What Can I Do When Everything's On Fire?: A Novel (47 page)

Marlene, Sissi?

appearing at the entrance in a blonde wig, making excuses, pulling up her décolleté

—I’m really sorry but I can’t help you

so without noticing it

noticing it

almost not noticing it, I leave the small square, I leave the small square quickly before another drop lands between my forehead and the glasses because the rain won’t stop won’t stop

even if the rain does stop

and it must have stopped, I swear it’s stopped and it isn’t stopping, I can hear it on the windows of the living room where the glass ashtray, the print with apples and Daniel, taller than I, grabbing your hips, turning you toward him

I leave the small square furious that you don’t protest, that you let yourself go

why do you let yourself go?

you grab him too, the rage at not being able to close my eyes and get you out of me, to have you disappear with the drop, have you dissolve along with it, have your short hair and the dress I don’t know evaporate out of my imagination, driving the car to the Tagus bridge with the windshield wiper pushing away this rain that multiplies headlights and your image in endless reflections, you in profile, you seated, you laying down your bag beside the couch, you kissing me on the ear

kissing me on the ear

without taking off your coat, deciphering the message from the maid on the pad in the kitchen, amused by the mistakes, your squeezing an elbow that wasn’t mine

—You know Daniel, don’t you?

and it hurts, hurts, hurts, it makes me put on the brakes, skid, straighten out the wheels, calm the fluttering in my heart that took a long time to calm down

—Did I kill you?

until you understand that I didn’t kill you, not you, not a man with you, a cardboard box that the wind was blowing along the bridge with no rain finally, burying you in my pocket all mixed in with the drop or burying the handkerchief, Micaela beside me fixing the snap on her purse with her teeth

—You love me don’t you, Paulo?

using her eyebrow tweezers to make it close better, answering her

—I love you a little

looking to the side with the pretext of a motor-scooter, her seat empty, on the Caparica road, next to a cone of stones, a girl smoking who looked like Dália, the cigarette glowing, now resting, now between her mouth and her slacks, when it was glowing a peasant beret covered her eyebrows, when it wasn’t, a child in Bico da Areia different from me, stopping beside her, saying

—Dália

drawing back in fright and the beret again, turning to the right in order to get away from the beret, two-story houses and then vacant lots, the Judas tree where a cousin had hanged himself somewhere back before my time, swinging like a pendulum, the earth didn’t want him and he didn’t want the earth, the Council president had to cut the rope to interrupt his dance and the cousin stared at him from the stretcher with wild-eyed wonder just as when he’d lose his temper during the time he was alive, he would only change expression when calculating shots in the poolroom, roaming around the table shooting an azimuth, cue on his shoulder, stalking like a hunter, lifting his right foot up in a ballet position while the rest of him flowed down, his forefinger in a ring, right over the cloth, the cousin was a piece of fruit in a coat hanging stiff from a branch, passing the cousin whose existence was limited to the attic of other people’s memories, so that without thinking about that thinking about that, it’s not worth repeating that you didn’t think about that

Santo António da Caparica and the two-story houses replaced by modest homes, workshops, a baker’s oven that was beginning its work and coloring my jealousy red, São João da Caparica where we come to the drugstore, the butcher and no drugstore, no butcher, a traffic circle that went somewhere, the campground with its oil-burning grills

not tulips with symmetrical petals that some old worker etc.

a boy my age was coming up out of the tents and aiming a toy machine gun that fired Ping-Pong balls at me, he’d squeeze the trigger and a dried-up ball would fall at his feet

—I killed you

even today I can remember that I died that time, I stopped existing at the age of six, from then on who am I, the frightened boy

—Why don’t you fall down?

my mother who was coming out of the butcher shop saw me dying on the wire fence, she pulled me up by the armpits because I was getting my socks dirty

—What kind of monkey business is this?

while the murderer was firing a second dried-up ball at her and I was unable to save her, my mother, invulnerable

—What kind of monkey business is this?

I died at the age of six from a Ping-Pong ball that, because it didn’t touch me, went through my aorta and consequently what do I care about whim or insolence

insolence

—You know Daniel, don’t you?

because Daniel and you, the print with the pears, the glass ashtray, the wristwatch, because the checkered sheets that I didn’t see again but that I know by heart the same as I know the lace nightgown you bought after I’d left, the care you took of yourself, depilation, massages, small surgical implements

tweezers, scissors, chrome sticks with a brush or a swab at the tip

because you’d perfected the surrender, going through São João da Caparica, before the detour that you changed too, I remembered that I’ve been dead for a long, long time and being dead calmed me down, a path through the pine trees from before, almost an avenue now, entering Bico da Areia without seeing Bico da Areia because there are lots of backyards, the café with different chairs, five or six side streets and which one did we live on, the bridge beams rising up with the tide

could any gulls have existed there?

the sewing-machine waves speeding along to sew up the rocks folding up the foam into a line of algae, I thought I saw the pups but no, the pups from my time were incapable of running, of throwing pine cones, of

—I’ve got money Dona Judite

think of new smaller pups that were barking at me afraid, running away from me, your cabin Dália with no backyard or windows, sinking into the ground like a dove asleep against a chair back, your aunt, the same type as Dona Helena, and her ferocity, didn’t come over to order me

—Beat it

on the contrary

—Come in come in

in hopes I’d bring you back from Chelas and marry you

—She was a princess, sir, the poor thing a bad break

the Dália that the Cape Verdeans had come across long ago coming down from Chelas, jacket slipping down off her shoulders covering her red guts that a switchblade was holding together while ten steps away from her, fifteen steps away from her, a bearded skeleton with a needle was looking for the vein in his throat

—They cut out her guts Dona Alice

a porch with a lantern, a gentian maybe and speaking of gentians that plant there, no, the other one after that one, the violet bunches, looking like bottles in the cistern, marigolds, the dwarf from Snow White on the refrigerator, supporting the woman who was moving about in the kitchen

—You know my mother don’t you?

not my mother, not a woman, an old man

the man from other days in my father’s place?

picking through leftovers in a pail, a drop of rain that was slow in falling and that I didn’t wipe away with my sleeve

—I can’t introduce you to my mother, I’m sorry and you to Daniel who was taking you far away from me

I could make you out for a moment, I stopped seeing you, I stood on tiptoes and you disappeared with him

—How António has changed

I’d rather not think about where, so I’m in the café at Bico da Areia waited on by the owner who wasn’t the one from other days, outside, I could have sworn, a lost mare going in circles on the beach and a Gypsy with a switch whistling at her from behind, asking the owner of the café

—Whatever happened to the gentian?

the way you’re sleeping under the glass tulip now, who is it you’re sleeping with now, Eduardo, Gonçalo, João, who is it you’re playing hand games with, the ones I always lost

—Shall we play some hand games?

and my hands on yours, the one with the ring hitting me all the time

—I’ve never seen anyone so slow

the faded little hairs on your arms, once a week you’d shut yourself up in the bathroom in mysterious maneuvers, the drawer in the washstand stuck in its frame, a clatter of bottles and boxes

—Don’t come in

I peeked through the keyhole and muffled my cough, a small sound in my throat, you were irritated

—It’s no use Antonio

and a wax mustache, when you tugged at the mustache a little cry of pain, my bathrobe that reached down to your ankles

—Don’t look at me

episodes that I hated at the time and that I miss today, you with your chin on your knees putting polish on your toenails, putting your feet up around my neck to dry and while they were drying with the toes sticking up, the bathrobe would open, a nipple of your breast challenging me and I would pretend not to see, you’d tighten the robe, disappointed in me for not noticing that your breast was showing

another game without any hands on hands and you, my God António, you don’t understand anything, when you kiss me you hurt me, look at the mark on my neck, it shows even with a turtleneck and I hate turtlenecks, what can I tell my friends, the boy with the machine gun came out of the campground, aimed the Ping-Pong ball, killed me, I checked my smock looking for blood before my mother made me get up because I was getting my socks dirty

—What kind of monkey business is this?

I can’t introduce you to her, she doesn’t live here anymore, she was a teacher in Almada, she’d draw squares, they were almost always crooked, when they were too crooked she’d erase them with her hand, she’d draw them again and play hopscotch in the cemetery in the town

in the village

in the town, it’s been a town for a few years now, they’re going to have a court, she wore a cameo

having a court makes me proud

a mother-of-pearl cameo, during the last days pine cones on the windows, on the roof, I’ve got money Dona Judite, let me in Dona Judite, I’m not like the others Dona Judite, I can pay, the café owner, not this one, the old one

Bico da Areia will never have a court

with a pint of wine, ordering me, outside, pest, and chasing a lizard into the gap between two bricks

—I can’t hear you I can’t hear you

the woman who cleaned the tables at the café staring at me, the pups were approaching the wall, I died years ago in the campground at São João da Caparica, I’m dead, on the way back to Lisbon I spotted my corpse on the fence, a kid with a Ping-Pong ball in his heart, I turned away so I wouldn’t feel the pain, what you might call cramps as though the heroin still, the hospital, the plane trees, my father visiting me in pink satin with a huge hat over his wig

—Your aunt, Paulo

settling down by the hospital walk, grabbing my fingers, a hip almost sliding off and I said

—Father or maybe

—Don’t embarrass me, father or maybe

—They’re making fun of us, father, go away

and he waved his arms around, avoiding the pigeons, they might ruin my dress I don’t even want to think about it, taking me by the chin, bracelets jingling

—You’ve gotten thinner, Paulo

his face under the clown face biting his lip as when my mother

—Who’s the woman you’re going with, Carlos?

showing him a lipstick, a vial, a tube of cream, his hair dyed now

I think

why reddish tones, if my mother

—Who’s the woman?

he would look at himself right away in the wardrobe mirror, pushing back a strand of hair half black and half blonde

—Can’t you see it’s from the sun?

a butt friend, a coin for a cup of coffee friend, the ridicule of the orderlies, the waiters, dozens of elbows in dozens of ribs, the ambulance driver forgetting about the stretcher

Mr. Peres

open-mouthed at the wheel and I to myself don’t worry, you’re dead, do you think the dead have any worries, getting up

—Good-bye father

lying on the bed where through the window there was a bit of roof and the four o’clock sky where sometimes storks were making their nest in the chimney of the garage at Bico da Areia a flamingo would blink with fatigue on a bridge beam and the pups would throw stones at it, one made it fall onto the beach and there was a swirl of paws and bites and pinches, pink blood carried away by the first wave so that instead of your looking for the little room with the boarded-up window, Gabriela waking up at six-thirty because the dining room at eight o’clock, the certainty that she’d pause by Marina & Diogo in charcoal on the wall, the neighbors she’d greet and I wouldn’t, the landlady all wrapped up in mourning, which increased her outrage as she complained about the back rent due, my father taking out the small chest at Príncipe Real from its hiding place in the pantry, and seeing that the chain on the padlock was broken and the chest was empty, muttering it can’t be, calling