What Can I Do When Everything's On Fire?: A Novel (50 page)

what’s become of the mimosas, Judite, you’ve lost the mimosas

—
Have a good day, father, go to hell

you haven’t lost, in just a bit there’ll be Bico da Areia, the help of some wine and peace or indifference again, you have a bottle in the wardrobe, I’ll help you, have a drink, don’t pay any attention to the pine cones on the window, it’s the pups, money, accept it

—Come in

so disheveled, so afraid of you, show them, Marlene covering my face with the fan

—Stop that, Soraia

and I couldn’t stop, don’t let them order me to stop, I’m not me, it’s something that’s not mine inside of me, remorse or not remorse, uneasiness, hate, so what, I’m not interested, what I don’t know or whatever it is and it makes me go on right up to the end, Marlene, the old woman moving the teakettle aside and staring at me with a feeling of panic, her mouth

—Miss

not her mouth, the space between her gums where one tooth, two teeth

—Miss

three teeth, who cares, I’ll give you three teeth, old woman, the girl in the picture scolding me, the plastic doll angry with me, maybe the dwarf from Snow White hating me over on the other bank of the river, the dwarf bothers me, don’t cover my face, Marlene, don’t stop me from talking, just a little while from now we’ll be on stage pretending to be singing, the music that’s slow to pick up, the padding that gives me what I don’t have, that gave your son what he didn’t have, old woman, Rui like when he was asleep you’re asleep Rui, don’t be surprised that you’re asleep

—Is my wife going to be all right, doctor?

and when you wake up it won’t have been anything, I promise you it won’t have been anything, you’re not going to remember anything, at most this night seems to me to be a dream that you were sick Soraia, a doctor who I don’t remember was saying terrible things and I was stroking your head, they’re dreams of health, don’t upset yourself, my darling boy, dreams of a long life, my love, next year we’ll change the sofas in the living room and put the place in shape, a proper bathtub, faucets that work, pay the plasterer to fix the ceiling, a long life, such a long life, I’m going to be left without any hair but with a very long life, grabbing the plastic doll and turning it around, don’t bother me, stop looking at me, but it was the doll, it was the manager of the club

—We have got to accept the fact that we get old, Soraia, I’ve grown old too but I’m not a dancer

it was my son

—Paulo

hard to make out in the steam from the teakettle, the autumn haze at Bico da Areia where Judite goes back with the little package in her hand, I must confess there are moments when I get longings not really longing longings, just missing you

I mean missing the horses, the bridge, your setting the table, the way you’d shake the hair back from your forehead and when you shook it you were so young, the feeling that a door

none of the doors we had

was going to open and I was changing, my uncle’s wife was giving me a bath in the tub

—Let’s get out of the water Carlos

but it’s impossible to separate the steam of the bath from the steam of the teakettle, the old woman leaving the stove

get yourself a new apron, old girl, a pair of proper slippers, don’t pretend to be poor, don’t ask me for things as though you were my servant, pouring tea into the cups, almost indignant, humble

—Don’t say bad things about my son, miss

your coward of a son who hid what he was from you, I’m working in a store at night, mama

mama?

two locked drawers, those manias men have, where he wouldn’t allow you to snoop

—They’re things from the shop, don’t peek

a way of walking that intrigues me, a wave with two fingers, her colleagues from school, secrets, whispering, Judite’s surprise on the step to the yard

—Carlos

or maybe her colleagues defending themselves, old girl, defending me, the shock, the outrage, the marks on your neck when you get upset, it can’t be, I don’t believe it, it makes no sense that my husband, my uncle’s wife laying me down on the bed wrapped in the towel, she was unbuttoning her dress, I’m going to show you what this is, you scamp, you scamp, gentian branches darkening the window as though people were watching us, the sound of footsteps in the branches, take it easy, it’s not your parents, it’s a gentian silly, whenever I touched the gentian at Bico da Areia, I’m going to show you what this is, you scamp, you scamp, my uncle’s joviality melting away, chin muscles stiffening and she, I can’t believe you’re jealous of a kid, Fernando, if Judite took my arm in Almada I felt that they were hugging me, my uncle’s wife with a pitcher and soap

—Time for your bath, Carlos

and now this steam from the tub is in the teakettle, the plastic doll, you scamp, you scamp, Rui in his dream

because it was a dream, one of those dreams that predict long, happy lives

—I think I dreamt you were sick, palpitations

Soraia’s going to lose her hair, doctor, and the physician availing himself of the test, because there are miracles and numbers do change

but there aren’t any miracles and numbers don’t change

studying the ceiling without studying the ceiling, studying us, a man on a stepladder was whitewashing the laboratory and while I was looking at the man, death was so far away, everyday movements that hold back death throes, misfortunes, and yet the doctor, who didn’t notice the man on the stepladder, in my opinion we should begin the treatment on Thursday, but what treatment’s that, because it was a dream of Rui’s, doctor, I may be a little listless, a little pale, I haven’t had much rest lately, that’s all, I can’t stop work, I’m behind in my bills, the two-month loan on the dishwasher, the problem of the rent, the debts of my husband and to some friends in Chelas, maybe Judite could ask for some help from the café owner, the electrician, the pups, they might give you a handout

I’m not interested in the reasons why they should give you the handout

and then I’ll pay as soon as I get better, Judite, as soon as I go back

I’m going to go back

to work at night in a dress shop where I’m filling in for a fellow worker named Soraia and out of habit or as a joke the other clerks call me Soraia too, not making fun, out of respect, to keep the deceased woman alive the way you keep yourself alive in me, one of these days when you least expect it, I’ll be back in Bico da Areia, you’ll hear a knock on the door and it’ll be me

it’ll be me

you’ll hear someone by the gentian and it’ll be me in the yard reviving the marigolds, decorating the flower beds with colored stones, pieces of tile, pebbles, opening my wallet

a man’s wallet

and giving you back the money, Judite, I’ll bring a chair up to the gate and sit looking at the waves in the afternoon until the lights in Lisbon and the herons on the bridge and then I’ll sit down at the table with you, if you look for me at work again and see me with Alcides, a partner of the boss’s, a chum

—Let me introduce you to my wife, Alcides

the cashiers at the store, Marlene, Micaela, Dona Amélia, Sissi

the hateful Vânia

happy to know you, with no intention of disappearing

—Is that your wife, Soraia?

you’re surprised and they correct themselves right away, mannerly, pleasant

—We’re just fooling around, don’t pay any attention, are you Carlos’s wife?

but consider those bills a loan, Judite, until the doctor, a couple of months from now, lets me go back to the shop that looks like a club because of its neon signs and the posters but it’s not a club, it’s a store, the doctor and an ever so normal test

—The worst is over, Dona Soraia

I made a mistake, out of habit

—The worst is over, Mr. Carlos

I had good color, I was stronger, you think you’re sick and you’re not really sick, we invent ailments in our heads, the secret is not to let ourselves be beaten down, Judite, and I’m not going to let myself get beaten down, a passing annoyance, he said, these autumn viruses of no importance, he said, we get too upset, we’re afraid and you’ll see, we’re fine, I’m fine, if they told you I was let go, that the manager called me to his office and said

—You’ve grown old

don’t you believe it, just talk, the proof is that pretty soon they’ll be naming me supervisor, I’m going to be in charge, if they tell you I’m living with a guy on Príncipe Real, don’t believe them, just talk, every so often some guy or other sleeps over for a few nights, they’re there because they’re doing work at their place and right away people’s evil tongues will wag, twisting things and

you can’t hear the albatrosses, albatrosses I’ll bet, it’s been so long since I’ve heard the albatrosses

and they foul everything up, I’ve been by myself ever since I left you, why shouldn’t I be by myself, because it was you that I left

and being by myself I accept your help, I open the door to the café owner myself, to the electrician, to the pups, I’ll go out to the backyard wall and work on it, no farther, this side of the spigot, ready to come if you call me, if you need a beer, a clean towel, the saucer that serves as an ashtray, without looking at me and pointing with your mouth you say

—Take the money on the table

which someone, and I don’t ask who

my usual discretion Judite, somebody’s footsteps on the street

left sticking out separate from the pitcher, a few sweaty bills, a few dull coins, I stuff them into my pocket without looking at you either, picking up a little leaf that had fallen onto the tablecloth

and that makes me feel guilty, I don’t know why

the leaf I kept in my hand like some small living thing, promising you that tomorrow at nine o’clock, the day after at most, Tuesday without fail I’ll come by to finish the wall, I’ll take over my half of the clothes closet, I’ll live with you

where would I live if it wasn’t with you, Judite?

just the time I need to clear up two or three matters, to get rid of a few bothersome things I’m not going to bore you about, to resolve a few small, unimportant matters and still I was hanging around aimlessly, holding my hand out to you, saying good-bye, trying to kiss you, succeeding in kissing you on your cheek, which feels like it doesn’t believe, inert, sure that your lips are trembling, a wet thread is coming down to your chin

I’m exaggerating obviously, there’s no wet thread

I go on to the bus stop with the little leaf in my hand, I forget about the little leaf and back at Príncipe Real I find it in my fingers again, insignificant, yellow, sticking to my skin, asking myself

—What’s this?

remembering, shrugging my shoulders, throwing it into the washbasin, dragging the sideboard over to the other corner of the living room, testing the print for the place where the afternoon light as it passes through the curtains transforms the trees into the movement of water that’s flowing endlessly across the wall, I open the shoebox with the two of us inside, or, I mean, the little figures from the wedding cake intact, intact except for the man’s foot, which is missing an ankle and the woman is missing a corner of her veil, standing them up on the dresser, remembering so many things, forgetting them, and going back to realizing that they exist when my elbow

I think it’s my elbow

happens to knock them over and I notice, without any sorrow, that they’ve broken into pieces on the floor.

I say wash them on Sunday out of habit because I hope that someone will wash them for me

where can you be, Gabriela?

for example, a woman I run into in the café where because I’m timid I don’t get to meet, it doesn’t matter who it is, the girl in accounting at work who, as soon as she smiles, regrets having smiled at me and right away she huddles down into the thorny virtue of ugly women, the switchboard operator who has looked right through me ever since the lawyer started giving her goodies, I carry my plate and glass into the kitchen, I fold up the tablecloth

the same one from six months ago, which is going to last another six months

in that way I can free a corner of the table and turn loose the hounds of words with hopes that one of them, wagging its merry consonant tail, will discover all of you alive

as though you could be alive

under the rubble of years and years and all the debris of recrimination, anger, gentians, with hopes that something there will gather together the plaster shards of the past which I’d imagined to be at rest forever and right then and there, more words come together, agitated, happy, breaking away from the leash of the pen as I bring my nose closer to the paper and look for all of you, submerged in the lines is a faint little voice saying

—Paulo

that I think I recognize in spite of the tricks of memory that distort things and snuff them out, or the deafness that’s been bothering me for months now and your audiogram has gotten worse, friend, you’d better get used to the idea of a little device so the world doesn’t turn into a fishbowl with no fish and the isolation of plastic grass among the pebbles at the bottom of it, the little voice repeating

—Paulo

that’s sniffed out by the frenzy of the words that make me run after them as they tug at my arm, on the track of hurried phrases through the notebook, I’m off balance and running along unwillingly so they won’t get away for good, dozens of diphthong snouts and vowel eyes pointing out to me what I think I want and it scares me now, the little voice gets closer

—Paulo

along with the little voice is something that takes on the look of a face I can see better on the next page, if I manage to catch up with the pen that’s running away from me and barking out adjectives at a shadow, a silhouette, a man who enters a house

what house is that?

on a street that’s becoming clearer paragraph by paragraph, or looking like a corner with tile works, the newsstand where my father

I’m so curious and the words are getting ahead of the pen, presuming, inventing, pushing hazy months to the side and in the end it’s not a newsstand, it’s a phone booth

the corner with tile work, the phone booth is a type no longer used, the little voice takes on body and becomes part of Sissi, who’s waving to me with her umbrella during the time when after the maid from the dining room I was living with her in Campolide, in companionate marriage, in what Sissi called home

a man who’s coming home, the pen announced just now, and I was surprised, staring at a first floor that could be a club because of the lack of light and the oak trees on a slope, much too high over our heads, like the olive trees in Chelas when I used to fly at ground level, mixing in with the clouds

it’s not a matter of wanting to write, tired from whistling, shouting their names at them and slapping my thigh, the syllables won’t obey me and bring up episodes and people that they bury again, making mistakes and giving me memories that aren’t mine, other people’s days, relatives I didn’t have, I ask Sissi as though Sissi was still with me

—Do they belong to you?

Sissi interrupts her landscaping an eyelid

—Who in hell knows who they are

so I ask them, all tangled up in excuses

—Go back to where you were, ladies and gentlemen

offended, they return to oblivion, lingering on the pretext of examining Sissi’s piggy bank in whose gullet unfortunately there were no coins

—Are you sure you don’t want us to stay?

annoyed at living in the eternity of photograph albums and the memory of grandchildren whose names are all mixed up, so presentable, so worthy, so ennobled by their distant mustaches, the Sunday clothes, pleated cheviots, perfectly combed hair, made just right by the photographer

—Lean forward and rest your chin in your hand, madame

whose authoritarian finger could be seen freezing the poses, the finger pointing at me

Estúdio Nadal, Estúdio Águia D’Ouro, Estúdio Endústria

—Let them stay, boy

the way Sissi was letting me stay

out of respect for your father who was a real lady, Paulo

on her planet of double-chinned piglets, Dona Amélia

—You’re like two of my children to me

was tripping over the mistaken coins the words were giving me, hanging onto the teeth of accent marks and her cordial

—People you know, Paulo?

looking at bangs, boys in sailor suits, a gentleman in plus fours with a picnic basket on his arm suggesting in a whisper

—Not even a minute or two together at least?

more interested in Sissi than in me, the pen picking up on her relatives and forgetting mine, the words bringing out of the past a woman playing the piano, a fireman, a man with a sick throat who was interrupting the swabbing of it by raising his muffler

—It looks like Esmeralda’s niece, doesn’t it?

creatures that I buried in the notebook, going right back to the page

—You’re not the ones I want

the sound of the piano was prolonged just a bit in spite of my covering it with paragraphs, notes that were fainter, more spaced, the sick-throated man hacking far off in a sanatorium up north and drinking spoonfuls of quinine every half hour, I killed him by rubbing him out with the tip of the pen

—He’s all through

or dissolving him in an erasure, good-bye, the gentleman in plus fours trying to distract me with the picnic basket

—Would you like something?

lines of hurried writing, not looking like my hand, where deciphered under a checked napkin there were a chicken wing, hardboiled eggs, lemonade, the notebook covered by the tablecloth and the gentleman offended maybe, but certainly silent, squatting by the side of a road with the boys in sailor suits, while quail sobbed in a thicket at the start of the century and a chalet appeared that hasn’t existed for a long time in Lisbon, at least Sissi fascinated

—If I were you, I’d let the chalet stay

in spite of her not living with me

I’m living alone in this fifth floor left because the girl in accounting hasn’t stopped sticking out her virtuous thorns, even though I’m living alone I think I hear Sissi

—If I were you, I’d let the chalet stay

inside which she stubbornly lived, in spite of the customers at table nine, a boy with bangs, from time to time she’d talk about getting married

—There are women who interest me, did you know that?

and according to what they told me

or I invent their telling me

or I confirm to myself

or I say with the tip of the pen without dwelling on what I’m saying

she left the country for a club in Marseille, a little Christmas card and a little postcard in the summer, insinuations that we could have been happy if I, after a note in which she recalled to me a photograph from the last show, that she was thinking about getting a sex change in a Brazilian clinic, and the evil omen of a silence that’s lasted until today, and the piano I ruined giving out a mournful
re,
swallowed up as the piggy bank filled its gullet, the lack of coins, remembrances from strangers, which resulted in the idea to heal up one wound by opening up another right next to it, I don’t know whether it’s a bother or not, as I guide the words along toward Anjos or Bico da Areia, going up the Avenida Almirante Reis with all those eating places and all those furniture stores or crossing the Tagus on a warship that’s fastened to the water by its cannons, going by Príncipe Real where there’s another building instead of ours, hearing Rui

—Paulo

hoping to help him discover, in the midst of so many balconies, the one that didn’t exist, going back to the beginning of the notebook, showing him

—This is the one

climbing the stairs with him, inviting him in, redoing the chandelier, the sofa, the window that looks out on the cedar, reassuring him

—You can see, can’t you, don’t you see?

the bit about looking for the mastiff with a bow, writing it down secretly while he’s thoughtful

—Didn’t they find me years ago in Fonte da Telha?

pretending not to hear him, completing one of his legs so I can stop him from limping, Rui noticing the dust on the furniture, the clothes to be ironed, the closets with no dresses, only male things, a drawer on the floor

—Soraia?

Soraia, the one the words were looking for and couldn’t find, skipping lines, changing pronouns, piling it all up

what for?

at the top of the page in a tiny hand, I catch sight of my uncle, Dona Helena, Mr. Vivaldo with the redheaded maid, nothing of my father, I ask the tip of the pen to bring him to me and the tip goes off course, reappearing with Noémia, wearing bangs, pedaling the tricycle

—It wasn’t Noémia who was pedaling the tricycle, it was Dália

and Dália is in the room in Anjos with flowers in a vase, the sentences are so stupid, such jackass stuff, I get mad at them, correct them, put Noémia and Dália where they’re supposed to be, take a good look, this is the way it is, the tricycle belongs to the second one, the flowers to the first, apologizing

—I’m sorry

especially in regard to Noémia, who’s envious of the tricycle, spending almost an entire paragraph consoling her by pumping up the tires on the bicycle in the laundry room, raising the seat for her because she’d grown in the meantime, and repairing the light

—You’ve got a bicycle all for yourself and Dália hasn’t any, so let’s not be jealous, Noémia

Rui is suspicious that I was hiding my father from him

—Who are you talking to?

from Fonte da Telha, persisting in the idea, a syringe, cliffs

—I could almost have sworn there were cliffs

insisting that he’d lain down on the beach, I’d left him twenty feet from the waves

—Not right there, farther back, put a dune in the notebook

a dune to please him, one he hadn’t even seen, as he insisted

—I think I died, I couldn’t have

cabins, the little train carrying people every fifteen minutes through dunes and reeds and where he and my father so many times

with the bored silence of married couples?

in search of a moment without any neighbors or scandal, I went on at length

—Look

in descriptions of August afternoons when Micaela or Marlene was with them

never the two together, Micaela some afternoons and Marlene others, cold at that time, because of the major on Tuesdays, because I don’t know who stole from whom, with rumors of hair loss that could have been syphilis, I polished my prose, made it a perfect summer, free of clouds and accusatives

I made good use of the moment when Rui

—Soraia?

making demands of the words, busy in bringing back the maid from the dining room and the accordion without keys, how about a little tune Gabriela

—Give me my father right now

mad at the pen for foisting on me what I didn’t want, Dona Aurorinha, for example, resting her shopping bag on a step in the dark before evaporating, grateful

—Thanks for remembering me, Paulinho

the nephritic man swaying on the stretcher on the way to the hospital, sighing when he brushed against me, out of the corner of his mouth

—This has been going on for a long time, young fellow, it started I don’t know when

Vânia, for example, who was run over and died and I was quick to send her away before a bandage was unwound from her forehead and the leg the truck had left all twisted and strange

—We haven’t got anything of interest for you, and besides, you’re dead now, so get lost

Vânia hiding the bandage in a tulle head-covering and hiding the leg with her small bag

—You’re mistaken Paulo, I’m alive

reprimanding the words for giving me ghosts, locking them up in parentheses, explaining to Rui, who was wandering about in the hallway as if in the dream of a dream