What Can I Do When Everything's On Fire?: A Novel (66 page)

two parakeets at first, they ate seeds from a package, they didn’t fly, they didn’t sing, they didn’t pay attention to anything at all, the one who must have been the female died

Friday, February twenty-third, and it’s raining, I don’t remember its raining at that time, I remember my mother saying to a man who wasn’t the electrician or the owner of the café

—Not in front of the child

there was a pair of white pants with a trace of oil on the crease, a tinkle of keys

or a laugh

and the tinkle of keys walking over to my mother, her blouse, her neck

—He won’t notice

my mother rubbing her neck, checking her blouse, taking the bottle out of the oven, drying two glasses and

—
Just a minute ago summer was just beginning and now we’re already well into

placing them

it

on the tablecloth, if I could only have dipped my finger in and tasted it, the tinkling keys drinking the wine

—What shall we do with him, kill him, throw him into the river?

white pants up against my mother’s legs and my mother leaning against the sink, breathing hard

—Wait

looking for some coins in her purse and there weren’t any coins, an expired bus ticket, in the sink were pots, ants, my mother letting go of the neck of the bottle

—Haven’t you got some change at least?

white pants poking around annoyed

—If I’d known about the kid I wouldn’t have come

the river, the mouth of the river, the place near the bridge where the Tagus is tired of bumping into mountains, castles, dams, mills, desolate

I imagined

plains, finally reaches the ocean and dissolves into it among herons’ calls, with a kind of sigh or something like that

he gave my mother a coin and she gave it to me

—
For his upkeep

she picked me up from the floor, sat me down by the cistern, gave me a saucepan and a wooden spoon, signaled to me from the window, showing how I should pound on the saucepan with the spoon

—You can pound on it as long as you want to

to please her, I tried a whack and I didn’t feel like it, I felt like taking a pee, I felt like eating and I was afraid of the herons, of the bridge that was changing color, of an animal that was sighing and talking and devouring itself in the kitchen, it wasn’t my mother or white pants, it was a shape with two backs and no chest, two backs of necks and no face from which arms came out and went back in again, teeth and feet, the electrician was wandering about picking up things that the waves had left, I imagined that he hated me and yet if the pups threw pine cones at me, I’d thought he’d be silent but he’d curse the pups, he’d leave us shells on the wall, the café owner’s wife was going about wiping the tables and I imagined that her husband, hands on his hips, was saying nasty things about my mother or me

about my mother

the Gypsy women were coming back from the beach with buckets and in the buckets were crabs, mussels, if a dolphin was beached on the sand they’d call to each other in Galician, white pants left, along with the animal, on a scooter that sounded like popping corn, my mother was softly scraping the spoon over the saucepan

—The coin

scraping the spoon harder over the saucepan

—The coin, Paulo

furious with me

with me I think

with me

furious with me

—The coin

the coin in my hand, a little one that was good for buying almost nothing, five or six pieces of candy, a stick of bubble gum, not even a cheap piece of chocolate, my mother not believing me

—Is this what the bastard gave you?

all that’s left to say is that it’s February, Friday the twenty-third of February, that it’s raining, through the opening in the curtain the building is massive, opaque, writing a letter to the maid from the dining room and in the letter Paulo & Gabriela

saying that when you smile your mouth

she dropped the coin into the pan and went back to the kitchen, then the spoon on the saucepan, the spoon on the neck of the bottle, the spoon on the neck of the bottle again, a crash, two crashes, as she smashed the bottle against the stove first and then hit it with the door beam, I wanted to ask

—Mother

and my voice refused to call her, one of the shards from the bottle had caught her on the chin, my mother showed me the saucepan

—One coin, the cheapskate

taking me by the hair and pulling me up against the stove, which was unpolished and had one burner out of shape

—One coin for half an hour, do you think I’m only worth one coin for half an hour, Paulo?

saying it hadn’t rained during that time except on one or two occasions, sunset at three o’clock in the afternoon and the Gypsies’ horses sobbing with fear, the café owner’s wife was picking up plates with one of her husband’s berets on her head, raindrops were bouncing in the yard

tears were coming down onto the window

the smell of the woods was closer, the vine was growing cold

—
The vine, father

before moving to Lisbon he would protect it with reeds and string, he’d form a mantle that he draped over it, he’d come back into the house and my mother would say

—
What about me, Carlos?

tears there, too

—
You’re not a window, so don’t let it start raining

and she, not hearing me

—
What about me, Carlos?

you’re not my mother, I never saw her, who are you, lying on your back on the bed, she would disappear into the pillow repeating

—
What about me, Carlos?

my father’s hand didn’t reach her, it stayed up in the air, stopped, my father was my father, she wasn’t

my father finally opened the door and walked out into the rain

the coin

—Do you think I’m only worth one coin for half an hour, Paulo? it fell onto the saucepan and rolled along the floor, not in a straight line, in a hesitating arch, taking its time, bumping into the refrigerator, it was silent, the dwarf from Snow White said to me in a stern voice, we used to spend many afternoons together with nobody else at home

—Looking out for each other

if I grabbed the shears, the dwarf immediately said

—Watch out

he’d stop me from cutting up dresses, tasting the pills, turning the bathtub into a lake

—Forget it

if I’d followed his advice I wouldn’t have left Gabriela, I can see him with us scolding me

—You’re such a jackass, Paulo

the maid from the dining room, surprised, looking at the boards over the windows, asking

—Who were you talking to?

my father was back from Spain less bouncy, thinner

—They tricked me

the church was tolling hours that were impossible to count, fifteen, seventeen, six hundred, and Mr. Couceiro was growing older with each one of them, no packages or suitcases in Alcides’s car, a bowl of apples on top of the blonde wig, Noémia’s picture of interest for a moment and then gone, the frame was still there, that is, and the vase, not Noémia

—Not even a theater, Dona Helena, they wanted me to

not even a theater, a dump on the outskirts of Mérida and we were held there inside, Alcides ate with them, played cards with them, he lost my money, we performers had a different table, four Spanish girls, a short little Romanian and me, the customers would make their choice in the main room where we painted our nails and listened to music, if I said

—
Alcides

Alcides would get angry with his cards, checking his hand for trump cards

—
If you haven’t got any toys to play with, how’d you like me to break one of your arms?

the little Romanian tried to run away, they caught her in the mail truck, they called us in while they held her head and broke one of her molars, a long scream, a faint, get up, you fag

—
Watch out for your teeth, ladies

and I was thinking about swings, I’d help it along with my body, push out with my feet, and they couldn’t catch me because I was going up into the sky

the café owner’s wife was taking down the awning and a heron or two were on the bridge wall, her husband, grabbing my mother

—What’s all this about?

who was pounding on the stove with the door beam, she stopped pounding looking for the bench in the kitchen, where she flopped down in silence, not my mother, just a slipper, some lips that were whispering something you couldn’t understand, I went over to her and said

—I’m sorry

fingers that squeezed my shoulder, her lips against my ear

—I’m sorry

the electrician could be seen through the window taking something or other out of his pocket

a conch shell

and laying the shell down on the wall, when I got to the marigolds, the crutch was on the beach, I think he was waving it, but maybe I was wrong, all that’s needed is for the light to change or a change in the pine trees for us to think there are people, a pine cone rolled down the roof and the owner of the café

—Bastards

my father at Príncipe Real, in a blonde wig, was burying jewelry in a bag of flour

chokers, tiaras, my mother’s medallion, a tortoise shell encrusted with silver

unicorns, dragons

in heels he grew a couple of inches taller and it took me a little while to recognize him under the eyelashes, when we got to the street, Dona Aurorinha said

—My, you’re looking pretty

he kept the sunlight off with a paper parasol that the trees praised in Latin, my mother said to the owner of the café, I’m sorry, the dwarf from Snow White was lording it over everybody

—I’ve got a headache

was carrying a pick and a lantern that didn’t throw any light on anyone, but if I were to pick up the shears, he’d get scared, whispering

—Watch out

time was wearing him down the way it does walls, my mother had grabbed him more than once to toss him into the garbage

—We’ve got to buy another doll, Paulo

she’d lift up the lid of the trash can, moments from so long ago would pass through her memory, she’d repent, explain to the dwarf

—You’re safe for now

she pretended to kiss him

—
What about me, Carlos?

tears there, too

—
You’re not a window, so don’t let it start raining

and she wasn’t hearing me, so tiny in a corner

—
What about me, Carlos?

she’d look at me, put him back on the refrigerator

my father’s hand didn’t reach her, it stayed up in the air, stopped, he finally opened the door and walked out into the rain

she was getting lunch ready, making too many movements and too much noise, annoyed with me on the floor with the saucepan and the spoon

—You good-for-nothing

I wasn’t at Bico da Areia, I was with my father in the store, you came off Príncipe Real and after three blocks there was an antiques shop and a lunchroom, in the antiques shop a woman was thumbing through an album, in the lunchroom a waiter was whistling in the middle of the flies, in the shop window

porcelain figures, clocks, small ivory animals, candlesticks