The Complete Stories (11 page)

“Ma’am, why did you say: ‘what I’d really like to tell you is . . . ’? So it’s not true?”

The girl was sharper than she’d thought. No, it wasn’t true. The doctor knew you could spend your whole life seeking some thing beyond the mist, she also knew of the confusion that understanding oneself and others brought. She knew that the beauty of discovering life is small for those who primarily seek beauty in things. Oh, she knew a lot. But she was tired of the struggle. The office once again empty, sinking into the divan, shutting the windows—the restful darkness. Since that was her refuge, hers alone, where even he, with his calm and irritating acceptance of happiness, was an intruder!

They looked at each other and Tuda, disappointed, felt that she held a superior position to the doctor’s, she was the stronger one.

The therapist hadn’t noticed that she’d already betrayed herself with her eyes and added, thoughtful, her voice hesitating:

“Did I say that? I don’t think so . . . (What did this child actually want? Who am I to be giving advice? Why didn’t she just call? No, it’s better that she didn’t, I’m tired. Oh, if only everybody would leave me alone, that’s what I want more than anything!)”

Once again everything floating in the office. There was nothing left to say. Tuda stood, her eyes moist.

“Wait,” the doctor seemed to consider for an instant. “Look, why don’t we make a deal? You stay in school, and don’t worry too much about yourself. And when you’re . . . let’s say . . . twenty, yes, twenty, you’ll come back . . .” She was sincerely excited: she felt for the girl, she’d have to help her, maybe give her a job to occupy and distract her, until she outgrew this period of maladjustment. She was so vibrant, intelligent even. “Deal? Come on, Tuda, be a good girl and agree . . .”

Yes, she agreed, she agreed! Everything was possible again! Ah, it was just that she couldn’t speak, couldn’t say how much she agreed, how much she surrendered to the doctor. Because if she spoke, she might cry, she didn’t want to cry.

“But Tuda . . .” The divine shadow on her face. “You don’t have to cry . . . Come on, promise that you’ll be a brave little woman . . .” Yes, I’m going to help her. But now, the divan, oh yes, quick, plunge into it.

Tuda wiped her face with her hands.

Out on the street, everything was easier, solid and simple. She’d walked fast, fast. She didn’t want—the curse of always noticing—to recall the sluggish and weary gesture with which the doctor had held out her hand. And even the faint sigh . . . No, no. How crazy! But little by little the thought took hold: she’d been unwanted . . . She flushed.

She went into an ice cream shop and bought an ice cream.

Two girls in high school uniforms went by, talking and laughing loudly. They looked at Tuda with the animosity some people feel for others and that young people still don’t disguise. Tuda was alone and defeated. She thought, without linking her thought to the way the girls looked at her: what do they have to do with me? Me, who was there with the doctor, talking about deep and mysterious things? And even if they knew about the adventure, they wouldn’t understand . . .

All of a sudden it occurred to her that after having experienced that afternoon, she couldn’t go on in the same way, studying, going to the movies, hanging out with her little girlfriends, simply . . . She’d become distanced from everyone, even from the old Tuda . . . Something had unfurled inside her, her own personality that had asserted itself with the certainty that there was something in the world akin to her . . . She’d been taken by surprise: so she could speak of . . . of “that” as if it were something palpable, of her dissatisfaction that she’d hidden in shame and fear . . . Now . . . Someone had lightly touched the mysterious mists from which she’d been living for some time and suddenly they had solidified, formed a unit, existed. Until now all she had lacked was for someone to recognize her, for her to recognize herself . . . Everything was transforming! How? She didn’t know . . .

She kept walking, her eyes wide open, growing ever brighter. She was thinking: before, I was one of those people who exist, who walk around, get married, simply have children. And from now on one of those constant elements in her life would be Tuda, conscious, vigilant, always present . . .

Her destiny had been altered, it seemed to her. But how? Oh, not to be able to think clearly and if only the words she knew could express what she felt! A little proud, radiant, half-disappointed, she kept repeating to herself: I’m going to have another life, different from Amélia’s, Mama’s, Papa’s . . . She sought a vision of her new future and could only manage to see herself walking alone over wide, unknown plains, her steps resolute, her eyes suffering, walking, walking . . . Where to?

She was no longer hurrying home. She possessed the kind of secret people could never share. And she herself, she thought, would only participate in everyday life with a few particles of herself, just a few, but not with the new Tuda, today’s Tuda . . . Would she always be at the margins? . . . —Revelations came quickly one after another, flaring suddenly and illuminating her like little bolts of lightning. —Isolated . . .

She suddenly felt depressed, with no one to help her. From one moment to the next, she’d wound up alone. She hesitated, disoriented. Where’s Mama? No, not Mama. Ah, to go back to the office, to seek the doctor’s divine gaze, to beg her not to abandon her, because she was scared, scared!

But the doctor had her own life to live and—another revelation—nobody ever went entirely outside themselves to help . . . “Just” come back when you’re twenty . . . I won’t lend you a dress, I won’t lend you a single thing, all you ever do is ask for things . . . And it wasn’t even possible to be understood! “Puberty brings about certain disruptions . . .” “This girl isn’t feeling well, João, I’ll bet that her tonsils . . .”

“Oh, pardon me, miss . . . Did I hurt you?”

She almost lost her balance from the impact. She was stunned for an instant.

“Can you see all right?” The man had pointy white teeth. “There’s no need . . . It was nothing . . .”

The fellow walked off, a faint smile on his round face.

Opening her eyes, Tuda noticed the street in full sunlight. The strong breeze made her shiver. What a funny smile, the man’s. She licked the last bit of her ice cream and since no one was watching she ate the cone (the men who make those cones have dirty hands, Tuda). She frowned. Damn! (Don’t say damn, Tuda.) She’d say whatever she wanted, she’d eat all the cones in the world, she’d do exactly as she pleased.

She suddenly remembered: the doctor . . . No . . . No. Not even when she was twenty . . . When she was twenty she’d be a woman walking across an unknown plain . . . A woman! The hidden power of this word. Because after all, she thought, she . . . she existed! Along with the thought came the sensation of having her own body, a body that the man had looked at, her own soul, the soul that the doctor had touched. She pressed her lips together firmly, full of sudden violence:

“What do I need any doctor for! What do I need anyone for!”

She kept walking, hurriedly, pulsating, ferocious with joy.

Another Couple of Drunks

(“Mais dois bêbedos”)

I was surprised. Wasn’t he taking advantage of my good nature? Why was he acting so shrouded in mystery? He could tell me his secrets without any fear of judgment. My drunken state made me particularly inclined to benevolence and besides, after all, he was no more than a random stranger . . . Why didn’t he discuss his own life with the objectivity with which he’d ordered a beer from the waiter?

I refused to grant him the right to have a soul of his own, full of prejudices and love of self. One of those wrecks who, smart enough to know he was a wreck, shouldn’t have lights and shadows, like me, who could tell my life story going back to the time before my grandparents had even met. I had the right to be modest and not expose myself. I was conscious, aware that I laughed, that I suffered, I’d read books on Buddhism, they’d put an epitaph on my grave when I died. And I got drunk not just for the hell of it, but for a purpose: I was somebody.

But that man who’d never venture past his narrow circle, neither especially ugly, nor especially handsome, that fugitive chin, as important as a trotting dog—what did he mean by his arrogant silence? Hadn’t I asked him several questions? He was offending me. I wouldn’t stand for his insolence another second, making him see that he ought to be grateful for my overtures, because otherwise I’d never know he existed. Yet he kept mute, without even getting the least bit excited about the chance to live.

That night I’d already had quite a bit to drink. I wandered from bar to bar, until, excessively happy, I was afraid I’d outdo myself: I’d grown too comfortable in my own skin. I was looking for a way to pour some of myself out, before I completely overflowed.

I dialed the phone and waited, barely breathing from impatience:

“Hello, Ema!”

“Oh, darling, at this time of night!”

I hung up. Was it a lie? The tone was true, the energy, the beauty, the love, that craving to offer up my excess were all true. The only lie was that line I thought up with so little effort.

Yet I still wasn’t satisfied. Ema had a vague notion that I was different and credited everything strange I could possibly do to that account. She was so accepting of me, that I was alone when we were together. And at that moment what I was avoiding was precisely that solitude that would be too strong a drink.

I wandered the streets, thinking: I’ll choose someone who never would have imagined they deserved me.

I was looking for a man or a woman. But no one particularly pleased me. They all seemed fine on their own, spinning around inside their own thoughts. Nobody needed me.

Until I saw him. Just like all the rest. But so like them that he became a type. This one, I decided, this one.

And . . . there he is! Drunk on my tab and . . . silent, as if he owed me nothing . . .

Our movements were sluggish, the scarcely uttered words—vague, random, under the bar’s dim lights that lengthened faces into shadows. Around us, a few people were playing cards, drinking, talking, in louder tones. The torpor turned people slack, with no sparks. Maybe that’s why it was so hard for him to talk. But something told me he wasn’t all that drunk and was keeping silent simply so he wouldn’t have to acknowledge my superiority.

I drank slowly, elbows on the table, scrutinizing him. As for him—he’d slumped into his chair, feet outstretched, all the way to mine, arms flopped on the table.

“So?” I said impatiently.

He seemed to wake up, looked around and rejoined the conversation:

“So . . . so . . . nothing.”

“But, sir, you were talking about your son!. . .”

He stared at me for a second. Then smiled:

“Ah, yes. Right, he’s sick.”

“What’s wrong with him?”

“Angina, the pharmacist said angina.”

“Who does the boy live with?”

“His mother.”

“And you don’t live with her?”

“What for?”

“My God . . . At the very least to suffer with her . . . Are you married to the young lady?”

“Nope, I’m not married.”

“How disgraceful!” I said, though not knowing what exactly was so disgraceful. “We need to do something. Imagine if your son dies, she’s left all alone . . .”

He wasn’t moved.

“Imagine her, eyes burning, at the child’s side. The child wheezing painfully, dying. He dies. His little head is contorted, his eyes are open, staring at the wall, obstinately. Everything is silent and the young lady doesn’t know what to do. The boy is dead and all of a sudden she has nothing to do. She collapses onto the bed, sobbing, tearing at her clothes: ‘My son, my poor son! It’s death, it’s death!’ The household rats take fright and start to race around the room. They crawl up your son’s face, still warm, gnaw at his little mouth. The woman screams and faints, for two hours. The rats visit her body too, cheerful, nimble, their tiny teeth gnawing here and there.”

I got so caught up in the description that I’d forgotten the man. I looked at him suddenly and caught his mouth open, his chin resting on his chest, listening.

I smiled triumphantly.

“She wakes up from her fainting spell and doesn’t even know where she is. She looks around, gets up and the rats scatter. Then she happens upon the dead boy. This time she doesn’t cry. She sits in a chair, next to the little bed and stays there not thinking, not moving. Wondering why there hasn’t been any news, the neighbors knock at her door. She opens it to everyone very delicately and says: ‘He’s better.’ The neighbors come in and see that he’s dead. They’re afraid she doesn’t know yet and prepare her for the shock, saying, ‘Maybe you should call the pharmacist?’ She replies: ‘What for? since he’s already dead.’ Then everyone gets sad and tries to weep. They say: ‘We have to deal with the funeral.’ She replies: ‘What for? since he’s already dead.’ They say: ‘Let’s call a priest.’ She replies: ‘What for? since he’s already dead.’ The neighbors are scared and think she’s lost her mind. They don’t know what to do. And since it’s not their problem, they go off to bed. Or maybe this is how it goes: the boy dies and she’s like you, numbed of feeling, not concerned about anything. Practically in a state of ataraxia, without knowing it. Or don’t you know what ataraxia is, sir?”

Resting his head on his arms, he wasn’t moving. I got scared for a second. What if he was dead? I shook him forcefully and he lifted his head, barely managing to fix his bleary eyes on me. He’d fallen asleep. I glared at him furiously.

“Oh, so . . .”

“What?” He drew a toothpick from the dispenser and put it in his mouth, slowly, completely drunk.

I burst into laughter.

“Are you crazy? Since you haven’t eaten a thing!. . .”

The scene seemed so comical to me that I doubled over laughing. Tears sprang to my eyes and ran down my face. A few people turned their heads in my direction. Once I no longer felt like laughing I continued anyway. I was already thinking about something else and laughed without stopping anyway. I suddenly broke off.

“Are you making fun of me, sir? Do you think I’ll leave you alone, just like that, peacefully? Let you go your merry way, even after bumping into me? Oh, never. If I have to, I’ll make some confessions. There’s a lot I’ll tell you . . . But maybe you don’t get it: we’re different. I suffer, inside me feelings are solidified, differentiated, they’re born already labeled, self-conscious. As for you . . . a nebula of a man. Maybe your great-grandson will be able to suffer more . . . But it’s all right: the harder the task, the more appealing, as Ema said before we got engaged. That’s why I’m going to drop my fishing hook into you, sir. Maybe it’ll latch onto the seed of your suffering great-grandson. Who knows?”

“Right,” he said.

I leaned over the table, trying furiously to get through to him.

“Listen up, pal, the moon is way up in the sky. Aren’t you scared? The helplessness that comes from nature. That moonlight, think about it, that moonlight, paler than a corpse’s face, so silent and far away, that moonlight witnessed the cries of the first monsters to walk the earth, surveyed the peaceful waters after the deluges and the floods, illuminated centuries of nights and went out at dawns throughout centuries . . . Think about it, my friend, that moonlight will be the same tranquil ghost when the last traces of your great-grandsons’ grandsons no longer exist. Prostrate yourself before it. You’ve shown up for an instant and it is forever. Don’t you suffer, pal? I . . . I myself can’t stand it. It hits me right here, in the center of my heart, having to die one day and, thousands of centuries later, undistinguished in humus, eyeless for all eternity, I, I!, for all eternity . . . and the indifferent, triumphant moon, its pale hands outstretched over new men, new things, different beings. And I Dead!”—I took a deep breath. “Think about it, my friend. It’s shining over the cemetery right now. The cemetery, where all lie sleeping who once were and never more shall be. There, where the slightest whisper makes the living shudder in terror and where the tranquility of the stars muffles our cries and brings terror to our eyes. There, where there are neither tears nor thoughts to express the profound misery of coming to an end.”

I leaned over the table, hid my face in my hands and wept. I kept saying softly:

“I don’t want to die! I don’t want to die . . .”

He, the man, picked at his teeth with the toothpick.

“But you haven’t eaten a thing, sir,” I said again, wiping my eyes.

“What?”

“‘What’ what?”

“Huh?”

“But, my God, ‘huh’ what?”

“Ah . . .”

“Have you no shame, sir?”

“Me?”

“Listen, I’ll tell you something else: I’d like to die while still alive, descending into my own tomb and shutting it myself, with a dull thud. And then go mad from pain in the earth’s darkness. But not unconsciousness.”

He still had the toothpick in his mouth.

Then I felt really good because the wine was kicking in. I took a toothpick too and held it between my fingers as if about to smoke it.

“I used to do that when I was little. And it gave me more pleasure than it does now, when I really do smoke.”

“Obviously.”

“The hell it’s obvious . . . I’m not asking for approval.”

The vague words, meaningless phrases dragging along . . . So good, so smooth . . . Or was it drowsiness?

Suddenly, he took the toothpick from his mouth, eyes blinking, lips trembling as if about to cry, said: