Away from Home (27 page)

“You’ve let it all escape. Quickly!” he whispered.

He wet the handkerchief again, and this time she took a deep breath. The damp handkerchief felt cold against her lips and smelled like those same sickly sweet flowers. She breathed it again, closing her eyes.

She felt a little lightheaded, but it might only have been from excitement or from breathing so deeply. She smiled at him. “Give me more. I don’t feel a thing!”

“I think you’ve had enough,” he said. “I don’t want to make you drunk; I only wanted you to see how it feels.” He put the
lança perfuma
quickly into his pocket. “I don’t even like it when I do it to myself,” he said. “Tomorrow I will feel sick, and I will probably call the doctor to give me vitamin injections. But tonight … well …” He finished the last of the bottle of champagne and lighted a cigarette.

“Why do you do it, then?”

“I don’t know,” he said. “I always do it at Carnival. At the same time I’m doing it I’m laughing at myself. Do you want to dance?”

“Yes.”

They went into the other room, hesitated for an instant, and threw themselves into the pack of dancers. It was hotter than ever, so hot now that it did not matter any more that it was hot or that there was no longer anyone who was reasonably dry or reasonably sane or whose greasepaint had not run and smeared in streams of glistening perspiration. Helen held tightly to Sergio, her feet moving rapidly to the rhythm of the music, her smile stiffening. Her happy exchange of grins to the other dancers was becoming automatic now and she felt exhausted, her legs beginning to ache. She had been here for hours. She had never danced so fast and strenuously, or for so long, before. At the beginning of the evening the wild dancing had been a release, but now she only wanted to stand very quietly with Sergio and have him put his arms around her.

“It’s so hot,” she gasped.

“Let’s take a walk.”

He took her hand and led her through the dancers with the same swift expertise as he had when they had been looking for a drink. They were outside again, and the night air was cool and wonderful. Neither one of them said anything. They smiled at each other and walked quietly to the railing, hand in hand. They leaned against the railing for a moment looking down at the crowds still gathered on the street, and then Sergio turned and put his arms around her. It was what she had wanted him to do. She leaned against him and he kissed her forehead and neither of them spoke.

She could hear the music, softly, and dimly see other couples walking by or standing in embrace. It did not matter; she did not know any of them. She hardly knew herself. She knew only that she felt very much at peace with herself, very quiet inside, as if all this were the most natural thing in the world. She had her arms around Sergio’s waist and he had his arms around her; her head was against his chest, their bodies tightly together. She wondered what any of his friends or her friends would think if they came out on the terrace and saw the two of them that way. And Bert … But she felt charmed, lucky, as if no one would ever dare to come out on that terrace now except strangers, because she and Sergio were strangers now to the whole world. Neither of them moved or spoke.

Then when they moved they moved at the same time. She lifted her face and he kissed her. Their faces were wet and it was strange—a strange kiss, tender and desperate, the kiss of strangers who have wanted to kiss each other for a long time. They looked into each other’s faces, wonderingly at first, as if that kiss had somehow changed them. It was a glance almost of surprise. Then they kissed again, but this time it was a kiss of neither surprise nor questioning but of passion.

She felt the faint brush of other people passing by her on the veranda but she was only dimly aware of them, as if their footsteps and voices and accidental touch were only changes in the current of the air.

Sergio looked at her. “I will take you away after Carnival,” he whispered. “Will you come with me?”

She wanted to ask him not to speak, not to make anything real, only to stay there and kiss her. But she felt against her will her lips forming the word
Yes
.

At two-thirty in the morning it was really only the middle of the evening for most of the dancers at the Baile des Artistes. Mort Baker had vanished somewhere with a girl dressed as a black cat. Margie Davidow, exhausted, was sitting on a chair and refusing to dance, looking with admiration at her husband bobbing up and down on the crowded dance floor with first one stranger and then another. Bert Sinclair, who always seemed to be pursued by older women, had found himself in the clutch of a dyed-haired woman of fifty who was dressed as a courtesan of the ancient Roman court and who had one arm around his neck while pretending to eat a bunch of purple grapes from the other hand. Helen came in from the cool veranda and put on her turban again, hot and heavy with its weight of artificial fruit, and she felt as if she were putting on some instrument of torture. She went to Margie.

“Is anyone interested in going home?”

“I am!” Margie said. Her eyes began to sparkle with the first real pleasure they had shown in over an hour.

“Do you think they’ll think we’re spoiling everything? I’m dead.”

“Oh, so am I!”

“Where’s Mort?”

“Off with a girl,” Margie said lightly. “He’ll find his way home—if he comes home at all. I’ll get my husband.” She climbed up on to the table and began waving and gesturing at Neil.

Neil broke away from the dancers and came over reluctantly. “We want to go home,” Margie said. “I’ve had enough.”

“What time is it?” he asked, beginning to protest.

“Two-thirty.
Please!
”

Helen had never seen Margie look so tired. She had dark circles under her eyes where her make-up had worn off. But it was not so much fatigue that made her look so limp; it was more a look of hopelessness, a kind of sagging exhaustion. There was something odd going on with those three—Margie, Neil and Mort—and Helen did not know what it was, but it was there. Perhaps Margie resented having the second man in her home all the time—Margie had such a sense of order and such precise, neat ways, and Mort certainly was a Bohemian. Helen remembered Margie’s outburst Christmas Eve about her marital privacy. It was always hard to tell what Margie really felt about private things; she covered up so well. You always had the feeling that Margie had some kind of painful secret in her life, but that she was able to keep it to herself because she first of all kept it
from
herself. For a woman that was really the only way to deceive others artfully; you had to convince yourself first.

Helen waved to Bert and he came over to their group. “What are we doing now?” he asked.

“We’d love to go home. If you don’t mind.”

“I don’t mind.”

They drove along the beach, and Helen felt the first signs of the exhaustion and muscle stiffness she knew would last for several days. She had never dreamed she would have as much energy as she had shown all night. She put her head on Bert’s shoulder and he put his arm around her. He had removed his shirt because it was completely wet and he was holding it out the car window to dry. It flapped in the air from the moving automobile like a castaway’s rescue signal.

“I love you,” Helen whispered.

“I should hope so.”

There was kindness and affection and strength in the way he said it, and if she could have cut out her heart at that moment and handed it to him she would have done so. The minutes on the terrace with Sergio seemed like a bad dream. How could people do such things? She thought of Sergio’s wife only in passing, as if the woman were some kind of figure, not a real person. Their relationship in their marriage had nothing to do with her. She thought of Bert, here with his arm trustingly around her, protecting her, and she was filled with pain for him. She didn’t want to hurt him, no matter what he might do. She had thought at times that he was sleeping with some woman on one of those long trips he took so often, but that really didn’t matter now. She didn’t know for sure that he had slept with someone else, and even if he did, if he didn’t love the other woman, then it really didn’t matter. She didn’t want to know any more about it. He was her husband and he loved her, and he always came back to her. Nothing else mattered, or could matter, or else they would not have a marriage. I almost hurt you, she thought guiltily, looking up at his profile shadowed in the dark car. I never will hurt you again, darling, I promise. I promise.…

“Do you want to stop off at our house for coffee?” Margie asked. She did not sound very enthusiastic about it.

“You’re too tired,” Bert said quickly.

“What a bunch of deadheads,” Neil said in mock scorn. “Three o’clock in the morning and you want to give up.”

“Do you want a dead wife?” Margie asked.

“I’m only teasing you,” he said gently. “What does everybody say; should we get tickets for the Copacabana and the Municipal?”

“You mean it?” Margie asked. “You were the one who wanted to save money.”

Neil laughed. “I say that every year. Until the first ball is over. Let’s go to hell with ourselves and go to all of them.”

“It happens every year,” Margie said.

“I’d love to,” said Bert. “Helen?”

“And can we go into the street one night?” Helen asked, beginning to be carried away by their excitement. “And can we watch the Escola de Samba parade?”

“We’ll do everything,” Neil said.

“I’m going to buy a
lança perfuma
tomorrow,” said Bert.

“Bert has to get a real costume,” Margie said.

Helen felt warm and happy. These were her friends, and she loved them. And this was her husband, the only man she could ever love. Perhaps she would buy little costumes for the children, and they could have a Carnival party at home before she and Bert left for one of the late-starting balls. She had read in the newspaper that there were some children’s Carnival parties in the afternoons somewhere, where there were no
lança perfumas
and nothing was served that was stronger than Coke. She would take Julie and Roger. They were all going to be happy at Carnival; it was going to be special for all of them, the whole family.

Neil stopped the car in front of the Sinclairs’ apartment house. “Good night.”

“Good night. Thank you. We’ll phone each other tomorrow.”

Bert put on his shirt and they went into the house. Riding up in the small self-service elevator Helen kissed him. He put his arms around her, and when the elevator doors opened they walked to their apartment with their arms still around each other’s waists, and as soon as they were inside their darkened vestibule they kissed again. “I always like to get home,” he said.

“So do I. It sounds so wonderful when you say that. Say it again.”

“I like to get home?”

“Yes …”

They kissed again and she felt the familiar mixture of excitement and tenderness and love that always surprised her because although it was always the same it was always new. She could never bring it back when he was not there, but whenever he kissed her or touched her she felt it again, even though they had been married for nine years. She didn’t believe people who said love stopped or changed or became reasonable and placid after several years even if it became deeper in a new way. It would always be this way for her and Bert; she knew it.

“Please don’t go away again for a long time,” she whispered, her arms around his neck. “Please don’t leave me. I miss you so terribly.”

“I want you to,” he whispered, smiling at her in the darkness. Her eyes were becoming accustomed to the dark and she could see his face.

“You’re so beautiful,” Helen said.

“Beautiful? Men aren’t beautiful.”

“Oh, I’m sorry—you know what I mean. I love your face.”

“Thank you.”

“Don’t say
thank you
—” She stopped, remembering where she had heard that, and feeling as she had when it was said to her, and for the first time feeling an acute, unwanted pain. She closed her eyes and tried to put the feeling away.

“The first thing I want to do,” Bert said gently, “is something I’ve wanted to do for the past three hours. Take a shower.”

“I don’t even want you to leave me for a minute.”

“You’ll take it with me.”

It was like the old days, Helen thought happily, the old days when she and Bert were alone together with nothing but their love. Running the water in the shower at three o’clock in the morning, not terrified that any little sound might awaken a fretful child, not worried about being too sleepy to get up in the morning. This Carnival night had done something for him too; he seemed different, happier, more giving. They dried each other with thick towels, but not any too carefully, and fell on the cool sheets with their arms wound around each other, still slightly damp, everything cool and warm both. Cool sheets, cool skin, cool air from the opened doors leading to the balcony, warm mouth, warm breath, skin that warmed, the scent of soap and the scent of love. She had never loved or desired him as much as she did at this moment, and this was the man to whom she had almost brought pain. Strangely, knowing she had come so dangerously close to hurting him made Helen love him and want him even more.

CHAPTER 13

Carnival in Rio is a mass explosion, the result of twelve months of frustration, sublimation, hopelessness and hope. At Carnival a beggar can dress as a king. An austere businessman can dress as a clown. A colored girl from the
favellas
who will have twelve or twenty children and live and die in the
favellas
can dress as Scarlett O’Hara, and many of them do. A homosexual can walk about in the streets of the city for four days and nights dressed as a woman. You are who you want to be. There is unceasing music for your soul and unceasing dance for your animal spirits, and ether to make your days and nights a waking dream. There is dancing in the ballrooms for the wealthy and dancing in the streets for the poor. But there
are
no poor at Carnival. There are only the revelers, the transported, the disguised, the dreamers and the orgiastic.

For four days and nights, without sleep, without food, without minds, the dancers jump up and down in a wild, self-hypnotic orgy, together or in a snake dance or alone. At the balls you see old men ready for a coronary attack wetting their handkerchiefs with ether and sniffing at them to get a lift, while holding on with the other hand to the girl in front of them in the snake dance. On the faces of these old men is an expression compounded of ecstasy, agony, exhaustion, and desperation. It is the face of Carnival.