Away from Home (43 page)

“Maybe they’re just afraid someone else will copy that same dress,” Mariza said with a little smile. “I tear pictures out myself sometimes.”

“Oh, no!” They both laughed.

“Light me a cigarette.”

Leila lighted a cigarette and put it between Mariza’s lips. “When are you going back to the farm?”

“In a few days. Why don’t you come too, and bring the children? We have no one there these days.”

“I might do that,” Leila said. “It depends on my Spanish. I’ll see what he wants to do.”

“Who is this famous ‘Spanish’ anyway? You tell all your friends about your handsome Spanish, but none of us has ever seen him. I think you’re afraid someone will steal him.”

“Maybe,” Leila said, grinning mischievously. She opened her eyes wide.

“You could bring him to the farm when you come. I won’t steal him. The children won’t steal him.”

“You will meet him one day.”

“How did you ever find a Spanish in Rio?” Mariza turned around slowly, until she was facing Leila. The dressmaker had a pair of scissors and was snipping little threads and repinning one of the drapes. “He lives right here in Rio and I’ve never seen him? None of us know him? I’m beginning to think you don’t like me, Leila. You could at least tell
me
the secret.”

“If I tell anyone it will be you.”

“Then tell me. I promise I won’t steal your famous Spanish. Maybe I can even help you.”

“All right,” Leila whispered. She hated to fool her best friend, and besides, she was so pleased with her cleverness that she could not resist telling at least one person. She sat forward on the couch, hugging her knees, smiling with delight. “
He doesn’t exist!
Everyone is talking about my Spanish and wondering who he is, but I made him up! You know how much gossip there is in Rio. I hate it. Especially because I am divorced; all those hypocrites pretend to be so virtuous, but really they are jealous because I have my freedom. Everyone was always telephoning me: ‘Oh, I saw So-and-so’s car parked in front of your apartment house. Was he visiting you?’ I couldn’t stand it any more. Now they all think I go out with this Spanish, and so I can go out with anyone I want to and they won’t know.”

“You clever little thing,” Mariza said, but she sounded disappointed. “No Spanish at all.”

“No. You mustn’t tell anyone.”

“You can trust me.” Mariza slipped out of her new dress with the dressmaker’s assistance and put on the beautifully made slacks and shirt she had arrived in. She combed her hair and put on more lipstick and rimmed her eyes with more pencil. There was a lengthy arrangement with the dressmaker about the time and date of the next fitting, but finally it was arranged, and Mariza and Leila went out of the small apartment to the creaking, doubtful elevator.

“You told me something, now I’ll tell you something,” Mariza said, putting her arm around Leila’s waist. Her voice was matter-of-fact, but Leila could feel the tenseness in her body through the thin silk shirt, like the subtle vibration of electricity through a wire. “My husband has a new fiancée,” Mariza said.

“Oh, I am so sorry. How terrible men are!” Leila put her arm around Mariza, and holding each other that way as they walked out of the elevator into the bright sunlight they looked like two very attractive young matrons exchanging delicious secrets. “Has this been going on long?”

“Since before Carnival, I think. They have been seen together quite openly. You know how Sergio is. It’s all right for a
man
to have an affair, but if I ever did anything he would kill me.”

“Men are so cruel,” Leila said sympathetically. But she was really thinking more of herself than of Mariza. Mariza was strong, she would get along, she always did when this kind of thing happened. She wished she could manage to be as independent as Mariza. “Is she someone we know?”

“It’s a blond American.”

“An American! A tourist?”

“She lives here. My friends say they have seen her husband around for a year.”

“Ah, but it won’t last,” Leila murmured. “Sergio needs someone like that to give him confidence in himself, but he will be tired of her soon. I read all about that in one of my books. It was called ‘The Don Juan Complex.’”

“What has a complex to do with Sergio?” Mariza looked insulted and dropped her arm from around Leila’s waist.

“It’s something to do with sex.”

“A sex complex? Sergio isn’t crazy.” Mariza smiled. “Why in the world are you reading a sex book at your age, after a husband and four children and probably several lovers?”

“It’s about the
psychology
of sex. It tells you how men think. Not how they
think
they think, but how they
really
think in their unconscious minds.”

“That must be really confusing,” Mariza said. She laughed, her good humor restored, and opened the door of her car. They climbed in and she headed the car efficiently into the stream of traffic, avoiding the wild
Lotaçãos
and the jaywalkers. “You must lend it to me when you’re finished with it.”

“I will.”

“He told me he went to the farm this morning,” Mariza said. She lighted another cigarette, one hand on the wheel. “I wonder if he really did, or if he went somewhere to spend a few days with her. You’ll notice he ran off to
the farm
the moment I came back here. This must really be a passionate love affair.” She inhaled deeply, with obvious need, but the slim hand that held the cigarette was steady and her voice was more ironic than troubled.

“I know a blond American,” Leila said thoughtfully.

“Who is she?”

“But she’s not really blond. She’s not blond like you. She has sun streaks in her hair. I suppose someone might call her a blonde.”

“Is she beautiful?”

“Oh, she’s a housewife,” Leila said, trying to avoid the answer. “She adores her husband and children.”

“Is she after Sergio’s money?”

“I think her husband is rich.”

Mariza began to hum. “Do you know this song? It’s French. It’s cute.

Si tous les cocus

Avaient des clochettes

Des clochettes au dessus

Au dessus de leur têtes

Ça ferait tant de chaut

Qu’on ne s’entendrait plus
.”

“If all the cuckolds …”

“If all the cuckolds,” Mariza said, “had little bells over their heads, that would make so much noise that no one would be able to hear themselves any more.”

“Bells instead of horns?”

“Bells attached to their horns. Who knows? It’s true, though.” She began to sing the song again, ironically, driving very fast through the crowded street, and Leila hummed the tune beside her, smiling.

“You must teach me the words.”

“With much pleasure. We can sing a duet and dedicate it to the husband of the blond American, whoever she may be. And also dedicate it—” she smiled thinly, and glanced sideways at Leila with kohl-rimmed eyes that were very bright—“to my dear husband.”

They rode for a while in silence, each with her own thoughts. “I wish
I
had a lover,” Leila said finally.

“Someone more real than your famous Spanish?” Mariza laughed.

“Yes.”

“Rio is full of handsome men.”

“I know. But most of them are dull. What do you think … what do you think, for instance, of … Carlos Monteiro?”

“Carlos? Don’t waste your time on him,” Mariza stated flatly.

“Why not?”

“Oh, I’ve heard stories.”

“What kind of stories?” Leila cried desperately. She was almost in tears.

“You know everyone has a story about everyone. I have heard several about him, that’s all.
Why?
You weren’t thinking of
him
, were you?”

“But I love him!” Leila cried. It was out before she could restrain herself. And once she had said it, she was relieved, because now Mariza knew, and perhaps Mariza could help her.

“Oh, you poor child,” Mariza said, reaching for Leila’s hand. Her voice was still light and ironic. “Don’t you know anything? Do I have to take care of you all your life? I see that I do. Carlos—my dear little girl—Carlos is, first of all, the dullest man in the world and, secondly, the most proper and, third, he would never, never,
never
marry a divorced woman. He’s madly in love with one right now, and he’s told all his friends he can never marry her. Don’t you get started with him.”

Leila tensed. She could feel her world slipping away, and her heart hurt terribly. Mariza’s casual words,
madly in love with one right now
, crushed her all the more because of the way they had been dropped, completely unthinkingly, as life dropped deathly weights on one without even a moment’s warning or thought. Her eyes filled with tears. “But Carlos has been taking
me
out nearly every night. Who can she be, this other woman? Is she someone young? She can’t love him as much as I do. He talks to me about books, about music, about everything …”

“It’s you, you silly little girl. It’s you, of course. Who else could it possibly be? You should have confided in me a long time ago.” Mariza shook her head in mock despair. “You and Carlos, you both, with your secrets. He is so proper and chivalrous, keeping the name of this divorcée a great, dark mystery. You with your little ruses. Tell me—” her voice was suddenly serious, businesslike—“tell me, has he made love to you yet?”

“He … kisses me very much.”

“I thought not.”

“But I know he loves me. I can tell. A woman can sense those things.”

“I’m sure he does,” Mariza said, “in his way. Tell me, what would you say of a man who is forty years old, handsome and healthy, with all the money any woman could want, and who has never had either a wife or a mistress?”

“He has never had a mistress?”

“Never.”

“Well, perhaps …” It was unthinkable, but it was better than what she was already beginning to think. “Perhaps he goes to one of those houses.”

“Never.”

“Well, all those other women must have been too stupid for him. He likes to discuss books with me. Carlos is an intellectual.”

Mariza sighed. “You had better go back and read some more of your books to find out about Carlos.”

“I can’t believe it,” Leila said weakly. She wiped her eyes. “You have made me terribly upset. I am going to ask him.”

“Excuse me, Carlos, are you a homosexual? Well, I was simply wondering; some of my friends said you were.”

“What shall I do?”

“Keep on talking about books,” Mariza said kindly. “And forget about marrying him. I wouldn’t let you marry him even if he was cruel enough to ask you. Sergio knows all about him. You just go out with Carlos and have a good time. Someone will come along for you. Perhaps a
real
‘Spanish.’”

“I’ll never get married again,” Leila said softly. “I know it. All my life I’ve had bad luck. I’ll never get married again.”

“Of course you’ll get married. You’re still young. And very beautiful.”

“There’s no one for me in Rio. Why do the hard women, the vulgar ones, not even attractive, not even young some of them, why do they always find other husbands? Some of them find three or four. Why isn’t there anybody for me?”

“It’s a very small world, our Rio, yours and mine,” Mariza said gently.

“But it’s where I
live!
”

“I know,” she said. “I know. And we always will.”

Mariza drove Leila to her apartment house and they kissed each other goodbye, on both cheeks, warmly. Leila took Mariza’s hand in both of hers; it was the hand with the wedding ring, and Leila looked at the ring and then at her friend’s thin, stylishly delicate face with its too-bright eyes. “Sergio couldn’t get along without you,” Leila said.

“You’re a good friend. I love you.”

“I love you too. I’ll telephone you later tonight.” Leila ran into the lobby of her apartment building.
Was
it Helen Sinclair, she was wondering,
was
it Helen? She felt such guilt at having unwittingly brought Helen and Sergio together that she could not face Mariza’s eyes another moment. As she rode up in the elevator she composed herself. Even if it was, it wasn’t her own fault; Sergio might have found Helen anyway. They would have met sooner or later.

She had not talked to Helen for over a week, not since the day Helen had called to invite her to dinner. It couldn’t be Helen and Sergio—could it? Everything was falling apart today. She was sorry she had gone out of the house at all.
Carlos, oh, Carlos
. How could she believe such a terrible thing about him? Her apartment was empty; the children were out somewhere. Leila felt loneliness closing in on her, as if the walls were sliding closer and closer. Carlos would never marry her, Carlos
could
never marry her. She wondered if homosexuals could marry and reform. The love of a good wife might save Carlos. No one had ever said he was in love with a man; perhaps he was only very intellectual. A man had a right to wait until he was past forty until he made love to a woman.

But even thinking this, Leila knew in her heart Mariza was right. Mariza knew all about men. She had a lover now, someone whom she kept very secret, but Leila knew there was someone. Mariza had a way of keeping her own secrets even while she inveigled you into telling her yours. Leila felt duped. She had told Mariza everything, even that she and Carlos had never made love. But Mariza had never told her about her own lover. Was this entirely fair?

She felt a little less guilty. After all, it was Sergio who had requested to come to the Macumba when Leila had told him she was going with Helen. He had insisted. Sergio always liked to have fun, to go wherever there might be a party or some adventure, so how could she have suspected? It was certainly not her fault. She felt grieved for Mariza, but still Mariza had someone, and Sergio would never leave her, so Mariza really had two. Even now, Mariza was having her massage—or was she? Perhaps Mariza was actually with her lover. Leila smiled to herself. After her lover, or after her relaxing massage, Mariza would look glowing either way, so who could tell the difference?

But it is I who am always lonely, Leila thought sadly. It is I who am always being left. It was close in the apartment, it was hot, it was too quiet, and she was afraid. All her life there had been people: her family, her husband, her children. Today she was alone, and she was lonely and afraid. This is the way it will be when I grow old, she thought. When I am too old and ugly to go out dancing with men, when no one wants to invite me to dinner. My children will be married and I will be alone. My babies will be married.…