

—Father

no accordion, a beggar who’s snoring, Paulo the actress’s nephew

where does your aunt perform, Paulo, what theater, what stage?

he came back with a piece of newspaper too, I can imagine your aunt in a scarlet dress singing, I can imagine the presents, the invitations, the flowers, why a boyfriend your age and well-off like you, every so often I see her taking a small lace square out of her purse, drying the corners of her eyes that were never wet, making an effort to obey the invisible stage director

disguised as a pigeon from the hospital who demanded a look of scorn

—A look of scorn madame

it was because of your aunt that you dragged me to Chelas, wasn’t it Paulo and that piece of newspaper and the lemon and the syringe and the broken-down wall where we’re squatting now and a jackdaw

what must be a jackdaw

with two notes on the branch of a tree, the matches you can’t get to light and me

—Wait

lighting them for you, pouring the powder from the newspaper into the lid from a bottle, holding the match underneath and the match turning to ash, burning myself, wrapping the rubber band around your arm and hold it father, just a minute don’t interrupt us, it’s not my fault that I can’t pay attention to you, you should have answered when I called you, don’t come to me now with the story of not wanting to alarm me, tripping over your body on the step, don’t argue you blew your nose on your shirt, you looked at me with your toothless mouth and you didn’t pay any attention to me daughter

let me wrap the rubber band around Paulo’s arm, around my arm, let me pick out a vein

this bigger one, the other one?

deciding on a third one almost on top of the bone which put a little red spiral into the syringe

I who had a horror of blood you remember, with a little scratch I’d make them cover me with bandages, dressings, coverings, warm water, the accordion playing

one or two millimeters more and a second spiral wrapping around the first with the slowness of algae and the dancing about of a fish tank, don’t hold my shoulder mother, don’t hold my shoulder Otília, loosen the elastic, push the piston down slowly, remembering pushing the piston, Barreiro or Almada on the other side of the Tagus, ships dead for centuries with tufts of reeds coming out of the openings in their stacks, pressing the actress’s little lace square against my skin

pressing a corner of my blouse against my skin, a stitch at the ankle on my sister’s stocking that stretches out with a tearing sound with every movement of my leg so not leaving here father, settling down on this stone like you in grave number two hundred forty-eight and remaining quiet, with no thoughts of music or accordions that don’t exist, looking at the ships all decorated and more present, more clear that night

night beside me in Chelas and day on the Tagus, that kind of vague little chill even in September, gentlemen, the clearness at the end of the afternoon, however

how amusing

daytime on the river, Sunday, Thursday, Tuesday, which do you prefer, choose, help yourselves since I don’t notice Paulo getting close to me, examining me, getting uneasy

—Gabriela

taking me by the chin, giving me a little shake, careful that I don’t hear him and worrying, deciding that I don’t hear him and terrified, throwing me against the broken-down wall

he or my mother or my sister

he and my mother and my sister

—Gabriela

as if

isn’t that so?

why should it bother me if they hurt me, handle me like some inert object, smash my temple or the back of my neck

the temple the doctors wrote that the temple

against the corner of a tile, as if I cared about their concern, their fright, my toothless mouth staring at them from the step since I’m on a ship decorated for centuries with tufts of reeds in the openings of its stacks, since my father

—How about a little tune Gabriela?

bringing his arms together and then apart with his head leaning down, running over the keys of a real accordion.

what she took to be an actress even though her fellow worker or the waiter or the orderly

—You call that an actress?

and me with a peach in my hand listening to them as though I wasn’t listening to them or listening to them without realizing I was listening to them recalling the funeral when they’d dressed him as a man, an old man

forty-four years old, not quite an old man

with the remains of eyeliner that nobody else seemed to notice except me, a man

the jacket, trousers, and shoes of a man

that my mother wouldn’t have recognized, my uncle wouldn’t have recognized, I wouldn’t have recognized if it hadn’t been for Rui next to him, my father who’d asked that they dress him that way in the hope that he’d be taken to Bico da Areia and a bed of marigolds that rustled all night long in January where in spite of everything

who knows

living might not be so hard for him

no, where living would be harder for him without any applause, without an audience, without music, nothing but the sea or the river and my mother waiting for what he couldn’t give her, her women friends

—I can’t see how you stand for it Judite

the nakedness of a lamb on the butcher’s hook coming out from under the sheets

—Carlos

inviting

—Lie down with me Carlos

but not dressed as a man in the hope that he’d be taken to Bico da Areia but because of the saint in his dressing room or the fear of God, Dona Amélia without any candy or cigarettes or perfume hugging me as I laughed

—He asked us to dress him as a man Paulinho

among the camellias that they’d brought from the club to the church where at any moment you expected a curtain lighted by a spotlight, performers shaking their plumes on stage, my father rising up with a swirl of spangles from the coffin and instead of applause and music Marlene, Micaela, Vânia, the Brazilian whose name escapes me

Ricarda

sitting in the chapel in their clown masks, I got a picture of my uncle and his sliced-off little finger, Dona Helena and Mr. Couceiro at one of the tables by the bar while a light swept over the audience between numbers, with camomile tea instead of champagne

diabetes, urea

and the stage manager directing the funeral, telling the priest when to enter, the sexton, the funeral-parlor attendants adjusting a crease concealing a wrinkle, ordering them to change a lamp because of a smudge

—We can’t wait all night for you people to come on stage, hurry up

giving orders from the wings to speed up a prayer or make a change in the blessing, getting annoyed with Dona Helena

—Did you forget your daughter’s bicycle, lady?

calling the pine trees together, suggesting to the gulls that they hang from the ceiling and to the Gypsies’ horses that they gallop on the platform, lowering a set with painted waves, handing my mother an empty bottle and fluffing out her skirt

—Make believe you’re drinking Judite

the closet between my father’s coffin and Rui’s, me smashing the car with wooden wheels on the church floor and spotting Mr. Couceiro in the mirror with his useless gillyflowers

—Come on come on, do you think we’ve got all the time in the world to finish the show, well we haven’t, lad

Noémia’s picture without a frame now, a hazy mist, had found a spot on the dresser, come on come on and my grandmother strolling among the people there, bumping into the clowns, the priest, the workers from the club, touching faces at random

—Who’s this Judite?

for the first time in so many years far from the village, in Lisbon, her sister emerged from her grave in Bragança shaking the soil off her blouse to guide her with a muddy hand

—This way, sis

in the direction of the dead, she went back to her grave begging forgiveness, the electrician and the café owner fixed the gravestone, straightened out the name and the enameled photograph, Noémia fortunately locked up in an iron box impossible to open with the words rest in peace engraved as if bacteria allowed any rest, my father’s eyeliner, asking the manager for some cold cream

—Look at the eyeliner on my father

and the manager furious

—There’s no time, you ninny

busy packing the Bico da Areia bridge into a box on stage and the gull eggs that the sea was carrying off

where to?

undoing the nests, telling the pups to come closer, a confusion of pine cones and Dona Judite I have the money here, what will they write above the dates on my father’s grave, what are we going to call him

Soraia?

Mr. Couceiro or my mother visiting him every month with gillyflowers, the maid from the dining room thinking she hears the tinkle of bracelets, earrings, fans, my uncle beside the tombstone

—Don’t you dare appear to me Carlos never appear to me

maybe I should lend him the car with wooden wheels to smash on the marble, the maid from the dining room listening to the bracelets underground and the manager who was handing my mother a mourning dress

—It’s your entrance let’s see how you handle it don’t forget the wine

the hairdo from a cheap hairdresser, the touch of perfume that was even cheaper

—Are you really sure it’s your father Paulo are you sure it’s him? maybe time, the roots, the rain

not the rain in Trafaria or Príncipe Real or Anjos, the rain of laurel leaves that were falling onto the crosses

Carlos or Soraia on the tombstone or neither Carlos nor Soraia, only the dates with a dash connecting them

separating them

were the dashes separating or connecting them?

it must be connecting, let’s say they connect, connecting them, a dash without any names connecting them, you didn’t exist father someone else existed for you going to pick up my mother at school and fixing the gentian so it hung on the wire, someone else who spied on us from a distance waiting for the café owner to visit us with a pint of wine going off through the bushes, up to the bus that crossed the Tagus to Lisbon, the maid from the dining room was coming down to Olaias twisting the little cross on her chain

—The actress is your father Paulo you’re not lying to me? without noticing the condolence cards and the unpaid gas bills stuck in the mirror frame where the bulbs were blinking, Vânia getting undressed in front of us and Rui putting out cigarettes in cold-cream jars, maybe all still alive, maybe Rui with us tomorrow in Chelas with an envelope with banknotes and the topcoat that had served him as a shirt for so long, he had an apartment, a car, a job, he was rich

—Your old man gave them to me

or maybe

—I stole them

I caught him sleeping and I stole them, tomorrow when he looks for them underneath the mattress he’ll get all upset because the payment for the washing machine was two months overdue

—Where’s my money Rui?

and the bank taking it away, he had a swimming pool

—Do you remember the giraffe floating in the dark water at night Rui?

a place with a garden, Rui’s aunt on the phone with a friend he signed my name to a check and disappeared somewhere Pilar, the manager of the club changing the position of her body after calling for a slanted blue light on her

—Don’t talk to the mike, lady, talk to the audience again

and she at the same time that the maid from the dining room and I were on our way to Príncipe Real

—He signed my name to a check and disappeared somewhere Pilar

the Rua da Palmeira drawn in charcoal on the set, sketches of four or five balconies, four or five roofs, a spot for both of us too, the manager’s nephew shouting up to the light man on a scaffold

—Be careful it’s the son

the son coming from Chelas accompanied by a cheesy blouse with anchors and fish and the needle, the syringe, the lemon in his pocket, the newspaper too with hopes of some little leftover drug, thinking it’s all gone and shaking it into the spoon or the jar lid found in the weeds almost a fix of heroin stomach tight remembering Mr. Couceiro always at attention

a corporal

in the album he in dress uniform, straight and stiff, holding his daughter on his shoulder like a rifle, don’t forget Mr. Couceiro now, and the manager to my mother with her empty pint, standing in center stage feeling ashamed at being fat in the dressing room, braiding and unbraiding her hair

—Your son’s name is Paulo isn’t it?

that skinny little man whose eyes leap out at us now and then curled up humbly in a corner of the house, arm in arm with a girl who smells of cooking

they light her up

the cheap blouse of a hospital attendant condemned to borrow or to palm a few pennies when they sent her shopping

who’ll tell me her name, what’s her name dammit

biting the little cross, winding up the chain, letting go of the cross while her fellow worker

where can her fellow worker be, let Marlene come here and play the part of her fellow worker

while her fellow worker on the dining-room stairs

—You call that an actress?

the girl

let’s say it’s Gabriela for lack of anything better, Gabriela will do and it goes with the blouse, the earrings faking a necklace, a little tune on an accordion, a hard-to-place wind from where the world begins, crags, bushes that bend over, little clouds running away, fingers crippled from arthritis

and which nobody else noticed

—Not now father

grave number two hundred forty-eight in Sintra, when I can I go into the mortuary and buy a plaster angel to weep for him, the clerk warns me about the limestone

—After a couple of rainy Januaries the angel will fall apart

the angel weeping for himself, not for my father, carried off by the tears are his nose, his ears, the curls on his forehead arranged by the same hairdresser who did the girl’s hair, if it rains on you Gabriela, you’ll dissolve onto the ground like the broken-down wall after the heroin when we’d lean against the bricks hearing the jackdaw rising up over Chelas and the muddy clothes, over Dália who didn’t get to marry a doctor somewhere on the hillside with her beggar’s plate

let me repeat your name Dália for the tricycle on the sidewalk, for the notebook with pictures, I loved you so much

I mean if it rains and one of these days it will rain, it always ends up raining doesn’t it and you dissolve onto the ground like the plaster angel, you, your blouse, Otília’s accessories, the manager calling for a tolling of bells and a curtain of laurels and small coffins of dead people that rolls down from the ceiling covering the random brushstrokes of Príncipe Real, your mother, your stepfather, your sister holding your nephew along with the small pearl necklace that you thought so elegant and that she never lent to you, Vânia, with a rag doll, twisting her neck to show off the necklace imitating your sister for the audience at the club at the same time that Marlene, with sprigs in her hair, was pretending to be a poplar tree and Micaela, unable to button up her blouse with anchors and fish, was asking me near Conde Redondo where the streetcars used to turn

—How could the actress be your father Paulo if the actress isn’t a man?

the Campo de Santana swans are missing, sir, don’t forget the swans, put in some swans there, the swans and an old man hunting for cigarette butts with a stick that has a nail at the tip and then yes Micaela tugging at my sleeve, lingering on my shoulder and taking me by the wrist

a few swans please, even if they’re clay like the ones in cribs and the mirror in the dressing room acting as a pond, a few swans, friend, just as many as are needed to forget him

—It isn’t your father Paulo how could it be your father?

so that I can forget him once and for all, the maid from the dining room or the horror of the other one, of my mother in Bico da Areia

a dozen albatrosses croaking at the equinox and I forget her too

sitting on the bed looking for a jacket since October was here and the blinds can’t keep it out, because at Alto do Galo the dampness, the mist, the first flock of crows, since she needed the spark of wine and the floor

the floorboards that had managed to hold up

her shipwrecked upper deck tilted forward, the other one coming together on the sheet, throat, knee, which changes into a foot, lighting the gas jet but the gas has run out, looking for a chair and the chair running away from me

running away from her

pounding on the dresser, hit the dresser lady, don’t let go of the bottle and hit the dresser with the chair, the chair smashing a cup or a chalice and falling to one side, hips independent, autonomous, let them live by themselves fighting with the walls also independent, autonomous and right then horses’ hooves or Gypsies’ voices on the way back from the pine grove, the fever of the pups