What Can I Do When Everything's On Fire?: A Novel (53 page)

—Nuisance the jeweler behind a cheap cigar which was his whole face except for the invitation under the cigar

—There are other ways of paying, miss reaching out his hand and patting me on the head to please her there was a raffia mat in the kitchen, remember?

—I have a nuisance, too, forget about him his hand was moving toward her with the pretext of straightening her necklace and my mother’s throat, not alive, inert, like when the owner of the café, the pups, like when I’d go to her and her body would immediately draw back, disgusted with me

—The way he clings to people judging that my father hated me because she’d had me by some man he probably didn’t know, men she slept with in order to sleep with you, father, closing her eyes and being sure it was you, calling them by your name, imagining you with her, hearing your footsteps in the yard, your fingers on the marigolds, your hand stroking her and sliding along her thighs, the gentian branches that folded over her and folded up her bones, bending her, putting her to sleep, waking her up and when she woke up my mother saying

—Carlos and

—Carlos and

—Carlos because no other name made sense, it was you, understand, you were that heavy breathing, you were those kisses, those aimless words and as a result you, father, not the owner of the café, the electrician, one of the Gypsies, if it happened that a mare was lingering in the yard, and being my father frightened you because you had no right to be a father, your uncle’s wife an old woman through a crack in the door looking at him with a kind of happiness or surprise

—I never dreamed that you that’s the way it was, wasn’t it, father, agree that it was that way, your uncle’s wife who didn’t order you

—Bath time, Carlos she didn’t even touch you

and the pump from the well that breathed like a man, not really breathing like a man, that agony before relaxing, the sadness
the maid from the dining room to me

—
Who are you talking to, Paulo? and I on my back you mustn’t see my face as calm as I could manage

—
Nobody, go to sleep, it was a car from down below that woke you up, I’m not talking to anybody and, as a matter of fact, I wasn’t talking to anybody except ghosts I’ve lost and I was a ghost too, looking for them in the shadows, go to sleep, my blind grandmother going over the contours of bones, suspecting, getting up, going off in silence a car from down below that woke you up, go to sleep my grandmother heading toward the stove, disappearing into the woodpile where the invisible clock was striking and I on my back

—
Go to sleep the peaceful heart of a fat man
your uncle’s wife looking at you with a kind of happiness or surprise as if you

—I never dreamed that you the way you look at an adult, without ordering you

—Bath time, Carlos without even touching you, putting her hand on her own belly and looking at you while the shotgun was fading in the smoke

—Go get the doves, Carlos handkerchiefs with dirty wings in the brambles, at the base of the walnut trees, at the feet of my godmother coming back with the buckets from the well, in the calf pen as they trembled with fright and you were looking at her in turn, almost demanding

—Pet me not begging, an urgency that surprised her

—Pet me the flocks of geese and the toads from the ditch suddenly there, the engine on the seven o’clock train crushing through trunks, breaking through the house, someone you didn’t see

—Carlos your uncle’s wife running off toward the threshing floor as though with a spasm or a vomiting attack or an upset or something like that, you were getting undressed without any help, going to bed without any help, avoiding my mother

—I’m sorry no, only years later, avoiding my mother

—I’m sorry going to bed without any help in the room sunk in a vastness of chestnut trees and drains, the way, later on, by the sea not really by the sea yet, by the Tagus the way later on at the point where the Tagus becomes the sea, at Bico da Areia, with my mother beside you and the flowers that follow you nonstop reminding you

—Your uncle’s wife, do you remember your uncle’s wife? the flowers or the pine grove or the thicket or the clouds from Trafaria where autumn begins or my mother’s elbow that faded into yours
the maid from the dining room to me

—
Who are you talking to, Paulo?

Marina & Diogo, Marina & Diogo, maybe if you write our names

I’m not going to rot away in this dump with you

I’ll kill you

I left you like a chicken thief and today I think that
you, who couldn’t catch on at that time, stayed waiting for the arms wet with soap and water, that your uncle’s wife held

—Go pick up the doves, Carlos

floating over you, one of the doves had no head, another dove was a muddy little pile of feathers, another dove was pieces of cartilage that fell apart in your fingers, your uncle’s wife in the Lamego hospital you didn’t find her at dinner and they told you in the Lamego hospital, which is a big building with aluminum sounds and some character ordering

—Silence in spite of the silence a fan, faucets, a woman to an unseen person

—I never dreamed that he drafts, echoes, the uncle without his shotgun, elbows on his knees, attempting a smile that wouldn’t detach itself from his face

—Next week without fail I’m going to give you more doves, Carlos and the smile wavering, letting the godmother accompany him into the courtyard where the lady doctor

—With this miscarriage and the operation on her uterus she’ll be spared the trouble of any more children won’t she? a stone fountain, an East Indian in a wheelchair predicting my knee never fools me, there’s going to be rain tomorrow when they die they wash the intestines so they can go into the ground clean, your uncle’s wife almost a month without talking to anyone, looking out at the countryside through the window of the nursing home, a few buildings, that is, the town hall and its flag-pole without a flag, a row of elms, when they lifted her up for a visit she didn’t notice you and it was then that you began not to exist, father, it was then not later, but only after many years you’d come to realize that you’d begun to die, when they went to get her, the son of the Indian in the wheelchair was cleaning his father’s intestines, through the window there was more countryside, the mill where a girl, naked from the waist down

—Such nice skin such nice skin was swaying with the bumps just like mechanical toys, the doves that your uncle hadn’t had time to kill, busy adjusting the pillow on the bed, your uncle’s wife looking out over the yard, the henhouse, the furniture, at least with this miscarriage and the operation on her uterus, she’ll be spared the trouble of more children, isn’t that so, and your father

—Any more children? who as soon as you knew that I was going to be born understood

a child again, a child again your uncle’s wife went with the in-laws, bouncing along just like a mechanical toy, she plucked the poultry, ironed, sewed, because of you they cleaned out her intestines with no need of any help until hollow, empty

—Carlos

Carlos, the faggot, the clown, dancing in a club, taking care of customers in boardinghouses in Beato, who lives with a boy the age of his son and Dona Aurorinha

—God forgive her, poor thing if they mentioned your name, your uncle’s wife would interrupt her sweeping, not looking at you but at the handkerchiefs of dirty wings they told you to pick up

—Go get the doves, Carlos from the base of the walnut trees, their breasts crushed, their heads hanging by the thread of a tendon and your uncle’s wife

—Carlos because it did happen that way, didn’t it, father, a child with her, a child, your uncle’s wife

—Carlos and yet if only we could talk, it doesn’t matter where the beach house, Anjos, Príncipe Real, the club you agreed with me and yet

—Not now Judite yet

—On the Saturday I’m off work, Judite until admitting, accepting, you said in a small, soft childlike voice that frightened you and where it was

—Pet me you surprised with the

—Pet me thinking it’s not true, I don’t believe what’s true is true, you were smoothing and rumpling the quilt or a towel

the quilt

—I can’t, Judite
my grandmother, not blind yet, brought her husband from the tavern in a wheelbarrow

—
Wretch
you were taking down the suitcase from the top of the wardrobe

—I can’t, Judite and as you opened it on the bed where there was no towel, no woman with arms wet from soap and water, no twisted mouth, my mother was placing herself between you and the suitcase and you were picking up your topcoat, getting to the door, pushing me aside with your foot as though I too, avoiding the gentian as though the gentian too, you said to the gentian or to me to the gentian that was trying to stop you from getting to the gate, you broke off a branch and a clump was spinning and spinning in your memory

—I can’t, Judite in the same way that the horses and the gulls and the pups and the waves were spinning around you, I’m going to clean your intestines, father, so you can go clean into the ground now that we can talk, I’m able to talk, the sea is calm, notice, the bridge is peaceful, the pine grove is at rest, now that I’m before you all at Cova do Vapor or on the carousel or in the village, I’m talking to you who haven’t died yet or haven’t gone away, the proof is fingers on my cheeks, ears, mouth

—You’re Paulo, aren’t you? your smells, your footsteps, your voices, the tub you bathed me in, which my father changed into a flower bed for begonias, I happened to surprise him taking care of them, imagining my mother and me at the café or at the butcher’s or admiring Dália, who was going to marry a doctor, pedaling in the yard, taking care of the begonias the way he would a little boy we couldn’t see, announcing to him

—Bath time, Carlos washing his body, lifting him up out of the tub, laying him down on the flower bed bordered with pieces of colored glass, the one where the marigolds follow the light in a lazy rotation before lowering their more white than yellow eyelids

—Such nice skin such nice skin on the stomach of the earth and once laid down, wrapping him in an invisible towel, not like your uncle’s wife

—I never dreamed that you the navel that is getting larger and something that not like your uncle’s wife

—Sleep time, Carlos helping you climb up onto the bed, stopping for a prayer because there was an owl in the acacia and therefore a soul was pleading for repose, ending the prayer, checking to see if the owl was silent and therefore the soul

—Thank you, ma’am picking out a blanket, two blankets, putting out the light and the window was there, nothing existed not the bed not the room beyond the window, the frames where a branch was leaning in a curtsy

—Hello, Carlos, good evening along with the branch more branches, oranges, the druggist holding out his bowl to his daughter’s crucifix

—I’ve made you a little soup, Luísa the doctor’s widow

Dona Susete smoking in the movies without the theater owner’s daring to say with a flashlight between the rows

—Please wait, madame the window where a wheelbarrow was approaching, a ghost carrying another ghost
ghosts of you who’d died or I’d lost and I was a ghost looking for you in the shadows, telling you, stating to you
swears to you a wheelbarrow’s approaching, my father pushes himself right up to the henhouse, looking for the latch on the door in the wire fence with the light shining on round onion tears, driving the hens off their roost, dumping himself into the rubble

—There you are, wretch condemning himself to wake up, all caught up in the rain with cans of corn and pieces of bread, calling to my mother

—Judite calling to me

—Son and as he calls to me

—Son drawing me out of the begonias in the tub, all wet with water, soap, membranes, fat, blood, realizing that I was there, all shriveled and slippery, defenseless, at the brink of a wail and incapable of a wail, beginning to be born.

and you believe him and write or pretend you believe him and you write or you don’t even believe him but you write about the smell of the gentian in Bico da Areia which for my part I never caught at all: that bit about the ebb tide, yes, down below there, when the beach got wider and you got the impression or the certainty that you could cross the river on foot and get to Lisbon, that bit about the ebb tide reaching me in the living room the same as the wind from the woods while I waited for my husband, fixing my hair because I fixed my hair for him in those days or waking up when I was sleeping alone in my half of the bed because when I reached out my arm nobody there, when I’d open my eyes nobody there, when I’d call out

—Carlos nobody there, the bedroom was huge or maybe it wasn’t so huge, it was made bigger by my being upset because he wasn’t there, that always happens when there’s no answer and my husband’s at the window all alone too, his legs are in the room, but his body is in the dark and I can swear there’s no smell of gentian over us

Paulo can make things up but your writing down lies for him has to have an effect on me the woods maybe, the pine grove if you want, and after my husband left, not the pine grove, not the woods, the wine stains that turn the sheets sour, a stranger

or someone that sleep turned into a stranger or who’d always been a stranger asking

—Did you have a nightmare, Judite? leaving before morning because of family or work or afraid that the neighbors would run into him leaving this house, a motor scooter down the drive, fast like a thief, Paulo inventing

—The gentian but what gentian, dammit, the one that grew in Lisbon or, at least, they guaranteed me it would grow in Lisbon, that place which you can reach on foot, every six hours, at the time when the Tagus steals the trawlers away from me, not even any reflection of my weariness, the mirror on the wardrobe isn’t nice to me and it sneers and gives me

—There it is this hair that’s turning gray and makes me wonder, strikes me, what does he know about the gentian and Bico da Areia, my son, who never wanted to come back, brought up by some rich people they told me who made him forget me, maybe today if we crossed paths and I said

—Paulo no matter how much time has changed them, there are things that stay the same in people, little pieces, fragments, a movement that begins at the shoulder and holds back until it reaches the fingers, just where it held back before, maybe if there’s an example we crossed paths on the street and I said

—Paulo things like that, you see, there are times when a raised eyebrow is enough for me, you hang onto an eyebrow and the rest right away, immediately, would be saying without any fault on my part, building, building up by itself, I said

—Paulo and the fibber comes up with the gentian, well dressed, of course some rich people

moves his head back and forth, notices me, wonders

—Some maid out of the past? strokes his tie with his finger and the finger grows all over him

—Me? on his face it’s obvious who can it be, who can it be, some dame telling me about her sickness, pulling some trick on me, asking me for money, the seamstress we had once, the day maid, the first visitor to a room where they were waiting for him

Otília Margarida Berta

and where he could only notice a wicker chair and the brand name on the mattress

Medicinal Somnium

or Ortopédico Somnium?

instead of the person with no contours or face, the fibber kept repeating Medicinal Somnium until an elbow pulled an item of clothing out from under the sheet and he waved it for a moment before letting it drop onto the floor

—Let’s get this over with fast, I’ve got my niece waiting the fibber with a taste of defeat in his mind getting alarmed facing me

—Otília?

or maybe the seamstress who’d brought in lunch on a wooden tray, holding out the fork with the modesty poor people have, that offering of chicken and potatoes

—Won’t you have some?

Margarida

unable, that’s obvious, to explain who I am, much less the gentian, which was there

agreed

a vine or a weed that had taken on strength and tendrils, but a gentian, no way, one of those bushes that grows in damp places, that almost lifts up the soil and goes along gobbling up walls, just like some sunflowers that had been there

not marigolds

that my husband watered and that didn’t last six months, skinny little blossoms in flower beds

that’s the real truth and it’s hard to believe that any truths could have come from my son’s mouth

bothered by the bricks that Carlos was sticking into the ground that stray cats destroyed in the fall or that I destroyed

the stray cats didn’t ruin anything, there aren’t any stray cats by the sea, I ruined them with a hammer on the day my husband was putting his junk in a suitcase, I mean what were his mistress’s clothes

not his, how can you ask that, how could they have been his?

—I’m leaving, Judite

and I kept on destroying them with the hammer right to today, destroying Carlos too, kneeling in the yard with Paulo, whimpering that he knew what he was doing, luckily a friend of mine who ran the nearby café called on me to do some work that helped us stay alive, some quick quarter-hours with no useless words and with closed curtains as at the same time there was barking in the street and pine cones on the roof, episodes my son doesn’t know about because I let him play by the gate, charmed, a half-dozen shacks farther on, by a girl on a tricycle who married a doctor and all that

look what we’ve come to

as for the gentians, who cares, the only one I can remember was when I went to Almada, on the corner below the school

no, before Almada, studying in Setúbal, in a chalet with a slate roof where nobody lived, even though it was deserted an aimless light wandering through the rooms warned me

—You’re going to die, Judite

and I, who was always dumb, listening to my heart, afraid that it would stop and it was stopping

and, having died, weeping, all sorry for myself on the pillow, wondering, maybe it was a gentian here in Bico da Areia and right off I remembered death, my mother who even though she was blind and, no matter how many coins were laid on her eyes, scolding me from her coffin

—I always told you

and Paulo would immediately think, for no reason at all, that it was because of his father, that mania about his father, that a clown, a faggot, and songs, and dances, when in fact he was a clerk in a jewelry store on the courthouse square, thousands of different hours behind thousands of different counters, chimes, pendulums, cuckoos bowing and not bowing which, adding them all up, with a line underneath, gave the age of the world and the age of the world must have got him all mixed up because he got the days mixed up and he’d miss meetings with me, he went with me on the train to my mother’s, the windowpane was clear but it was little more than a shape on the seat beside me, grade crossings, a cow running away in a whirl by a curve, head, flank, tail, if I held out a piece of fruit from the basket from the reflection came

—I don’t feel like any, Judite

I could make out, against a clump of willows, my colleagues who were spiteful with envy

—We always said that he intrigued with that fiancé who was impossible to touch, whose lips didn’t give off words even though they fogged up the landscape he’d draw my name with his finger for what he was telling me my mother would run over his features and model an absence in the air

—What is it about your husband, Judite?

I would point to the window when the shadow of the medlar tree cast its shadow over the veranda

—Try the medlar tree, mother not a gentian

Carlos, in the reverse of things, except on the wardrobe mirror where the present was authentic,

—Carlos at first just the dresser with more objects than there was room for, including the little copper fish I thought was lost and it is back there looking at it without any fish being in the mirror anymore the usual curtains in reverse, a corner of the wall left-handed, I spoke to the wardrobe, happy about the fish with its tail up

—Carlos and sad at losing it when I got out of bed maybe if I went back quickly and didn’t give the dresser time to hide it, I could still find it

—I want my fish, Carlos even though Carlos hadn’t reached the wardrobe mirror, waiting on Carlos a bit, and Carlos asked

—What fish? the curtains, yes, the corner of the wall, yes, for a minute the gravestone where I played hopscotch and when I took a better look the terrace café, the owner coming for me through the alley and on into the yard

—I know quite well that you’re alone, open the door, Judite because my husband, because before there was my husband and my husband would take his jacket off the hook and with the dishcloth hanging around his neck

—I’m going into the woods for a bit with the pups behind him in a flurry of pine cones and clumps of turf, old cuckold, old cuckold, strange as it may seem it still happens to me, almost without my noticing it, settling onto the bed, facing the wardrobe where there’s another dresser, the drapes I replaced ten months ago in July and instead of the café and the bridge there’s a hairdresser, a movie, a firehouse, no café owner, no trace of Gypsies, I look at the wardrobe where there are flowerpots, balconies, the twins in the pink building braiding each other’s hair, I say

—Carlos realizing that I’m saying

—Carlos after calling him not true, knowing that I’m calling you

—Carlos in the hope that they can’t hear me in there when

—Carlos

I can’t see you appear in the mirror, suspicious of me, a touch of leftover makeup on the corner of your mouth, this furniture that repeats you and I’m annoyed with you

—What’s this all about? or maybe I’m annoyed with you because you say

—I’m not capable, Judite only in the mirror, not in the room, in the mirror, with the little fish with its tail up in your hand

—I’m not capable, Judite or the hoe for working on the gentian as though there was a gentian, agreeing that a gentian did exist, ever since you stayed there in the mirror for a second, ever since I imagined Paulo coming for me in Bico da Areia, worried about me can you assure me that he’s worried about me, sir? and Bico da Areia, Alto do Galo, Trafaria, so different now, no more horses, or maybe they’re still in the reflection of a reflection that I just happened upon in a patch of rain with my nose above it, sniffing out the past, somebody hard to recognize drawing squares in chalk on a stone surrounded by laurels where letters and dates, the letters gave me the idea that it’s my name, the dates are worn off, the caretaker of the cemetery, who used to say Juditinha

—When will it be your turn, Judite? and, most of all, my husband who doesn’t want to cross through the mirror and touch me, if only his hand

Stop your kidding was getting close to mine a voice that was a funny little laugh

—Bath time, Carlos that stole him away from me and my husband, I don’t know where, I think someplace with wild doves and a man fixing his pillow while he picked up his shotgun, said

—It’s not my fault, Judite and since it wasn’t his fault, a blonde wig like the one on the woman who was wrapping him up in a towel, who held him in her arms and passed by me without seeing us on her way to the bedroom, my son would disappear from underfoot whenever someone, the owner of the café, the electrician, the school principal called

—Judite

Carlos hiding in the palm trees while the gentian let’s admit it

was breaking up in the wind, with every crack dirty wings in the brambles, a bird quieting down and stretching out a claw

—Go get the doves, boy the vine kept on waving in the wind even though there’s no wall, I’ve sold the house, I live far away from the pine grove, the waves, the flower beds, lilac petals fall into my eyes so I can’t see you running from the beach to the house or me on the steps waiting, you don’t have to believe me, but there were never any other men, Carlos, it was always you, you were the one who gave me wine and lowered your voice, you said you were there but you didn’t dare come in, you weren’t like a child, you were a child, I’ve brought some money Dona Judite, I’ll pay, a child, and I unbutton my blouse, in no hurry, stockings, panties

—Sleepy time, Carlos putting out the light, hesitating for a minute, thinking there are footsteps and no footsteps, they were the trees in the orchard, I was wrong, his breath, his smell, the surprise that scares me at first and charms me afterward

—I never dreamed that you what I mean is, that even though I waited for you to I didn’t dream that the café owner what do I care about the café owner, I didn’t dream that you, say Judite, please say Judite, don’t go to sleep now

—Sleep time, Carlos make me feel that I, believe that I, my colleagues spotting my new lipstick, my lighter hair, almost blonde

blonde

their curiosity you’ve got to tell us, Judite

—We never dreamed that he