What Can I Do When Everything's On Fire?: A Novel (54 page)

the mulberry trees in Almada playing checkers with the shadows, going down to the river, here there was a wall, here in olden days the kings, here was an old arch, the ground-floor flat of the police informer they’d pull along by a leash and the poor devil, sobbing with fright, up to the station house, you were looking at me as though you didn’t see me and you knew I was looking at you, my braid got undone and rubbed against your nose, for the first time I in the wardrobe mirror with the little copper fish, the corner of the wall, left-handed, and you’re here, you’re here, we can cross the river on foot and get to Lisbon, hold out an arm wet with soap and water and find your shoulder because I’m not sleeping alone, the surprise of a body because I’m not dreaming of you, I don’t tell my colleagues, and they say you’ve got to tell us, Judite, what’s it feel like afterward, what do you say, did you feel we imagine like singing, sure that everybody on the street understands, is looking at us and noticing how horrible and then at home my father, aren’t you ashamed, Dolores, I don’t know if I can take it, all those heads together in the coffee shop

—We never dreamed that he imagined he asking the waiter for another coffee, blushing, satisfied, another coffee hurry up, the rice cake between plate and mouth, my father leaving, from this moment on, you’re no longer my daughter Dolores, my mother behind my father telling the dog to be quiet and the dog wasn’t quiet, don’t do that, Joaquim, I’m lucky I haven’t got a father Dolores, my mother in the village running her hand over my face, believing me, too much sugar in the coffee because I was distracted by the talk, his chest is bony, his beard prickled at first, it left a little mark and later on it didn’t prickle, if Carlos had a mustache maybe tickling on the lip, I would laugh at the tickling and out of nervousness too just out of nervousness I think, the mustache would be fine, he’d get mad

—Do you think I’d be enough of a boob to have a mustache, Judite? and that was the end of the tickling, and, pleasantly, this coffee is mush with all the sugar in it, little secrets, whispering, the waiter in the coffee shop flirting under the pretext of drying the table for us

—It’s all wet, sweeties

Dolores, going along, batting her eyelids like she was with Carlos, maybe lover’s got a friend, you’ve got to ask him, casually like, if maybe he’s got a friend, a little innocent question, see, in the middle of a conversation, the waiter with his wiping and Dolores, with lots of blinking, Dolores to a man who was already old and was wearing a wedding ring didn’t you notice the wedding ring? plenty of white hairs, a pencil behind his ear, his way of talking

—It’s all wet, sweeties thirty years old at least, he was missing a tooth on one side

—It’s all wet, sweeties the mulberry trees in Almada playing checkers with the shadows, we’d go down to the river and there was a wall here, probably there were kings here in other times

Dom Pedro would arrive with his ships there’s a very old archway here, the police informer accepted the leash, walked on his knees, there was something about Carlos’s expression, his fright, a woman was beating him with the wicker mat, the garbage can they’d turned upside down, the herons coming back were pecking at the oil on the river where Dom Pedro kept his ships

—I’m not capable, Judite meaning

—I’m not a fascist, comrades don’t rumple the quilt, blood on his lips, hands begging

—I’m not a fascist, comrades

Lisbon was waiting for the king with torches

Great friende he wast of merrymente

and Dom Pedro’s ships in the mud were all decorated, his tomb is in Alcobaça isn’t it, the stone beard that never prickled anybody, tell us what it was like, what do you say to them, what do you feel afterward

you feel a wish to die, feel that sin is suffocating us, that the sea is covering this house, that the decorated vessels, canoes, trawlers, those ships that have oars as the hooks and blades of the oars crossed back and forth across the benches

the fishermen on the shore

—Come with us, Judite my husband was in the window, his legs were in the room, his body was in the darkness, disappearing in the pine grove among the mares and the owls, taking him in my arms, announcing
you’ve got to tell us, Judite, what was it like, what’s it like, chubby Dolores, from this moment on you’re no longer my daughter

—Bath time, Carlos
you don’t feel like dying, you feel that we’ve changed, you don’t understand in what direction but we’ve changed, a thickness in the bones we didn’t have before, a quiet fire in the blood, a door that’s being opened to the inside of things, people are considerate

—
Dona Judite from one moment to the next

—
Dona Judite

I’m solemn with myself

—
Dona Judite my mother was asking my opinion, should I do it this way or do it that way and she did it

—
You’re right

Dom Pedro’s ships were slowly leaving, the stone beard

—
Milady friendly, well mannered, not the least bit shrouded in his tomb, reaching out his arm to me

—
Do me the honor, Dona Judite you feel such great peace, if they would only let me word of honor

I would stay like this for the rest of my life and the king, approving me not like your father, approving me

—
I am in agreement, milady not loving his squire more than should be mentioned in these pages, loving me

picking you up and laying you on the bed, nothing to prickle or hurt, the smooth skin—Carlos the fingers reaching over this clamp, this mole, your not seeing me and looking at me at the same time that you didn’t see me and you knew that I was looking at you for the first time, with me in the mirror with the little copper fish

you feel the way a little copper fish feels when it’s come back out of the dresser drawer from among bottles, pictures, the empty matchbox that was there by mistake
and you’re here, you’re here, don’t let my colleagues

—We never dreamed that he mimic your gestures, make fun of me, forbid me, at a different table, to give in, swaying

—Such long lashes, Judite the waiter with the wedding ring on the pretext of wiping the table

—It’s all wet, sweetie spare me the railroad station where there’s no ship of Dom Pedro’s, a parking lot on one side, a marketplace with no market on the other, a few tumbledown stands that is, and a poster that’s peeling off a tree a faggot, a clown, he puts on makeup, a wig, make the people laugh, Carlos a rabbit in a cage to keep him company, without his work coat on, the waiter is older, thirty-six, thirty-seven, those smells of age, pointing to the animal that was pushing up against the cage

—He knows me, sweetie that was pushing up against the cage all the while, he opened up the little door and gave a whack on the back of its neck, the kind my mother knew how to give and I didn’t, no more

—Dona Judite

Judite once more, she doesn’t ask my opinions, whether I should do it this way or that way, covering my words with her hand

—Be quiet handing him the hanging thing that had stopped snuffling

—Take your silly animal and the waiter, who might not have been telling me

—The poor little critter hasn’t done you any harm, sweetie because with the maneuvering of the locomotive no sounds could be heard, the train was quiet and as soon as the train was quiet, there was a soft little voice that made me hate him all the more, you won’t protest, you won’t get excited, you’ll take it, I’ll bet that there’ve been a lot of orphanages in your life, a lot of buried dogs, a lot of women, take care, so long

—Come on out of here, sweetie in the empty cage there was some lettuce or something like it, the waiter was nudging the rabbit in hopes it would give a little leap

—Give it up, he’s not jumping

I even peeked into the flat but it couldn’t be seen from the street, the locomotive could be seen, filling everything with smoke, a guy with a lever was directing the operation, on the circus poster my husband was dancing

—Dance, Carlos tents with little curtains left over, a cot in one of them or so it seemed to me where a pregnant cat got mad at me, the hair on the mustache gives the impression that it prickles and it doesn’t prickle, little secrets, sighs, grade crossings under the herons by the Tagus where there are faded houses and sickly olive trees, deserted tennis courts with an echo of balls

Paulo, who makes things up as he sees fit and you believe him and writing
the waiter from the coffee shop put the rabbit back into its cage with the intention that the animal

—Your stupid animal if only he’d nudge him again and he doesn’t nudge him, I guarantee, a lot of orphanages, a lot of buried dogs, a lot of women like him on in years and in pencil having fun with the rabbit because poor devils like us and while the rabbit stopped answering take care, so long, if I asked

—What about your wife? the hopeful little look

—One of these days she’ll come back, sweetie so there was a rose in the napkin as he served it with the soup bowl, held on by a piece of tape

—I kept the chicken soup for you the next day when he served me my coffee he sent over the tray with the flair of a magician

—Good afternoon, sweetie

Dolores’s teasing

—He’s crazy about you curious heads, alert

—What do you feel afterward? you feel that you’re a little copper fish calling for help, that the marigolds have forgotten about me, that the sea has disappeared, that the bridge doesn’t exist, that you’re facing the mirror that’s a darker piece of sky

—What about the sky? asking the waiter if he’d lend me the rabbit, my wife didn’t understand but the rabbit did, the waiter said the animal didn’t hurt her

—Go away, sweetie it didn’t bother her, it didn’t hate her, but how do you say what do you say you people teach me to a waiter in a coffee shop that it had nothing to do with his annoying me or getting me mad or hurting me, it’s not that how do you tell a waiter in a coffee shop over a railroad station that the rabbit doesn’t matter to me how could a rabbit bother me? that I haven’t found any other way of protesting against

I haven’t found any other way of protesting against myself, against the café owner

—Don’t lock the door on me because I’ll knock it down, Judite against the pine cones on the wall and me all alone inside here, being dragged naked to the station house, if I went to the butcher in São João they’d dance around me, your husband’s a faggot, how do you tell a waiter in a coffee shop who’s buried so much poverty behind him, so many women, so many pups and the locomotive whistle stops me from hearing

—Be patient and bury me and he kept the soup bowl in the cupboard because my wife will be coming back, she’s going to come back, maybe a schoolteacher when I wipe the table for them

—It’s all wet, be careful will come up with me on my Tuesdays off, I’ll serve them the wedding glasses of which I’ve got four left, the locomotive with one last jerk, just like the rabbit before the rabbit went on my fingers, it wasn’t the rabbit, what do I mean the rabbit, it was me, leaning over the wardrobe

—Carlos? and in the wardrobe mirror, ships in which Dom Pedro was coming from Almada to Lisbon, what’s it like, what was it like, what do you feel afterward, you have to tell us Judite, expressions of envy or of doubt, and I said

—I’m not exaggerating, word of honor, you feel a joy that’s so gre…if only my mother could stick her hand into the cage that’s the house, grab me by the behind, pull me out

—Come here my nose was always twitching, lady, lady hold me up by her arm, wet with soap and water

—
Bath time, Carlos
what can I look for you with, a knee that bumps up against your absence, the head that slips off my pillow over to yours and there’s nobody on the pillow, even though there’s nobody on the pillow

I’m not exaggerating, word of honor, happiness so big

I give in completely, make such eyes at a faggot that it’s too much, my mother says

—Your making all those eyes at a faggot is too much grabbing me by the ears, finding the spot between my vertebrae, giving me a lesson and I’m all stiff, whimpering not so stiff, maybe my tail a little

I’m stiff, whimpering, the slap, the mimosas, at least you can hope it’s the mimosas, me as a bride coming out of the church

—This is where it hits you, watch out the photographer hidden in his camera

—Closer together, closer together

Paulo, who makes up whatever he feels like, and you believe him and write or pretend to be writing that you believe him and you write, not even believing him but you write
if you believe me, write about my husband giving me the little copper fish