Electrico W (9 page)

“Twelve.” Antonio opened his eyes wide and she burst out laughing: “No, I’m not, I’m thirty. What about you? Don’t say a thing, don’t tell me, whatever you do, you fool … Telling your age makes you older.”

A sudden bright light made me look up. Something was twinkling far overhead, way up in a huge rubber palm whose leaves hung over the top of the building, over the bay window. The twinkling came from a pair of round, steel-framed glasses. As it had grown, the plant had gradually engulfed the metal sidepieces, and the glasses were set right into the trunk. Two growths within the wood, two bulging green protuberances, formed a pair of froglike eyes. I instinctively pushed my own glasses back up my nose. Aurora noticed the gesture.

“Are you admiring Monstro?” she asked. “When I was little, even littler, it used to frighten me with its strange
cut-out leaves, like witches’ masks. So I put an old pair of glasses between two of its branches. Then when it grew they were imprisoned. I called it Monstro because, according to the gardeners, it’s a
monstera deliciosa
. And it was the name of the whale in
Pinocchio
, you know, the film of
Pinocchio
 …”

I couldn’t take my eyes off Monstro, off that pair of glasses trapped in the thick trunk where acrid white sap must have been seeping over them. That fragment of human life gave the towering plant a strange personality. Behind the filthy lenses, you could almost imagine there lurked a climbing-plant philosophy, with sententious words impounded in its chlorophyll.

Aurora was smiling mischievously. She must have been keeping a real, far deeper secret.

“Well,” said Antonio, “I think Monstro was one of your lovers and you were bored of him and turned him into a philodendron.”

Aurora touched Antonio’s cheek very lightly.

“You’re so clever, Antonio,” she said mockingly. “You guessed. I always turn my lovers into plants, do you think there would be this many here otherwise? Over there, that drooping fatsia, the one that needs water and is drying out because I won’t let anyone water it, that’s that idiot José. He was always hovering around me, constantly trying to look at my breasts, when he gave me an ice cream, when he read a book over my shoulder … One
day, what a nightmare, he put his hand on my hip. Ugh, it was disgusting. And in a flash, changed him into a fatsia. Ciao, José.”

She ran over to a burgeoning plant clinging to a wall of rock.

“This staghorn fern here is Ruiz, he always wanted people to believe he was a real man. He rolled his pack of cigarettes in the sleeve of his T-shirt and made a lot of noise on his scooter. He’s much quieter like this, with these dangling fronds like dogs’ tongues.”

She gave a sneer to staghorn-Ruiz, walked on a few paces, and stroked a leaf on a palm tree near the water lilies.

“And this howea which won’t stop growing is Tadeus. He was the kindest one. He used to say, ‘Tell me, Aurora, do you think you’ll ever love me? Because, as you know, I just adore you and I want to live with you.’ He was so sweet, poor Tadeus … Then he got a bit too persistent and eventually even quite nasty. There’s no getting away from it, with boys, if they love you and you don’t love them they call you a bitch. That’s oversimplifying, isn’t it?”

Aurora talked on and on with an almost singsong accent, and I could see Antonio was increasingly unsettled.

“Monstro’s another story,” Aurora went on, “I don’t like shortsighted boys. They make you feel you should protect them, and when they wake up in the morning their glasses are always more important than you. One day Monstro—”

I put my hand up to my glasses without even thinking, and she burst out laughing. She tapped her finger on the copy of
Contos aquosos
that was peeping out of my pocket.

“What are you reading?”

“They’re short stories.”

I handed the book to her, and she took it and leafed through it, frowning, but smiling too.

“Jaime Montestrela … What a weird name. It doesn’t mean anything to me. The stories are weird too.”

She handed it back to me, made as if to leave the terrace along the paved path, but turned back, rummaged through her large canvas bag, and took out two invitation cards which she slipped into Antonio’s hand.

“I almost forgot: you must come tomorrow, there’s a concert. Baroque music, Purcell, Monteverdi, you’ll see when you get here. It’s at eight o’clock sharp, on the nose, you need to wear a suit, it says so on the invitation. I’ll be wearing a full-length dress. You’ll see there are plenty of people who’ll want to get their tuxedos out, and it looks very funny in the hothouse, like a colony of penguins visiting the Amazon. Okay, see you tomorrow then?”

She ran off, a gazelle, and vanished into her jungle. I heard the motor of Antonio’s Leica. She was already hidden but her voice echoed round the hothouse: “Come back soon, Antonio, and I’ll draw a cat for you on your other hand.”

“
NO
,
ANTONIO, NOT
like that … Don’t say
My Irene
, don’t start with that possessive, it’s too worn, too overused, just say
Irene
, it’s truer, stronger, more sensitive. She’ll read her name and hear your voice saying it, you breathing it, and
Irene
’s a word that never really ends, it hangs in the air long after you’ve said it, it doesn’t need anything else.

“Write:
Irene, I’m lost, I don’t know what I want
. After all, that’s always true, we never have any idea what we want from other people.
When I left for Lisbon
—no, you weren’t leaving, it was a separation, a wrench, so write
When I set off from Paris
, yes, that’s better, it’s much better to refer to the place you’re leaving than some nebulous destination.
When I set off from Paris, I couldn’t know that you would become
—no, actually,
that I had become such an important part of your life. I don’t like thinking you’re hurt, I didn’t want either of us to be hurt
.

“This letter needs to be short, it’s better to show you don’t feel comfortable with words, so start a new paragraph, pause, let your writing catch its breath:
Irene, dear sweet Irene
—but did you ever call her sweet? You didn’t? Well, do it then, it’ll be like you’re daring to use words in this letter that you held back in person, words you’ve never spoken, that will be hers all brand-new and subtly different.

“Look out the window, Antonio, let the city speak for you. Tell her it’s two in the morning, or even later, it’s raining in Lisbon, and I can see the Avenida da Liberdade from the window, it’s glistening and gloomy as a canal in Amsterdam. That’s a bit of a hollow image, Antonio, I realize, but have a look, don’t you think that tonight Lisbon looks like a cold northern city, silent in the mist, and that the deserted street’s reflecting the darkness the way a slow-moving waterway would? And you need to give this letter a bit of color, even if it is gray, particularly if it’s gray. Say
I want to sleep, but I can’t, the sound of the rain, perhaps, or a feeling that I’m not getting anywhere with my work, or my life. I shot two or three rolls of film today, in the port. I don’t know what they’re going to be like, these articles I’m working on with Vincent. We have ten days left to wrap everything up, and I feel I don’t recognize this place, even though not much has changed in ten years
.

“Then say,
Of course, I didn’t tell you Vincent Balmer’s in Lisbon with me
. There, Antonio, that’s when she needs to find out. Make the point
He lives here now. As of two months ago. Or a bit longer. A big room in the port neighborhood. Not very tidy. Anyway, we took rooms in a hotel together. It’s more practical
. Explain that
He’s doing the writing. He spends his days making notes, in the big black book he takes everywhere with him, and he speaks Portuguese with a funny accent, like he’s imitating a Portuguese imitating a Frenchman imitating a Portuguese, or the other way around
. Does that make you laugh, Antonio?
But it’s true, isn’t it? Write it.
He’s not very chatty but the two of us get on well
. We can say that, Antonio, can’t we? Don’t say anything more. If you say too much, it’ll never be enough. She’ll want to have details, to work out how much you know, to try and read between the lines.

“The
hotel’s comfortable, a bit impersonal, but I think it suits our work
. I know, Antonio, here you can add in this, it’s a snippet from my notes, it fits perfectly with your last sentence:
The place is both tired-looking and luxurious, dating back to the early 1900s, one of those palaces where you never feel at home, and never even want to unpack your bags
. Say
Irene, what if you came and joined me?
No, that’s a stupid, bland construction with that simpering
what if
like a childish game. Say
Come and join me in Lisbon
. And don’t look at me like that, Antonio, I’m sure it’s a good idea. You’ll be on your territory here, everything will seem clearer. Don’t worry about me, I’ll go and sleep in my studio in São Paulo. Or with Lena. I’ll leave you in peace. You can give yourself enough time to be sure. Say
For a few days at least. A long weekend
.

“We need to finish this letter, make it short. No lying now, we can’t go and end it with a stock phrase, an
I miss you
or an
I can’t stop thinking about you
. Anyway, you’re not in love yet, she’d know you were lying. Girls can see through everything, they’re so clever. Just say
I’d really like to show you the city where I grew up. You take good care of yourself
—no, put
really good care
.

“And sign it. Legibly. Not impatiently. As if you regret it.

“Shall we tell her about Aurora, in a PS? No, come on, Antonio, I’m kidding. I’m kidding, I tell you.”

“
SHE USED TO LIVE
in this building, you say?”

The man filled the whole doorway, his arms were huge, larded with unhealthy fat. On his wrist he wore a heavy gold watch, and a chain, also gold, hung over his flaccid white chest. It wasn’t all that hot, but he was sweating, and sweat flecked his shirt.

He was holding the duplicate picture of Duck between his fingers, and I had an urge to take it back from him, as if he might soil it. His obese figure made me feel uncomfortable, like a reflection of my own ugly intentions. I nearly capitulated and turned back for the hotel.

“Yes, that’s right, she lived in this building. On this side, actually. It’s just the floor I’m not sure about.”

“Ten years ago, you say? Wait …” And without turning around he cried, “Baby? Ba-by?”

It made me jump. A woman appeared behind him. Small, thin, dark-haired, in her fifties, a hard face with black eyes, not unlike a witch.

“Look at this, Baby, do you recognize her? This man says she lived here.”

He rubbed his hand over his sweating face.

“I work nights, so, you know, people from the building …”

The woman wiped her hands on her apron and studied the photograph for a long time, and then me for even longer. The man stepped aside to let her through and disappeared into the apartment without a word. She took the picture and turned it over as if looking for a date or a note.

“What do you want from this girl?”

“I’m looking for her … it has to do with a legacy. All I know is she lived here, in this building.”

“A legacy … But tell me, this picture was taken a long time ago.” It was not a question, and there was a harsh note of reproach in her voice. “At least five years, isn’t it?”

“Ten years.”

I said this quietly, as if asking forgiveness for the passing years, and she looked back at the photo, her eyes more human now.

“You’re French, aren’t you, you have an accent,” she said, her voice softer. “A legacy, you say? Who’s died? She didn’t have any family in France, poor little thing—”

“So you do know her?”

The woman sighed.

“Of course I know her,” she said, “like everyone in the building, well, the ones who were here at the time. Because there’s a lot of coming and going in the neighborhood, it’s getting expensive for the likes of us, the rents are going up so much.”