What Can I Do When Everything's On Fire?: A Novel (55 page)

—Judite in Bico da Areia or here

—I’ve come to get you, Judite write about the smell of the gentian, which for my part I never caught, the smell of the ebb tide, yes, just as soon as the beach grew wider, and you got the impression sure that you could cross the river on foot and get to Lisbon, the ebb tide getting into me in the living room all mixed in with the river while I was combing my hair because I’d comb my hair for him in those days, write about flower beds bordered by pieces of tile that my husband was sticking into the ground and that I smashed with the hammer on the day when he

I didn’t do it with the hammer, write that the flower beds are intact, the vine’s alive, the waiter at the coffee shop

—Your coffee, sweetie you can write that I’m fine, tell Paulo I’m fine, I haven’t changed all that much, I think about him sometimes, every now and then you need time, better clothes, dyed hair

I give him permission to visit me, I promise, he can poke his hand into the cage that’s the house, find me in some corner drawing back and wanting, he grabs me by the behind, pulls me out

—Come here, mother

I’m not exaggerating, word of honor, such happiness

finds the spot between my vertebrae, the blade of his hand while I’m stiff, whimpering not stiff, my tail just a little, I propose to him

—Now

now that the king is arriving in his ships from Almada, write down a railroad station with a locomotive that’s maneuvering and yet there’s no danger of my being heard, the marketplace without a market, a poster hanging from a tree trunk and showing a clown dancing, write that my son is putting me back into the cage, closing the little wire door, checking in the wardrobe mirror to see if his father is with me and since his father’s with me, he waits in the yard at Bico da Areia until we call him

—Paulo waiting by the cedar tree at Príncipe Real until one of us one of the rabbits that are pushing, silent, furtive

—He knows me, sweetie raises the shade, lifts the curtain and Paulo at the entrance to the living room is holding a car with wooden wheels and looking at us in the mirror where lips move without giving off any words, we go dim, little by little, as the light grows dim believe me and write or pretend that you believe me and write or don’t believe me, but write that we’re growing dim with the dimming of the light and only the Gypsies’ horses coming back from the beach and thirty or forty feet away is the ragamuffin who was to marry a doctor and nobody can say whether or not she got married, paying no attention to Paulo until the ragamuffin grows dim too and the mirror is finally dark, the bedroom is dark, the living room is dark and anything else that can’t be seen, of course, but I could make out the little copper fish I thought was lost and now that it was impossible to touch it, I realized that it had never gone away from there.

—
The customer at table nine, Soraia
eight or nine plates spinning around, horizontal and fast at first and then slower and slower and more and more wobbly, about to fall off and stopped from falling by the little man who keeps running back and forth and giving them another spin by twirling the bamboo pole, one or two plates always off balance, one or two plates slipping, one or two plates that you can picture in pieces on the floor and yet they start moving again, saved by just a few seconds, tilting and hesitating and still dancing, when I think about myself I think about the little man trotting beside the table in his fake Oriental costume and his mandarin mustache that is ready to fall off, stuck under his nose with some glue, as he rushes from right to left and works hard to keep all those tears dancing, each plate’s a tear that has to be kept from falling and so he gives a pole a spin, another pole, the one on the end that no smile could ever hold back, yesterday I thought I saw my father, knowing that it couldn’t be my father, my father’s dead, with Sissi who couldn’t have been Sissi, Sissi’s in Spain or maybe back to being a man and again trouble with the plates on the bamboo poles, I go left and right running to help hold the tears, the mandarin mustache blows off and gets into my mouth, I keep them from falling onto the floor

—Don’t do that on me, don’t break or maybe

—Sissi

or maybe

—Father he’s disappearing down a side street with garages where I got the idea that Rui, and Rui’s in the cemetery too or with a syringe in Chelas, seeing me without seeing me

—Not now, Paulo and that plate, the last one, careful with the last one, spinning the pole until the pieces come back into place, fragments, disconnected episodes that memory was bringing together and forming an afternoon on the beach with Vânia for example

—Come here, Rui, quick and to me, if I got there with him, stiffening in her blouse

—I don’t want any gab with you the plane tree at the hospital where Mr. Vivaldo wasn’t touching the ground, the maid from the dining room in the silence of the bedroom

—Aren’t you sleepy, Paulo?

Dona Helena facing the bicycle in the laundry room not a person, just a kerchief, everything swirling about side by side on the table, yesterday my father with Sissi and their not recognizing me but how could they have recognized me since I’ve changed over the years, I had hopes that my uncle

—Your father’s coming to work with me, did you know that? convinced that the plates should be moving in the opposite direction if only I could make them move in the opposite direction a different life I’ve invented, such foolishness, looking at what’s happened to us afterward, I thought I was living with an old couple who couldn’t even take care of themselves who took care of me and my wife from the kitchen

I must have had a wife

—Word of honor? nothing but voice and astonishment, a pause in the chinaware and in that pause the bamboos were spinning faster, a screech of clowns or the cackle of a lipstick kiss looking for me in the living room

—What are you looking for? no stage, no mandarin worried about a dozen eight or nine

—
The customer at table nine, Soraia
plates, visiting my father without understanding why in spite of Dona Helena and Mr. Couceiro, who scolded me by not scolding, the sketching with the cane meant

—I forbid you or not even I forbid you, asking

—Don’t go my father was opening the door grudgingly and looking over his shoulder at someone or other who was disappearing into the bedroom, hiding I don’t know what he’d picked up from the rug, a pearl, a brooch that showed what he was in his pocket

—Come in my wish spotted right away, my not accusing him

I wasn’t accusing him reproaching him

I wasn’t reproaching him
my son or the one who thinks he’s my son if I could only get to tell him at least

—
You’re not my son

and his not believing

believing

his not believing

—
Father

I, who can’t do it, I’d love to do it but I can’t do it, the woman before Judite, squeezing her hand against her breast, says

—
Don’t be upset, Carlos

or maybe

—
Bath time, Carlos or maybe I say

—Pet me and my uncle taking aim at the wild doves, a rag pile of wings in the brambles, little hearts beating with the blood all run out, the woman separating my fingers one by one and my fingers

—
No feeling the sticky warmth of the blood, I was thinking don’t make me, I don’t want to and she said

—
Feel me, Carlos as though nothing existed anymore except the wild doves, the bath, the woman, my uncle’s wife, that is, grieving under the blanket, you’re going to kill me boy, you’re killing me boy

—
Feel me, Carlos my son accusing me, reproaching me, my uncle’s dog

—
Go get the doves, Carlos calling me one Sunday while he tied up the setter by the collar at the end of the judge’s vineyard

—
Look what I do to dogs that don’t obey, Carlos and the judge, in shirtsleeves, watching him

—
Look what I do to dogs that don’t obey, Carlos a two-year-old male that had run off with a dove, my uncle slipped in a cartridge without letting go of the leash, ordering me

—
Take hold of the stock, Carlos
and the police informer, unfolding the dirty feathers that were his arms, waved his little wings

—I’m not a fascist, I’m your friend, comrades a boy with a hammer, and one with a pistol

—
Take hold of the stock, Carlos the cartridge disappearing with a click, the judge on a stepladder with the basket of oranges, the setter rubbing up against us, licking us, whimpering with pleasure, my uncle tugged on the leash and a kind of whine of surprise, his jaw dropped, looking for us, the judge was peeling an orange, his mouth almost saying

—
Alberto

but only the orange getting crushed in his hand, a small thread of piss on my uncle’s shoe and my uncle tightening the leash

—
You son of a bitch ordering me

—
Put the butt to your shoulder, Carlos pressing the butt against my shoulder then, placing the barrel at the ear of the dog, who was beginning to understand, who understood

I remember the orchard, I remember the orchard so well
the police informer’s face, all eyebrows, all gums when the pistol

—Comrades crumpling onto the ground and pushing stones along with his nose, breaking them up with his fingernails

—Comrades his neck was bent over and the pistol was at the back, the hammer was waiting

—So?
my uncle aimed at the setter’s ear and the branches on the trees were so thick that no one could hear the shot, no one heard the shot so that no one, not even me almost, heard

—
The trigger it’s a little tongue that’s not hard to move, you tighten up, that is, you bend your finger, you look beyond the judge who was shaded by the treetops, not by the shot, you don’t notice the shot, you notice your shoulder jumped, my uncle let go of the leash and the setter was inert, brown and white marks not a single red mark brown and white marks, the remains of some piss, a tooth in the space between his lips, the judge took off his cap, my uncle’s wife was separating my fingers one by one, and my fingers said I don’t want to

—
Feel me
,
Carlos

—
Don’t worry, Carlos

—
Feel me, Carlos my uncle leaned over the setter the way the boy with the pistol did over the police informer, who kept on squeezing the orange a stone in his hand, not a single red mark

—
I’m not a fascist, I’m a friend, comrades

a sandal in a strange position, the boy with the hammer took off the man’s wristwatch or the little heart of the doves, it’s a mistake, comrades, ask the authorities if it isn’t a mistake, a square watch, lines instead of numbers, the boy with the hammer said to the boy with the pistol

no, to everybody

no, to himself

—
It won’t be any use to him anymore, will it?

my uncle said to the judge who, because of a problem of water rights had sent my grandfather off to Africa, was wiping the lining of his cap with a cloth

—
You bury him

if my mother was talking to her sister-in-law by the threshing floor we could catch her words over here, people’s conversations carry farther than the wind, the shotgun blast got to the judge who’d sent my grandfather to Africa

—
Get a shovel and bury him, not in my vineyard, in yours

he went through the fence, knocking down one of the posts, scattering the oranges with his shoe, my grandfather had come back from Angola with fevers, the police informer’s watch kept going, Judite said that the king, great friende he wast of merrymente, was leaving Almada aboard his ships or maybe on the trawlers that were all decorated along the river, the shotgun followed the judge as the shovel dug, you just saw what I do to dogs that don’t obey me, doctor, the judge was cleaning his cap, my uncle was sitting with me on a rock

—
Rest here, Carlos

filled with the emotion of the orchard, the blackcaps imitating commas as they mussed up the grass, does this thing work or doesn’t it, neighbor, give me an orange to taste, he tasted it, threw it away, not even the fruit’s any good, doctor, the orange hit the judge’s legs and went off, feel me, Carlos, not there, on this side where I’m more me, don’t be afraid, feel me, little dove bones, the sticky warmth of blood, don’t make me, I don’t want to

the judge finished covering the setter with dirt

—
Do I have your permission to leave, Alberto? the cap that he didn’t dare put back on his head and that the cloth had kept cleaning, the gleam of the oranges in an acid light, my grandfather recovered from the fevers from Africa

—
Alberto

I remember a couple of men

my grandfather and someone else? playing checkers under the trellis but how could it be my grandfather since my grandfather’s sick

—
Alberto

I remember an oil wick in the shadows, our cooling his forehead, my uncle’s wife pouring water into the tub, bath time Carlos, table nine Soraia, and I was turning down vermouth, as though the manager was my servant, and the manager was obsequious, ordering a bottle of French champagne, please, arms that unwrapped me from the towel

—
I never dreamed that you my son straightening out the plates that were tears