What Can I Do When Everything's On Fire?: A Novel (26 page)

—Try some of the lawyer’s liqueur, boy

she pronounced it liquior

Dr. Elói’s shaving lotion everywhere

and after tasting it I took pleasure in relaxing without any interest in the little angels, the phonograph, the world, I was sinking into some sweet jelly with the vaccination scar rubbing my cheek, the Englishmen with the farm equipment looking at each other, our accountant pointing to the line where the contract was to be signed

your grandfather, the moldy curtains, and the cookie tins, he’d signed more than a thousand deeds in Coimbra, his name strong, decisive, precise

Orlando Borges Cardoso

my secretary with cologne that was unfamiliar to me, tell me who bought it for you, don’t make any excuses

—Pedro

we can’t get married but we can do everything else if you behave yourself, me, who’d always kept telling her to be careful because there were lots of vultures and gossips on the loose

—In your apartment I’m Pedro or whatever you feel like calling me but in the office mister architect don’t you forget that

our accountant quivering with her

—Pedro

dozens of little pinball-machine lights were lighting up in her head, trying to put them out before I caught on

Mimosinha Shoes

—Anything else you want to add mister architect?

and as a result I pick up the pen without a tip and write Orlando Borges Cardoso, I started to write Orlando Borges Cardoso in an antique hand, a skinny fellow in Coimbra with more than a thousand deeds signed, admire him, the Ping-Pong ball luckily on the other side of the table, I made it, the Englishmen, relieved, my oil paintings

water colors

relaxing on their hooks, my mother leaping out of the rocking chair to explain things to them

—He can’t compare with his brother, I never expected much of him

the watercolors that belonged to my father-in-law and that I never thought much of

—I can see why

we can’t get married but we can do everything else if you behave yourself, Friday afternoons, business trips to London, the purse you spoke about to me the day before yesterday, our accountant calling my father-in-law’s associate instead of me, copies of letters, a report on internal services

—Mr. Simas did you know that the architect?

Mr. Simas changing his long-distance glasses for his close-up ones, making a mistake putting them away with his handkerchief and a third pair that I figured belonged to the girl from accounting

—Is that true João?

—I’m not João, I’m the older one, Pedro

Mr. Simas puzzled echoing

—Pedro

Mr. Simas becoming aware of the third pair of glasses, hiding them in his pants pocket, turning to me with a note I didn’t remember having sent, Tomorrow at our nest after the dentist

—Is that true Pedro?

the Ping-Pong ball too fast onto my side of the table where a warp in the wood sent it off, my brother, don’t miss, don’t lose the game, explain to Mr. Simas that it’s not your writing, your writing doesn’t go from thick to thin, baroque consonants, it’s not full of commas and the family used to admire it back then, yes, it’s right out of notary Orlando Borges Cardoso who was praised so much in Coimbra, look at the faded paper, the near-lilac ink, my mother’s enthusiasm, my father’s, my uncle’s, the one who retired from his Angola cotton business and understood about books, holding the note up to the light with the unction of lifting up the host and exhorting me to venerate the example

—Your grandfather, João

—My name is Pedro

—Your grandfather, Pedro

an insignificant skinny little man with the beak of a blackbird, he won over your grandmother

and the good Lord knows how demanding your grandmother was

with capital letters that softened her heart

—They don’t learn any of that in school these days

my parents to Mr. Simas and I don’t think he saw them, exhorting him to venerate the perfection of the tilde

—The perfection of the tilde Mr. Simas

of course that’s not João’s writing

Pedro’s

Pedro’s, yes, of course it’s not, it’s Pedro’s writing, Pedro obviously, always so awkward, incapable of that harmony, Mr. Simas convinced that I’d been the one who’d spoken

—What’s that you were saying about the perfection of the tilde?

bringing the note closer to his long-distance glasses, trying on those of the girl from accounting, tracing the wave of the accent mark with a fingernail, his hand got away from him all by itself, independent, riding through the air drawing camel humps as it went

—The perfection of the tilde?

getting his hand back the way I got the ball back, quickly tucking it up his sleeve, clenching it and straightening out the knuckles making sure that it was, in fact, his, my parents helping him, my mother in her white hat, wearing her beltless dress for strolling in the garden, the patent leather shoes

Mimosinha Shoes

squeaking on the carpet in the study

—Don’t worry it’s your hand, Mr. Simas, relax

Mr. Simas having trouble freeing himself from the perfection of the tilde, distributing the glasses among his pockets in a perplexed daze, coming to with some difficulty

the Ping-Pong ball on his side, what luck, we got the ball onto his side, mother, an opinion falling from on high underlined by a pat on the back, the complicity of men that mother will never accept, brotherhood in sin

—These things are done cautiously boy

the last piece of advice with the right hand

clenching and opening up his fingers again, there’s no mistake, it’s mine

on the doorknob

—And please hurry up and change your shoes because the patent leather squeaks more than I can take

without noticing that I’m not with him, I’m in the church with my nephew right at the moment when they were putting the coffins into the hearse and the flowers and a man who was asking questions and writing answers on a pad

—He’s a relative of Soraia’s husband

so that five or six photographers right in front of me with their cameras covering their faces don’t move so you’ll come out nice in the paper, they were removing rolls of film from the cameras and putting them in a bag, they were removing rolls of film from a bag and putting them into the cameras just another minute sir, they were waving their hands like a flag in the wind lift up your chin as though we weren’t here and look at those buildings there behind us, not Alenquer, not the widow’s little house up against Mr. Machado’s property, buildings with nothing special about them that didn’t deserve being looked at, clothes hung out to dry of course, cages whose birds had died for lack of someone to take care of them with toothpicks and thread and at that moment a woman

my secretary?

she straightened my tie you’re not going to appear in the magazines with a crooked tie mister architect, the photographer farthest to the left lighting up and turning off his bulb quickly be patient miss straighten his tie again so we can get the two of you in, my secretary showing him her teeth and the photographer with a strip of belly showing between his shirt and pants great great now take his arm miss, my wife left the cortège to place her black lace glove on my shoulder, beat it you tramp, and my brother all aglow

—Your wife little brother who would have thought

powder, perfume, a trace of lipstick on my ear, the photographer sticking out his perfect navel, the glove gripped me by the nape of the neck with her forehead up against mine swinging her hips and lifting her waist, my secretary beat it you bitch, with me obediently looking at the buildings off to the rear, the church steps, the roofs on the next block where it seemed to me my mother

—Who’s Pedro?

obviously not my mother, my mother sick, somebody smaller, maybe me on a swing

no, even smaller, I think a giraffe float in the swimming pool and me calming it down

—Rui will be here any minute now, calm down

while it emptied out in my hands with a little whistle of wind.

—What’s the matter Rui?

and he was sitting on the floor twiddling his fingers like a child facing the picture where three nymphs, almost naked or wearing transparent veils, which made them all the more undressed, their arms in a motionless dance, barefoot in the grass with petals of different colors

blue yellow brown

here and there, the nymph on the right wore a necklace made of a string of tiny grapes and was brushing against the knee of the nymph in the middle, it seemed to me that my father was singing in the kitchen but it might have been the recordplayer that he was using to rehearse in the mirror as he shook his plumes in the short little flight of a turkey

—Do you miss your aunt and uncle, Rui?

and all he did was stop twiddling his fingers

in my mother’s village they’d fatten them up on farina

when my father and the recordplayer stopped or somebody went into the chicken coop with a knife

it was usually my grandmother who went into the chicken coop with a knife putting all the hens into a flutter, the turkey would puff up in a corner with his loud managerial laugh, the blade would reach his back, his breast, his belly, Rui sitting on the floor

or inside the picture of the nymphs

petals of different colors here and there, my father from the kitchen to the bedroom along the unlighted hall

instead of running away the turkey was stock still, resigned, the cold was coming down from the mountains into the houses, my grandmother grabbed his head and covered it with a burlap bag, his throat exposed

sing now father

and the bag on the ground, the roost, which was held up by a stepladder with paint drippings, fell one step smashing eggs and straw together, Rui coming out of the picture and back to the floor

—Do you miss your aunt and uncle, Rui?

at the moment when there was rain on the square and my grandmother was quartering the turkey, blood on her skirt, her apron, her blouse, drops of red on the roost on the stepladder, my mother forgetting the mimosas

—I don’t want you out in the rain Paulo

blood on her skirt too, her apron, her blouse, they fastened the bird’s ankles with wire to stop it from running around with its throat cut, I remember a duck bumping into the fig tree, a few months back I came across my father like that on the stairs, a rope around his wrists, a rope around his legs, at first I didn’t understand because the bulb in the entryway had burned out a long time ago, I thought it was a bundle waiting to be picked up in the morning but the bundle was moving, my grandmother dragged the turkey along in the rain, brushing against pumpkins, the cook-house, they tore off what was left of its neck with a piece of burlap, as always, the door at Príncipe Real wouldn’t accept my key, while my grandmother asked my mother for

—The pail for the innards Judite

I turned on the Chinese lamp by the door with its carnival dragons and its fuchsia fringes and my father was sliding down the wall with no rings on, no bracelets, no wig, the rain was making the tomato plants hazy and the hopscotch squares in the nearby cemetery

you’re going to have to draw everything all over again mother my grandmother was plucking the turkey on the bread-kneading table, pulling out my father’s feathers at the same time, the padding, the lace

it was grandmother who went to get him in the chicken coop with her knife and you sobbing in your throat, they gave him grain to fatten him, father, and father with his split lip where there wasn’t any lipstick, something else it was hard for me to recognize, the same as on my mother’s skirt, her blouse, the wrapper she was covering herself with now

—What’s grandmother doing to father, mother?

why are his guts in a pail what was their reason for killing him? dragging him upstairs and saving him from grandmother and from himself, one of his shoes lost, the one he had left stained with lipstick

it wasn’t lipstick it was

the one he had left stained with lipstick in the street with paper and trash, dragging him over to the blanket that served as a rug in the living room, emptying out entrails, taking off the elastic belt, and the skin all bristled, white, which my grandmother, my mother, and I rubbed with alcohol, my grandmother to us, me to myself that is with a towel and a basin of water

—Take care of that cut on his back

Rui sitting on the floor like a child, twiddling his fingers

—What’s the matter Rui?

not

—Who was it father?

that how it should go

—Who was it father?

and Rui sitting on the floor like a child, twiddling his fingers, isn’t it true that you didn’t pay the Mulattoes Rui, that you owe money in Chelas

that wound in the back

the same as my mother’s owing money at the café and the café owner I’ll come to your place whenever you want Judite, the way my father owes money to the butcher and the butcher’s man facing Dona Aurorinha who said

—Leave her alone leave her alone

you liar, you fibber, with your aunt and uncle the butcher’s man coming from behind the counter wiping himself with a cloth, mister architect, ma’am, do you miss your aunt and uncle Rui, in the window the café and so forth, the cedar mingling with the night, not just the lipstick of a wound on the back, on the nose, on the mouth, on the tongue that was trying to free itself smiling at me

and it wasn’t a smile because the only open eye was blind for me, my mother in suspense on the third square of the hopscotch because a kite was above over the chicks’ panic, if I can get back to the farm fast, if I can only protect them, the caretaker at the cemetery coming over with his hoe

—Where are you off to, Juditinha?

putting a match to the turkey covered with alcohol in order to make the meat firmer, more tender, and my father wrapped in a blue flame or maybe little waves of flame along his chest, don’t sit on the floor like a child, don’t twiddle your fingers, all you people coming from the disco and the Mulattoes

—Good evening

it’s not true Rui, it’s not true that you ran away, you were off in the trees with names in Latin, Mr. Couceiro explaining them leaning on a trunk and my father

—What’s wrong Rui?

it isn’t true that one of the Mulattoes with a broken bottle I think, a switchblade, the chain from Noémia’s bicycle in the laundry room at Anjos, don’t let them take the bicycle chain Dona Helena, my grandfather putting firewood and pine cones in the stove, grabbing the bottle of oil, taking the fan from the hook on the wall, it’s not true that a car waiting on the Rua da Palmeira, a broken bottle or the knife cutting through the shawl, cutting through the shawl again, one of the Mulattoes pointing to the vestibule

—Stick him in there

you watching from the cedar and my father

—Rui

it isn’t true that the kite was heading up into the mountains with a rabbit in its claws, the caretaker at the cemetery if you don’t leave Juditinha I’ll give you a doll, my grandmother to my mother hand me the spit Judite, it’s not true that you were thinking my stomach hurts and the intestines that those peasant women poured into a pail, my father all alone Rui, except for the mastiff with a bow growling in the doorway, maybe if it was raining on the shanty too, it was also raining at Príncipe Real and me, ten or eleven or twelve years old, waiting on the bench for a man to come out of the building and my father by the curtain counting the money, the Mulatto with dark glasses was emptying out the purse, date books, aspirin, two or three coins

no, the little Fátima medal

—I have to go to Fátima, Paulo

when he was in trouble he would go to Fátima, go to Fátima while the Cape Verdeans are beating you, father

—Aren’t you going to pay up what your boyfriend spent on you? your aunt on the telephone holding the mouthpiece toward us did you hear Pilar, what the gardener pulled out of the pool wasn’t branches or leaves or the plastic giraffe, it was a drowned clown, two weeks without dancing at the club until the bruises and the swellings and what are you going to eat, father?

—Can he eat?

asking for credit at the grocery store, pawning the Chinese lamp, Marlene

—I haven’t got a penny if I did I’d be happy to give something, I’m sorry

Dona Amélia feeling sorry, secretly giving him the change from her tray

—Just look at the way they’ve left you Soraia

your aunt showing the mouthpiece to my father, talk into this little lady

—Did you hear, Pilar?

João’s son’s sweetheart, he’s lived off us and made a fool of me

—The wife you picked up at a raffle, little brother

he gave me a smile and when I took it into my hand it wasn’t there and the idiot was amused

—Surprise

while Rui, afraid of the blacks from Chelas or sitting on the floor twiddling his fingers, someone else

they say Paulo

shaking him by the arm

—What’s the matter Rui?

the Mulatto in dark glasses searching in the lining of the purse, inside the dress, under the wig where

you won’t believe that Rui and the little lady and my husband

—Shut up

not wanting to see the blood that his boobish son was calling lipstick, just imagine

—All that lipstick, father

the Praça do Príncipe Real where retirees play cards with the pigeons, a part of Lisbon where people pass by without looking, the Cape Verdean with his boot on the little lady’s finger squashing her ring

—Aren’t you going to pay up what your boyfriend spent on you?

the dwarf on the refrigerator or the manager to my father, blocking his way from the dressing room

—Are you going on like that Soraia?

covering the bruises with ruffles and sleeves or maybe a comedy number that the audience likes, sir, a penguin for example, pretending to be a penguin and Vânia who’s learned everything from me

—A penguin, ridiculous

I brought her here, I made her what she is today, I helped her when they fired her as a notary and her name was Raul, after the rain in the village the mimosas so evident, I mean the smells of my childhood with me, the voices of my childhood with me

—Juditinha

the years of my childhood and my life as a woman with me, my body different from me or maybe too big a body I was living in without knowing it, the train trip to Lisbon, the school where I taught and no man, my God, most of all, no man, I was free at night although sometimes, getting undressed, not knowing who I was, these legs for example incapable of playing on gravestones where I couldn’t discover the legs I had before, the school principal checking my papers, looking up from the papers, up and down at what I wasn’t sure was me and the caretaker at the cemetery

both the same age, both old

—Juditinha

at the same time as the principal

—Are you the one called Judite?

and me thinking about Judite, when my son began to take shape I didn’t believe it

—I don’t believe it

I was afraid

—I’m afraid

I tried to go to the mountains but there weren’t any mountains, only houses, streets, my husband’s shirt on the board to be ironed, a fleck of shaving cream on the drain, the letters that my mother dictated at the post office about kale and rheumatism, the woman behind the counter licking the envelope with her tongue

—Any more message for your daughter Aunty Vivelinda?

my mother wanted to say something to me about Paulo, hesitating, embarrassed

—No

I was afraid when my son was on the way because I’m too small, my mother would take off her shoes and put on my father’s for work in the orchard and the garden

Judite, when you come in August the lemon tree

the shoes not waiting under the bed, leaning against the stove to dry from the rain, when you come in August we’ll prune the lemon tree, the principal gave me back the papers looking up and down at the body that I wasn’t sure was mine and on which I’d pinned the medallion so I could be recognized if someone saw me

and through the window Almada, my mother pounding on the lemon tree

—Are you the one called Judite?

no, the principal

—Are you the one called Judite?

Judite to the caretaker at the cemetery settling onto a gravestone where she arranged the candles from the coffins chatting with them

—I live here

Judite folding the papers and putting them into her briefcase surprised by the too-large body, which was living without me, becoming obedient, taking the body back to the boardinghouse noticing the sound of my father’s shoes

my shoes