What Can I Do When Everything's On Fire?: A Novel (3 page)

—You can’t hear anything Judite, it must have been the horses

who were trotting along on a flat stretch where there were tents, wagons, the bottle was sliced up again on the sideboard into little strips of only glass now, another bra, jars of cream, a woman’s boot, on the top shelf in the pantry, thrown at my father in a burst of scorn, the slow way algae and pebbles underwater, I can’t tell whether they’re moving or are just shadows

—Do you wear this, Carlos?

running your hand over the surface of things in the way that it’s the crash step that’s moving backward, not the train, you’re standing and then a sigh of steam and metal, the platform that’s moving away, the same with time, with death, the faces of the dead within our reach and yet so very far away, more serious, more dignified, maybe if my mother

—Do you wear this, Carlos?

my father not answering in his coffin with me defending him laughing, they’d dressed him in a necktie, a shirt without lace, a vest he would have hated, they combed his hair where before there were feathers, spangles, and the wig, the figurine in the picture was cutting the wedding cake, his cheek up against my mother’s cheek while my cheek is up against the pillow with the plane tree pulling me out of sleep, aware of the position of my body in the bed, of the smell of the creolin they washed the floor with

—You can go home tomorrow

and at home the tub in the backyard waiting for morning

—Go see if the faggot’s kid is still out there

and in the house

—Did you hear a creak from the front door?

the other home, the one on the deserted square of Príncipe Real, Rui’s coffin to the left of my father’s, a necktie, a shirt with no lace, and a vest all quite identical he didn’t die like the clown

both their shoes, coming out their pants legs, pointing to the ceiling

they’d found him on the beach with the dog with a bow sniffing him or barking at the waves

not sniffing not barking at the waves, running in circles, all excited by a stick or the neck of a bottle, in my father’s apartment it was the designs on the rug that interested him, hours on end contemplating diamond shapes

—Get lost the police asked

—Do you know who he is do you know him?

four stakes and a rope surrounding Rui’s body, the headlights of the cars lighting things up the way they do in a theater, any minute now first drums, then music, then silence because the music broke up, then some invisible running about, then

—You’ll never learn, you idiot

then

—It’s not my fault they unplugged it

then loud music, an oval of light on the curtain marked by burns, my father with his legs relaxed and a tiara tilted to one side singing with his arms crossed in forgiveness of sins, my mother turning over and over the tiara that was short on diamonds

—Do you wear this, Carlos?

if I lived in Bico da Areia I’d run through the pine grove or along the beach where there were tents, wagons, a trailer with no tires, the Gypsies would blindfold me the way they do horses before they shoot them with me on my knees, me laid out, me in a coffin in a church, when we went to the village my blind grandmother would run her fingers over my features with the motions of a potter, making adjustments to my nose, my cheekbones, my jaw, I’m changed, I don’t recognize myself in the mirror

—Your grandson, Mama

my grandmother in the darkness of the small sitting room surrounded by images and candles lengthening my ears and giving me more teeth, she’s going to eat me up and spread me over the land the way pigs do, her fingers suddenly stop short, caught around my neck, a dark question was making its way out through her kerchief dressed in mourning right down to her soul

—What do you mean grandson, daughter?

speaking not to my mother but to a chicken that was preening itself under its wings on a jumbled pile of trash, her hands pushing the shadows aside and she stopped

—What do you mean grandson, daughter?

while she put my features back in place with quick movements, if I lived in Bico da Areia I’d run faster than the orderlies, than the horses, my grandmother was searching out my mother, she was taking stock of her face with her thumbs

—You’ve gotten thinner Judite

one time or another I went to visit her in the village under the elm trees, avoiding the nettles, the mice, her eyes sensing my steps without her hearing them, her fingers kneading the emptiness intrigued, they said my dead grandfather would come in during the night with his hoe in his hand

—Camélia

uncovering pots and pans with that hunger the dead have, their musty breathing too, we wanted to live, we didn’t get to run away and everything was quiet all around, the schoolteacher was strolling along the road to the cemetery with school over, bees and more bees on the trunks of the poplars, my grandmother to the hoe

—You’re not coming to rob me are you?

I’m not coming to rob you, grandmother, I’m coming to ask you to touch me, to watch while you work in the garden, draw buckets from the well, change the afternoon with your hands, if you’d been at the church you’d have been quick to shape a decent face for my father and I wouldn’t be ashamed anymore, a man, not a clown with feathers and spangles and a wig, on the afternoon when he visited me in masquerade at the hospital

one of the orderlies whistling or coughing, the maids making faces from the laundry, I wanted so much to be a horse and trot along the beach far away, for them to cover my eyes, take a shot at me, the animal kneeled down and stopped thinking, the Gypsy kicked me up on the flank, when the tail stopped quivering the music got louder, the oval of light on the curtain with burn marks disappeared, I knew no performer had gone up to any microphone wearing a stole and a diamond tiara, the policeman

no, the doctor to me

I’ve already dreamed this dream, I’ve already dreamed this dre…

—Do you know who he is do you know him?

no, I didn’t dream this dream, four stakes and a cord surrounding the body, the dog barked at the waves, was hit with a stick, leaped to one side, came back, my father and Rui had another dog but it was run over by a truck, its back legs crushed the mouth still talking

—
You can go home tomorrow

we took him home, we wrapped his back legs in a blanket to stop the blood, Rui was waving his arm to keep the flies away

—Wave your arm keep the flies away

starting in March on Príncipe Real, father, the flies, flies in the living room, in the bedroom, in the closet with the wash basin, the vet getting his syringe ready, my father cried and his eye makeup was dark wet streaks, he ran his handkerchief over them and more streaks and smudges

—Be quiet father

four stakes and a cord surrounding the body at the place where they always came in the summer, my father didn’t go into the water because of his wig, first drums, then music, then silence, then

—It’s not my fault they unplugged it

then music again

—Sing father

even though it was the music that was singing, not him, the voice from the loudspeakers and my father picking it up, toss a ball in the living room and the dog would go right and left, fooled by the echoes of the sound, the clowns

the women

the clowns who went on with my father, younger than he, with not so many feathers, moved their hips in the rear, adjusting the hooks on their dresses, one of them, without a wig, was shaving himself in a small pocket mirror, going after recalcitrant hairs with a tweezer, the policeman to me

—Do you know who they are do you know them?

no, the doctor

—What’s your mother’s name?

my mother Judite and my father Carlos they have practically no feeling it’s so hard to help them get to feel again

I haven’t got a mother, I’ve got two mothers and Rui in the second coffin in the church, people on long benches, the little old man with the dog in his arms and me leaning on the brass handles laughing, an old suit of Dona Helena’s husband with cough drops in the pocket and an empty toothpick case

no, a single toothpick tock-tocking

which was small on me, they brushed my hair put on a drop of hair lotion, turned me around to see how I looked, satisfied, funeral aside, they’d really put me together

—It’s not too big in the belly dress him

they stood me in front of a dressing table, Dona Helena’s husband moved about studying me, avoiding him I asked silently

—Wouldn’t you like being my father?

they have practically no feeling it’s so hard to help them get to feel again
and he was busy adjusting the shoulders, he knew the names of the trees in Latin, he’d stroke their trunks and the trees were thankful, I think

—Mr. Couceiro

he’d served in Timor where a bullet in the rump

—The Japanese, lad, up to my neck in a rice paddy with buffaloes

I don’t believe it

when he came to get me at the station house because of the drugs and with my guts floating all by themselves I could hear his cane before he came in, I knew exactly the moment when he was going to dry the back of his neck with the handkerchief which, all twisted into knots, kept coming out of his pocket, the cane searching for me among the roots of hedges, horns, native corpses

—The Japanese, lad

he put the handkerchief away to help me keep my stomach intact, a lung, the arm I thought I was going to thank him with and it floated up to the ceiling, hiding under the furniture, dribbling piss on the rug, if they gave me a glass of milk I would have spilled it on the counter, Mr. Couceiro wasn’t throwing stones at me, wasn’t ordering me to

—Get lost

he’d say hello to the trees, recall the Japanese, he showed me his corporal’s uniform which the rice paddies had stained, three days and three nights up to his neck in the water and they gave up because they were tired lad, he looked at me the way my mother looked at my father

—Do you wear this, Carlos?

not even disillusioned, humble when the light of the lamp

caught him, he had no eyes, wrinkles above and below and instead of eyes small spheres of light, Dona Helena

the doctor’s wedding ring was tapping the pen on the desk top

—
What’s your mother’s name?

and there was no dove bobbing on the plane tree

with me in her arms

—Look at what I’ve got here Couceiro

a hidden floor, plants in paint cans, the curled-up doormat that I always tripped on, bedrooms boxed inside one another

the dining-room table ended at the bed

where the doorknobs turned uselessly, you would grab any one of them and it would stay in your hand, a porcelain ball and a rusty shaft, tiled panels in need of repair, Mr. Couceiro coming from the antipodes where a radio was playing, not the one I broke, an older one next to the patched-up couch, Mr. Couceiro with a cane, in line with a current of air that was puffing out his shirt

—Just like the monsoons in Timor, lad, all those fallen palm trees

Dona Helena with indignant clicks of her tongue whirled as if someone had been attacking me and went off with me in her arms into the trenches of the pantry, gave me some pears in syrup, gave me some cookies, showed me the music box and the little waltz started up

—You scared him and he started crying who’s going to quiet him down now?

all I have to do today is think about them

they have practically no feeling it’s so hard to make them get to feel again with a little luck medicine sometimes

and I remember all the notes, I find myself repeating them if I go soft, I don’t have two mothers, my mother’s name is Dona Helena, she showed me the music box again, sat down on the couch beside the sewing machine, exiled Mr. Couceiro far away to the radio

the needle moved along the dial and foreign languages whistling, scratching, it stopped where the priest was saying the six o’clock rosary, icy echoes in the chapel, half from his prayers and half from the women, they paused and the women would begin and

the priest would stop, after the heroin the voices would mingle, the sewing machine

back and forth sewing me up, I tried to cry out and my throat closed up on me, the lamp to heat the spoon slid along the mat, I couldn’t get the needle out, a tiny drop of blood appeared and trickled down, Mr. Couceiro concerned

—What’s wrong with him?

my mother Dona Helena and my father Mr. Couceiro he started crying it’s all your fault who’s going to quiet him down now try entertaining him with your Japanese your buffaloes the months you spent up to your neck in a rice paddy tomorrow when he comes back from the hospital don’t bother him leave him alone talk to him about trees turn on the radio rosary for him