What Can I Do When Everything's On Fire?: A Novel (37 page)

—The other day you asked me for twenty minutes didn’t you, Mr. Lemos, if you come down quick I’ll give you a whole hour

the customer to me

—
You said Elvas didn’t you?

not a customer, a friend, he put a schoolgirl uniform in the closet for me, bought me rulers, multiplication tables, asked me to sit on his knees feeling around under my skirt

—
Naughty girl naughty girl

he thumbed through my notebooks where I copied dictations, subtractions, the names of mountains and rivers, he begged me to draw big smiling suns in colored pencil, that I erase them and draw them again, he would stop to look for the watercolors putting more money on the night table, one or two bills, three bills sometimes

—
You don’t have a beauty spot on your face do you want a blue beauty spot on your face Micaela, you’re a naughty girl

he gave me dolls, wind-up animals, puzzles and he was running around me, let’s play Micaela, he’d fondle the doll would be disappointed with me

—
You’re thinking about something else

and I really was thinking about something else, about the aqueduct, about Elvas, about my daughter sometimes

although my daughter

the customer stopped looking at the tureen

—
What is it about the tureen?

without noticing that I wasn’t there, coughing, I was past the aqueduct on the way to Spain, this pain in the ribs, this trouble with the air, it gets in and refuses to get out, it gets out and refuses to come in, I sit down and the air doesn’t move, my throat’s tight, the aqueduct where I’m not walking, it’s a different one I’m walking on, I stay there watching it go away, so I don’t even hear the customer holding me by the shoulders

—
Micaela

thinking about opening the door but who can I call, waking up a neighbor but what do I tell the neighbor, what I am, and what if the neighbor says you’re all cut from the same cloth who cares if your clown is dying, getting her out of her school uniform, the low-heeled shoes, the schoolgirl socks, hiding the notebooks in the closet but in the closet there are scarves, mantillas, frippery with feathers, pocketing the money on the night table so they won’t think that I, instead of the stairs use the aqueduct even if it’s poorly painted and crooked

Elvas, a city with a fort and prisoners coming up the hill carrying barrels

and getting to Badajoz or Cadiz or somewhere farther off, in the end Lisbon, at the end of an alley off a square, luckily dozens and dozens of alleys and while there are alleys I keep on running, my wife who refuses to dress up as a schoolgirl

—
What a silly idea Eduardo

putting another pillow under my neck

—
Did the company meeting tire you out?

the air that goes in and won’t go out, goes out and won’t to go in, doesn’t move not going in or out and my throat tight, my wife

—
Eduardo

unable to hear her because of my steps on a distant narrow path, low houses, warehouses, barking all along a poster, visit the model flat, every so often a ground floor lighted up, beggars on a tarpaulin, a big ship, the Tagus, Micaela

—
Elvas

me

—
Elvas

and yet settling down on the sofa and calming my wife, the meeting didn’t tire me out, I don’t need any pillows, I’m fine, leave me just like this for a minute to think about work, a couple with a child happily suggesting visit the model flat, the father dark-haired, the mother blonde, the child blonde too, the child and the mother smiling at the father who

—The other day you asked me for twenty minutes didn’t you, Mr. Lemos, I’ll give you a whole hour

was embracing both and beyond the family a development with a halo of sanctity in a grassy plot, deluxe accessories, central heating, kitchen trimmed in oak fully equipped, come see us

COME SEE US

don’t buy without seeing us, come see us and all along the poster barking come see us

a whole hour and God letting me go, settling down on the bricks, fixing his gaze on the hotel guy

—Did you people say an hour?

Taking off His glasses and the date on the fountain

the MDCCXXXIV

invisible, the ferns in the Botanic Garden pzgtslm

—After all, look, I made a mistake it’s not your father, boy, it’s a mailbox

and me forgetting that the ground I was treading was holy and that no one, not even Moses, permitted himself to cast his eyes on the eyes of God, it can’t be a mailbox, Mr. Lemos, with just a little careful attention you’ll discover a faggot, a transvestite, a clown at Príncipe Real at five in the morning, orient yourself by the cedar, the café, the lake and He was coming forward across the bricks

—What we have plenty of in this country is cafés, boy

his pants rolled up, sleeves hiding his fingers, the boarder at the skylight with the hotel guy, with a flashlight, lighting up His hair

—This way, Mr. Lemos

and You who spoke to men pure in heart do not abandon my father, the doctor guaranteed him that he’s not sick

—Rest easy you’re not sick Dona Soraia

and my father

—My name is Carlos

lying out of pity, he’s got a fever, he’s sick

—I’m sick Marlene

thinking about Bico da Areia, my mother, the gentian, filling the watering can from the spigot at the washtub, I won’t let it die Judite, notice how he got pale, it’s hard for him to move, the watering can dropped from his hand and he can’t bend over, a dizzy spell, a faint

—Be patient, nephew

or cousin or younger brother, or a little one without a family that I take care of poor thing, my father to the little one without a family that I take care of

—Be patient, nephew

it can’t be a mailbox Mr. Lemos, it can only be my father, he’s wearing a blonde wig isn’t he, a circle of lipstick between his nose and his chin, artificial lashes that darken his face, ask him his name Mr. Lemos, try asking him his name and in spite of Rui

—I’m her husband her name is Soraia

he’ll answer you

—Carlos

how much do you want to bet

don’t leave, we’re almost finished, how much do you want to bet he’ll answer

—Carlos

and answering him

—Carlos

I’ll stop bothering him I swear, I’ll talk to Dona Helena and a mass in Your honor, I’ll ask the maid in the dining room and the offering in the same alms box

S
OULS IN
P
URGATORY

pzgtslm

which Rui and I cracked one afternoon with a nail and a hammer, a cracking of wood and half a dozen coins that the people

you know quite well

the people, not me, became greedy and selfish Lord, give me back my father resting at a corner on his way back home carrying his cross smaller than Your Son’s and which only You and I know

a faggot, a transvestite, a dying clown rumpling and smoothing a silken quilt, getting up, leaving

don’t let him leave, command him

—The gentian, Carlos

and he obeyed You, put down the suitcase, limped over to the wall

Kyrie Eleison

where in winter the gulls were wary of the waves and the bridge and the horses, the same way that I limp over to the edge of the roof scattering the pigeons and the hotel guy who hears and doesn’t hear

—Be careful, you boob

so far behind me, so distant Lord, my father removing the dried leaves and taking care of the branches, fixing up a small shoot that was leaning over with a piece of string, straightening out a branch that the rain

or the pups or the wind

had pushed down to the ground

—Tie it here, nephew

and while I slide off the roof

thank you, Lord

I tie it here, I keep on tying and I help him and I fall into the noise and the hate, keeping in mind the peace there can be in silence, certain that fear is born of solitude, of fatigue, and the absence of discipline and looking after myself, a son of the Universe no less than the trees and the stars and even though bright or dark for me at peace with God no matter in what form I conceive Him and whatever shape my efforts and aspirations take, maintaining my soul serene in the vain disorder of existence because in spite of all the error and madness and unfulfilled desires this world of Yours, my Lord, is a perfect world. And I will be careful. And I will try to be happy. And nature will strengthen my spirit protecting me from the mishaps of life. I will not be blind to virtue. I will try to be humble before the changing fortune of the years: facing disappointment and darkness the soul becomes perennial like the grass and, like it, it will survive forever at the same time that I fall and by falling I begin to live again and I fear nothing, my Lord and my God because my father

a faggot, a transvestite, a sick clown

—Tie it here, nephew

and the scent of the gentian that folds and enshrouds me defending me from death rising up to You from among the pigeon droppings, the satisfaction and the hope of the love I bear You.

no fried food and this bottle of drops for the swelling in his legs, ten after lunch and ten after dinner in half a glass of water with a little sugar because it’s acid, see?

my husband would lay out tins of corn with roach killer, complaining I can’t stand the damned things but it was the gulls that were dying, not the peacocks, the next day there were gulls hanging from the peach trees or drowned in the water troughs in the poultry pen scaring the geese, the peacocks untouched in the towers down with the Saracens up Portugal and my husband said to my mother-in-law, digging into the trunk and coming across pictures of the boy who had died inside and had kept on dying with every new white hair, every new wrinkle, every new hernia spasm, where’s my father’s shotgun, a single-barreled one with a loose butt that so many years ago he’d scare the neighbors with, going bang-bang with his mouth, going down three flights with the shotgun, saying bang-bang to the peacocks, it’s likely that the peacocks, the same as the neighbors, would lift their hands to their breasts, roll their eyes, declare you’ve killed me, until he left, happy, the castle in silence, and handed my mother that gibberish about being proud that he didn’t have to pull the trigger in order to get rid of the peacocks, as you can see, the boy with his face peeping out and settling down, wearing a lace collar, onto the lap of his grandmother who I never got to know and who swore at me from the picture frame, dropping her smile when she caught sight of me, you’re no wife for Álvaro, and maybe I really wasn’t a wife for Álvaro because we hadn’t met at the club where I’m working now, because clubs didn’t exist in those days, it was a place on the outskirts where you forgot the miseries of a life that instead of going forward only walks backward what can you do, with paper streamers, cheap beer, an accordion and a piano on a platform, I was seventeen

make it sixteen and in spite of my being afraid of the dark and going to bed with a little Bakelite hen that if you wound it up would flap its wings and lay a glass egg, a body of thirty and features thirty-five that scared me because they gave me the idea that I was my own stepmother, ordering me to throw away the hen Amélia because it doesn’t even have a beak, sixteen and the profession of sitting down under the paper streamers and the moths around the bulbs waiting for men whose lives were only going backward, what can you do, dancing with them, listening to their complaints of have you ever seen worse luck dammit, going to bed consoling them in one of the rooms in the annex thinking I hope they don’t turn out the light, the Bakelite hen, all ready to protect me, within arm’s reach until my husband one night or other, not daring to approach, all lost in embarrassment at the bar with that forlorn look in the photograph in the trunk, maybe I could wind it up and he’d be taken with the egg while he admired the accordion and the piano, spending hours nursing a beer following me with his eyes and forgetting about his glass, when during a waltz or a tango I’d go off in the company of a man whose life, what can you do, to one of the rooms in the annex, where sometimes a glass egg would fall all by itself without a sound and I’ll bet that the boy in the photograph was listening, lots of times I’d wind it up for him without my husband’s suspecting that every egg was my way of telling him a name I didn’t know, I’d wind it up and the one whose life was what can you do I’m not here to watch your hen, while I waited for the wings to stop flapping and let me know that you can leave Amélia, looking for what was left of himself on the sheet and it looked to me like he was afraid of the dark just like me, the men would pick themselves up after lying down and pick up their clothes, look at this leg, this elbow, this little finger I didn’t lose after all, funny, putting themselves together until they took the shape of a creature fighting with its shoelaces mixed up and a voice out of the darkest of the dark where there were threats of witches that were just trees, thickets

—Let me get dressed in peace

not an adult voice, from something in the trunk, maybe a baptism dress, maybe the whistling of rabbits

a long time ago

on a corner of the farm after the grape harvest, the oxen that were carrying the grapes sniffing the ground, the shoelaces and the fingers

it was the shoelaces that were knotting the fingers

my husband followed me with relief, having forgotten about his glass, when I came back from the annex during another waltz, another tango and settled down onto the chair pulling down my skirt to cover

he thought

my shameless knees, not understanding that it was the smell of the vines and the hares running away that my hand was hiding, those quick little noses eternal for a second, my life which in those days wasn’t going backward what can you do, was going forward especially after the rain, the door would open and the wintering tomato plants would say hello to me

—Amélia

I’m not exaggerating

—Amélia

my husband was propped up at the bar warming his beer with his hand until the dancing was over which means the piano was a useless piece of furniture up against the streamers on the wall, the accordion player was tugging at the straps of his instrument with the movements of someone getting undressed and instead of undressing he was putting it away in its case, turning up the collar of his jacket and disappearing into the street without anyone’s knowing where on the outskirts he was heading, maybe not the outskirts at all, maybe nobody was waiting for him, a little wave that wasn’t unhappy, indifferent, until tomorrow ladies and gentlemen, with the ladies and gentlemen he was referring to the cleaning people who were pushing back the furniture and giving the floor a quick scrub, except for the man who was paying my aunt counting the bills with saliva from his thumb, three bills tonight madame because your niece left a customer unable to leave the room all caught up with the hen, they went to get him and he had his fingers all knotted chasing runaway hares

—Do they catch the smell of the vines?

not to mention the boy in the photograph at that hour of the morning growing old with fatigue, white hair, wrinkles, hernia spasms, mumbling into his beer or to my aunt while a small flicker of sun coming from Góis knotted the paper streamers that night had stitched up and put together, I’ll give you six bills for her, convinced that I had the thirty years in my body and knew how to wash and iron and take care of a little flat almost stuck up against the castle where the peacocks for eight centuries in the ivy of the battlements called down with the Saracens up Portugal, and sew his clothes and cook his meals when all I knew was how to wind up the hen, pick up the egg in my hand, and watch my husband who’d run out of roach killer take out the shotgun with a loose butt and a single barrel that had belonged to his father, raising that useless combination to his shoulder with the falsely competent look of unnecessary objects it had, lifting it slowly with one eye closed in the direction of the patriotic cheers now at this stone now at that one, he waited for one of the cocks to fill up his throat pointing it toward the clouds, as soon as down with the Saracens my husband with his mouth

—Bang-bang

and a gull was hanging from the peach trees in backyards or drowned in the troughs in poultry pens scaring the geese, my aunt to my husband eleven bills, my husband who couldn’t look at her, in the same way that he couldn’t look at anyone, he’d talk to people with his head down studying his thumbs and now studying his thumbs yellow with foam from the glass of beer six bills and a half and let’s not have any more talk about this, I remember my new shawl

blue

and the flicker of sun that brought an acacia with it

a fern

pzgtslm

the shadow of an acacia dragging along over joints on the boards and climbing up to the platform hidden from us, my husband rubbing one thumb against the other and the thumbs in agreement

—Eight bills

I always call acacias ferns don’t mind me, if the fern or the acacia could guess I was noticing it, it would say hello right off

—Amélia

my mother interrupting the deal

—Are you sharing secrets with the trees?

and even though I wasn’t saying anything sitting on the chair with the shadow on one of my ankles and the other ankle free, as soon as both feet got caught who’ll help me walk

answer me

my shadow was behind me and I was afraid of it

—Let me go

I stopped and the shadow stopped too making it hard for me to move, little bitty head, great big hips, we held out arms at the same time and who’s obeying whom, which of the two of us is in charge, I leaned frontward on my hips, I’m not afraid of you, my hands five fingers then none at all, blending into my waist, I moved my fingers away and the shadow, imitating me, had five too, longer than mine, the middle one was on a stone the others on the grass, I scratched my head and they disappeared again, my chin was normal, its chin was strange but there weren’t any eyebrows, any nose, just one ear if that and still it could hear me, if my husband aimed the shotgun and went

—Bang-bang

with his mouth the shadow fell dead on the floor, covered with ants like the corpses of toads, it would come back the next day and almost not a shadow anymore, half of the head, half of the lumpy hips, the rest the crows had carried off, my aunt to my husband ten bills and the hen as a present, the fern

or the acacia

fastening me to the chair and how am I going to get out of here, covering my face I stop breathing and then, my husband examining the hen

—It isn’t worth a red cent it has a broken beak

he grabbed it, found the windup key

—Is this how?

and the wings went up and down in a slanting effort, out of my hand I thought it was ugly and lifeless and it wasn’t just the beak, the left leg was cracked, when it didn’t move its wings it was a creature that wasn’t capable of defending me from the dark, my husband put it in his pocket and for the first time his eyes moved away from the beer to me

—Your name’s Amélia isn’t it?

while the acacia

or the fern

went off toward the piano and I was free, from inside the little flat almost stuck up against the castle there were only clouds crossing the balcony toward the sea and time that had no need for clocks because it was always three o’clock, no rabbit whistle, no vine smell, a cricket in a cage of twigs and I’d been inventing tomatoes varnished by the rain, starting with the cricket, anxious little legs, that is, antennas searching, crickets in the roots, on the ledges, inside the wind, along with the crickets there are oxen sniffing the ground and I was

ah the ground

sniffing along with them, lying down in the eucalyptus grove while the dowser moved around in circles, paying no attention to the stones, with a forked apple branch and everybody was waiting, he’d go back and forth, walking like a blind man, the branch would dip, trembling, insisting on a slope that the plow had left intact and he had the look of someone waking up on the other side

—There

they dug a well and our reflected faces making and unmaking themselves down below, I was on the ground in the eucalyptus grove for once without any shadow because the ants and the crows

my husband to my aunt trying out the hen

—
What about her clothes ma’am?

they’d carried off half my head and half my hips, I was only a leftover part of myself all lumpy and twisted, I don’t exist, I’m not, and the sound of the eucalyptus trees crossing through what I’m not while the shadow of the dowser, that yes, whole, the dowser exists, thank God one of us exists, thank God the shadow of one of us in the branches and the branches are bending over in spite of his not weighing anything, I saw the shadow of his hat, the forked branch, his pants tucked into his boots, I never saw him, his real shadow, not him, in circles, paying no attention to the stones and the shadow with him, my family was working the field and waiting for the forked branch to bend suddenly

—There

on a slope the plow had left intact and reflected in the bottom of the well unmaking and re-making itself in a shadow on the water was the shadow of the dowser taking me by the elbow, I thought

—If I push back my hair will I still have an ear?

I thought

—If I separate my fingers will there be some finger in the leaves? and of course no ear no fingers because the ants and the crows, a fox, the dogs, three dogs fighting over my shoulder, running off into the brambles and no shoulder though, what do you think you’re doing it’s only your shadow, not mine, among the tree trunks, look how the wind doesn’t stop on my body, goes right through me, look how bent I try to make some kind of movement there’s no movement at all, it only touches berries and pebbles, it only unbuttons an absence, the hat gets bigger, the forked branch is on the ground but then the forked branch doesn’t exist either, that is, it exists but it’s not a shadow and therefore there isn’t any, or there it is suddenly turning down, if I lift myself up a little and take a look I can see the plow, one of the oxen, the weathervane on the barn, broken for years, always pointing south, the forked branch not pointing where I am but pointing at my aunt and uncle