The Girl in the Photograph (26 page)

She rolled down the window to throw away her cigarette. Bending over frontwards, she
clenched her hands into fists against her body. This crumb-bum wanted to know everything.

“My uncle, the cardiologist, has a clinic on the same floor, the other time my father
stayed right there in the clinic,” said Ana Clara resting her head on her knees. She
laced her arms around her legs. “Oh, I feel so depressed. Do you have a handkerchief?”

He took one from his suit pocket.

“Here, I haven’t used it. But what’s this? Don’t cry, calm down, don’t cry! Your father’s
being taken care of, isn’t he? What’s your uncle’s name? The doctor?”

“Loreno. Loreno Vaz Leme. I’m named Lorena after him, he’s my godfather.”

The man stroked Ana Clara’s hair lightly.

“I know several doctors on that street, but not that one. Vaz Leme? … No, I don’t
know him.”

“In reality he spent most of his professional life in the United States.”

I’ll say I went with Lorena to a conference, it’s settled. The guy talked for two
hours without stopping and that was due to good luck because he knocked over his pitcher
of water. And where was this conference? At the university dear. A lawyer who is a
relative of Lorena’s all the important lawyers are her relatives. We sat in the front
row and couldn’t get up and walk out because during conferences and during a fuck
you don’t get up and walk out, it’s not polite. And I’m polite. Don’t you want to
marry a polite girl? So.

“You’ve been drinking, girl. Do you hear me, Lorena? Lorena!”

I lift my head. I fell asleep. Didn’t I tell you? Always somebody poking me. Now it’s
this man with his little hands, look there at his little hand. Is he going to ask
more questions? He is indeed. He gives one a ride but he charges. He reminds me of
the scaly one.

It doesn’t matter. I’m Lorena now.

“You’ve been drinking, haven’t you? And quite a bit.”

“I mixed champagne and whiskey at the party. I’m not really used to drinking but I’m
feeling better now, I’m fine, Mr.—?”

“Would you like a cup of coffee? Let’s stop at a cafe ahead, you’ll feel like a new
girl. And don’t call me
Mr
., I’m not so very old, am I? Shall we go to a cafe?”

“No, no, please, they’re waiting for me, I’m worried. I’m sorry but.”

“What do you do, Lorena? You’re a charming girl, do you know that?”

“I’m in my senior year of Psychology at the University of Sao Paulo.”

His hand again, this time on my knee. Not even with my father dying does this pig
show any respect.

“Beg your pardon!” he screamed. “These idiots! Did you have a scare? Beg your pardon.”

We almost ran into a truck and he begs my pardon. He’s the one who had a scare. Is
he going to hold the wheel with both his little hands now? He is. Or I could say that
I had an auto accident. I was a witness, a three-car collision and I was in the third.
The drivers caught in the wreckage. Oh I need to. Quick quick.

“Can we go faster?”

“But you’re not feeling very well, Lorena. How …?”

“I’m fine, really. It was just a shock, I thought you’d forgotten about it.”

“Call me Valdomiro.”

“In reality I’ve never felt better, if it wasn’t for this business of my father. Here,
you can leave me here on the corner, quick, that’s a great help. You’re a saint.”

“But what if he’s not there any more? I can wait, Lorena, don’t panic, is it in that
building there? But the door’s already locked, isn’t it?”

“No, it isn’t there, it’s farther ahead. Stop here, I want to walk. The fresh air
will do me good.”

“But it’s raining, girl! Here, keep my card. It has my office phone. Will you call
me?”

“Of course. First thing in the morning. Tomorrow.”

He kisses my hand. I open the door and fall to my knees on the sidewalk. And he’s
still talking I think he’s coming up behind me. I run away. I wish I had skates. I
always wanted
skates. To go skating off down the road, all by myself. The rain has passed but I’m
freezing cold. I could have asked him for a loan. Would he have given it to me? What
about the card? Who knows, I threw it away. Valdomiro. Mercedes-Benz. He wouldn’t
give me a thing.

“Cognac,” I order the bartender.

He just stares at me. Why does he look at me that way? I raise my head and get my
money out, do you suppose he’s thinking.

“Domestic?”

“No, imported, the best you have.”

I stick my hand in my pocket and tear open the tissue paper. I drink slowly. My eyes
and mouth fill with water. How hidden we are. And how free. Hell, why does that fool
Lião talk so much about liberty. We’re free, look here nobody knows what I have in
my pocket. Nobody knows what I’m swallowing. Thousands of people all around me and
nobody. Only me. Right this minute swarms of people are murdering and being murdered
and who takes any notice. Right in this building up above. Thousands. That’s neat.
Do things right in front of others.

“Good evening.”

There’s an old man in front of me saying
Good evening
. Now what does he want this old man. He looks like a beggar in that raincoat people
are getting overconfident. He wants my company, the bum. He’s unaccompanied. Me too.
The night of the unaccompanied. I drain my glass. I’m serene as a queen it’s glorious
to feel like a queen. To feel like somebody else. Enough of Ana Clara. I’m Lorena.

“I’m waiting for my husband.”

He wants to say something and doesn’t. He leaves, scraping the dirty soles of his
shoes on the dirty tiles of the floor. And what if he’s my father. What if all of
a sudden he should be my father. I run after him and tap him on the shoulder. I look
for myself in his face.

“Do you know what time it is, sir?”

He shows me his wrist with its gray hairs, the man who could be my father doesn’t
have a watch. I need to control myself so as not to burst into tears. What joy. I’m
happy happy. Maybe he is. Maybe he isn’t. It doesn’t matter he doesn’t know that he’s
two people, the one who stays in the bar and the one who goes
off arm and arm with me. I have forgiven him everything. I was certain we’d meet some
day. The men in the doorway multiply as though reflected in mirrors. I walk proudly
between the clusters, passing among them with my secret, like a ship. I’m a ship sailing
by in the distance, all lighted up. I see myself passing far away and it’s spectacular
to see myself parting the sea. I raise my coat collar and become a muffled ship. The
voice the voice calling me. I turn around and there he is arm and arm with me. My
father and I in the sea-filled night. He doesn’t know anything. I’m a little girl
and he doesn’t even know.

“You are beautiful. Beautiful!”

“Thank you,” I say and smile. He’ll never know why I thank him.

He puts his arm around me. I can feel his desire like a heavy weight, his desire is
an anchor but the night is so light, could there be a more weightless night? The father
and the daughter. They meet in the night. I rise up weightless like the night and
everything is silent where I am. The stars pass, pass and illuminate me I can grab
that one by the tail. Taxi?

“Taxi?” I cry and the headlights blind me.

“We don’t need a taxi, Gorgeous. The apartment is close by, a lovely little place,
come on. Lean on me and I’ll help you. What’s my pretty girl been drinking? Naughty
little thing! Aren’t you going to tell me? Huh?”

“Rain.”

He laughs. Teeth. He has good teeth. He doesn’t have a watch but he has teeth. The
watch doesn’t matter, but the teeth. Shit, he’s handsome. He had to be a handsome
man, I knew it. My father is with me. I’m protected. Protected.

“My whiskey is first-class, we can have a drink and listen to a little music, do you
like tango? I have a collection of Gardel records, I’m crazy about Gardel. But my
God, you really are beautiful, you look like a goddess,” he says squeezing me harder.
“I dress sloppy this way because I don’t care about appearances, I’m the Bohemian
type. But if I’d guessed I was to meet a goddess like you, I would have worn a tie
and tails!”

I’ve become transparent. Transparent. I can see myself because I’m transparent, my
rose-colored tissues my intertwined veins, my organs organized in their compartments
I’m completely in order inside like that plastic man in the store window there was
a man turned inside out standing in a store window.
All order and light. So much light that I need to close my coat so nobody can see,
the Heart of Jesus is in my breast. The shock makes me so dizzy that I trip and cry
out. It’s Him.

“It’s Him!”

The man is startled too and grabs me. We fall down together.

“What happened, what’s the matter with you? What was it? We could break a leg, Gorgeous.
Did you get hurt?”

If I tell you will you believe me? Mother Alix, listen. He is here hanging inside
my chest with the crown of thorns I don’t pray or anything and He chose me, do you
see? He came to reside in me, of all people! I want to shout because it’s damned glorious
for Him to have chosen me but I’ll only tell you only you. I have to be serious and
dignified with my Resplendent Heart. If He chose me it’s because I deserve it He saw
all that humiliation so much suffering He remembers what I suffered with all those
bastards who. I was a child and those bastards I couldn’t defend myself or anything
I was a child.

“I couldn’t, shit.”

“Crying, Gorgeous? Do you hurt somewhere? Tell your
hermano
,” he murmured, humming as he picked up her purse which she had dropped, “
Si precisas una ayuda, si te hace falta un consejo
”…

“My name is Lorena, Lorena Vaz Leme.”

“For me you’re Gorgeous, I’ll just call you Gorgeous. You’d win any beauty contest
easily, when I see the hags that enter them nowadays. You have an exceptional face,
I can’t see what’s underneath your coat but I can guess, I’m an expert on the subject.
But don’t cry that way, can’t you walk a little farther? Lazybones. We’re almost there,
I live very close, a Bohemian has to live in the Bohemian zone, right?” he exclaimed,
laughing. “You’ll like my little old-fashioned place, there’s even a Victrola that
winds up, you know how they work? What a stupid question, you were only born yesterday.
Gorgeous, gorgeous. That’s it, I want you laughing, I like happy people. And I’m a
sad man. I adore tango music, we’ll hear some tangos.”

“But I’m not alone.”

“Of course you’re not, what amazing news. Careful, Gorgeous, hold onto me, did you
twist you foot? Later I’ll give it a massage, I used to be a masseur. Masseur, sportswriter,
radio announcer, real estate dealer, oh, the paper I sold. I’ve been many things,
everything but rich. When I was young I even had
a body-building school, to this day I do my exercises, put your hand here. See? Forty-six
years old and not a sign of a tummy. A bullfighter!”

I was late because. My father and Jesus I know” I know it’s hard nobody understands.
So simple. He crushes up the bread and the rat it’s a rat he has in his hand. I meet
his gaze full of anger and fear. I’ll never be afraid again. I’m made of light and
he’s nothing but scales. Scales and darkness. It doesn’t matter.

“I couldn’t care less. So.”

“Look here at all my old stuff, I surround myself with antiques.”

The wide bed, covered with a crocheted bedspread, occupied almost the whole room,
which was made cozy by silk pillows and family photographs pinned to the walls, among
them snapshots of seminude men in athletic poses. The family pictures were old, yellowed
and conventional with their groups of men and women in black, surrounded by children
in sausage curls and boots. On the bedside table was a lamp with a shade fringed in
colored beads and a little Victrola protected by a lace doily.

“My family,” she said opening her arms. “My family.”

He took off her coat, folded it over the chair with the satin cushions and knelt in
front of her. She swayed. Lightly he ran his fingers over her black stockings.

“What a physique. Your physique, Gorgeous! Those legs. I don’t want you to take off
your shoes or stockings, I adore black stockings, very long like these, do these go
all the way up? They sure do,” he murmured kissing the buckle of each shoe. “Gorgeous,
gorgeous.”

“The pictures,” said Ana Clara pointing in wonder at the walls. “The boy with the
cat. My brother, shit, my brother.”

“Yes, Gorgeous, we’re all brothers, let the world go by outside and here in our little
corner … but come rest a little, lie down here, put your head on the pillow, pure
kapok, isn’t it soft? Are you comfortable? Gorgeous. Let’s have a little whiskey to
warm us up, what about a drink? Scotch. My friend keeps me supplied, he works for
the customs, I have friends everywhere! But let me look at you…. Gorgeous.”

“My cat disappeared.”

“Don’t worry, I’ll find you another one, come on, drink. Can you hold the glass? I’ll
put on a tango to complete the atmosphere, a real tango, hum? I was a singer for a
while but my
voice started to crack, I smoke too much. Cigarettes are poison.”

“I have to go,” she moaned, twitching. She threatened to get up: “What time is it?”

“What’s this, what silly talk is this? The night is young, Gorgeous, come on, drink.
Careful, don’t spill it on your blouse … oh, you already did. Never mind, it’ll dry.
Gorgeous.”

“Next year. Next year. January. I already said.”

He adjusted the handle of the Victrola and wound it up. The violins surged nasal and
vehement. At each turn of the disc the needle hurdled the deep scratch and lost control
in its descent, then re-encountered the groove. He drew close to her.

“I want you to stay very quiet, just like you are, completely dressed,” he murmured
with a heavy voice. “I want you to stay nice and quiet while I read something to you,
are you comfortable? Give me your glass, I’ll give you some more later, now stay just
as you are. Isn’t it lovely, this tango? ‘
Bien sabes que no hay envidia en mi pecho! Que soy un hombre derecho!
’… wait a second, I’ll be right back.”