A Cup of Rage (2 page)

Under the shower I let her hands slide over my body, and her
hands were inexhaustible, and they ran searchingly through all the foam, and they came
and went tirelessly, and our soaked bodies now and again pressed against each other so
that her hands could reach my back in an embrace, and I enjoyed all this movement,
sinuous and vague, that provoked sudden, hidden jolts, and seeing that those hands were
already taking advantage of my darkest corners – even combing through the threads
at the badly stitched seam of the groin (and secretly weighing the soapy packet of my
member) – I said ‘wash my head, I'm in a hurry', and then,
pulling me out from under the stream of water, her hands immediately penetrated my hair,
rubbing firmly with her fingers, massaging my scalp with her nails, scratching my nape
in a way that sent me crazy, to my core, but I didn't say anything and just
carried on feeling the soft foam grow up there until it splashed down onto my face in a
rush and stung my eyes, making me rub wildly at them with my knuckles, even though I
knew that their burning clearly announced I was clean, and before long she pulled me
under the shower again and her fingers in my hair started to tease out the most
pleasurable thing in the world under the warm water, and then there was a splat splat as
thick foam toppled down, flying apart on the tiles wet with water running noisily into
the drain, and she laughed and laughed, and I stood there, so still
and
abandoned to her care, I didn't raise so much as a finger, so that she would carry
out this work on her own, and I was already well rinsed-off when she, straying from the
task at hand, slid her wet mouth over my water-skin, but I, taking the reins from her,
acted as if nothing had disturbed the ritual, and as soon as she turned the water off I
let myself be led silently out of the shower cubicle, and under the light electric
current of my shivers I waited there until she threw a large towel over my head,
starting immediately to dry my hair with such lithe and precise motions that my memory
was jogged, and with my eyes hidden I glimpsed, although small and naked, her feet
enlarge in big sandals and I also felt her delicate hands transform themselves suddenly
into rustic, heavy hands, though they were minute hands whose fingers entered my ears,
heaping caresses on me, tickling me, making me snicker to myself under the towel, and it
was so good, her looking after my body and leading me, wrapped up, to the bedroom and
combing my hair in front of the mirror and giving me a pretend telling-off and offering
me little bits of advice and helping me on with my trousers and shirt and making me lie
on my back on the bed, before leaning over me to do up my buttons, and making me place
my heavy shoes in her lap so that she, bending over me in her dedication, could tie up
my laces, I only know that I delivered myself absolutely into her hands, so that the use
she made of my body would be complete.

We smelled fresh when we went into the conservatory, where
her shoulder bag was still open on the table, and as she sat down in one of the wicker
chairs, I opened the curtains still needing to be opened, and half-hidden behind one of
the pillars I pressed my nose to the glass and, in spite of the fog, could see Dona
Mariana squatting in front of a flowerbed down in the garden, her hands in the earth,
her watering can at her side, peeping now and then up towards the conservatory's
high windows, and that was when I went out onto the landing and, gripping the tiles of
the low wall, shouted her name, asking for breakfast, but I immediately entered her
field of vision again, her head thrown back on the chair cushion, her skin rosy and
relaxed, a short intense sigh as if to say ‘it wasn't enough, but it will
do' (which was what she always told me), and I without a word leant over the
sucupira-wood table, pushed her leather bag and my heavy iron ashtrays aside, and it was
at that moment that Dona Mariana came in, acting just like the Protestant mulatto woman
she was, patches on her dark and blanched skin, thick-lensed glasses, always greeting us
bashfully, but ignoring her embarrassment I immediately ordered ‘the
breakfast', and she knew very well, by my tone, what I wanted to say with this,
and knew exactly on which days it had to be served like this in full (my wide bed almost
always wide open), so that out of a sense of shame she ran to the kitchen, and in the
conservatory I slid
the central panes of the French doors to the side,
pulled up a chair and sat near the open bit, my eyes hanging on the ill-defined
landscape in front of me, and started to contemplate, almost making a real effort, what
might be passing through her pure head, and as always I ended up concluding ‘who
cares about your embarrassment, Dona Mariana!, who cares about your lack of
understanding, Dona Mariana!, yes, the same wide open bed, but who cares what you
think!' and I stirred up the gravel here inside (in reality practising the black
art of exorcism), and my maid had already laid the check cloth on the table, and on top
of it the crockery, the honey pot, the bowl of fruit, the bread basket and the butter
dish, as well as the earthenware jug full of daisies and sensitive fern, and Dona
Mariana, still not looking at us, had already gone back, perhaps somewhat calmer now,
into the kitchen and in the conservatory we only heard the cheerful clatter of the
aluminium pans, and I was thinking how good it was that everything was just like this,
when she asked me ‘what's the matter?', but I, smelling the strong
aroma of coffee that was already wafting in great waves from the kitchen, I didn't
say anything, didn't even turn my face towards her, but continued to stroke Bingo,
my mongrel, and was thinking that the first cigarette of the morning, the one I'd
soon be lighting after breakfast, was without the shadow of a doubt one of the seven
wonders of the world.

The sun already wanted to do things to the fog, that was easy
to see, you only had to look at the cold, porous meat of the mass covering the small
farm to realize that a glow as fine as dust was trying to penetrate it, and I remembered
that Dona Mariana, her eyes lowered but pleased with her turn of phrase, had said some
minutes ago that ‘yesterday's heat was only a taster', and sitting
there in the conservatory I had a good view of what was happening, and my eyes roved
over my land's trees and shrubs, not forgetting the smaller things in the garden,
and abandoned to this calm pursuit I felt my lungs thank my fingers every time the
cigarette rose to my mouth, and she where she sat, I could feel it, was watching me and
smoking like me, only that with her there was also an edge of anticipation, certainly
questioning me with her spiky gestures, but I wasn't paying that any attention, I
wanted silence, since I was enjoying letting my eyes linger on the fresh leaves of the
mulberry trees, which stood out in the landscape because of their brazen greenness
(beautiful as anything!), but my eyes were suddenly led, and when these things happen
you never really know what devil's at work, and, in spite of the mist, I see this:
a gap in my hedge, oh misery, I press my finger into the ashtray, get burnt,
uncomprehending she asked me ‘what is it?', but without replying I half
threw myself, half tripped down the stairs (Bingo was already on the patio, waiting for
me, electrified) and she followed me, almost
screaming ‘but what
is it?', and Dona Mariana had come running from the kitchen with the commotion,
her eyes wide behind her thick lenses, dumbstruck at the top of the stairs, a pot and
cloth in her hands, but I didn't see anything, I left the two of them behind and
hurtled over, out of my mind, and when I got close I couldn't bear what I saw
‘fucking leaf-cutter ants', and then I screamed even more loudly
‘bloody fucking leaf-cutter fucking ants', as I saw whole handbreadths of
hedge had been gnawed away, saw whole handbreadths of earth covered with little leaves,
you need to have farming blood in your veins to know what this spells, I was rigid as I
surveyed the damage, I was livid about that gap, and could only think the privet
shouldn't be their feast, such hard work just for the leaf-cutters to set their
maws to it, and in a flash I rushed, armed, to the neighbouring plot, and straight away
found the trail that would lead me to their colony, following the path concealed in the
high grass, I who at this hour would surprise them in their hideaway – those
who'd been so active all night with the cutting and harvesting, and without delay,
trembling and foaming, I find it and already holding the bucket in my hand I pour a
double dose of poison into each anthill, with a malice that only I know for what it is
because only I know what I feel, livid with these wonderfully orderly ants, livid with
their model efficiency, livid with how fucking organized they are that they left the
weeds well alone and ate my privet hedge, for that I apportioned them one hell of a
binge, flooding their tunnels with a thick broth of insecticide, careful not to leave
anything there alive by grinding closed the mouths of the tunnels with my heel, and I
was already coming back from that barren plot, sending sparks flying as I went, when I
noticed that she and Dona Mariana by this point were having a chat on the patio between
the house and the lawn, her little bum leant against the car's mudguard, the
brightness of the day quickly restoring her confidence as an
emancipated chit, her dress of a carefully chosen simplicity, her bag hung from one
shoulder down to the opposite hip, a cigarette between her fingers, and prattling away
ever so democratically with a common person, that being one of her favourite accessories
by the way, she, of all people, who never deigned to visit the house's utility
room, having me serve her in bed and the housekeeper serve her in the conservatory,
leaving breakfast to me if Dona Mariana wasn't around, I only know that, with an
irritated look on my face, and without a glance at them, I stooped and entered the tool
cupboard under the stairs, left the equipment there that I had taken to finish off the
leaf-cutters, but thinking ahead I used the supplies on the shelves to stock up with
other poisons, as well as swigging away surreptitiously in that rustic chamber, among
the brushes, charcoal and left-over paint, at a gallon of acid, concerned as I was to
redecorate my guts, knowing in advance that it wouldn't be in vain, I only know
that when I went out to the patio again the two weren't talking any more, and
although side by side, were very wisely standing apart, not only had she made the
housekeeper her audience, but she was waiting for me with this look, just unbelievable,
that made me want to give her a slap, and as if that weren't enough she also said,
‘it's not a big deal, especially for a rational little boy like you',
and I have to admit that ‘little boy' was a kick in the shins, that was
tough, even more so because of how she said it, for it contained that poised casualness
she put in everything, which in this case was something like distancing herself, as if
this must necessarily establish how sensible her comment was, and this only served to
make me even more angry, ‘right' I said to myself as if I were saying
‘now's the time', and I getting hung up on that ‘boy'
could perfectly well have said to her, ‘time has taken more of a toll on me'
(although she wouldn't have understood what advantage I drew from this), and could
also have given her an earful for her essentially boring
use of a nasty
irony, not that I nurture a boiling hunger for harsh words, a bent towards the tragic,
it was neither that nor the opposite, but it would do her good, she who saw in her irony
the exercise of high intelligence, if I were to sensibly remind her that irony and a
solid character don't mix, and I could have said many other things in reply to her
comment, because it was easy to see, half-revealed, half-hidden, multiple accusations in
her words, whether of my extreme dedication to animals and plants, or the perhaps even
stronger accusation that I didn't act at that same temperature in bed (that is,
with the same ardour that I had in exterminating the ants), and what's more she,
her eye on the blood of the thermometer, had also made it her job to regulate
reasoning's mercury, not suspecting that my reason was at that moment working at
full steam, suspecting even less that reason is never cold and passionless, the contrary
only believed by those who don't in their reflections reach the powering core, to
see this you need to be penetratingly sharp, not that she wasn't intelligent,
without a doubt she was, but not enough, just what would do, and I could daringly have
given my reasoning free rein, squeezing to a pulp the kernel of her sarcasm, but I
didn't say a thing, not a squeak, I locked my word away, she didn't have
enough, just what would do, I was thinking, that was why she was already oiling her
viper's tongue, which had been numb all night, snuggled up against my feet and
etcetera, I only know that I continued to advance with my head down, the things here
inside grinding away, and Dona Mariana, this was easy to see, was first in line, but it
wasn't Dona Mariana, nor was it her, it wasn't anyone in particular to make
things perfectly clear, but even so I asked ‘where's Antônio?'
and I asked the housekeeper this in a more or less calm way and like someone who almost,
but only almost, has himself under control, but nor did it matter if it wasn't
like that, my stomach itself was a nest of ants and they were coming up
my throat, not to mention that I was already pulling onto the stage whoever was within
reach, for it wasn't going to be to her liking, but,
sui generis
, I was
to put on a show without an audience, that's why I challenged the once again
bashful Dona Mariana harshly, asking her ‘where's Antônio?', this
time making my voice as mean as the mask of my face, using both tools together, the
pliers and the crowbar, to wrench a word out of her, not that I was about to demand that
her husband compensate me for the gap, not that he could be made responsible for the
ants' fury, but – harnessed to my rage – like a horse, I only needed a
starting shot, a reply, only a reply, any throw-away phrase from the housekeeper would
be enough ‘Tônio's just gone down there, but he'll be right
back', or more cautiously Dona Mariana could justify his absence ‘he left
very early to get the milk at the store and must be almost back by now', or she
could even, in one of her bursts of eloquence, say drily ‘Tônio was in one of
the anthills and must be in his last convulsions now along with the leaf-cutters',
and even were she to say, with some truth as it happens, that it wouldn't have
made a difference whether her husband was there or not, explaining to me (as if it were
news) that leaf-cutters tended to work in the black of night, the truth was it
didn't matter what she told me, only an idiot wouldn't have seen that, and
whether her reply was conscientious or aloof, I only know that no sooner had Dona
Mariana opened her mouth than I came charging out: ‘I've already told you
that the hours here are six to four, after that I don't even want to see you in
the house, nor to stumble across him, but within these hours I won't allow it, do
you understand? and you should tell that to your husband, are you listening?' and
my roar was strong, even if its only substance was its vibration (which isn't to
be scoffed at), and its effect was such that Dona Mariana didn't know what to do,
whether to call her husband so that he could do what I had just ordered (apart from the
fact
that I had only demanded he take care, it was perfectly well known
that his hours started at seven, not six), or to go upstairs to the kitchen, or even
whether she should stay to open the gate for the little miss, who in a provisional
rebuke had just grasped her door handle, and the best that Dona Mariana rummaged out of
her head, after much excited flapping about, was to stand a little to the side, wisely
hidden by the corner of the house and near to the stairs, but she didn't climb
them or do anything else, and that was when she, still holding the handle, swallowing
the perfect kernel of my bait, and putting on, as befitted the situation, the air of
someone who discusses serious matters (she could act this role well), came on stage
again of her own accord, and said to me fairly calmly, ‘I don't understand
how this change comes over you, suddenly you turn into a fascist' and she said
this in a more or less serious tone, a straight objective commentary, only adding a
little more of a twist to the corners of her mouth, so that her expression ended up
sketching how repulsive the thing was, and that got me in the balls, and it wasn't
my balls that deserved to get it, I was sure (in spite of everything), was sure that my
rage would be washed clean in its fount, ‘you perplex me' she added in the
same serious tone, ‘perplex me!', but I held steady, didn't move for a
while except to pick up two or three logs from the ground, feeding dry wood to the fire
that I was just starting (I who was – methodically – mixing reason and
emotion into an extraordinary alchemical amalgam), after all she still hadn't got
into her car, I knew her, she wasn't the type to say something and then get in, on
the contrary she was one of those women who only needle you in the greedy expectation of
receiving a good beating, so much so that when she pricked me she already had her eye on
the satisfying wood for my fire, in any case she had really got to me, or was I rather,
an actor, only faking, to follow an example, the pain that I really felt,
¹
I who this
time had gone right into myself and in the heat
here inside knew what
changes I was capable of (I wasn't a monolithic block, no one is of course, and
then there's the fact that certain traits she attributed to my personality had
more to do with the situation), but I wasn't going to mention this to her, yes, I
could take up her challenge and launch myself into a battle royal, comfortingly with
shared content, knowing that in spite of her impatience she wouldn't scorn a good
preamble, I only had to pretend that I was falling into the trap, nibbling all the while
at the bait, sucking at the kernel of sweetcorn as if sucking the nipple of her breast,
while to pick a fight it was enough to hurl the classic words ‘you're hardly
the one to teach me how to treat a maid', remembering straight after that nothing
stops whoever's stepping on someone else from protesting about the person stepping
on them, but that you always need to start by looking at your own paws, your body before
clothes, this heartfelt revelation that precedes communion, and, if I had wanted, I
could've found plenty of reasons to trip her up, not that I was so naïf I
demanded coherence, I didn't expect that of her, I didn't even boast of that
myself, only idiots and bastards proclaim that they serve a single lord, in the end we
are all beasts born of one and the same dirty womb, carriers of the most vile
contradictions, but if someone were to flaunt their morals, then right from the start
that person should admit to a complete lack of shame, the truth being that all these
quarrels among the hand-wringing children of the petite bourgeoisie really got my goat,
as they guilelessly vied for the most generously soft boots, even extracting from their
comparisons an air of liberal virtue, and how she loved this purgative, just as she
would purge herself by giving the middle class a good whipping, this class that is
almost always hated, perhaps for this reason vacillating between soaring to the heights
of the eagle or trudging the earth in humble sandals, sometimes so indecisive as to
confuse the direction of those two poles, was it an ascent
towards
priesthood or a dive on prey? (and how not to arrive there, gloriously?), but it
didn't even enter my head to goad the fraud where she was most conflicted, I
wasn't going to confuse a fine needle with the immanently bruising power of my
bludgeon, other motives would be needed to put me on a war footing, I was far from being
interested in the common traits of a banal character, and nor was I going to pull on her
hook and so encourage the usual veering of her reasoning, not that the claws she put in
her words scared me, I too, besides my gentle face (with perhaps the odd sly look), knew
how to give words their reverse, the grimaces and talons, incisive like her I knew the
best way to bite with the teeth of ideas, since our intrigues tended to be made of these
shards, not to mention that my hoofs – driven along a strict lane – knew how
to invent their own logic, but all this discursive aggression was verging exhaustively
on the monotonous, it was no longer about yawning over an uneasy night's sleep, it
wasn't that annoying habit of stretching out your arms unnecessarily, in my fever
the things here inside were rapidly melting together, I didn't have any sand in my
gizzard, let alone the gravel that was more suitable to digesting her talk, not
forgetting that reflection is nothing more than the excretions of the drama of our
existence, foolishly put on a pedestal by us, but as Antônio had already fertilized
the vegetable beds the week before, what were we to do with this theoretical chaff? so,
quick as lightning I found a way out, off on a tangent, and where I went was land she
had staked out and fenced in, an area where she prided herself on being a free little
bird, that was where I'd get her, only there would I open a gap in her defences (I
who could simply dismiss her with a summary ‘get lost', turn my back on her
and go up to the conservatory), it was there that I'd exasperate her arrogant
rationality, but nor was that what I wanted (to simply exasperate her), I was inside
myself, in that instant I needed a prop, needed more than ever