The Complete Stories (39 page)

She went to wash her dusty hands and caught sight of herself in the mirror above the sink. Then Senhora Xavier had this thought: “If I really want it, really really want it, he’ll be mine for at least one night.” She vaguely believed in willpower. Once again she had become entangled in a desire that was twisted and strangled.

But, who knows? If she gave up on Roberto Carlos, that’s when things might happen between him and her. Senhora Xavier reflected a bit on the matter. Then she slyly pretended that she was giving up on Roberto Carlos. But she was well aware that the magic of giving up only produced positive results when it was real, and not just a ploy to get her way. Reality demanded a lot from the woman. She examined herself in the mirror to see if her face would become bestial under the influence of her feelings. But it was a subdued face that had long since stopped showing what she felt. Besides, her face had never expressed anything but good manners. And now it was merely the mask of a seventy-year-old woman. Then her lightly made-up face looked to her like a clown’s. The woman faked a smile to see if that might improve things. It didn’t.

From the outside—she saw in the mirror—she was a dried up thing like a dried fig. But on the inside she wasn’t shriveled. Quite the contrary. On the inside she was like moist gums, soft just like toothless gums.

Then she searched for a thought that would make her spiritual or shrivel her once and for all. But she’d never been spiritual. And because of Roberto Carlos the woman was enveloped in the shadows of that matter in which she was profoundly anonymous.

Standing in the bathroom she was as anonymous as a chicken.

For a fraction of a fleeting second, she almost unconsciously glimpsed that all people are anonymous. Because no one is the other and the other didn’t know the other. So—so the person is anonymous. And now she was tangled in that deep and fatal well, in the revolution of the body. A body whose depths were unseen and that was the darkness of the malignant shadows of her instincts, alive like lizards and rats. And everything out of season, fruit out of season? Why hadn’t other old women warned her that this could happen up till the end? In old men she’d certainly witnessed leering glances. But not in old women. Out of season. And she, alive as if she were still somebody, she who wasn’t anybody.

Senhora Jorge B. Xavier was nobody.

Then she wished for nice and romantic feelings in relation to the delicacy of Roberto Carlos’s face. But she couldn’t manage it: his delicacy merely led her to a dark passage of sensuality. And her damnation was lasciviousness. It was base hunger: she wanted to devour Roberto Carlos’s mouth. She wasn’t romantic, she was crude in matters of love. There in the bathroom, in front of the mirror above the sink.

With her indelibly sullied age.

Without at least a sublime thought that might serve as her rudder and ennoble her existence.

Then she began taking her hair out of its bun and combing it slowly. It needed to be colored again, its white roots were already showing. Then the woman had the following thought: in all my life there’s never been a climax like in the stories you read. The climax was Roberto Carlos. She reflected, concluded that she would die secretly as she had secretly lived. But she also knew that every death is secret.

From the depths of her future death she thought she saw in the mirror the coveted figure of Roberto Carlos, with that soft wavy hair of his. There she was, trapped in desire out of season like that summer day in midwinter. Trapped in the tangle of passages in Maracanã. Trapped in the fatal secret of old women. It was just that she wasn’t used to being nearly 70, she lacked practice and hadn’t the slightest experience.

Then she said out loud and all alone:

“Robertinho Carlinhos.”

And to that she added: my love. She heard her voice in wonder as if making for the very first time, with no modesty or guilt whatsoever, the confession that all the same should have been shameful. The woman daydreamed that Robertinho might not want to accept her love because she herself was aware that this love was too sentimental, cloyingly voluptuous and greedy. And Roberto Carlos seemed so chaste, so asexual.

Were her lightly tinted lips still kissable? Or was it disgusting to kiss an old lady on the mouth? She studied her own lips up close and with no expression. And still with no expression she softly sang the chorus from Roberto Carlos’s most famous song: “I want you to keep me warm this winter and to hell with all the rest.”

That was when Senhora Jorge B. Xavier abruptly doubled over the sink as if about to vomit up her guts and interrupted her life with an earth-shattering silence: there! must! be! an! exiiiiiiit!

The Departure of the Train

(“A partida do trem”)

The departure was from Central Station with its enormous clock, the biggest in the world. It showed six o’clock in the morning. Angela Pralini paid the taxi and took her small suitcase. Dona Maria Rita Alvarenga Chagas Souza Melo got out of her daughter’s Opala and they headed toward the tracks. The old woman was dressed up and wearing jewelry. Emerging from the wrinkles that disguised her was the pure form of a nose lost in old age, and of a mouth that in times past must have been full and sensitive. But no matter. You reach a certain point—and it no longer matters what you were. A new race begins. An old woman cannot be communicated. She received the icy kiss from her daughter who left before the train departed. She used to help her board the train car. Since there was no center, she’d placed herself on the side. When the locomotive started moving, she was slightly taken aback: she hadn’t expected the train to move in that direction and had sat facing backward.

Angela Pralini noticed her stirring and asked:

“Would you like to change places with me, ma’am?”

Dona Maria Rita gave a genteel start, said no, thank you, she was fine where she was. But she seemed to have been shaken. She ran her hand over her gold filigree brooch, pinned to her breast, ran her hand over the clasp, took it off, raised it to her felt hat adorned with a fabric rose, took it off. Stern. Affronted? Finally she asked Angela Pralini:

“Is it on my account that you’d like to change places, miss?”

Angela Pralini said no, was surprised, the old woman surprised for the same reason: you don’t accept favors from a little old lady. She smiled a bit too much and her powder-covered lips parted in dry furrows: she was charmed. And a bit worked up:

“How nice of you,” she said, “how kind.”

There was a moment of disturbance because Angela Pralini laughed too, and the old woman kept laughing, revealing her well-polished dentures. She tugged discreetly at the girdle that was a little too tight.

“How nice,” she repeated.

She regained her composure somewhat quickly, crossed her hands over her purse that contained everything you could possibly imagine. Her wrinkles, as she’d been laughing, had taken on a meaning, thought Angela. Now they were once more incomprehensible, superimposed on a face that was once more unmalleable. But Angela had taken away her peace. She’d already seen lots of nervous girls telling themselves: if I laugh any more I’ll ruin everything, it’ll be ridiculous, I’ve got to stop—and it was impossible. The situation was very sad. With immense compassion, Angela saw the cruel wart on her chin, a wart with a sharp black hair poking out. But Angela had taken away her peace. You could tell she was about to smile any moment now: Angela had set the old woman on edge. Now she was one of those little old ladies who seem to think they’re always late, that the appointed time has passed. A second later she couldn’t contain herself, rose and peered out her window, as if it were impossible to stay seated.

“Do you want to open the window, ma’am?” said a young man listening to Handel on his transistor radio.

“Ah!” she exclaimed in terror.

Oh no! thought Angela, everything was getting ruined, the boy shouldn’t have said that, it was too much, no one should have touched her again. Because the old woman, on the verge of losing the attitude which she lived off, on the verge of losing a certain bitterness, quivered like harpsichord music between smiling and being utterly charmed:

“No, no, no,” she said with false authority, “not at all, thank you, I just wanted to look out.”

She sat immediately as if the young man and woman’s consideration were keeping watch over her. The old woman, before boarding the train, had crossed her heart three times, discreetly kissing her fingertips. She was wearing a black dress with a real lace collar and a solid gold brooch. On her dark left hand were a widow’s two thick wedding bands, thick like they don’t make them anymore. From the next car a group of girl scouts could be heard singing a hymn to Brazil in high voices. Fortunately, in the next car. The music from the boy’s radio mingled with another boy’s music: he was listening to Edith Piaf who was singing “J’attendrai.”

That had been when the train suddenly lurched and its wheels sprang into motion. The departure had begun. The old woman said softly: Oh Jesus! She bathed in the waters of Jesus. Amen. From a lady’s transistor radio she learned it was six-thirty in the morning, a frigid morning. The old woman thought: Brazil was improving the signs along its highways. Someone named Kissinger seemed to be in charge of the world.

Nobody knows where I am, thought Angela Pralini, and that scared her a little, she was a fugitive.

“My name is Maria Rita Alvarenga Chagas Souza Melo—Alvarenga Chagas was my father’s last name,” she added to beg pardon for having to utter so many words just to say her name. “Chagas,” she added modestly, “refers to the Wounds of Christ. But you can call me Dona Maria Ritinha. And your name?, what’s your Christian name?”

“My name is Angela Pralini. I’m going to spend six months on my aunt and uncle’s farm. And you, ma’am?”

“Ah, I’m going to my son’s farm, I’m going to spend the rest of my life there, my daughter brought me to the train and my son is waiting for me with the horse cart at the station. I’m like a package delivered from hand to hand.”

Angela’s aunt and uncle didn’t have children and treated her like a daughter. Angela recalled the note she’d left Eduardo: “Don’t try to find me. I’m going to disappear from you forever. I love you more than ever. Farewell. Your Angela stopped being yours because you didn’t want her.”

They sat in silence. Angela Pralini let the rhythmic sounds of the train wash over her. Dona Maria Rita gazed once again at the diamond-and-pearl ring on her finger, adjusted her gold brooch: “I’m old but I’m rich, richer than everyone in this car. I’m rich, I’m rich.” She peered at her watch, more to see its heavy gold case than to check the time. “I’m very rich, I’m not just any old lady.” But she knew, ah she very well knew that she was just some little old lady, a little old lady frightened by the smallest things. She recalled herself, alone all day long in her rocking chair, alone with the servants, while her “public relations” daughter spent all day out of the house, not coming home until eight at night, and without even giving her a kiss. She’d awoken that day at five in the morning, everything still dark, it was cold.

In the wake of the young man’s consideration she was extraordinarily worked up and smiling. She seemed weakened. Her laugh revealed her to be one of those little old ladies full of teeth. The misplaced cruelty of teeth. The boy had already moved off. She opened and closed her eyelids. Suddenly she slapped her fingers against Angela’s leg, extremely quickly and lightly:

“Today everyone is truly, just truly nice! so kind, so kind.”

Angela smiled. The old woman kept smiling without taking her deep, vacant eyes off the young woman’s. Come on, come on they urged her all around, and she peered here and there as if to make a choice. Come on, come on! they pushed her laughing all around, and she shook with laughter, genteel.

“How nice everyone on this train is,” she said.

Suddenly she tried to regain her composure, pretended to clear her throat, got ahold of herself. It must have been hard. She feared she had reached a point of not being able to stop herself. She reined herself in severely and trembling, closed her lips over her innumerable teeth. But she couldn’t fool anyone: her face held such hope that it disturbed any eyes that saw it. She no longer depended on anyone: once they had touched her, she could be on her way—she radiated on her own, thin, tall. She still would have liked to say anything at all and was already preparing some sociable head movement, full of studied charm. Angela wondered whether she’d manage to express herself. She seemed to think, think, and tenderly find a fully formed thought that might adequately couch her feelings. She said carefully and with the wisdom of the elders, as if she needed to act the part in order to speak like an old woman:

“Youth. Darling youth.”

Her laugh came out somewhat forced. Was she going to have a nervous breakdown? thought Angela Pralini. Because she was so marvelous. But she cleared her throat again austerely, drummed her fingertips on the seat as if urgently summoning the orchestra to prepare a new score. She opened her purse, pulled out a little square of newspaper, unfolded it, unfolded it, until she turned it into a large, regular newspaper, dating from three days before—Angela saw from the date. She began to read.

Angela had lost over fifteen pounds. On the farm she’d gorge herself: black bean mash and collard greens, to gain back those precious lost pounds. She was so skinny from having gone along with Eduardo’s brilliant and uninterrupted reasoning: she’d drink coffee without sugar nonstop in order to stay awake. Angela Pralini had very pretty breasts, they were her best feature. She had pointy ears and a pretty, curved mouth, kissable. Deep dark circles under her eyes. She made use of the train’s screaming whistle as her own scream. It was a piercing howl, hers, only turned inward. She was the woman who drank the most whiskey in Eduardo’s group. She could take 6 or 7 in a row, maintaining a terror-stricken lucidity. On the farm she’d drink creamy cow’s milk. One thing united the old woman with Angela: both would be met with open arms, but neither knew this about the other. Angela suddenly shivered: who would give the dog its final dose of deworming treatment. Ah, Ulisses, she told the dog in her head, I didn’t abandon you willingly, it’s because I had to escape Eduardo, before he ruined me completely with his lucidity: a lucidity that illuminated too much and singed everything. Angela knew that her aunt and uncle had antivenom for snake bites: she was planning to go straight into the heart of the dense and verdant forest, wearing tall boots and slathered in mosquito repellent. As if stepping off the Trans-Amazonian Highway, the explorer. What animals would she encounter? It was best to bring a rifle, food and water. And a compass. Ever since she’d discovered—but really discovered with a note of alarm—that she would die some day, then she no longer feared life, and, because of death, she had full rights: she’d risk everything. After having gone through two relationships that ended in nothing, this third was ending in love-adoration, cut off by the inevitability of the desire to survive. Eduardo had transformed her: he’d made her have eyes on the inside. But now she was looking outward. Through the window she saw the breasts of the land, in mountains. Little birds exist, Eduardo! clouds exist, Eduardo! a whole world of stallions and mares and cows exists, Eduardo, and when I was a little girl I would gallop on a bare horse, without a saddle! I’m fleeing my suicide, Eduardo. I’m sorry, Eduardo, but I don’t want to die. I want to be fresh and rare like a pomegranate.

The old woman pretended to be reading the newspaper. But she was thinking: her world was a sigh. She didn’t want others to think she’d been abandoned. God gave me health so I could travel alone. I’m also of sound mind, I don’t talk to myself and I bathe by myself every day. She gave off the fragrance of wilted and crushed roses, it was her elderly, musty fragrance. To possess a breathing rhythm, Angela thought about the old woman, was the loveliest thing to have existed since Dona Maria Rita’s birth. It was life.

Dona Maria Rita was thinking: once she got old she’d started to disappear to other people, they only glimpsed her. Old age: supreme moment. She was an outsider to the world’s general strategy and her own was paltry. She’d lost track of her more far-reaching goals. She was already the future.

Angela thought: I think that if I happened upon the truth, I wouldn’t be able to think it. It would be mentally unpronounceable.

The old woman had always been slightly empty, well, ever so slightly. Death? it was odd, it played no part in her days. And even “not existing” didn’t exist, not-existing was impossible. Not existing didn’t fit into our daily life. Her daughter wasn’t affectionate. In compensation her son was incredibly affectionate, good-natured, chubby. Her daughter was as brusque as her cursory kisses, the “public relations” one. The old woman didn’t feel quite up to living. The monotony, however, was what kept her going.

Eduardo would listen to music to accompany his thinking. And
he
understood
the dissonance of modern music, all he knew how to do was
understand
. His intelligence that smothered her. You’re a temperamental person, Angela, he once told her. So what? What’s wrong with that? I am what I am and not what you think I am. The proof that I am is in the departure of this train. My proof is also Dona Maria Rita, right there across from me. Proof of what? Yes. She’d already had plenitude. When she and Eduardo were so in love that while in the same bed, holding hands, they had felt life was complete. Few people have known plenitude. And, because plenitude is also an explosion, she and Eduardo had cowardly begun to live “normally.” Because you can’t prolong ecstasy without dying. They separated for a pointless, semi-invented reason: they didn’t want to die of passion. Plenitude is one of those truths you happen upon. But the necessary split had been an amputation for her, just as there are women whose uterus and ovaries are removed. Empty inside.

Dona Maria Rita was so antique that people in her daughter’s house were used to her like an old piece of furniture. She wasn’t a novelty for anyone. But it had never crossed her mind that she was living in solitude. It was just that she didn’t have anything to do. It was a forced leisure that at times became heartrending: she had nothing to do in the world. Except live like a cat, like a dog. Her ideal was to be a lady-in-waiting for some noble gentlewoman, but people didn’t have them anymore and even so, no one would have believed in her hardy seventy-seven years, they’d have thought her feeble. She didn’t do anything, all she did was this: be old. Sometimes she got depressed: she thought she was no good for anything, she was even no good for God. Dona Maria Ritinha didn’t have hell inside her. Why did old people, even those who didn’t tremble, evoke something delicately tremulous? Dona Maria Rita had a brittle tremor of accordion music.