The Girl in the Photograph (30 page)

“Speaking of mental illness,
she
continues flitting about. She called yesterday, she’s at the country estate of some
rich friend. Glitter and glamor.”

“I warned you I wanted to talk about serious things and you bring up Crazy Annie.
I’m getting my passport,” I say but Lorena has already ducked into the bathroom.

The collection of bells is on the shelf within reach of my hand. I ring the biggest
one. The sound of goats. I pull my chain out from inside my collar and ring the little
bell she gave me.

“I’m coming, Lia de Melo Schultz, I’m coming!”

She reappears wearing her black ballet leotard and bringing the copper mug of daisies
in her hand. She approaches as if she were on stage carrying an amphora, when she
wears this leotard she walks like a ballerina. Or does she always walk that way?

“I adore daisies,” she says putting the mug on the shelf beside her father’s picture.
“There used to be so many of them on the farm. They were the flowers that covered
the casket of Romulo, my brother.”

“I need to go and pick up the clothes your Mama promised and I haven’t even had time
yet, I’ve been so busy. I’ll take the woolen things for myself, I’ll need them, Lena.
Algeria. The African winter is more wintery.”

“She’s asked me a thousand times if you were lesbian.”

I laugh, I’m so happy. Everything is funny.

“The situation becomes even blacker because at the moment I can’t exhibit Miguel,
oh, how people worry about the sex of their neighbors. When they should be worrying
about other things. Even you.”

She takes a daisy by the stem and kneels in front of me, extending it toward my mouth.

“Lia de Melo Schultz, would you grant me an interview? If you please, come closer
to the microphone. I would like your distinguished opinion on masculine and feminine
homosexuality.”

“First give me some tea. Isn’t the water boiling? You said that tea is no good with
water that has boiled, run!”

Perfect. And now, the money. Yenom, right, Lorena?

“It was almost boiling,” she says dropping the tea leaves into the pot.

I notice the talcum-powder footprints that her feet leave on the rug, she must have
just finished her bath. How many baths does she take per day?

“I talked to my father yesterday, he answered the phone, my mother had gone out. He’s
fabulous, see. ‘Dad, don’t ask me any questions, I’ll explain everything later but
now I just want to tell you that I’m leaving the country, I’m going overseas.’ He
didn’t say anything. I asked him, ‘Did you hear me, Dad?’ and he answered ‘Yes, go
on.’ ‘I’m going to need some money for the airplane ticket,’ I continued. ‘And it’s
expensive, as you know. Can you give me the money?’ He was so quiet for an instant,
so quiet, see. The connection was so close it was as if we were just around the corner
from each other, I could almost hear his heart beating. ‘Answer me, Dad, can you give
me the money?’” I look for the handkerchief in my bag, what ever happened to that
damn handkerchief? I dry my eyes on my shirttail. “Then he said, ‘You can count on
us, daughter. I’ll see about one or two things and get the money for you, don’t worry.
Can you wait until the end of the month? I’ll send not just the money for the ticket
but also a reasonable margin. I don’t know where you’re going but I know it’s expensive.’”

Lorena is already bringing the tea tray and from her face I perceive she hasn’t heard
a single thing I’ve said. She balances her tray on the big cushion.

“I have a presentiment that M.N. isn’t ever going to call me again.”

“Then I hung up and kissed my hand, because I wanted to kiss his hand and couldn’t.”

“Do you agree, Lião?”

“What?”

“That M.N. isn’t going to look me up any more. Do you think so too?”

I pour tea into my cup. She waits, her eyes pinned on me. I take a deep breath, clear
down to my heels.

“You start talking about marriage! He’s afraid of his wife, see.”

She wraps her hands around the teapot, she always has cold hands. Cold feet.

“But I don’t want him to
marry
me, just
call
me!”

“It comes to the same thing, Lena. After the phone call you’ll want the wedding, that’s
all you think about. With Mama offering the reception.”

She pushes the plate closer to me because I’m eating cookies, and there are crumbs.
But is that all she ever thinks about, the ashes or crumbs that might fall on her
rug? Is that all that ever passes through her head? And this M.N. who must be a big
turd, oh! Now I feel like howling because she has started rolling up my pant legs,
every time I wear these jeans she comes running and starts to roll up the ever-loving
hems. I have to laugh.

“You really are crazy, Lena. But pay attention, I’ve said it a whole batch of times
and you didn’t even hear me, my passport is almost ready, I’m going to be traveling
very soon. I-am-leaving, you hear? I’m off.”

“But Lião, so suddenly? I know you’ve been talking about it but I thought it was something
more remote, you said that you’ve already got your passport! Overseas?”

“The place is secret, very secret. I haven’t even told my father yet, I’ll send a
letter from Algeria. I’ll be meeting him there.”

“Him, who?”

“Miguel! Miguel is going to be released, we’re going to meet in Algeria, I get off
the plane in Casablanca. And don’t ask for more details, I’ll give them to you later,
that’s enough for now, I’m going to Algeria.”

“Algeria? But how marvelous, Lião! Why didn’t you tell me sooner? Algeria, imagine!
Lia de Melo Schultz going to Algeria! And she says it so nonchalantly, with such tranquility
… how fantastic! We’ll take a-look at the map immediately. My brother Remo knows that
part of the world pretty well, he lives in Carthage, in Tunisia. I’ve been hearing
you talk about a trip sort of bla-bla bla but I never imagined …”

She jumps up to get the map and opens it on the rug. A drop from my cup falls on Asia
but in her excitement she doesn’t see it.

“Here’s Algiers,” she points out and pushes aside her hair which has uncoiled softly
like a ribbon over the map. “Bordering on Tunis, see? And Morocco on the other side.
Look at the Sahara. Sand, sand. If I were to meet M.N., I’d go running on the tips
of my toes, I’d cross the desert and knock on this little door here, tap, tap!”

She folds up the world map. I stuff my mouth full of cookies, oh, these sentimentalisms.

“The problem is this. Dad can’t send me the money until the end of the month—”

“Yenom, yenom!”

“The yenom, see. I said that was fine but I’m hoping to go sooner, things have speeded
up. Could you loan it to me? The minute my father sends it, see. It would be, like,
an advance.”

“But of course, Lião! Mama deposited a fortune in my name, the famous sports car.
I don’t want a car, at least for the moment I haven’t the slightest interest, imagine.
Aren’t I going to loan Ana Clara some money for whatever it is she needs? How much
is the ticket?”

“I’m going to find out today.”

“Take a signed check and fill in the quantity you need but with a wide margin, Lião,
for goodness’ sake! A good wide margin for you to get started. I’d never forgive myself
if I found out you were going hungry. Oh Lord, it’s wild, this trip of yours! I’m
electric!”

“What about me. I haven’t slept for days, I lie down and start thinking.”

I open my checkbook as I listen to Lião munching cookies. I’m going to lose her. She’ll
never come back, I’m going to lose her. Like I lost Astronaut. My eyes swim and my
handwriting
submerges, the
Leme
last, so shaky. Who will interview me now, your name? Lorena Vaz Leme. University
student? Yes. Virgin? I turn the page and sign another check. The tears return to
their obscure source.

“I want you to wear a cross there on your chain, promise you will? Come on, promise,
if you don’t …”

I grab her by the wrists, she’s almost ripping up the check.

“What kind of blackmail is this, Lorena? I’ll wear it, I’ll wear a dozen of them if
you insist, no problem!”

“Promise you’ll leave it there on the chain.”

“I promise.”

She kisses me, radiant. With her geisha gestures she goes to get me more tea and fills
my cup.

“One day, all of a sudden, you’ll squeeze this cross in your hand.”

“Will I?”

“I’m certain of it, Lião, certain. Your head is completely turned with politics, etcetera,
you’re in a whirlpool, dear. My diagnosis: a sleeping faith. Latent.”

I put the check in the bottom of my bag where the links in the chain of my journey
are gradually coming together. Where is this bank? I find one more fingernail to bite.
Down near the booking agent’s office. Fine. When I open my eyes, I meet Lorena’s;
she’s watching me. I pat her on the head. Oh yes, God.

“I was an angel in church programs too, an altar attendant, everything. I used to
believe fervently, with that beautiful childish certainty. For that very reason, I
was reconciled to things, see? I can’t explain it, Lena, but as soon as I started
reading the papers, becoming conscious of what was happening in my city, in the world,
I got so angry. Furious. Of course He exists, I thought, but He’s all cruelty. From
that stage I went on to that of irony, I became ironic, He’s a
bricoleur
, do you know what a
bricoleur
is? In my street there lived a Bahian image-maker who would get scrap objects, haphazard
fragments with no plan. He would put the pieces together with talent, he was talented,
and would create little machines out of those pieces. I started to think that God
was simply that, a
bricoleur
of people. He picks up one leftover bit here, another there, and makes his contraptions.
Using what’s available, see? According to caprice. When one
bricolage
starts to work, when it begins to function
for good or ill, he loses interest and picks up another one, millions of undestined
little human machines bashing their heads here and there like crazy.
Kaput
.”

Now Lorena is lying on her back, arms open, pedaling. I gather the crumbs from the
rug onto the tray. One has only to mention machines and she’s already mounted on her
imaginary bicycle, shifting gears.

“Little human machines, Lião?”

“Little machines that pedal, eat, shit, fuck.”

She fell on one side, laughing. “How dreadful, my ears almost exploded, dear!”

“So I’ll use more subtle words.
Chier, baiser
, doesn’t that sound refined?”

“I want to know if this idea is your own.”

“What idea?”

“The one about the little machines.”

“I read. French philosophy.”

She goes “Ho, ho, ho!” and curls herself up, clutching her feet and rolling over in
somersaults like a little black ball. One can count her ribs through the clinging
leotard. The music on the record player recommences, it is part of all this just like
the walls and floor. A cat meows close by, it sounds as if it were under the rug.
She frowns expectantly, she must be thinking of Astronaut. Or God. Her perplexed little
face is lifted. Although she has pedaled and rolled, she doesn’t show a drop of sweat.

“And the little machines that dream? Explain that one to me, Lião, what about the
machines that dream? I’m a dream machine, can you believe it? Mama, my brother Remo,
my aunts, gobs of people, they could be machines. But my brother Romulo and I were
always different. Especially him, he was so extraordinary, my brother.”

Everything’s behind schedule, lists of things to get done yet today, and here I am
partaking in metaphysical digressions, watching Lorena show off in her black leotard.
But isn’t this almost good-bye? How many more times will I come up to this room? I
take one last biscuit. I know that I’ll remember her as she is now, without dust or
sweat, looking inside her vague world.

“See you later,” I say.

“But at least you believe in Him. As a
bricoleur
, but it doesn’t matter, you believe.”

“We’ll discuss the subject another time, I really have to go. What I think is that
you’ll never be like me and I’ll never be like you. Isn’t it simple? And complicated?”

Lorena went to the door with her, tucking in Lia’s shirttail.

“You yourself once said that there isn’t such a thing as
never again
, remember? Aren’t we alive? What if some day I’m executed
a las cinco en punto de la tarde
in Palestine? And what if you enter a convent in Spain?”

Lia went down the stairs laughing. When she looked back, Lorena was making faces at
her.

Chapter 10

Cat sleeps between two daisy-planters, her bursting belly turned to the sun. Will
I be here to see these kittens? Mimosa always liked to whelp in the hammock, remember?
The blind furless kittens would tumble from between the fringe tassels and she would
gather them one by one in her velvet mouth. Miguel doesn’t want to even consider having
children, at least for the time being. Of course I agree with him, but at times I
feel such a desire to lie down like that tabby cat, full to satiety, filled and fulfilled
with my pregnant body, which is so crowded there isn’t room to fit in even a wisp
of straw. I’d call him Ernest.

“Good morning, Cat!”

She lifts her head, asking to be stroked, and goes back to sleep. Two more calico
cats cross the garden which has turned into a cat kingdom, they know that here they
won’t be murdered. Even so, Lorena’s cat Astronaut packed his
necessaire
and took off. Independent Left with Anarchist shadings. I kick the gravel. The idea
that I’ll never see this garden again makes me a touch sad.
Never again?
There isn’t any
never again
in the present, present meaning unforeseen, everything I can see now. Or in a little
while when it’s
now
again. Algeria! I want to yell. A pretty name for a little girl. Has Algeria come
home? Is Algeria calling? It’s a pity that in Bahia they’d immediately transform it
into Gegê, the mania for nicknames. If I didn’t have the ticket, I’d swim there, walk.
Rivers, hills, valleys, mountains, and an oasis. A month, a year. I’d arrive covered
with dust and blood, I gave my shoes to the man with the jeep who picked me up on
the road, I gave my shirt to the man at the bar who offered me something to drink,
there was another one who wanted me nude and I took off my clothes and afterward he
divided his rice with me, is it still a long way? Yes. There’s a desert and after
the desert a river. Which saint was it who gave herself to the boatman in exchange
for her passage? My mother used to tell
the story of this saint who met up with a nasty boatman demanding that she strip and
give herself to him. So she removed her mantle, took off her sandals and let him have
his way in order to be able to get across the river. She crossed the river and entered
Paradise. “If you believe in Man, then you believe in God,” said Mother Alix. I can’t
explain it, what I mean is that believing in Man doesn’t make me as happy as believing
in the absurd stories that men tell. The simpler and more innocent they are, the more
they fascinate me, telling the exploits of saints and heroes, come, Mother, come and
fill me with superstitions which don’t enter into my scheme but which nevertheless
I don’t forget, come at night to scratch my back and then look through my hair, that
pig Ivanilda passed her lice to the whole class. Her apron, the color of coffee with
milk, had a songbird embroidered on the pocket.