Читать книгу The Girl in the Photograph - Lygia Fagundes Telles - Страница 7

Chapter 2

“Bunny! Hey, Bunny, are you asleep?” he asked. He shook her by the shoulders. “What’s the matter with you that you don’t move?”

Ana Clara made an effort to open her eyes wider. Around her left eye was smeared a charcoal-colored ring as if she had been socked. She rubbed her eyes with her knuckles and the eyeliner spread over her other eye also. Sleepily she turned toward the dense cone of smoke projected by the light of the lamp and kissed the young man’s shoulder, disguising her yawn in a lovebite.

“I’m almost fainting, love. So good, Max.”

“Then why do you go cold that way? Hanh? It’s as if I were making it with a penguin, ever see a penguin?”

She twisted and untwisted a lock of hair around her Finger.

“It’s just that today I’m not too brilliant.”

“I wish you’d tell me the day you are brilliant,” he muttered sitting up in bed.

“Max, I love you. I love you.”

With fingers bent forward clawlike he scratched his head, his sweat-shiny chest, then his head again.

“But you don’t like to make love, Bunny. It’s important to make love, hanh?”

“I’m kind of hung up. I need to talk to my analyst, this last treatment got me all screwed up again.”

“Tell him that when you make love you close up like an oyster when somebody squeezes lemon over it. Wow, would I like to eat some oysters with white wine, nice and cold,” he said stretching his arms.

“Oysters make me sick, I can’t stand to look at them. Horrible things.”

He searched through his pants heaped on the floor beside the armchair. From the pocket he took a pack of cigarettes and shook it until a small tissue-paper packet fell into his hand.

“A nice little dose for Bunny and one for me, hanh? You’ll get in gear with this.”

I pull the sheet up to my neck. What does he mean, get in gear. If only I could. Get in gear get in gear and climb the walls from getting in gear and if only my head would stop scratch scratch thinking those damn things. Shit, why does my head have to be my enemy? I only think thoughts that make me suffer. Why does this goddamn head hate me so much? That’s what no analyst ever explained to me this head business. It only leaves me in peace when I’m high the bastard. And that dumb ass waiting for me peeling the crust off his bread with his fingernail until there’s nothing left but the soft inside part, just like a rat. It’s my head he’s peeling scratch scratch. Bastard.

“I can’t stay very long today love,” I say.

He picks up the empty glasses from the floor, winks his eye and goes to the kitchen taking the glasses and the ice bucket. He opens the refrigerator. I hug the pillow. Sleep sleep. Sleep until I crack in two from sleeping without a single dream because dreams are just another pain in the ass. There are some good ones. Those. Why can’t I ever sleep as long as I want to? Why is there always somebody poking at me, let’s have a nice little screw, let’s have some fun screwing? But what do they mean fun. I love you Max. I love you but I don’t feel a thing with you or with anybody else. It’s a long time since I’ve felt anything. Locked up. There was another word he liked to use what was it? This Hachibe. How will I feel anything with that scaly bastard when I don’t with this one that I love? He’s already sitting there with the bread in his hand, there’s always one wanting to screw me and another one waiting for me at some table. I go from bed to table and from table to bed. Blocked now I remember blocked. “Is it only with me you’re so cold?” he asked. That scaly son of a bitch. Pretentious dwarf. “It’s because I’m a virgin, dear. You must excuse me but I’m a virgin and virgins can’t get turned on like—.” Then he looked at me in his indecent way and laughed. All dental plates. Shit it isn’t just me. Even with money and everything he didn’t do too well as far as teeth go. Poor childhood poor shoulders poor hair. I am five feet ten inches tall. A model. A beautiful model. What more do you want? Bastard. Shit if this head would just leave me alone for awhile. I’d like to have a pumpkin instead of a head, a great big orange pumpkin. Happy. Toasted pumpkin seeds with salt are good for belly worms I can still taste them and that pukey medicine too. I don’t want the seeds Ma I want the story. And so at midnight the princess turned into a pumpkin. Who told me that? Not you Ma because you didn’t re-count stories you only re-counted money. The little face so penniless counting and recounting the money which was never enough for anything. “It’s not enough,” she would say. It wasn’t enough because she was a fool who didn’t charge anyone. It’s not enough it’s not enough she would repeat showing the money that wasn’t enough rolled up in her hand. But give out enough, that she did. For my taste she gave out all too much. A whole crowd of lousy bastards asking and her giving out. The most important one was Dr. Cotton.

“Max, you there? You know what my dentist’s name was? Dr. Cotton.”

Max poured whiskey into his glass. He swished it around and the whitish deposit in the bottom slowly rose.

“Cotton? Dr. Cotton?”

I clutch the glass in my hand. When Lorena shakes her crystal paperweight the snow rises so lightly. It flutters softly around and then settles on the roof, the fence, and the little girl with the red cape. Then she shakes it again. “This way I have snow all year round.” But why snow all year round? Where is there any snow here? She thinks snow is the most. She’s sickening. I crunch the ice cube between my teeth.

“Sometimes she sleeps with Donald Duck. She’s always squeezing his tummy, quack, quack. Sickening.”

I push the piece of ice against the roof of my mouth with my tongue. In reality the sky is way up there without any pain. Hell starts immediately below with its roots. So many roots twining around each other. Solidarity.

“He was forever changing the cotton in people’s cavities, weeks, months, years went by and there he was with the little bits of cotton in his tweezers, that’s why he got to be called Dr. Cotton.”

“But you have good teeth, hanh? Don’t you, Bunny?”

My beautiful. My innocent love.

“Yes.”

“So your Dr. Cotton was good.”

Oh yes. Oh he was great. He would change the cotton while the hole got bigger and bigger. I grew up in that chair with my teeth rotting and him waiting for them to rot completely and me to grow some more so he could do the bridge. A bridge for the mother and another for the daughter. Bastard. Prick. The two bridges falling down in the order they appeared on the scene. First Ma’s who went to bed with him first and then. I went walking across the bridge / It shook before my eyes / Sister the water’s made of poison / He who drinks it dies. Who drinks it dies. She used to sing to put me to sleep but in such a hurry that I would pretend I was asleep so she’d go away faster. In the movies there was always a mother singing romantically to her children who hugged their stuffed animals. Grandmothers used to tell them stories too but where my grandmother might be is something I’d like to know. I wish I had a grandmother like Mother Alix. To have a grandmother like Mother Alix is to have a kingdom.

“Can nuns be grandmothers, love? Answer me, can they?”

His back is turned toward me, he’s choosing records. How gorgeous he is naked. Shit he makes me cry from love he’s so beautiful. A sun. I think I first fell in love with his teeth, his teeth are perfect, there couldn’t be a more perfect mouth. I love you Max. I love you but in January my sweet. In January a new life. Get my feet out of the mud. You were rich once now it’s my turn may I? Next year stop. He’s scaly but filthy rich. So.

“This is my body,” he says holding the record up high. He kisses it. “This is my blood.”

“I hate God,” I say turning my face away.

Do I hate God or this music? This music. I hate this music hate it hate it hate it. Lorena has the same mania. A band of Negroes howling all day long, a hell of a howl. I hate Negroes. But Dr. Cotton was white. Blue eyes the bastard. That was his nickname but his real name? Dr. Hachibe said that we expel everything that was terrible and if that’s the case I’ll never remember his goddamn name. But I remember his nickname. What good did it do to erase the name if the scratch scratch of the fat she-rats there in the construction site is still there, day and night scratch scratch in the dark. “But don’t those fitches let anybody fleep?” yelled Téo who was toothless and pronounced certain letters with an F sound. But he would sleep. Ma too. She used to sleep real well that one. But I would lie awake thinking scratch scratch. The waiting room with the black woman, a handkerchief tied around her swollen face. The little basket of artificial flowers covered with dust. The black woman and I were the most assiduous patients with our smell of Dr. Lustosa Wax, when it hurt too much we would take the cotton out and fill up the hole with this wax that spread through our mouths with the smell of heaven. Dona Inês would talk so much about heaven heaven. I only experienced it the instant the nerve quit throbbing and went to sleep, completely waxed over. I went to sleep too. The smell of this wax mixed with the smell of creosote, they’re the two smells that pull me back into my childhood, the wax burning in the tooth and the creosote that came from the white can where Dr. Cotton would throw the used pieces of cotton. Another smell that mingles with them is the smell of piss. Real piss and not pee-pee, you hear Lorena? Pee-pee actually smells perfumy when uttered by your buttoned-up, peppermint-scented little mouth. Sen-Sen. “It refreshes one’s breath so,” she told me with her fresh breath. I chew gum to hide bad breath my gum is stronger easier ah yes I know it’s not as refined. Sen-Sen is refined. It’s not by accident that you always have one subtly melting in your mouth. So pee-pee ends up smelling like Sen-Sen but the construction site smelled like piss. Somebody who should have used Sen-Sen was Dr. Cotton, he smelled like old beer. To this day I can’t even look at beer because he would attend me after supper, the hour reserved for the most miserable patients, and at supper naturally he would swill down his half-bottle. Son of a bitch.

“I’d like to put the drill on his teeth zzzzzzzzzzzz and drill a deep hole zzzzzzzzz and cut through his gum and through his jawbone zzzzzzzzzz.”

“Hug me, Bunny, I’m cold, hug me quick because all of a sudden this is the North Pole with bears and all, I don’t want him to hug me, I want you to! Bunny, it’s great to be like this with you all friendly, I feel like crying it’s so good. Listen to this music, listen.”

So then he said he’d have to pull out the four front teeth because they were too far gone, what was the point of keeping them if they were so rotten? I started to cry and he consoled me, smoothing the napkin that he had fastened around my neck with a little chain. It was better to put in a bridge nobody would be able to tell because he’d make a perfect bridge like he had for my mother and was going to make for Téo. I dried my eyes on the napkin feeling the cold chain biting into the back of my neck, it wasn’t a chain like yours Max. Or Lorena’s with the little golden heart. That one was dark and it held a napkin that had a spot of blood in one corner. Old hardened blood. The clasp hurt my neck, especially after he started smoothing the napkin harder as he repeated about how beautiful the bridge would be. Closer the smell of beer and closer the little eyes blue as beads behind the dirty lenses of his glasses. His icy hand and hot breath faster faster the bridge. The bridge. I closed my mouth but my olfactory memory stayed open. One’s memory has a memorable sense of smell. My childhood is all made up of smells. The cold smell of cement at the construction with the warmish funeral smell in the flower shop where I used to work poking wires in the stems of flowers up to their heads because the broken ones had to hold their heads high in the baskets and wreaths. The vomit from those men’s drinking sprees and the sweat and the toilets along with the smell of Dr. Cotton. Shit, all added up. I learned thousands of things from those smells, and from the anger, so much anger, everything was hard only she was easy. Her head was just for decoration. With me it’s going to be different. Dif-fe-rent, I would repeat with the rats that scratch scratch chewed up my sleep in that roach-filled construction site, dif-fe-rent, dif-fe-rent, I repeated as the hand pulled the button off my blouse. Where did my button get to I said and suddenly it became so important, that button that popped off while the hand searched farther down because my breasts weren’t interesting any more. Why weren’t they, why? The button I repeated digging my fingernails into the plastic of the chair and closing my eyes so as not to see the cold cylinder of light winking from one corner of the ceiling what about the button? No, no it’s not the button I want it’s the bridge the bridge. The bridge would take me far away from my mother the men roaches bricks far far away. I’ll be able to laugh again and I’ll get a job during the day and study at night I’ll be a manicurist because all of a sudden some man might fall in love with me while I gave him a manicure. His fingernails ripping the elastic of my panties and ripping the panties off and sticking his roachy-spidery finger into all the holes he could find there were so many there in the construction remember? The thick-shelled cockroaches were black and would stoop down just like people to get through the cracks. They were smart those roaches but I was smarter and as I knew their tricks it was easy to grab their mother by the wings and open the pan and throw her inside. Here, eat your soup with the big cockroach I said crying with fear as he shook Ma by the hair and was about to shake me too, so drunk he couldn’t stand up. I’m hungry he would yell breaking the furniture and Ma too because supper wasn’t ready and those two tramps mother and daughter were lying around doing nothing. “The place for a whore is in the street!” he would yell. In the street and not in the room the engineer had let him use, just him. The roach opened its wings and started to swim firmly over the pieces of collard green. The soup was boiling hot and to this day I don’t know how it managed to swim with such style, an Olympic breaststroke, vupt, vupt, vupt and it was almost climbing out of the pan with its wings dripping grease when I pushed it to the bottom again. It grasped the spoon and got up to the surface and clasped its hands together for the love of God I screamed no no! Why are you screaming that way little girl. Don’t scream it can’t be hurting that much, just be patient, a little bit more, quiet. Quiet. The soup is ready! I screamed and the drill motor turned on because the black woman with the handkerchief was already knocking on the door I didn’t even see her face but I guessed it was her. There. There, I thought crying from happiness now he’ll let me go because the Negress knew his wife and he was scared of his wife. He’ll let me go because the soup is ready with the swollen cockroach under the collard greens. But he straightened the hair on his forehead and opening the door said very calmly that he really couldn’t see her because the girl’s treatment was very complicated and painful as well, hadn’t she heard a scream? She should come back tomorrow because today he really wouldn’t be able to attend her. He understood ah yes indeed he understood how much she was suffering because this infection really did hurt but today was impossible. She should take some of these pills look here you can have this handful free and take two now. If the pain continues, two more and then two more and so on. I heard the clasp of her purse snap to put away the handful of envelopes that he took out of the glass cupboard. Then her steps dying away. The gate opening. I wanted to hear her steps in the street and only heard his steps behind the chair. He wore rubber-soled shoes and the rubber would stick to the linoleum as if they were glued. He lowered the chair. The little chain that held the napkin pinched my neck. The drop of dried blood in one corner of the cloth. Quiet. Quiet, he repeated as he had done during the treatment. You’re going to get a bridge. Don’t you want a bridge?

“Quick Max, I want a drink,” she asked clenching her hands into fists.

“Where’s your glass? Hanh? But what’s this, you don’t need to cry, why are you crying? Don’t, love, or I’ll start to cry too.”

She wiped her face on the sheet. Twined together they rolled as one body among the covers. The glass rolled and fell almost soundlessly onto the rug.

“This depression,” she said disentangling herself. She propped herself up on her elbows to drink. “And that Dr. Hachibe? The ass.”

It wasn’t yenom he wanted, it was really money. Bastard. Group analysis. Just imagine, how could I be open with those lousy pricks? she thought rolling her hair around her finger. Either they complain about their sex life all the time or hash over their doubts, shall I become a queer? Shan’t I? What the hell, who cares?

She rolled herself up, closed her hands and hid them against her breasts. Very easy to attribute everything to one’s childhood, he had wide shoulders this one here. How shitty, that Dr. Batista went on a trip and that crazy doctor had to take his place, he’s worse off than I am. What was he called that fetus? He looked like a fetus. A long name but short legs. Legs and all the rest. A sorry excuse for a man. Shit I got worse with him. A crazy.

“He didn’t charge but then how could he?” she asked massaging the back of her neck. “After him I started treatment with an old man, so old he was falling apart and the whole time he talked about his wife who had terminal cancer and was going to die. What did I have to do with that? I went there to relax a little and I had to listen to the old man in love with his wife who was dying of cancer. I felt sorry but at the same time I got mad as hell because even for that he charged. Childhood. In reality everything becomes simpler when you discover way back there some aunt that wanted to poke her fingers in your eyes. With me they wanted to poke other things in other places but didn’t I get out all by myself? So. They all stayed there in the cellar. Only me.”

She stretched out on her stomach. She was taking things, right. But who could stand anything without some trips and a shrink to talk to?

“Who?” she asked staring fixedly at the pillow. “Even those flowers with the broken stems. Didn’t even they need wire? So. Life is hard to put up with. Bending under from problems. But next year, my sweetie, a new life. Do you hear me love? A new life.”

Married to money she wouldn’t need any more help, shit, analysis. No more problems in sight. Free. She would go back and open her canceled registration, she would be a brilliant student. The books she would read. The discoveries about herself. About others.

“Even those things that we … I grew rich from the experience, didn’t I? A bourgeoise intellectual. Very chic. And that terrorist, still so underdeveloped. Worthless talk, my sweetie. Freedom is security. If I feel secure, I am free.”

She drank from Max’s glass. He was sleeping with an affable expression, his hand raised in the gesture of one who invites some visitor to come closer. With a bag of gold, you could be cured easily. Or could you? Even if she went through one or two crises, what would it matter if they took place inside a Jaguar? The hard thing was to fall apart in a public bus. And Lorena saying that it was some minor French authoress who wrote that. Why minor? Not at all. Shit, you can’t be minor if you discover something like that. I agree, it’s not very original. But it’s like the story of the egg that nobody could make stand on end, very easy very easy, but nobody thought of it until after Galileo. Wasn’t it Galileo?

She shook her friend.

“Max, answer me, isn’t it better to trip out in a fancy car than in a bus on its way to the outskirts? The hoods pistol-whipping us to death inside?”

So. In December I’ll get myself sewed up and in January. Waldo will make the dress. I want white. Medieval style, pearls, a string of white pearls. Enormous ones.

“Max, what time is it? Your watch, where’s your watch?”

“I bought a Swiss one that has a little movie theater, I press one button and get my horoscope, press another one and get my bank balance and the day I’m going to be betrayed, neat, hanh? What a watch! The trips, Bunny! The red button is for a five hour dose, the blue one gives you a day-long trip with transfers included, I get off the train and onto another one. And the black button, eeeh, what a button. What fear! The crazy woman in white comes with a black armband, she comes in mourning, the old bag.”

“Who did you sell it to, answer me, Max!”

“To my grandpa.”

I pound his chest but he bites my neck. Not my neck! I try to say but I’m laughing so much I can’t talk all I can do is clap my hand over his mouth, and then he bites my hand. My hand is OK, but you can’t bite my neck because the scaly one will see it right away what’s that mark? He asks about everything, wants to know everything while he keeps eating the crust of the bread, sickening peeled that way. “I’ll have dinner at Nona’s house and then we can go out to Zuza’s afterward.” As if I would get really excited about the idea. Taking his fiancée to a joint like that. Why didn’t he invite me to have dinner at Nona’s house, why? Bastard. Always flaunting his family in my face.

“I don’t have any family,” I said. “They all died in an airplane crash. An international flight. They were coming back from Scotland where they had gone to spend Christmas with my uncles.” Ah, your uncles live in Scotland? They used to. They all died when one night that lake monster rose up and swallowed my uncles and cousins and their house and all. A Scottish monster, Lorena knows its name, she knows all about these monsters. Rotten chic, to be swallowed by a monster in a Scottish lake. “There was no one left no one, no one, no one,” I repeat and drink out of the glass Max hands me. I drink it all down. To the bitter end, wasn’t that a movie? Where did I run across that title?

“I want to buy an island, Bunny. You know it isn’t hard to buy an island? There’s gobs of islands around.”

And he has enough family to fill up a ship. The hell with them. The hell with them because the corset is melting there was a bitch of a corset closing off my lungs. Now I can breathe, live. Shit it’s good to live. Who said that. I’m beautiful brilliant I’m going to be on ten magazine covers. Super-important magazines. Success. Leave the lousy others behind howling with envy. Miss nha-nha is right one needs to breathe deeply all the time and then you feel fine. He could have invited me the bastard. That Nona with her little leather house slippers. All the grandchildren dying to show off how rich they are and her. She could have invited me. Aren’t I his fiancée? It doesn’t matter next year stop. It’s close.

“Dragon-fly wings in green sauce, hanh? Fabulous that restaurant. Lightning-bug sauce blinking off and on, flick, flick! Hanh?”

I turn into a Roman matron. Respect I want respect. That’s what Mother Alix doesn’t understand. A saint. I’ll do everything you say my saint. A sainted grandmother. Lots of milk very good lots of milk and that medicine and I beat my breast never again, never again! We’ll see about it tomorrow. If you love me.

“The saints are transparent just like water. There used to be lots of tubes of water, all different colors. At that chemical lab where I worked. I used to clean and the little old Jew who liked me would come up and give me an apron to put on and let me play with the tubes. He would explain to me about the colors blue red green. The water would change colors. The smell. I still remember the smell but this was a smell I liked because it had nothing to do with people. The little glass tubes changing color just like us. Look, love, I drink them and I turn into a rainbow, blue, yellow, ay! Don’t touch me or I’ll spill. I used to know a song, how did it go?”

“She taught me to dance. Madame Lamas. Mama wanted us to learn to dance because of this or because of that, Madame Lamas, that’s it, my little sister and I learned everything. Fun, hanh? All day long there were little parties, a crowd of little girls and parties. We used to dance like crazy, Madame Lamas taught me, La Madame Lamas. Good manners, oh, what a nice boy, you should have seen it.”

“I love you, love.” I can howl with pleasure but no. Never mind.

“I saw in a crystal window … upon a proud pedestal … how does that go? I have a passion for that song, I get hysterical, here, come on, sing, in a crystal window, a charming doll …”

She doesn’t understand because she is a saint. In reality I grow clean here with him. Cleansed from all those things, cleansed. Don’t you see how happy I am? Not even when I had analysis with that Turkish guy, what was his name? It doesn’t matter. I lied about everything. Good for me. Good night and we’ll tell the truth. We don’t at all. Dirty stories about rotten teeth I don’t want I don’t want.

“You’re handsome, love. The handsomest man I ever saw.”

“I am beautiful,” he said hanging onto the bureau. He hesitated: “That music, do you hear? An angel playing. I can’t listen to it because I start to cry like a fool, my eyes are already watering…”

“You’re just like Michelangelo’s David.”

“Where did you see Michelangelo’s David, where?” he asked, laughing. He grabbed the bottle from the floor. “Where, where?”

“My friend, you dummy. Loreninha has a huge poster of him. She’s been all over Europe, you’re not the only one, see? Dummy. She’s very rich. You used to be. You’re not any more, but never mind. It doesn’t matter. I think it was Milan. Her brother, the diplomat. I think it was there.”

He swirled the glass of whiskey with ice. He took a large gulp and dried his sparse beard with his hand.

“We’re going to travel, hanh? Oh, Bunny, we’re going to get all kinds of money, okay? Mama used to love to travel, so many ships. Even in hotels we used to read those books, you know the ones with maps? Hanh? Lots of maps. My little sister was there in that school so we used to travel all the time, the visiting bit.” He sat down on the bed and smiled. “I used to collect postcards.”

“Lorena collects bells. Ding-a-ling-a-ling. Little bells.”

“But my wee-wee is bigger than his.”

“Than whose? Bigger than whose wee-wee?”

“David’s isn’t that the statue you were? Hanh?”

Next year my love. You were rich, you’ve seen everything. And me. That’s just the thing. Shit, I’ll become a virgin. I’ll marry the scaly one, open my registration and do my course. Brilliant. At vacation time I’ll travel to buy things, he said once he adores traveling. Ah what a coincidence so do I. The operation is easy Lorena will lend it to me. She’s generous Lena. So. She always gets me out of the tight spots. And if I am. It would be an absolute disaster eeeh I said the word Lena says if you say things backwards it’s good luck. Wait calm down. There’s the r. Then the e. What’s the next letter? The next one. Oh never mind that, enough. I am not pregnant. What I am is sober scratch scratch. My head rotten sober.

“I drink and nothing happens. Nothing. That music is crummy.”

He stretched his hand toward the pile of records which leaned dangerously sideways, some of them sliding gently to the floor.

“A string quartet. True angels, hanh? You want this one, Bunny? I’m going to put it on, fabulous, A Certain Sympathy for the Devil, hanh?”

Miserable howling. God, aggressive music. I’m sick of aggression I’ve seen more of it than I want. Now I want presents, favors. Someday I’ll buy a whole truckload of presents all silly things throw money around on silly stuff I want to be silly. She’s crazy that one with her demands. And she even—. She must think I’m a whore. So what. I’ll bury myself in money take my courses buy a laboratory just like that one. The colored water dripping and me green yellow blue ah I’ll dye myself in an ocean. An ocean, love. I’m floating off and the green tongues of the fish are licking my feet. I laugh because the green tongues are licking me my legs no! I cry covering myself because the biggest tongue licks my abdomen and penetrates me so warm ah love. I love you. As happy as.

“We could go live someplace stupid like Ireland. Why Ireland? I don’t know either, just Ireland. Hanh? There’s money coming.”

She opened her eyes and focused them gradually on the young man. He was smoking and smiling vaguely.

“What time is it? What time is it, Max?”

“We didn’t come here to get up-tight. Throw everything to the wind, fabulous. An island.”

She grabbed the cigarette from his mouth and smoked.

The shorter coat would look great with velvet slacks. She could pay for it in five installments. Ten. Bastard. Queer. He couldn’t forgive her because she was beautiful and had breasts. “Flatten down that chest, flatten it!” he yelled at the showing and everybody laughed. Hatred, he was hateful because he wished he had breasts and didn’t. It doesn’t matter. The scaly one will give me a shipload of coats. Three factories. He’ll want a virgin. So what? I’ll stuff myself full of baby oil and he’ll find one when we go to bed. I could model for Marcil too and he’d give me the little black suit or—. Brando will go crazy but I’ll tell him give me the coat then.

“Quick, Bunny! Give me your mouth!”

I give him my mouth give him everything. But tense scratch scratch. And if I am. Lena will pay for plastic surgery but she doesn’t have a bag of gold does she? I need yenom yenom Mother Alix said she’d pay. Take money from a saint and give it to the Turk, group analysis for godssake. Stupidity. Next year I start over. And I can pay for individual treatment thank you sir. Thinking I wanted to go to bed. Pretentious Turk. “I’m married, very happily married. My wife is a geisha.” Geisha geisha. I’ll bet she puts horns on him twenty-four hours a day. Well done. It wouldn’t be any good anyway because one loses respect for them, look what happened with that dumbass. Crazier than me that one there. Psychiatrist, shit. How could he help me? Even a baby. You’ll see, I am again. That’s just it, not to feel any pleasure and on top of it all, What day is today? The twenty-sixth? Twenty-six, twenty-seven, twenty-eight, twenty-nine … does this month have thirty-one days?

“Max, does this month have thirty-one days?”

“Come here, Bunny, I want your mouth.”

I open my arms. He falls onto my chest. Yes I love you. So. To get rich. Get rich. You were once and nha-nha was too. I’d like to try it may I? Lena said she’d loan it to me she’s sweet Lena. Generous. She offered to come with me and hold my hand. The scaly one wants a virgin. He’s had his fun with every whore in town but when it comes to. Bastard. All right. If you really insist, I’ll become a virgin. What if I asked him to loan me the yenom? Why not. Doesn’t a girl have the right to ask her fiancé for a little loan? I’ll tell him it’s for an urgent operation and he’ll ask me what operation there’s nobody in the world who can ask more questions. He’ll ask me and I’ll say I need to have my tonsils out my tonsils are rotten my appendix is rotten ah how depressing. And this one here who doesn’t resolve anything.

“I’m cold, Max, cover me. Cover me, love,” she said. She shivered beneath the young man’s body. “It’s freezing.”

He found the woolen blanket among the tangled bedclothes and pulled it up, covering his head. The ends of the fringe reached Ana Clara’s shoulders. He closed the opening of the tent in up-and-down movements that grew faster and faster, reaching a sharp rhythmic pitch. He poised himself above her, then fell downward in a series of convulsions that made the cover slide off them in shallow folds. From underneath him came a fragmented sob, almost a wail.

“Bunny, Bunny, I love you.”

She pushed back the fringe of the blanket and turned her face to the wall, rolling her hair around her finger.

“So good, love.”

“Let’s get married. Bunny? Let’s? I want to get married immediately, hanh? What about it? A great idea, right, Bunny?”

“Yeah, yeah, let’s.”

He kissed Ana Clara repeatedly on the mouth, tenderly straightened her disheveled hair, and rolled off her body as if he were rolling off a sand dune. He lay down on his belly, his face buried in the pillow, one arm hanging down. His hand touched the rug, searching as cautiously as a spider, with two blind fingers stretched out like wiggling antennae. They went around the ashtray where the cigarette still burned; then, inspired, they drew back and found the glass. As he took a gulp, whiskey ran down his chin.

“Eeeh, Bunny, I’m all wet, quick, wipe me, I’m all wet.”

“I’m the one that’s wet. What time is it?”

“Have to look. You remind me of Mademoiselle Germaine after us with her little gold watch, time for this, time for that. ‘Maximiliano, tu es en retard! Tu es en retard!’”

“Did you go to bed with her?”

“She was our governess, Bunny.”

“So what?”

“She was horrible looking, all bones and freckles with her hair always standing on end, look, like this,” he said holding his fingers up perpendicular to his head. “The way she walked was exactly like the watch, tick, tock, tick, tock. Her hair was like this, look!”

Ana Clara was staring fixedly at the ceiling, stroking her abdomen.

“Yeah, I see. Lorena’s governess was English. Nha-nha-nha-nha. She said she learned to write better in English because of the governess living on the ranch. She looks like an insect. Besides, it’s all gone, isn’t it? There you are. Isn’t it all gone? There’s no more ranch nor governess nor anything. Finished. What’s left of the money Mama’s boyfriend takes charge of. Good for him.”

“Loads of money. I discovered something, it’s easy to have either loads of money or nothing, hanh? Isn’t that fabulous? Yiiipeeeee!”

“When she puts on those glasses she looks like an insect wearing glasses. And she doesn’t even need them, it’s sickening. Nha-nha-nha. You remember her? That real skinny girl. Both of them envy me because I’m beautiful, elegant. Magazine covers. So. The nha-nha buys thousands of dresses, her mother sends her bagsful of clothes. For what? She doesn’t wear any of them, she only wears those slacks and nha-nha blouses. That’s how she talks, squeaky, nha-nha-nha. Her brother’s a diplomat. He sends her thousands of things too. Does it do any good? Shit, if I only had half that wardrobe. Super-chic.”

“The communist?”

“You’re getting it all mixed up, the communist is the fat one from the Northeast. This is the skinny one, the intellectual type. Insect-ish.”

“Are you sad, Bunny? Cheer up, love, cheer up. I really wish people would be happier, it’s so good to be happy. In the street you see everybody so sad, why are people so sad? Hanh? I’d really like to go out and make people happy. ‘Look here, hold my hand and come with me and I’ll show you the garden of happiness with God and all, come on …’”

“I think I’m pregnant, you hear? Pregnant.”

“Hanh?”

She put her mouth close to his ear. “Pregnant, pregnant, pregnant.”

He raised his innocent eyebrows. Half of the whiskey in his glass ran down his chest. He put the glass on the floor and bent over her, reaching for her hands under the sheet. They were clenched tightly. He opened them slowly and kissed the palm of one hand, then the other.

“Let’s have this baby, Bunny. Let’s let him be born, let’s be very happy and he’ll be born happy …”

‘Maybe it’s twins.”

“Fabulous, twins! we’ll put them in one of those little double strollers, hanh? The two of them strolling along, we’ll call the Mademoiselle and she’ll come running, tick, tock, tick tock, ‘et alors, mon petit choux?’ If it’s a girl we’ll call it Celestial Mechanics, isn’t that a beautiful name? My professor of Celestial Mechanics was—Where did I learn that? I learned a whole hell of a lot of things but now I forget, tick tock, tick, tock, et alors?”

Ana Clara sat up on the bed, encircled her legs and rested her chin on her knees. Her green eyes squinted from the middle of the black circles. She turned sharply to Max who was trying to light a cigarette and shook him. The matches from the box spilled over him.

“Why did you have to go broke, why? Now I have to marry somebody else, you dummy. I want yenom, you know what yenom is? Lorena says that if you say things backwards it brings you luck. Now I have to. And still sober. I’m sober as a dog. I think you gave me aspirin. Why don’t you give me that little medallion you have around your neck? Our kid will want that medallion, will you give it to him?”

“Mama wouldn’t let me take it off, only when I want to sleep, there was a story about a baby that died because it was strangled by its little chain…. Ducha had one just like it.”

“Your sister? The one who went crazy?”

“Don’t talk like that about my little sister, don’t …”

“But shit, isn’t she in the nuthouse? So. You told me yourself.”

“My Ducha, my little Duchinha. So sweet, like a little flower.”

“But didn’t she lose her memory, Max? You said so, Max. You told me. Am I saying anything bad? Lorena’s father lost his memory too, he died in the sanatorium without remembering anything, the last time Lorena went to visit him he asked, ‘Who’s that girl?’ Am I saying anything bad?”

He shook his head and turned over onto his belly, his face buried in the pillow, his shoulders shaken by a dry sob. He covered his ears.

“I don’t want to hear about it, I don’t want to!” he cried and laughed at the same time. Turning to look at the ceiling he chuckled between the tears that started to run down his face.

“One day we went to the zoo, oh! that animal, that animal that has a horn here, hanh?”

“Is she blond like you? Is she? Answer me, Max, I want to know what she’s like. Your little sister.”

Slowly he extended his arm in the direction of the record player. His hand opened in slow motion, one finger extended to touch something but without conviction, waiting for the something to come toward it.

“The rug.”

“What rug? I’m talking about your sister, your sister! So? Is she blond like you?”

“She would only sleep with the light on, she was afraid of having bad dreams. Say your prayers, Duchinha, say your prayers and tonight you’ll have good dreams, don’t you want to have good dreams? Say your prayers with me, come on, me voici, Seigneur, tout couvert de confusion et pénétré de doleur … douleur … ah … ah … ah … ah … d’avoir offensé un Dieu si bon, si aimable et si digne d’être aimé …”

“Was it the Mademoiselle who taught you that prayer? Answer me! Answer or I’ll throw this water on your head,” she threatened grabbing the ice bucket. “Come on, wake up! Answer me!”

He tried to protect himself with his hands, blowing through the water that flooded his face. Laughing, he struggled as two ice cubes slid down from the bucket onto his chest.

“The champion, look, the champion!” he yelled making swimming motions with his arms. “Time me, Shimoto! You damn Japanese, time me right! You’re cheating on the time, I can’t go any faster, watch him, Mama! I’m almost fainting, I’m dead tired … watch him, Mama, I’m almost there!”

Drying his chest and face, she dropped the wet cigarette into the glass and lighted another.

“Did you win, Max?”

He closed his eyes. With a giggle he gestured theatrically, crooning, “‘I saw in a crystal window … Upon a proud …’ I wanted to be a goddamn singer. ‘Then I saw a perfect Venus, in this doll!’ An idol. If you keep swimming like you are, you can within a year. The impressive thing was my wind.”

The wavering smoke wound itself tightly about the lamp, isolating the light which fell over the quiet bed. Again, he stretched out his hand, inviting the vague someone to come closer.

“Mama’s rug. The last one she made. It was green with some things on it like … everything sort of … I used to lie on it. Moss.”

“Was she pretty? Your mother. Tell me, Max, was she pretty?”

He made an evasive gesture and began to cry softly. Then he blew his nose on the sheet and laughed.

“Bobbi would come running from way far away and splash! jump into the pool. He would hop on top of me barking like crazy, he wanted to save me, all the time he was wanting to save me or Duchinha, nobody’s drowning, you dummy! Shimoto, tie up Bobbi because I can’t practice, crazy dog!”

Pulling herself laboriously across the bed she leaned over his body and took the bottle from the floor. She shook her glass until the cigarette butt came unstuck from the bottom. On the rug, an ice cube was melting, a solitary island in the middle of a pool of water. She grabbed it, dropped it in the glass and went back to her place, crawling painfully the same way she had come.

“Everything was happy for you. Rich. But shit, when was I ever. I want only the present entering the future-past-perfect, is there such a thing as future-past-perfect? If I could just wash out the inside of my head. With a scrub brush. I’d scrub and scrub until I drew blood.”

“They demolished the house, destroyed everything. Ducha said that there was nothing left, only the tree, they built a great big bitch of an apartment building on the lot. And the tree too, they were going to …” he murmured and began to sob again, his face in the pillow. “The jabuticaba tree. It never did anybody any harm, it just made jabuticabas, why? It was our friend, it gave us fruit. She ran away from the sanatorium and went straight to our house, everything was already demolished, all those bricks all over the ground, the doors. The doors were leaning up against a wall. I recognized the door to my room. The doors there, still standing with their handles. The locks,” he sobbed, twisting his hand as if to open the nearest one. “She grabbed the tree trunk and started screaming, screaming, I wanted to scream too when I saw her hanging onto our tree that was going to be cut down, I didn’t scream because if I did they’d put me in the asylum too, they put everybody in, you can’t. Don’t scream, Ducha, don’t scream Duchinha and I wanted to scream too because it was so horrible to see everything among the bricks that way. And my door. Don’t scream I said I’ll give you all of them, look at this big cluster, take it, it’s yours. Take it, Ducha, this bunch is ripe, here!”

He extends to me his empty-full hands, the jabuticabas rolling on top of us, “Look what a lot, hide them, hide them,” he cries and we hide them under the sheet. I kiss his mouth shiny with juice which drips sweet.

“Max, give me your childhood!”

He gives me his tongue. I slide down and escape that’s not it. I wanted. My head scratch scratch. That way of massaging the back of your neck is so calming, Lorena knows.

“Rub my neck, Max, start here, that massage. Harder, love. I wish I knew what time it was. I’ll say I got delayed in the. He’ll ask little questions. Pretentious dwarf. That pretentious dwarf. Bastard. Just some guy. Tell me, Max.”

“The little Chinaman seated on a cushion he’d nod his head yes, yes. I had to climb up on the bench to get near him, does Isabel like me, Mr. Chinaman? And he’d put his finger to his forehead yes, yes. Always laughing nodding yes yes. Am I going to pass school this year, Mr. Chinaman? Yes, yes, yes. Eeeh, what a sonovabitch, don’t lie or I’ll beat you up, tell it right! Yes yes yes, he would answer wearing his little black cap. Is Mama going to get well? Yes yes.”

“Harder, love. Right here by this bone. Don’t be sad because I’ll give you a house with doors, a jabuticaba tree, I’ll give it to you never mind. I’ll have money and I’ll divide it all, thousands of jabuticaba trees, nobody can cut them down, okay? There, rub harder there…. Shit, I’ll say I was run over. Just the shock.”

“That sax, Bunny! Hear it? Uon, Uon, Uon. Fabulous.”

The hell with that saxophone. And what about the family jewels? A whole bagful of jewels, who kept them? Crazy but smart. What about the jewels. Perfect teeth, beautiful teeth. Tradition of good milk. Fruit. Loreninha used to drink goat’s milk. “I used to drink milk like a little calf.” She grew up to be a dwarf-insect but her teeth. I believe her, she must never have drunk anything else. This one here nursed the goat dry too.

“Tell me, Max. Talk to me, talk.”

The bread is already bare. I’ll tell him I went with Lorena and that’s why I’m late. There to that place. I doesn’t matter now go to sleep. In January my darling. Now sleep. He would.