Nowhere People (3 page)

In Novo Hamburgo the rain is easing a bit and that should make things easier, but the coordinates Manoela has given him are not exact (the assistant’s house isn’t where she marked it on the map she drew on a piece of paper with the Pelotas hotel logo on it; nobody knows the alley she marked, swearing it couldn’t be easier to find). Beaten-earth roads, the wrong directions taking Paulo down increasingly steep and pot-holed slopes, getting further and further away from the built-up part of town. He has a phone number for Manoela’s assistant, but he hasn’t seen a payphone to call from in several minutes. Things are only no worse because the little Indian girl smiles peacefully each time he turns to her, as though the whole mess were completely normal, and because they are in a car whose rear wheel traction stops them from skidding on that muddy track. They might already have fallen into one of the ditches if they were in, say, a VW Passat or a Chevy Opala. He gives up and goes back to the convenience store where he asked for directions the first time. He calls the assistant. He wasn’t far, as it turned out, his mistake had been taking one turning too early. On the other end of the line the girl makes a point of telling him that the place he’d ended up in wasn’t the best place to get lost, it’s definitely the most dangerous part of the city, the so-called ‘Valmerão Pass’. He goes back to the main road, takes the correct turning. The assistant is waiting for them outside the house with a huge yellow umbrella, she notices that the Indian girl is wearing items of clothing belonging to the group and says only that she can return them any time she wants. Paulo returns the back seat of the car to its normal position. He tells Maína to sit there because the upholstery is dry. She shakes her head to indicate that she isn’t going to
move.

The car is in the parking space in front of the house. Paulo and Maína go in the side door. Paulo takes her straight to the bathroom, turns on the light, shows her where the towels are, says he’ll be back in a minute. He walks through the house wondering what he can offer her to wear, he raids his sister’s wardrobe (the two of them are nearly the same size), takes a pair of jeans, knickers, socks, the black All-Star trainers with little skulls like the ones you see on pirate flags
–
his sister said she was going to give them to a charity shop
–
and an AC/DC t-shirt. He goes back to the bathroom, hands over the clothes, switches on the electric shower, sets it to what he thinks is a pleasant temperature, shows her how to lock the bathroom door from the inside and says he’s going to make something for them to eat. In the fridge he finds the pan with the spaghetti he made on Friday. He heats it up on the stove. He opens a can of tuna, he mixes mayonnaise and ketchup and garlic paste in a shallow jar, opens a litre bottle of Coke. He lays out a tablecloth, plates, cutlery and all the rest. He waits for her to come out of the bathroom. They eat in silence. She finishes the food on the plate and then, unprompted, helps herself to more. He goes to his room, collects all the issues of
Trip
magazine he can find, six in total, and leaves them with her. He says to choose whichever ones she wants. He looks at his watch: nine-thirty. There’s still time for a quick shower. He goes up to his father’s study to check whether anyone has left a message on the answering machine, listens to Adrienne’s message inviting him to a party tonight at the flat she shares with Serginho and Carlos. He goes downstairs, has his shower. When he comes back into the pantry, Maína has the magazines open on the table and she is looking at the pictures of the
Trip
girls. Without a word he clears the plates, goes out into the yard, walks over to the garage, gets two sheets of clean plastic like camping groundsheets, covers the car seats, which smell of wet dog, comes back, tells Maína to leave the magazines there, but she prefers to hold on to them all. Paulo picks up a tote bag belonging to his sister, one of the many she has bought and never used, puts the magazines inside, closes up the house, gets into the car and only then begins to hurry so that they will arrive in time for the ten o’clock showing at the Baltimore.

They are going to see the remastered print of
Fantasia
, the Walt Disney animation. First he bought sweet popcorn from old Pestana, whose little cart is right at the door to the cinema; the old man loves telling the unwary that in the sixties he was an employee of the Piratini Steel Company and one of the sixty thousand activists from the so-called Group of Eleven set up in sixty-three by Brizola to bring about the socialist revolution in Brazil. He says he’s read every book by Tolstoy translated into Portuguese and, invariably, he ends the conversation with a mild rant on the evils of alcohol (the damage it does to the liver and the pancreas, the disarray it causes to a routine, to social composure) despite the fact that he is quite evidently an alcoholic himself. Naturally, as he has known Paulo for some time (and he can recognise when he’s unlikely to find an opening for his tired old digressions), the old man doesn’t even start his litany, though as he hands the bag of popcorn to Maína he does say that she is a true jewel of the Brazilian El Dorado.

Paulo tries to describe to her what the experience is going to be like. The images being projected, the moment when the mouse will command all the things and the sounds of the universe. Maína is barely listening. The film has caught her attention, the soundtrack, the colours, the introductions, the stories. He got lucky with the programming: only
The Wizard of Oz
might have topped it (he is sure that ‘Somewhere Over the Rainbow’, in Judy Garland’s devastating interpretation, would change that girl’s life); he’s lucky she didn’t get scared. The film ends. The two of them wait till the light from the projector and the music are switched off. They look at one another. He takes in the girl, all kitted out like a punk-goth with her seed necklace over the fabric of the AC/DC t-shirt and the smell of Phebo Rose soap, sat in the dirty red leather seat of the Baltimore with her canvas bag full of damp pages from newspapers and magazines, fresh from the experience of an invisibility hitherto unknown to her, allowing herself to look, and looking. Perhaps there’s some kind of answer there. Paulo knows there is, but he can’t do it, it’s hard to make
out.

He explains that they’re going to a party. There will be some odd people there, the kind of people she probably hasn’t been around before. Maína nods her head, showing that she’s happy, that everything’s fine. She says she needs to go to the bathroom, he shows her where it is and waits under the awning in front of the building. And he catches sight of Titi Mafalda with her friends, the three Marias, in tow. ‘Hey, senhor Dickhead!’ she shouts from a distance in her unmistakable Ceará accent. ‘Still hanging out in that
art-house
cinema, then? Standing there with those panty-wetting legs of yours and all these girls going to waste … You men are all complete asses, you really are.’ Not long ago at all, Paulo had gone out with Maria Rita, the prettiest of the four. Although they’d only hung out a few times, which had been fun to begin with, things hadn’t ended well; on the first and only occasion they arranged to go to Fin de Siècle to dance and meet their friends, breaking with the movie-then-dinner-then-her-flat formula, it had been a disaster. It only took half an hour for them to end up standing outside the nightclub, Maria Rita
–
who without her doctor’s permission had stopped taking her antidepressants
–
completely overcome with hysterics, gnawing at the palm of her right hand till she bled, him trying to stop her, her going back to the self-harming the moment he released her. They carried on this little performance till Paulo let go of her, telling her to go to hell, and went back into the bar. He learned days later that she had spread the word to everyone that he’d given her gonorrhoea, which everyone realised, knowing her as they did, was another one of her lies. ‘Hey, it’s the Northeastern girls,’ says Paulo, needling them already, as the four of them come to a stop in front of him. ‘You all right, Rita?’ She nods, lets out a restrained smile. ‘Come with us to have a few at the Magazine Bar. I’m heading there to see if I run into Passo Fundo; the Gaucho bastard owes me two thousand and it’s been an age … ’ Titi says brashly, with an attitude in marked contrast to the lethargy of the other three. ‘Can’t do it, Titi, I’m going to a party,’ Paulo explains. ‘Whose?’ she wants to know (she always wants to know). ‘Adrienne’s … ’ he replies a little awkwardly, remembering that the two of them never really got on. ‘So come here and give me my three kisses.’ Just like she asks everyone else, she always asks him for her three kisses (three times, it’s the southern excess, she enjoys this). When Titi approaches to kiss him, Maína appears and stands beside Paulo. Titi is quick to react. ‘Who’s this child, Paulo?’ she asks, looking Maína up and down. ‘She’s come to visit Porto Alegre,’ he says naturally. ‘And you’re her guide?’ asks Maria Rita, pointedly. ‘It’s only for today … Maína, these are my friends.’ Maína just smiles. Titi knows Paulo well enough to be sure that the best thing to do right then is to take her Marias and go. ‘We’re off, Handsome,’ and she gives him three kisses. ‘Watch how you go, ok? This girl can’t even be twelve yet … You trying to break the record of the local rock stars? Trying to be like Brando the rapist? Take it easy, Paulão.’ Maria Rita doesn’t wait, she walks off without saying goodbye. Maria Eduarda and Maria Clara just nod and follow Titi as soon as she heads back off towards the Magazine. ‘Give Passo Fundo a hug from me,’ Paulo says before the girls are too far off. The two of them step onto the pavement and set off in the opposite direction to Titi. They walk a few metres, and Maína stops when she sees the popcorn seller (who by now has stored away his little cart) sitting on the front step of an office building, drinking straight out of the mouth of a
cachaça
bottle, past the point of recognising her. She places the bag of magazines into Paulo’s hand and approaches the old man, puts her hand on his head. Paulo leaves her to it, leaves their moment to
pass.

He walks into the apartment telling everyone that there is to be no messing around with Maína: no alcohol, no coke, no weed for her. He doesn’t leave her alone for a minute. As soon as the group who were on the balcony vacate the place, he invites her to sit there and look out over the city. ‘Pretty,’ says Maína, ‘light, lot of light’. Paulo doesn’t hold back. ‘Chaos, Maína.’ He doesn’t even know if she knows what chaos is. ‘It’s a pretty place, but not always a good one.’ Luana appears with a tray of savoury pastries, Maína takes two. ‘You sure she isn’t up for smoking just a little one?’ and gives him a wink. Luana, always Luana. Paulo gives her a get-out-of-here look. Luana turns around. Adrienne has spread posters of Fernando Collor de Mello, the National Reconstruction Party’s candidate for president of the Republic, all over the living room and she refuses to explain this décor; Adrienne and her eccentricities. The soundtracks of her little parties are limited to Brian Eno, Roxy Music, Talking Heads, The Doors, Velvet Underground, King Crimson and Kraftwerk. So long as he respects the magnificent seven, as she’s dubbed them, a guest is free to put on any music he chooses. Paulo likes hanging out with this crowd, it’s good being a part of the group without actually being one of the group; it’s less hard work, less stressful. Paulo doesn’t find it easy being involved with groups or people for too long. Everyone there is teeming with ideas and plans; no doubt at all that at least half of them, ten or fifteen years from now, are going to be calling the shots in Rio Grande do Sul and the rest of the country. In the meantime they’re no more than a gang of stoners who think they’re the shit. Paulo is waiting for the mini-gig by the band Vulgo Valentin that has been promised for midnight on the dot but that ends up only happening at half past one. (Adrienne loves to torment her neighbours, always with the same strategy: the mini-gigs get going and only finish when the police turn up asking them to put an end to the
performance.
) As soon as the boys finish playing
–
this time it is the woman who manages the building who has switched off the apartment’s power mains and is now giving Adrienne the biggest lecture at the door to the apartment
–
Paulo calls Maína and they leave. The chosen route is: down Independência, onto Riachuelo, past the town hall and then the old Gasômetro factory, back along Duque de Caxias, then taking Borges at Demétrio Ribeiro, on as far as the beginning of Veríssimo Rosa, turn left, turn right, arrive
home.

He’ll give Maína his room to sleep in, he shows her how to lock the door from the inside (he feels a bit stupid explaining, the girl has trusted him so far, there shouldn’t be any further reason to be afraid, but all the same it seems the right thing to do). He goes up to the study, sits in his father’s leather armchair, turns on the television. They’re showing
The Thing
, the John Carpenter version, which was called
Enigma do outro mundo
–
Enigma from Another World
–
in Brazil. He watches the first half, tells himself he’ll stay awake until the bit where Kurt Russell tests his team-members’ blood with a piece of hot wire to see which of them is infected. He can’t fight off his tiredness. He falls asleep before getting to it. In one of his dreams, he gets up at nine-thirty, opens the bedroom window, walks downstairs, goes straight into the pantry, where he finds Maína sitting at the table, keeping herself entertained leafing through the magazines she was given. He says hello, she responds with the same word. He prepares an omelette with mozzarella, he toasts four pieces of bread in the toaster and pours two glasses of chocolate milk. He says that when they’ve finished he’ll take her back. In the last dream, he is surprised to discover that the previous day he had stopped very close to where her family is. Maína opens the door, he says bye. She gets out of the car in silence but, when she closes the door (through the open window), she says Thank very much. Thank you very much, he corrects her, but she says again Thank very much, and he notices the lightness of her hair in the sun, and she turns her back on him before her mother discovers that her daughter has just been driven home by someone who hasn’t even realised he has gone much too
far.