— I don't want you to leave me...
— Ah...
—... but I'm not afraid.
He had looked at her in amazement. She was getting thinner, he noticed. But she still looked healthy. Despite everything, she was more nervous, much given to weeping, readily became emotional. Suddenly, he had burst out laughing.
— Honestly, I don't know what to make of you. Lídia, too, had laughed, glad that it was all over. He had been intimidated by her radiant expression, he had drawn her close to him rather than look into those eyes. And they stood there for a moment in each other's arms, wishing for different things.
And now? Lídia would receive him as always. He wrote a note to Joana, letting her know that he wouldn't be home for lunch. Poor Joana... he could tell her if he wished. She would never know. So completely wrapped up in her blind conceit... But he would protect her ferociously, he laughed, his heart pounding. Never mind, tomorrow he would write something definitive for his article.
He looked at himself in the mirror before leaving, with half-closed eyes he observed his well-shaped face, his straight nose, his full, fleshy lips. But after all, I'm not to blame for anything, he said. Not even for having been born. And suddenly he didn't understand how he ever came to believe in responsibility, to feel that constant weight at every hour. He was free... How simple everything became at times.
He made his way on to the street, went to buy some sweets which he chose carefully. He finally decided on a fairly large bag of boiled sweets, apricot-flavoured. The moment he got round the corner, he would suck the first sweet, his hands in his pockets. His eyes filled with tenderness at the thought. Why not? — he asked himself, suddenly irritated. Who said that great men don't eat sweets? Only in biographies are those details never mentioned. Suppose Joana were to know what he was thinking? No, to be frank, she had never been sarcastic about... He felt a moment of anger, began walking more quickly.
Before turning the corner, he took the bag of sweets and emptied them into the gutter. In distress, he watched them merge with the mud, roll to a dark opening, covered with cobwebs.
He continued on his way, walking more slowly, shrunken. It was a little cold. Now someone would be satisfied, he thought remotely. Like a punishment, a confession.
— Even great men are only truly recognized and honoured once they are dead. Why? Because those who praise them need to feel themselves somehow superior to the person praised, they need to feel they are making some concession. From which... there stems a patent superiority... the person who is praising... has succeeded in holding his own ... there is even a certain condescension... that finishes up as... pity, Otávio told her.
Lídia was observing him in one of his ugly moments. Those thin lips, that wrinkled forehead, his foolish expression — Otávio was thinking. And she loved him at this moment. His ugliness neither excited her nor aroused her pity. It simply drew her closer to him and with greater happiness. The happiness of wholly accepting, of feeling that she was uniting all that was true and primitive in herself to someone, independent of any preconceived ideas about beauty. She recalled her former schoolmates — those girls who were always so lively, who knew everything, were up to date with the latest films, books, love affairs, fashions, those girls with whom she had never really had much in common, withdrawn as she was, never really having much to say for herself. She remembered them and felt certain that they would find Otávio ugly at this moment. For she accepted him to such an extent that she would have preferred him even uglier in order to give even greater proof of her effortless love.
She looked at him, paying no attention to what he was saying. It was reassuring and good to know that between the two of them there were secrets weaving to a delicate transparent life over that other life which was real. Who would ever have imagined that Otávio had once kissed her on the eyelids, that he had felt her eyelashes on his lips and been forced to smile?
And miraculously she had understood everything without either of them saying a word. Who would have guessed that one day they had loved each other so much that they had remained quite silent, grave and still? Both of them gathered inner knowledge no outsider ever probed. He had gone away one day. But it didn't matter all that much. She knew that they both had 'secrets', that they were both irremediably accomplices. Were he to leave her, were he to love another woman, he would leave her and love another woman only to tell her afterwards, even if he should tell her nothing, Lídia would play a part in his life in any case. Certain things don't happen without some consequence, she thought looking at him. Let him escape — he will never be free... Once, as she was falling, he caught her, smoothed her hair with a distracted gesture. She thanked him, giving his arm a gentle squeeze. They smiled into each other's eyes and suddenly felt themselves overcome by sheer bliss. They began walking more quickly, wide-eyed and in a daze.
Perhaps he no longer remembered that moment. She was the one who remembered such things. The fact is that those moments were so special that one couldn't recall them when speaking. Not even when thinking with words. Only by pausing for a moment and savouring them once more. He might forget. In her soul, however, there would certainly remain a mark, clear and rose-coloured, engraving the sensation and that afternoon. As for her — each day that dawned brought her in its waters more memories on which to nourish herself. And little by little, the certainty of happiness, of having achieved her goal, slowly surfaced inside her body, leaving her satisfied, close to saturation, close to anguish. When she saw Otávio again, she now looked at him almost with indifference, finding him inferior to what he had given her. She wanted to confide her happiness. But she was somehow afraid of hurting him, as if she were confessing that she had betrayed him with another man. Or as if she wanted to flaunt her happiness — before this man who divided himself between two homes and two women — to show him that her happiness was greater than his.
Yes, she thought remotely, staring at him — there are indestructible things that accompany the body until death as if they had been born together. And one of those things is what has been created between a man and a woman who have shared certain moments.
And when her son was born — she stroked her belly which was already filling out — the three of them would form a little family. That was what she wanted. As a happy ending to her whole history. She and Otávio had been brought up together, by their mutual cousin. She had lived close to Otávio. No one had passed through her life except him. In him she had discovered man, before knowing anything about men and women. Without giving it much thought, she had vaguely assembled the male species in Otávio. She had shared his life to such an extent that she had never sensed the presence of others except as closed worlds that were alien and superficial. Always, at every stage, close to him. Even during that phase when she had become astute, hiding as much as she could, even when there was nothing to hide. Also during that phase when people stared at her on the street, and her chums accepted her, admiring her lovely, thick hair. Otávio pursuing her with his eyes... that certainty, never more to be effaced, that she was someone. That was when she became aware that she was not poor, that she had something to give to Otávio, that there was a way of surrendering her life to him, everything that she had been... She had waited for him. When she had caught up with him, Joana had appeared and he had fled. She went on waiting. He had returned. A child would be born. Yes, but before that birth took place, she would demand her rights. 'To demand her rights' struck her as being a phrase that had been dormant forever inside her, waiting. Waiting until she found the strength. She wanted that child to bud between its parents. And at the heart of all this, she wanted for herself 'the little family'.
She smiled weakly, listening to Otávio holding forth on some topic of which she had lost the thread. Ever since the foetus had started to form inside her, she had lost certain quirks and developed others, she dared to press ahead with certain thoughts. It seemed to her that until that moment she had spent her life telling lies. Her movements we
re independent from her body, as if there was now more space in the world for her existence. She had to look after the child and Otávio, now if there was... She leaned back more comfortably in the armchair, her embroidery slipped on to the carpet. She half-closed her eyes and her womb expanded, sated and glowing. She relished this sense of well-being, this feeling of lethargy which now frequently came over her. She hadn't experienced the slightest nausea, not even at the beginning. And she was confident that the birth would be easy, as easy as anything. She ran her hand over her hips which hadn't lost their shape so far. Somehow, she rather despised other women.
Otávio caught a glimpse of her expression and felt alarmed. Dispassionate cruelty... He studied her expression without being able to decipher it, aware only that he was excluded from that hovering smile. For it was a smile, a horrible smile, satisfied, despite the fact that she kept her face straight, her eyes open, looking straight ahead. He was gripped by terror, he almost shouted:
— You haven't even been listening!
Lídia sat up with a start, once more his, once more submissive:
— I...
— You haven't even understood what I was saying, he repeated staring at her, breathing with difficulty. Would there be a repetition of the scene that took place that time. No, there was a child inside her. Why should I have a child? Why me? Me of all people? It's strange... She would ask herself in the next breath: What am I doing after all? No, no...
— Not only do I understand you, she said in haste, I love you.
He sighed imperceptibly, still somewhat alarmed by her bid for freedom. The truth is that she had never entirely come back to him, as before her pregnancy. And he himself had given her this kingdom, fool that he was... Yes, but once she had freed herself from the child, once she had freed herself from the child... A few minutes later, his calm restored, Otávio gave in to the lethargy and weakness which so admirably sustained his relationship with Lídia.
Otávio's Encounter
The dark, murky night was cut in half, separated into two sombre blocks of sleep. Where was she? Between the two halves, seeing them — the half she had already slept and the half she still had to sleep — isolated in the timeless and in the spaceless, in an empty gap. That interval would be discounted from the years of life.
The ceiling and the walls joined up without any edges, silent, with folded arms, and she found herself inside a cocoon. Joana looked at it without thinking, without feeling, one thing looking at another. Little by little, just by moving her leg, awareness loomed in the distance, mingled with a taste of sleep in her mouth, spreading, then pervading her entire body. The moonlight sent a pale glow over the room, the bed. One moment, one more moment, one more moment, one more moment. Suddenly, like a tiny ray, something lit up inside her, said rapidly without moving a single facial muscle: Look sideways. She continued to stare at the ceiling without the slightest interest, but her heart was beating furiously. Look sideways. She could see that she would end up looking, had a vague idea of what was there at her side, but she behaved as if she had no intention of looking, as if she were ignoring the rest of the bed. Look sideways. Then defeated, before that multitude of faces watching the scene from up there on the stage, she slowly turned her head on the pillow and looked. There was a man there. She realized that this was precisely what she had been expecting.
His chest was bare, his arms extended, crucified. She turned her head away again. Well, now I've looked. But almost immediately she raised her body and resting on one elbow she stared at him, perhaps without curiosity, but demanding, waiting for a reply. Or mindful that those impassive faces were waiting for that gesture. There was a man there. Who was he? The question surfaced quietly, was already lost, swept away like an unfortunate leaf by the dark waves. But before Joana could altogether forget the question, she saw it become more urgent, pose itself with renewed insistence, its voice whispering in her ear: who was he?
She grew impatient, weary of that multitude of faces which was no longer a game she could control, but now making demands, now making demands. Who was he? A man, a male, she replied. But that stranger was her man. She looked into his face, the languid face of a sleeping child. The lips slightly parted. The pupils, under those thick, lowered eyelids, turned inwards, dead. She touched him gently on the shoulder and before getting any reaction, she drew back instantly, terrified. She paused for a moment, listening to her own heart beating in her breast. She adjusted her nightdress, giving herself time to withdraw should she still want to. However she carried on. She brought her pale arm close to the naked arm of that human being and, although she had already foreseen the thought that followed, she trembled, struck by the glaring difference in colour, as firm and audacious as a scream. There were two bodies outlined on the bed. And this time she couldn't complain of having led herself unknowingly to tragedy: the thought had imposed itself without her having chosen it. And suppose he were to wake up and find her leaning over him? If he should suddenly open his eyes, they would meet hers, two lights crossing with another two lights... She withdrew rapidly, cowered within herself, overcome with fear, that unconfessed dread of former nights without rain, in the dark without sleep. How often must I experience the same things in different situations? She imagined those eyes as two copper discs, shining without expression. What voice might come from that slumbering throat? Sounds like thick arrows, quietly embedding themselves in the furniture, in the walls, in her. And once again, all with folded arms, staring into remote space. Implacably. The chimes of the clock only finish when they finish, there is nothing to be done. Or one throws a stone at it, and the noise of broken glass and springs is followed by silence spreading within like blood. Why not kill the man? Nonsense, that thought was completely fabricated. She looked at him. Afraid that all 'that', like pressing a button — you only had to touch it — would start working noisily, mechanically, filling the room with live movements and sounds. She was afraid of her own fear, which left her isolated. She could see herself from afar, from the top of the extinguished lamp, lost and puny, covered with moonbeams, beside the man who might come to life at any moment.
And suddenly, disloyally, she experienced real fear, as live as any living thing. The mystery lurking in that animal who was hers, in that man whom she had only known how to love! Fear in her body, fear in her blood! Perhaps he might strangle her, kill her... Why not? — she was frightened — the audacity with which her own thoughts rushed on, guiding her like a tiny beam, mobile and tremulous, through the dark. Where was she heading? But why should Otávio not strangle her? Were they not alone? And suppose he were mad beneath his sleep? — She trembled. Her legs moved involuntarily, she drew back the sheets, ready to defend herself, to escape... Ah, if she were to cry out she would not be afraid, fear would vanish with the scream... Otávio responded to her movements, raising his eyebrows in turn, compressing his lips, parting them once more and going on being dead! She watched him, watched him... and waited...
There was still silence, the same silence. Perhaps, who knows, she might have experienced moments of dreaming merged with reality, she thought to herself. She tried to remember how the day had passed. Nothing of any importance, except Otávio's note letting her know that he would be lunching out, something he had been doing almost regularly for quite some time now. Or had her fear been more than hallucination? The room was now bright and cold. She rested with her eyes closed. Happily, there were few nights when she had nightmares.
How foolish she had been. She brought her hand close, tried to touch him. She placed her outstretched palm on his chest, gently to begin with, almost wavering, but gradually overcoming her fear. Then growing more confident with every minute that passed, she abandoned herself completely over that broad field sparsely covered with vegetation. Her eyes wide open, yet seeing nothing, all her attention focused on herself and on what she was feeling.
Some furniture creaked, the shadows fastened more firmly on to the wardrobe.
Then an idea occurred to her
. An idea so passionate that her heart accompanied it at a furious tempo. Like this: she drew near to him, gently nestled her head in his arm, close to his chest. She remained still, waiting. Little by little, she could feel the stranger's warmth on the nape of her neck. She could hear the rhythmic beating of a heart, remote and earnest. She examined herself attentively. That living creature was hers. That unknown man, that other world was hers. She saw him from afar, from the top of the lamp, his naked body — lost and weak. Weak. How fragile and delicate those exposed lines were, unprotected. He, he, the man. From some hidden source, anguish travelled up through her body, filling all her cells, pushing her defenceless to the foot of the bed. My God, my God. Afterwards, in painful childbirth beneath that laboured breathing, she could feel the comforting oil of renunciation spilling inside her, at last, at last. He was hers.
She wanted to call him, to plead his support, to beg him to speak words of appeasement. But she had no desire to awaken him. She feared that he might not know how to make her ascend on to a higher plane of feeling in order to achieve what was still no more than a sweet embryo. She knew that even at this very moment she was alone, that the man would awaken in some remote place. That he would be able to intercept her with some obstacle — a distracted and indifferent word — on the narrow and luminous path where she was taking her first tottering steps. Meanwhile, to imagine that he ignored what was happening inside her did not lessen her affection. It redoubled it, made it greater than her body and soul as if to compensate for the man's remoteness.
Joana smiled, but she could not avoid the suffering that began to throb throughout her entire body like some bitter thirst. More than suffering, a craving for love swelling and overwhelming her... Caught up in a light, hazy maelstrom, like sudden vertigo, she became conscious of the world, of her own life, of the past from beyond her birth, of the future beyond her body. Yes, lost like a point, a point without dimensions, once, a thought. She had been born, she would die, the earth... A fleeting, intense sensation: a blind immersion into a colour — crimson, tranquil and expansive as a field. The same violent, instantaneous awareness that sometimes assailed her in great moments of love, like a drowning man who is seeing for the last time.