You have to know how to take it. Because that’s just how it is. Sometimes you have nothing to do and so you go pee.
But if that’s how God made us, then let us be that way. Empty-handed. With nothing to say.
Friday night I went to a party, I didn’t even know it was my friend’s birthday, his wife hadn’t told me. It was crowded. I noticed a lot of people there feeling uncomfortable.
What should I do? call myself? I’ll get a sad busy signal, I know it, once I absentmindedly dialed my own number. How can I wake someone who’s sleeping? how do I call the person I want to call? what can I do? Nothing: because it’s Sunday and even God rested. But I’ve been working alone all day.
But now the person who was sleeping woke up and is coming to see me at eight. It’s 6:05.
We’re having the so-called Indian Summer: sweltering heat. My fingers hurt from typing so much. Your fingertips are not to be taken lightly. It’s through the fingertips that we take in fluids.
Should I have offered to go to the funeral for the girl’s father? Death would be too much for me today. I know what I’ll do: I’ll eat. Then I’ll come back. I went to the kitchen, it so happens the cook’s not off today and she’ll warm up some food for me. My cook is tremendously fat: she weighs two hundred pounds. Two hundred pounds of insecurity, two hundred pounds of fear. I feel like kissing her smooth, black face but she wouldn’t understand. I came back to the typewriter while she warmed up the food. I realized I’m dying of hunger. I can hardly wait for her to call me.
Ah, I know what I’ll do: I’ll change clothes. Then I’ll eat, and then I’ll come back to the typewriter. See you soon.
Now I’ve eaten. It was great. I had a little rosé. Now I’ll have some coffee. And turn on the air conditioning in the living room: in Brazil air conditioning isn’t a luxury, it’s a necessity. Especially for someone who, like me, suffers terribly from the heat. It’s six-thirty. I turned on my transistor radio. It’s tuned in to the Ministry of Education program. Oh what sad music! you don’t have to be sad to be refined. I’m going to invite Chico Buarque, Tom Jobim and Caetano Veloso over and ask them to bring their guitars. I want joy, melancholy is slowly killing me.
Whenever we start asking ourselves: what for? then things aren’t going well. And I’m asking myself what for. But I am very well aware that it’s only “for the time being.” It’s twenty to seven. What’s it twenty to seven for?
Meanwhile I made a phone call and, to my utmost exultation, it’s now ten to seven. Never in my life have I spoken the phrase “to my utmost exultation.” It’s very strange. Once in a while I get a bit Machadian. Speaking of Machado de Assis, I miss him. It seems like a lie but I don’t have a single book of his on my shelf. As for José de Alencar, I don’t even remember if I’ve ever read him.
I miss some things. I miss my sons, yes, flesh of my flesh. Weak flesh and I haven’t read every single book. La chair est triste.*
But we smoke and soon feel better. It’s five to seven. If I let myself go, I’ll die. It’s very easy. It’s a matter of the clock stopping. It’s three to seven. Should I turn on the television or not? But it’s so boring to watch television by yourself.
But I finally made up my mind and I’m going to turn on the television. We die sometimes.
* French: “The flesh is sad.”
Day After Day
(“Dia após dia”)
Today is May thirteenth. The day the slaves were freed. Monday. Market day. I turned on the transistor radio and the Blue Danube was playing. I was overjoyed. I got dressed, went out, bought flowers in honor of the man who died yesterday. Red and white carnations. As I’ve been repeating to exhaustion someday we die. And we die in red and white. The man who died was pure: he worked for the good of humanity, warning that the world’s food supply would run out. His wife, Laura, remains. A strong woman, a clairvoyant woman, with black hair and black eyes. In a few days I’ll visit her. Or at least talk to her on the phone.
Yesterday, May twelfth, Mother’s Day, the people who said they were coming over didn’t. But a couple that I’m friends with came and we went to dinner. It’s better that way. I don’t want to depend on anyone anymore. What I want is the Blue Danube. And not the “Valse Triste” by Sibellius, if that’s how you spell his name.
I went out again, down to Mr. Manuel’s corner bar to change out the batteries in my radio. Here’s what I said to him:
“Sir, do you remember the man playing the harmonica on Saturday? He was a great writer.”
“Sure, I remember. He’s a sad case. It’s shell shock. He drinks all over town.”
I left.
When I got home someone called to say: think twice before you write a pornographic book, think about whether this will add anything to your oeuvre. I replied:
“I’ve already asked my son’s permission, I told him not to read my book. I told him a little about the stories I wrote. He listened and said: it’s fine with me. I told him my first story was called ‘Miss Algrave.’ He said: ‘grave’ means tomb in English. Then I told him about the call from the girl in tears whose father had died. My son said to console me: he lived a lot. I said: he lived well.”
But the person who called got angry, I got angry, she hung up, I called back, she didn’t want to talk and hung up again.
If this book gets published with “mala suerte,” I’m lost. But we’re lost anyhow. There’s no escaping it. We all have shell shock.
I remembered something funny. A friend of mine came one day for the open-air market across from my house. But she was wearing shorts. And a vendor shouted at her:
“Check out those thighs! really in shape!”
My friend was furious and said to him:
“Your mom’s got nice thighs, asshole.”
The man laughed, that bastard.
Oh well. Who knows whether this book will add anything to my oeuvre. My oeuvre be damned. I don’t know why people think literature is so important. And as for my good name? let it be damned too, I have other things to worry about.
I’m thinking, for example, about the friend who had a lump in her right breast and coped with her fear alone until, almost the night before the operation, she told me. We were terrified. The forbidden word: cancer. I prayed a lot. She prayed. And luckily it was benign, her husband called to tell me. The next day she called to say it had been just a “fluid sac.” I told her that next time she should make it a leather sack, that was more cheerful.
After buying the flowers and new batteries, I don’t have a single cruzeiro in the house. But in a while I’ll call the pharmacy, where they know me, and ask them to cash a check for a hundred cruzeiros. That way I can go over to the market.
But I’m Sagittarius and Scorpio, with Aquarius rising. And I hold grudges. One day a couple asked me to lunch on Sunday. And on Saturday afternoon, just like that, at the last minute, they called it off because they had to have lunch with a very important foreigner. Why didn’t they invite me too? why did they leave me alone on Sunday? So I got my revenge. I’m no saint. I never contacted them again. And I stopped accepting their invitations. Plain and simple.
I remembered I had a hundred cruzeiros in a purse. So I don’t have to call the pharmacy anymore. I hate asking favors. I don’t call anyone anymore. Whoever wants to can get in touch with me. And I won’t make it easy. No more playing games.
In a couple weeks I’m going to Brasília. To give a speech. But—when they call me to set the date—I’m going to make a request: that they not make a big deal of me. To keep it simple. I’ll stay in a hotel because I feel more comfortable that way. The awful thing is, when I give a speech, I get so nervous that I read too fast and no one can understand me. Once I took a chartered flight to Campos and gave a speech at the University there. Beforehand, they showed me books of mine translated into Braille. I didn’t know what to say. And there were blind people in the a
udience. I got nervous. Afterward there was a dinner in my honor. But I couldn’t take it, I excused myself and went to bed. In the morning they offered me a sweet called chuvisco made of eggs and sugar. We ate chuviscos at home for several days. I like getting presents. And giving them. It’s nice. Yolanda gave me chocolates. Marly gave me a lovely shopping bag. I gave Marly’s daughter a small gold saint charm. She’s a clever little girl and speaks French.
Now I’m going to tell some stories about a little girl named Nicole. Nicole said to her older brother, named Marco: your long hair makes you look like a woman. Marco responded with a violent kick since he’s really a little man. Then Nicole quickly said:
“Don’t get mad, ’cause God’s a woman!”
And, softly, she whispered to her mother: “I know God’s a man, but I don’t want to get beat up!”
Nicole told her cousin, who was making a mess at their grandmother’s house: “don’t do that ’cause one time I did and Grandma punched me so hard I fainted.” Nicole’s mother found out, and scolded her. And she told the story to Marco. Marco said:
“That’s nothing. One time Adriana made a mess at Grandma’s house and I told her: ‘don’t do that ’cause one time I did and Grandma beat me up so bad I slept for a hundred years.’ ”
Didn’t I mention today was the day of the Blue Danube? I’m happy, in spite of that good man’s death, in spite of Cláudio Brito, in spite of that phone call about my miserable literary oeuvre. I’m going to have more coffee.
And Coca-Cola. Like Cláudio Brito said, I’m crazy about Coca-Cola and coffee.
My dog is scratching his ear and enjoying it so much he’s starting to moan. I’m his mother.
And I need money. But how lovely the Blue Danube is, it really is.
Long live the open-air market! Long live Cláudio Brito! (I changed his name, of course. Any resemblance is mere coincidence.) Long live me! who’s still alive.
And now I’m done.
The Sound of Footsteps
(“Ruído de passos”)
She was eighty-one years old. Her name was Mrs. Cândida Raposo.
Life made this old woman dizzy. The dizziness got worse whenever she spent a few days on a farm: the altitude, the green of the trees, the rain, they all made it worse. Whenever she listened to Liszt she got goose bumps all over. She’d been a beauty in her youth. And she got dizzy whenever she deeply inhaled the scent of a rose.
It so happened that for Mrs. Cândida Raposo the desire for pleasure didn’t go away.
She finally mustered the great courage to see a gynecologist. And she asked him, ashamed, eyes downcast:
“When will it go away?”
“When will what go away, ma’am?”
“The thing.”
“What thing?”
“The thing,” she repeated. “The desire for pleasure,” she finally said.
“Ma’am, I’m sorry to say it never goes away.”
She stared at him in shock.
“But I’m eighty-one years old!”
“It doesn’t matter, ma’am. It lasts until we die.”
“But that’s hell!”
“That’s life, Mrs. Raposo.”
So that was life, then? this shamelessness?
“So what am I supposed to do? no one wants me anymore . . .”
The doctor looked at her with compassion.
“There’s no cure for it, ma’am.”
“And what if I paid?”
“It wouldn’t matter. You’ve got to remember, ma’am, you’re eighty-one years old.”
“And . . . and what if I took care of it myself? do you know what I mean?”
“Yes,” said the doctor. “That might be a remedy.”
Then she left the doctor’s office. Her daughter was waiting down below, in the car. Cândida Raposo had lost a son in World War II, he was a soldier. She had this unbearable pain in her heart: that of surviving someone she loved.
That same night she found a way to satisfy herself on her own. Mute fireworks.
Afterward she cried. She was ashamed. From then on she’d use the same method. Always sad. That’s life, Mrs. Raposo, that’s life. Until the blessing of death.
Death.
She thought she heard the sound of footsteps. The footsteps of her husband Antenor Raposo.
Before the Rio-Niterói Bridge
“Antes da ponte Rio-Niterói”
Well then.
Whose father was the lover, with that tiepin of his, the lover of the wife of the doctor who treated his daughter, that is, the lover’s daughter and everyone knew, and the doctor’s wife would hang a white towel in the window signaling that her lover could come in. Or else it was a colored towel and in which case he wouldn’t.
But I’m getting all mixed up or maybe this whole affair is so tangled that I’ll try to untangle it. Its realities are invented. I apologize because besides recounting the facts I’m also guessing and whatever I guess I write down here, scribe that I am by fate. I guess at reality. But I didn’t sow the seeds for this story. The harvest is for someone more capable than I, insignificant as I am. So the daughter’s leg got gangrene and they had to amputate it. This Jandira, seventeen, fiery as a young colt and with beautiful hair, was engaged. As soon as her fiancé saw that figure on crutches, brimming with joy, a joy that he didn’t realize was pathetic, you see, the fiancé had the nerve to simply call off the engagement without remorse. Everyone, even the girl’s long-suffering mother, begged the fiancé to pretend he still loved her, which—they told him—wouldn’t be so hard because it wouldn’t last long: since his fiancée didn’t have long to live.
And three months later—as if keeping the promise not to weigh heavily on the fiancé’s fainthearted notions—three months later she died, beautiful, hair flowing, inconsolable, longing for her fiancé, and frightened of death the way a child is afraid of the dark: death is made of a great darkness. Or maybe not. I don’t know what it’s like, I haven’t died yet, and I won’t know even after I die. Maybe it’s not all that dark. Maybe it’s a blinding light. Death, I mean.
The fiancé, who went by his last name, Bastos, apparently lived, even while his fiancée was still alive, lived with a woman. And he stayed with her, not too worried about things.
Well. That passionate woman got jealous one day. And she was devious. I can’t leave out the cruel details. But where was I, did I lose my train of thought? Let’s start over, and on another line and another paragraph to get off to a better start.
Well. The woman got jealous and while Bastos was asleep poured boiling water from the spout of a teapot into his ear and all he had time to do was howl before fainting, a howl we might guess was the worst cry he had, the cry of an animal. Bastos was taken to the hospital and hanging between life and death, one locked in fierce combat with the other.
The virago, named Leontina, got just over a year in jail.
From which she got out to meet—guess who? well she went to meet Bastos. By then, a very gaunt Bastos who, of course, was deaf forevermore, the same guy who hadn’t excused a physical defect.
What happened? Well they moved back in together, love forevermore.
Meanwhile the seventeen-year-old girl was long dead, her sole trace remaining in her wretched mother. And if I’ve thought of that girl out of the blue it’s from the love I feel for Jandira.
So now her father turns up, as if by chance. He was still the lover of the wife of the doctor who had treated his daughter with devotion. The daughter, that is, of the lover. And everyone knew, the doctor and the dead ex-fiancée’s mother. I think I’ve lost my train of thought again, it’s all a bit jumbled, but what can I do?
The doctor, though he knew that the girl’s father was his wife’s lover, had taken good care of the little fiancée so terrified of the dark that I mentioned. The father’s wife—hence th
e ex-fiancée’s mother—knew all about the adulterous flourishes of her husband who wore a gold pocket watch in his vest and a jeweled ring, a diamond-studded tiepin. A well-to-do businessman, as they say, for folks respect and bow to the rich, the winners, don’t they? He, the girl’s father, dressed in a green suit with a pink pinstriped shirt. How do I know? Look, I just know, the way you do by imaginative guessing. I know, period.
There’s one detail I can’t forget. Which is: the lover had a little gold front tooth, purely out of luxury. And he smelled like garlic. His entire aura was pure garlic, and his lover didn’t even care, all she wanted was a lover, give or take the smell of food. How do I know? Knowing.
I don’t know what became of these people, I didn’t hear any more news. Did they go their separate ways? you see, it’s an old story and there may have been some deaths among them, these people. Dark, dark death. I don’t want to die.
I’ll add an important fact, and one that, I don’t know why, explains the accursed source of the whole story: it happened in Niterói, with its wooden docks always damp and grimy, and its ferries coming and going. Niterói is a mysterious place and has old, dark houses. And could boiling water in a lover’s ear happen there? I don’t know.
What’s to be done with this story that took place back when the Rio-Niterói bridge was no more than a dream? I don’t know that either, I offer it as a gift to whoever wants it, because I’m sick of it. Nauseated, even. Sometimes I get sick of people. Then it passes and I become fully curious and attentive again.
And that’s it.
Praça Mauá
The cabaret on the Praça Mauá was called “Erótica.” And Luísa’s stage name was Carla.
Carla was a dancer at the “Erótica.” She was married to Joaquim who worked himself to death as a carpenter. And Carla “worked” in two ways: dancing half-naked and cheating on her husband.