What Can I Do When Everything's On Fire?: A Novel (43 page)

when he turned me over to Mr. Couceiro he held out his hand to him and Mr. Couceiro didn’t hold out his and ignored the selfish cedar

—Look at me all of you, here I am

held up by iron crutches and putting out branches annoyed with us, we go through the park on our way to Anjos and I notice the curtain being drawn, becoming a kind of blur and as soon as the blur disappears I’m an orphan, all I can expect tonight are the slippers scraping on the floor bumping into corners on the way to the kitchen, the dishwasher frantic

hundreds of pots, pans, strainers, all I can expect is the faucet open and a bottomless glass that doesn’t stop filling, all I can expect is one of you by the stove waiting for me, don’t forget the way the streetlights lengthen the living room and reveal to you shadows of sofas that weren’t there and you asking strangers

your mother, your father, your grandmother

—My grandson, Judite?

who didn’t exist, who never existed and yet they were talking to you in the emptiness of the silence, nobody’s there with you, nobody can touch you, you’re touching yourself, the maid from the dining room

—Paulo

—What’s wrong Paulo?

—It’s no good this way Paulo

—Don’t scare me Paulo

there seems to be someone next to you but if you take a better look there are boards on the window and beyond the boards is Lisbon, Lisbon mother, Lisbon, I thought it was Lisbon and yet the rain, you’re crossed by slanting lines even though there’s no wind outside, your reflection is on every drop on the windowpane, dozens of yous in the window frame telling your father

—Gallop

while you manage it you tell your father

—Gallop

so you’re not sure that you have any flesh left, only teeth, only eye sockets and teeth gleaming with the astonishment skulls have, cover yourself with marigolds, pull the sheet up over your head, if the maid from the dining room says

—Paulo

don’t answer, sink down into the mattress so you won’t bump into the future, not your future, the other one’s future, your future is all over.

the hands begin to change into my hands and they’re still not my hands

that the loop inside the collar tears, proof that there’s something in my hands is the fact that I drop the umbrella, I don’t know where Paulo is because I’ve lost track of the bed

—Can’t a person get a little rest Gabriela?

in my ear right then because it scared me and far away because I don’t care

in spite of my being more me now, there are bits and pieces of not me still there, this shoulder, for example, the heart that doesn’t beat, for example, starts working, misses, stops, in the chest now in the belly now, unable to find its place until it gets settled in my ribs, calms down and right then, me finally me, arms, fatigue, legs, an urge to lie down on the floor, to die, I could see the room, I could see the wardrobe, I could see the frozen doorknob impossible to turn a short while ago and now so easy, a gray light with the tatters of March floating over the landing because the skylight on the ceiling has been fogged over by the pigeons

not just the stains of their droppings, feathers too, a cloud that’s chasing after the night and can’t catch up with it

certain as I go down the stairs that I’d stayed behind up there, so heavy, absent, half of my teeth squashed against the pillowcase, one eye blind, the remaining eye searching in the shadows, looking back and becoming just as blind when on the wall, in charcoal, Marina & Diogo with the Diogo x-ed out and replaced by Jaime, the Jaime bigger than the Diogo but it still can’t get rid of him, Jaime lived with Marina in the basement, I never ran into Diogo in the building so that farther down Marina & Jaime and us, not connecting with Jaime, looking for Diogo, concerned about his absence

—I wonder where Diogo is?

with an urge to x out Jaime and give Diogo to Marina, who worked for the city, Marina & Jaime on the ground floor where someone had started to rub out the Jaime, every week the Jaime got more and more faded and Diogo, in spite of not being there, was filling up the space, one afternoon I ran into Marina leaning over the trash rubbing her sleeve against the Jaime, the landlady told me that Diogo

—He abused the poor thing, she always was a ninny

had run off to Australia with their savings, she showed me a tiny little Diogo inside a heart drawn in pencil stuck to the mailboxes in hopes of a letter and in spite of the hopes never any letter, every day the anxious little key, looking for Diogo in a flood of supermarket flyers, advertisements for electric gadgets for the home, announcements from African spiritualist clairvoyants in caps and dark glasses

Professor Isaias, Professor Claudecir

who brought people together and separated people, in the case of Diogo a medium-like neutrality that got Marina stirred up, when she went out onto the street the cloud that had followed her at night was a little pink mist at the end of the block, not Marina, Jaime unshaven adjusting his cap at the bus stop, I

—I don’t know why you should have an effect on me

was making up my mind to underline his name on the ground floor first thing in the morning

maybe I don’t know why, his fingers are like my father’s up and down the keys

—
How about a little tune, daughter?

and I was annoyed you shouldn’t have died do you hear

the buildings

just like me with my blouse and skirt ten minutes earlier

were getting dressed in windows and on balconies without turning on the light, moving around under the window drapes, this print here, that fruit bowl there, Jaime kept his hands in his pockets and I hated him for making me miss my father at the lunch table with the accordion on his knees, the little smile that annoyed my mother and made me happy, the instrument more whistles than notes a sick cough but it was all right, I liked it, even today when I feel depressed I can hear him playing the accordion and I feel better, if he could have dreamed of what became of me, where I work, how I live, that the orderly

that naughty little hand Mr. Vivaldo, that sneaky little hand

would call me into the bandage room when the redhead wasn’t there, couldn’t you find a man with a decent job, Gabriela, instead of a patient, some proper young guy who could take care of you, my father forgetting about the buttons and the keys, worried, sad

—You were always so thin

a timid little ray of sunshine touching the patches

—So frail

from the rain, the bus stopped with a sigh, agreeing with him, Jaime waiting for me to get on maybe with Diogo written in charcoal somewhere on my coat

I tried to clean it off without his seeing it, the landlord despised him, that dimwit, that cuckold, I don’t remember Marina talking to him, the day was getting itself organized, Lisbon was getting things ready all along the way, small squares, trees, the hoists along the Tagus in places where there was a deep shadowy emptiness and Paulo’s knee against my belly, two or three hours before, at the time when neither of us was neither of us, I thought

I was just imagining

I was seeing treetops through the boarded-up window and yet I wonder if they were treetops in the boarded-up window or by the sea at Peniche years ago when we visited my grandfather at the fort

I was very young

hallway after hallway and the unseen waves could be heard, crashing against the stone wall, my grandfather

—They haven’t hurt me

I don’t remember him, that is I remember his voice

—They haven’t hurt me

my mother pulled something out of her skirt and gave it to him, one of the guards to my mother

the sea at Peniche with such force now

—You there

such force that you can’t hear the little package hitting the floor, they gave my grandfather a shove, the guard lifted up his arm, looked at me and his arm wasn’t moving, waiting, I remember the fishermen’s huts

they told me afterward that they were fishermen’s huts

they’d caught my grandfather with pamphlets against I-don’t-know-who in his pockets and they took him away, something to do with politics, they opened the little package, cigarettes, almonds, butter, a card with a diagram and some writing on it inside the butter, the guard called another guard and the other guard asked my mother

—What’s this?

just as I was going into the hospital and the plane trees were greeting me right away, shaking their branches and leaves and leaping around me like happy chickens

—I don’t have any corn, get away

the eyes of the doorman in the glass booth detached from his face so they could run up and down over my body, dripping wetness that stuck to my clothes, what I would have liked was having a business of my own, a small neighborhood establishment, a laundry, Paulo’s father’s lady friends

Paulo’s aunt’s

would bring me the dresses they wore when they danced at the theater and the customers would show me respect

—We never would have guessed that you knew actresses Dona Gabriela

not just my grandfather, they gave my mother a shove

—What’s this?

they went through her bag, went through her blouse, communist, communist, if my father and his accordion would only leave us in peace

—Play a little tune father

and my father

it was the only time he didn’t do what I wanted

ordering me

—Shut up

not with his mouth, with a wrinkle in his forehead, ordering my sister

—Don’t cry

and my sister stuck out her neck and swallowed herself, all that was left was her open mouth with all her upset inside, weeks later we got a postcard from the fort along with my grandfather in a closed coffin that they wouldn’t let us open, the guards attended the funeral with us, they stopped us from carving his name on the tombstone

there wasn’t even any tombstone

they wouldn’t let my grandfather’s friends go into the cemetery, three or four old men wearing neckties that weren’t the color for mourning, bright red

—Only the family, gentlemen

a few months ago I went through Peniche and there were the waves pounding against the stones, after the funeral the police were by our door, the friends in red ties were on the sidewalk and the four of us were in the room wearing our Sunday shoes and the lace tablecloth was laid out, the friends finally went away one by one, the guards rang the doorbell to warn us

a business of my own

—We want you to keep your mouths shut

no crucifix, no priest, no sexton praying, my mother gave my sister and me a thimbleful of wine, a drop flowed down onto the label, kept going down, they catch it with a napkin, they won’t let it fall, my sister to herself inside her stomach and facing my father as he twisted the cloths in his hand one into the other

—Don’t cry

going to get the stepladder from the kitchen, going through the apartment with the stepladder catching on the furniture, placing it in front of the bedroom wardrobe, climbing up the steps I was thinking I’m a drop of wine, they hold me with the napkin, they won’t let me fall, I got the feeling that my father was saying

—Like a dog just like a dog

but in such a low voice that I could have been wrong, he was bringing the accordion that moaned with life, breathing on my lap

—Play a little tune father

my mother ran to the window where her shoulder was going up and down, my father was imitating my sister swallowing himself too, the accordion lying on the floor became quiet, its silver decorations shining, its lungs collapsed, dead, my mother was nothing but a back, she was crumpling up the curtains without looking at us, when Paulo’s father

aunt, godmother, cousin died, there was no pounding on the stones at the fort, no accordion on the floor, his colleagues at Príncipe Real were arguing over the ostrich feathers that might not have come from an ostrich, Paulo was leaning on the radio laughing while the mastiff with a bow licked the tip of his shoes, Dona Amélia was looking for money

that’s not how it was

because there had to be money, he must have left some money

in the drawers, in the trunk, in the bread bag, Rui

it couldn’t have been Rui, Rui was in Fonte da Telha at that time poor fellow and the mastiff too then, everything’s all mixed up in my head

Rui to Dona Amélia

that’s not how it was

—It’s no use poking around in his belongings he was just a clown didn’t you know?

Paulo laughing and taking it all in, laughing and onto everything, he got away from Marlene

a not very young chanteuse but better dressed than the others and beautiful

he went down the steps without hearing me

—Paulo

he went out into the park without paying any attention to anything, unbuttoning the jacket Dona Helena had lent him, his feet like in beach sand, his elbows pushing away someone I think was Mr. Couceiro and then gentian branches that I imagined, I couldn’t see, if I could only set up a business, a neighborhood establishment, Paulo was still laughing until we got to Chelas

a while later the dead body of a rooster appeared, the remains of some cartilage, some bones

cartilage or bones?

laughing at the Cape Verdeans who didn’t understand why he was happy, sitting down on the grass

I thought that a dead accordion couldn’t get to play and yet my father

for one second his eyes were different like sad or something, thank God because right away happy again, the Cape Verdeans told us

and a switchblade I think

we’re not selling you anything, go on back down, as if Paulo had scared them, so insignificant, so calm, I thought that a dead accordion couldn’t ever get to play and yet one Sunday morning, I was already getting ready for school, I was scared when I heard it until my mother said