The Girl in the Photograph (39 page)

“Careful, Lião! Slower, dear. Shall we stop for a second?”

We stop. I support Annie’s head on my knees and thrust my hands inside her sleeves
to hold her arms better. I feel her underarms beneath my fingers; just the other day
I loaned her my razor, it’s still in her room. A brand-new blade. And I remember the
afternoon (when was it?) when the three of us were in my room: I was shaving my legs,
Annie was tweezing her eyebrows with my tweezers and Lião was cutting something out
of a newspaper. When she raised her arm (she was wearing a sleeveless T-shirt) I got
up and gave her the razor, for the love of God, Lião, shave those underarms! She obeyed,
making her distinctions: “Underarms is when they’re shaved, see. Armpits is when they
aren’t.” Now here I am recalling a nonsensical thing like that. With the same desire
to laugh as I laughed then.

“Let’s go, Lena. Are you rested?”

“Yes, let’s go. Let’s go.”

Why have I never before noticed how long this stairway is? It’s enormous.

“Didn’t somebody turn on a light?” asked Lião. “Isn’t that a light?”

“It doesn’t matter, they can’t see us,” I whisper, more into Ana Clara’s ear than
into Lião’s. “We’re almost at the bottom, just a little farther.”

We almost run when we reach the driveway. A cat begins to meow furiously, excellent,
let its meowing cover our steps that seem to grind up the gravel, another thing I’d
never noticed, how indiscreet these stones are.

“The noise they make! Don’t kick them that way, dear.”

“But who’s kicking? Close your mouth, Lena!”

I don’t close it, I want to talk, talk without stopping now that we’re almost to the
gate, the first part is over, hallelujah! We look up and down. The street is deserted,
at least as far as we can see; beyond is only a wall of fog. The Corcel is opaque,
without contours. I hold Ana Clara’s body up against the gate as Lião opens the car
door, ah, God bless Mama and her generosity, blessed be the night and the houses with
their sleeping eyes.

“Now you go,” I say. “From here on I can manage by myself, the most complicated part
is over.”

She helps me arrange Ana Clara on the front seat. Then she gets in. She sits on the
other side, puts her arm around Ana and slams the car door.

“I’ll hold her, you drive,” she says without looking at me. “Let’s get going.”

I dry my eyes and turn on the headlights.

“Oh, Lião.”

She’s smiling with her teeth gritted.

“You’re demented but I’m not going to leave you alone in this. It’ll be lots of fun
if they catch us transporting a cadaver, oh, what fun,” she said shaking her head,
laughing out loud. “Transporting a cadaver in the middle of the night, me with my
passport in hand. Isn’t it original?”

I begin to giggle too when I look in the mirror and see her black cap stuck over her
eyebrows. Leaning against the seatback, Ana Clara’s head seems to recline so naturally
(I can’t see Lião’s arm locking her body against the seat) that we look exactly
as I had planned, two friends driving home a third who drank too much and passed out.

“They’re not going to catch us, dear.”

“A cadaver whose cause of death is extremely suspect,” she continues opening the window
a crack. “Don’t you study law? You must know we’re slightly illegal, don’t you? You
think of everything, think of an answer to give the policeman.”

I drive slowly, with my face almost plastered to the glass, oh Lord, the friendly-enemy
fog is even thicker, I have the impression that I’m driving through a nebula, the
headlights are so powerless. Don’t let a car come now, not now! I plead and continue
talking, Lião is in a good mood, we need to maintain our good humor.

“I’ll say that Ana got home in terrible shape, we decided to take her to an emergency
clinic and got lost in the fog, who wouldn’t get lost on a night like this?”

“You’re imaginative, Lena. A very privileged little head, yours. But there’s a thing
called autopsy, the lawyer will say she was dead longer than you affirmed. Or not?”

I had almost forgotten that word: autopsy. The end as sharp as a stiletto. The marble.
The rigor of the professional hand cutting so professionally, still the scent of perfumed
soap, still the talc. But in any case, she’s so pretty, isn’t she, Doctor? So well
made-up, so clean. I know you execute your duty dispassionately but this time you’re
going to do your work with a different spirit, beauty still arouses the emotions.

“Do you think I’m crazy, Lião?”

“Crazy enough. But I am too, see. And this one here beside us. I dunno, don’t worry.
Is it far? This park, we’ve been driving for hours! Quick, Lena, step on the gas pedal,
we’re slow as turtles!”

I don’t want to tell her that I can’t go any faster than this because I can’t see
a thing.

“We’re almost there, take it easy. You get out first, I’ll push the body from the
seat and you pull her and lift her out, hold your arm around her to keep her upright.
Then we’ll walk, me on one side and you on the other, got it?”

“Perfect. Then the guard from the park can come and help us, right?”

“There’s no guard. Look, here it is. Oh Lord, we made it, we made it, see the tree?
Let’s talk very naturally as we get out.”

I turn off the motor. The headlights. I kiss the feet of God,
Hallowed be thy name!

“Look on your side first. Nobody?”

She opens the door.

“Nobody. Quick!”

I kneel on the car seat and push Ana Clara toward Lião’s extended hands. The head
rolls and bumps against my lip, cutting it. “Be careful, Annie!” I almost say. When
I get out, Lião is holding her as if the two of them were about to dance, arm stretched
forward trying to take Ana’s hand. They connect, palm against palm. She bends the
arm and brings it around her shoulder with such a graceful motion that for an instant
I have the sensation that Crazy Annie, touched by our efforts, has resolved to collaborate
by encircling Lião with her arm. Lião has the harder job; I realize her strength when
from the other side I secure Ana’s dangling arm around my neck almost without effort.
The little park is as round as the top of the blue-gray tree; it seems more intimate,
more secret, closed in by the fog. I want to remember a verse of Garcia Lorca’s and
can’t but I quote at random, we need to keep talking, talking in low voices like two
delirious friends helping a third, the unsteadiest one is also the prettiest, where
was the party?

“As intimate as a little park, the idea is that but I can’t remember, a poem of Lorca’s
do you know it?”

“I don’t remember anything, I think I’ve forgotten everything and I’ll never remember
it again, see, I’ll never again remember anything, anything,” Lião keeps repeating
as she looks from side to side.

The tips of Ana Clara’s shoes drag through the fog-white sand. Lião tries to lift
her higher and can’t; I guess at the grooves the shoe-tips leave in the sand and remind
myself to erase the marks on the way back. I hear a heavy motor (a truck?) pass close
by and move away.

“Look at the bench. We can rest there a little, right, Lião? Maybe I’ll remember the
poem, it’s about a park just like this one…”

“Deserted, isn’t it? What’s that up ahead of us?”

“There? It’s only a little pine tree. Deserted. But that poem, do you remember it?”

“Perfectly. I remember, I remember. Quick, Lena.”

“Don’t you want to sit down a minute?”

She sits down, pulling Annie, who almost falls off her lap. The stone of the park
bench is icy. But her face is exactly like it. Once seated against the tree trunk,
she falls sideways in the direction she prefers and stays balanced there, her cheek
on the stone, her hands folded against her breast. I pillow her head on the handbag,
taking care not to mark her chin with the clasp. I pull the dress over her ankles,
straighten the shoe buckle which was twisted on the way, and dust off the shoes.

“Lena, come on! Let’s go!”

I clasp her icy hands, thinking of opening them. But she prefers them closed.

“We love you very much. God take care of you.”

Lião encircles me and drags me off.

“It’s by Lorca, you’re right, it’s about a park. Did you say intimate?”

I can’t talk, I’m crying and undoing the shoemarks with the soles of my sandals.

We are in the car. I hear Lião’s teeth chattering. Or are they mine? I drive around
the park but I can’t see either the bench or the visitor, only the top of the tree
through the mist.

“And the night began with stars. Such big ones…” I say.

I look for the flannel cloth and clean off the windshield. Ana Clara’s perfume is
still with us. Lião must have had the same thought; she has opened the window slightly.

“The baby, Lorena! The erotic baby!”

“What baby?”

“The one that was hanging from the mirror! I gave him an indoctrination and it stuck,
your chauffeur took it off! Perfect, perfect. Things like this give me hope,” she
murmurs relaxing her body. “I think it’s been a month since I slept. Oh Lena, Lena,
it’ll be all right, won’t it?”

I don’t know if she’s talking about Ana Clara or the trip. The trip, of course. Of
course.

“It’s going to be marvelous, dear. I have an intuition, it’ll be wonderful.”

And I feel a brutal stab of joy. A desire to laugh, talk to people, say nonsense,
write nonsense. Oh Lord, the exam. It’s time to go in, jump into the shower, drink
a glass of milk (I’m in the mood for milk), erase the clues in Annie’s room and run
to the Department. I’ll need to go out before they—Before.

“But isn’t it really marvelous, Lião? When we’re on God’s side,” I say and brake the
car.

“But is God on
this
side?”

I kiss her lightly, dry the last few tears (I’m not going to cry any more) and put
my handkerchief inside my purse.

“We have thousands of things to do, Lião, thousands!”

“Right. We could stay here talking until the end of time, come on, get out. Hurry,
Lena.”

We get out. We’re shivering with cold. I hear the little bell tinkling on her chain
but it has rung other times during this night. I look at the hems of her pant legs.
And her hair escaping from under the cap, raveled in the wind. It’s good-bye but we’re
not to say it’s good-bye.

“Come on, Lena, go in, quick. You go in front. Don’t stand there looking at me, it’s
almost getting light!”

“The cross!” I remember. “I’ll put it on your windowsill, on the outside, don’t forget
to get it! You won’t forget?”

“Fine, perfect, I won’t forget, now get going!”

I open the gate. When I turn around, she’s in the same place, laughing. She raises
her arm, first closed in the revolutionary salute. I blow her my most diaphanous kisses
on my fingertips. I ascend the stairway in three jumps (it shrank), get the cross
from inside my jewelry box, come down again, go across the garden and leave it on
her windowsill. Lião is already inside and I know she saw me but she pretended not
to. When I close the door of my room I have to stop and breathe deeply. Deeply. I
turn on the record player and choose a record at random, without looking. When I hear
the one I’ve chosen I grin. I go straight to the bed, make a tight bundle of the bedclothes,
open the clothes hamper and push the bundle inside. The lid resists, grumbles, pops
back twice but the third time gives up and stays closed. The bathtub with the bathwater
still in it. A tenuous spiral of soapsuds floats on the cold surface. I turn my face
away, stick my hand in the water and pull out the plug. While I wait I regard the
bath salts in their glass jar, I never saw gold nuggets but they must look just like
that. I open the hot-water faucet and while I lean over the tub, the residue I knew
was there is carried away. I open the closet and choose some clean sheets, green?
The bath towel can be white. I turn on the shower and feel its warm steam in my mouth.
The mist outside is already dissipating and here another one is gathering, ah, I mustn’t
forget to advise the girl from Santarém that if a striped kitten answering
to the name of Astronaut appears. Kitten? But hasn’t he grown up? In short, a striped
cat. Advise me and you will be generously rewarded. And if a rather obscure voice
should call me on the telephone, the voice of a man who prefers not to leave his name.
I view my profile in the misted-over mirror.

P
ETROS
A
BATZOGLOU
,
What Does Mrs Freeman Want?

M
ICHAL
A
JVAZ
,
The Golden Age
.

        
The Other City
.

P
IERRE
A
LBERT
-B
IROT
,
Grabinoulor
.

Y
UZ
A
LESHKOVSKY
,
Kangaroo
.

F
ELIPE
A
LFAU
,
Chromos
.

        
Locos
.