The Girl in the Photograph

Chapter 1

I sit down on the bed. It’s too early to take a bath. I flop onto my back, hug the pillow and think about M.N., the best thing in the world isn’t drinking the milk from a green coconut and then peeing in the ocean, Lião’s uncle said it was but he doesn’t know, the best thing is to imagine what M.N. will say and do when my last veil is removed. The last veil! Lião would write, she becomes sublime when she writes, she began her novel by saying that in December the city smells of peaches. Imagine, peaches. December is peach season, that’s true, sometimes one finds peach pits on the streetcorners with the smell of an orchard about them, but to conclude from that that the entire city is perfumed is just too sublime. She dedicated the story to Ché Guevara with a very important-looking quote about life and death, all in Latin. Imagine Latin entering into the Guevarian scheme. Or maybe it does? Suppose he liked Latin; don’t I? The delicious hours I used to spend lying on the ground, my hands crossed under my head, Latinizing as I watched the clouds. Death combines with Latin, nothing goes together so well as Latin and death. But to accept that this city smells like peaches, that’s going too far. Que ciudad será esa? he would ask, thoroughly perplexed. Tercer mundo? Yes, Third World. Y huele a durazno? Yes, in the opinion of Lia de Melo Schultz, it smells like peaches. Then he would close his eyes, or what used to be his eyes, and smile where his mouth used to be. Estoy bien listo con esas mis discípulas. Well, that’s her problem, mine is M.N., an M.N. naked and hairy, much hairier than I, he’s very hairy, kind of like a monkey. But a beautiful monkey, his face so intellectual, so rare, the right eye slightly smaller than the left, and so sad, all one side of his face is infinitely sadder than the other. Infinitely. I could keep repeating infinitely infinitely. A simple word that extends itself through rivers, mountains, valleys infinitely long, like the arms of God. The words. The movements renewing themselves like the smooth new skin of the snake breaking through from under the old. It isn’t slimy; I touched one once at the farm, it was green and thick but not slimy. And M.N.’s gestures also new, it isn’t true that it will be the same as the other times, he will come with a clean skin, inventing or invented down to the last minutiae. If God is in details, the sharpest pleasure, too, is in small things, you hear that, M.N.? Ana Clara told me about a boyfriend she had who would go crazy when she took off her false eyelashes, the bikini scene didn’t have the slightest importance but as soon as she started to remove her eyelashes, it was glory. The naked eye. Verily I say unto you, the day will come when the nakedness of the eyes will be more exciting than that of the sex organs. Pure convention, to think sexual organs are obscene. What about the mouth? Unsettling, the mouth biting, chewing, biting. Biting a peach, remember? If I wrote something, it would be a story entitled The Peach Man. I watched it from a streetcorner as I was drinking a glass of milk: a completely ordinary man with a peach in his hand. As I looked on he rolled and squeezed it with his fingers, closing his eyes a little as if he wanted to memorize its contours. He had hard features and his need of a shave accentuated their lines like charcoal shading, but the hardness dissolved when he sniffed the peach. I was fascinated. He stroked the fuzz of its skin with his lips, and with them, too, he went over the whole surface of the fruit as he had done with his fingertips. Nostrils dilated, eyes narrowed. I wanted him to get it over with, but it seemed he was in no hurry; almost angrily, he rubbed the peach against his chin, rolling it between his fingers as he hunted for the nipple-point with the tip of his tongue. Did he find it? I was perched at the café counter but I could see it as if through a telescope: He found the rosy nipple and began to caress it with his tongue tip in an intense circular movement. I could see that the tip of his tongue was the same pink as the nipple of the peach, and that he was already licking it with an expression near suffering. When he opened his mouth wide and bit down to make the juice squirt sharply out, I almost gagged on my milk. I still go tense all over when I remember it, oh Lorena Vaz Leme, have you no shame?

No, says the Seducer Angel out loud. Quickly I light an incense tablet, oh perverse mind. I’d like to be a saint. As pure as this perfume of roses that enfolds me and makes me drowsy, Astronaut used to get sleepy too when I would light the incense. And he would stretch the same way I do; I learned how to stretch from watching him. Worthless cat, what’s become of you? Hmm? He used to give daily lessons in lasciviousness and indolence, but he would never repeat his movements, all ballet dancers should have a cat. The cunning. At the same time, the abandon. The scorn for things that were really to be scorned. And that calculated obsession. Made entirely of dangerous delicacies, my cat. Or was he a demon? During the pauses between lessons, he would stare at me, so much more conscious than I in my unconsciousness, how could I know? I didn’t even know M.N. yet, I didn’t spend hours and hours woolgathering, Lord, how I’ve wool-gathered lately. Only Jesus understands and pardons, only He who went through everything like us, Jesus, Jesus, how I love You! I’m going to play a record in your honor, I offer music just like Abel offered the lamb, of course, a lamb is much more important, but Jesus knows I have a horror of blood, my offerings will have to be musical ones. Jimi Hendrix? Listen, my beloved, listen to this last little tune he composed before he died, he died of drugs, poor thing, they all die of drugs, but hear it and I know you’ll lower Your hand in blessing upon his sweat-stained, dusty Afro hair, dear Jimi!…

With an elastic leap, Lorena threw herself onto the gilded iron bed, which was the same color as the wallpaper. She practiced a few dance steps, raising her leg until her bare foot touched the iron bar of the bedstead, and jumped down onto the blue stripe of the jute rug. She straightened up, shook her hair back and, looking straight ahead, moved forward by balancing herself on the stripe until she got to the record player.

Jimi, Jimi, where are you? she asked, examining the pile of records on the bookshelf. She was wearing a pair of soft pajamas, white with yellow flowers, and around her neck was a chain with a small gold heart. She held the record by the tips of her fingers. And you, Romulo? Where are you now?

Squeezing her damp eyes shut, she placed the record on the turntable. Softly, she raised the needle and guided it as if it were the beak of a blind bird seeking a dish of water. She let it fall.

Lorena!

The voice was coming from the garden. Quickly she pulled her hair together, wound it up at the back of her neck, and stood on tiptoe. Opening her arms, she walked on the spiral stripe of the carpet, tense as an acrobat on a highwire.

Lorena, come to the window, I want to talk to you!

She hesitated dangerously, her right foot planted on the stripe, her left suspended in the air. Only when she managed to put the left one down in front of the other without losing her balance did she relax; she had made it across the wire. She bowed deeply to both sides, her arms arched backwards, her hands touching like the tips of half-opened wings. She waved her thanks to the audience as she moved back slightly, smiling modestly downward. But she thrilled to catch a flower in the air, kissed it threw it triumphantly to the grandstand and went whirling toward the window. She waved to the young woman who was waiting, arms crossed, in the middle of the driveway. Bringing her hands to the left side of her chest, she sighed loudly and said:

"My dear, welcome! Look what a lovely day! It’s spring, Lião, primavera. Vera, truth, prima, first, naturally, the first truth. Hum? On a morning like this I have to hold onto myself, otherwise I fly right off, look at the daisies, they’ve all opened! She pointed to the flower box under the window. How sweet. Good morning, my little daisies!"

Lorena, do you think you could listen to me for a minute?

Speak, Lia de Melo Schultz, speak!

With a brusque motion, Lia pulled her heavy white socks up to her knees. Her leather tote bag slid to the ground but she kept her eye attentively on the socks, as if she expected to see them slip downwards immediately. She picked up the bag.

Do you think your mother could lend me the car? After dinner. Let’s say about nine, understand.

Lorena leaned out the window and smiled.

Your socks are falling.

Either they strangle my knees or they keep slipping. Look at that. When they were new, this elastic was so tight my legs would get purple.

But what are you thinking, dear, wearing socks in this heat? And mountain-climbing boots, why didn’t you put on your sandals? Those brown ones match your bag.

Today I have to walk all over the place, dammit. And if I don’t wear socks, I get blisters.

Probably on the soles of her feet. Super-hick. The only thing worse than blisters is bunions, like Sister Bula’s. Bunions must come from onions, there was once an old lady with bumps on her feet like onions, and her grandchildren inherited the deformity, bumps, onions, bunions. Oh Lord. Spring, I’m in love, and Lião talking about blisters on her feet.

I’ve got some great socks, I haven’t even worn them yet, you want them?

Only if they’re French, see?

They’re Swiss.

I don’t like Switzerland, it’s too clean.

And they won’t even fit her, imagine, she must wear size twelve. How can she possibly wear socks that make her ankles even thicker, the poor thing has legs like an elephant’s. Even so, she’s thinner, political subversiveness is thinning.

Lião, Lião, I’m in love. If M.N. doesn’t phone, I’ll kill myself.

I’m much too annoyed to stand here listening to Lorenense sentiments, oh! Miguel, how I need you. I speak softly but I must be breathing fire.

Lena, listen, I’m not joking.

Well, am I? What’s the hurry? Come on up and listen to Jimi Hendrix’s last album. I’ll make some tea, I have some marvelous biscuits.

English? I ask. I prefer our biscuits and our music. Enough cultural colonialism.

"But our music doesn’t move me, dearest. If your Bahians say that they’re desperate, I believe them, I think it’s great, but if John Lennon comes along and says the same thing, then I’m turned on, I become mystic. I am mystic."

You’re silly.

"Silly, Lião? You said silly," she repeats.

She leans farther out the window and, in the middle of a laugh, turns sideways, puts her thumbs in her head, and wiggles her hands like ears, oh! it takes patience to put up with this girl.

Lorena, it’s serious. I need the car tomorrow, I say.

She doesn’t hear me. Suddenly she becomes angelic as she waves to somebody inside the big old house, Mother Alix? Mother Alix who opens the window and is exactly the same height, her hand raised in the manner of the Queen of England. But as soon as the nun goes away, she makes a worse face, the one she reserves for last. Oh, Miguel, stay cool, you said, and that’s what I’m trying to do. But at times I go hollow, don’t you see? I can’t explain it but it’s just too hard to go on in the routine, I wish I were in jail, in your place, why couldn’t I go in your place? I wish I could die.

The university is still on strike, groans Lorena, yawning. What have you got there? A machine gun?

She straightens up as if she were using one, squinting down the sights, shoulders shaken by the discharge, tat-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat … She aims at the house, tat-tat-tat-tat-tat, and fires at Sister Bula who pretends to play with Cat but whose attention is riveted on us. I am grinning because I know that Miguel would react exactly that way.

Loreninha, don’t start in, I don’t like this game. Are you going to get the car? I’ll give it back the next day, like the last time. No problem.

"You guys should kidnap M.N., Lião. Why don’t you kidnap M.N.? He could stay hidden under my bed per omnia seculum seculorum, Amen."

I light a cigarette. What do I care if I sleep beside the drunks, the whores, the live coal against my breast, yes it hurts, but if I knew you were free, sleeping beside the road or under the bridge—! Only free. I can’t stand other people’s suffering, understand. Your suffering, Miguel. Mine I could stand all right, I’m tough. But if I think about you I get flaky, I feel like crying. Dying. And we are dying. One way or another, aren’t we dying? Never have the masses been so far away from us, they don’t want anything to do with us. We even make them angry, the masses are afraid, oh, how afraid they are. The bourgeoisie resplendent at the top. Never have the rich been so rich, they can build houses with door handles of gold, not just the cutlery but the door handles too. The faucets in the bathrooms. All pure gold like the Greek gangster had them on his island. Intact. Watching out the windows and thinking it’s funny. There’s still the mass of urban delinquents left. Urban neurotics. And half a dozen intellectuals; the friendly sympathizers. I can’t explain it but the intellectuals make me sicker than the cops do, the cops at least don’t wear a mask. Oh, Miguel. I need you so badly today, I feel so much like crying. But I don’t cry. I don’t even have a handkerchief, Lorena wouldn’t think it was nice to blow my nose on my shirttail.

Lorena, lend me a handkerchief, I’ve got a cold, I say, wanting to wipe my face which is wet with tears. Handkerchief, hell, what I want is the car. I want the car, Lorena. Can I count on you?

I have white, pink, blue and light green. Ah, and turquoise. Look how beautiful this turquoise one is. So, Lia de Melo Schultz, what color does Madame prefer?

I gaze at the box of handkerchiefs she brings. She keeps everything in little boxes covered with flowered cloth, this one has red and blue poppies on a black background. Plus the silver and leather boxes which sit on her shelf. And bells. Wherever her brother travels he sends her a bell. Other people collect stamps, or ties. Still others get in line to go to the movies. Maurício grinds his teeth until they break. He doesn’t want to scream so he grinds his teeth when the electric rod goes deeper into his anus. In the cartoon, the cat takes a walloping that makes its teeth and bones splinter. But in the next scene they glue themselves together and the cat comes back in one piece. It would be nice if it were like in the cartoons. Sylvia Flute-player. Gigi. Jap. And you, Maurício? When the electric rod goes deeper, you faint. Faint quick, die! We ought to die, Miguel. As a sigh of protest, we should all simply die. We would, if it would do any good, you said, remember? I know, nobody would pay the slightest attention. We could rip our hearts out, look, here’s my blood, here’s my heart! But some guy shining shoes nearby would say, What color shoe polish does the gentleman prefer?

Green.

I take the pale green one, which is third down in the pile, from the box. So delicate, the handkerchiefs Remo sent from Istanbul, farewell, my little hanky. Lião is capable of cleaning her big old shoes with you but think about the if for hankies: dust is just as noble as tears. It won’t be moon dust, so white and fine, earth dust is heavy, especially that on my friend’s shoes. But never mind, BE A HANDKERCHIEF. I drop it into space. It opens lightly like a parachute which Lião grabs impatiently.

Are you depressed, Lião? Existential anguish?

Exactly. Existential.

Oh Lord, she’s furious with me. She’s changed so much, poor thing. Meaning Miguel is still in prison? And that Japanese guy. And Gigi. And others, they’re all going, what madness. Suppose she’s next? Ana Clara did see somebody suspicious looking hanging around the gate; Aninha lies all the time, of course, but that could be true. Yes, Our Lady of Fatima Roominghouse, a name above investigation. But whenever nuns or priests come onto the horizon, everyone’s ears perk up.

I’ll give it back tomorrow, she says, folding the handkerchief.

Not at all, keep it. Would you like another one?

I throw her the pink handkerchief which doesn’t open as the green one did. Why does my heart stay closed too? Romulo in Mama’s arms, I looked for a handkerchief and couldn’t find one, a handkerchief to wipe up all that blood bubbling out. Bubbling out. But what happened, Lorena! A game, Mama, they were playing and then Remo went to get the shotgun, Run or I’ll shoot, he said taking aim. All right, I don’t want to think about this now, now I want sunshine. I sit in the window frame and stretch my legs toward the sun.

I get red, and I want to get tan, look at me, Fabrízio told me my nickname in the Department is Fainting Magnolia, can you imagine?

And the old guy? Nothing yet?

I count to ten before answering, grrrrr! Why does she call M.N. old? First of all, he is not old. Second, she knows I’m the complicated type, with me things just can’t be resolved so fast. Third—what was the third thing? I am making an effort to seem unshakable.

He said he’d call me for dinner. Want to come?

What I need is a western movie.

Imagine, the movies. A danger zone, there are thousands of danger zones where his wife or his cousin … I think the best place for us to meet is in the hospital because if the world is big, that hospital is even bigger. Is Dr. Marcus Nemesius in? I ask and the head nurse speaks to the subordinate nurse who speaks to the subordinate subordinate, who in turn speaks to another one far on down the line, the one who escaped the current, her shoes white, her memory white. By any chance are you the one who’s waiting to see Dr. Melloni? she comes and asks after two and a half hours. No, not that doctor. By any chance I’m waiting for Dr. Marcus Nemesius, is he in? He just left, she answers. Won’t another doctor do?

If he doesn’t phone, let’s go together, Lião. I’ve got yenom enough for caviar.

Russian?

No, from Iran, dear. The best caviar in the world. My brother Remo sent a can.

I’m moved. But I’ll grab something on the corner.

Here there’s the soup, the de-sexed meat the nuns fix, but still it’s better than the things she eats in the street. And she doesn’t even take baths any more, poor thing. Before, she would fill up my bathtub and soak so happily; one day she even asked for the bath salts.

You’ve changed, Lião.

For the worse? she asks, unfolding the handkerchief and blowing her nose.

Like an open drainpipe. Animals are so much more decent about these things; I never saw Astronaut blow his nose in public. Too many holes, too many secretions. Oh Lord. Eating pastries at the café, what madness. But if she came with us, she’d end up poisoning our time together, she adores saying ironic things that M.N. pretends not to understand, so solid. So safe. More wine, Lião? The wine she accepts. Also the lobster, she pronounces it loster. But she pointedly remembers the statistics about the children dying of hunger in the Northeast, she gets carried away on this subject of the Northeast. I don’t know how long we’ll have to carry these people on our backs; it’s horrible to think that way but, as I’ve thought before and still think, if God isn’t there He probably has His reasons.

Oh, I’m a monster. Monster. I want so much to be different, so much.

And this tendency to be petty. Oh my Saint Francis, my Saint Theresa, son tan escuras de entender estas cosas interiores.

I’ll give it back tomorrow, says Lião putting the handkerchief away in her bag.

She won’t, of course. And if she did I wouldn’t take it, a handkerchief is like a toothbrush, you can’t lend them. Exactly like Ana Clara who still hasn’t learned this simplest of things: One doesn’t lend personal items.

Lia, Lia! calls Sister Bula from the window of the big house. The voice of a forest gnome coming out from inside a tree trunk. She wants to yell Telephone for you! She places one hand beside her ear and pretends to crank the handle; the phones in her day had to be wound up. Or was she born even earlier? She must be two hundred years old.

Lião is afraid. Ana Clara also pretends to be indifferent but if she doesn’t take tranquilizers she starts walking around in a delirium again. Without the slightest ceremony she opened my box of tissues and took over half of them, she goes around with great piles of tissues to clean herself after making love. The right thing would be to take a bath afterwards; it’s logical, hygienic and poetic to run naked to the shower. Or in the country to duck under a waterfall, shuaaaaaaaaaa! But to put yourself back together like a hurried chambermaid—! Certain gestures and words of Ana Clara’s, poor thing. The details give her away. It’s all in the details: her origins, her faith, her happiness. God. Especially her origins. I know nothing about mine, she said to me once when she was drunk. And I don’t want to, either. That daisy down there could say the same thing: I know nothing about my roots. And her? Neither father nor mother. Not even a cousin. She has no one. From the looks of it, all of Bahia must be related to Lião but Ana Clara is the opposite in terms of family. Not even an auntie to teach her that everything one does before and after the act of love should be harmonious. Is it unaesthetic to masturbate? Not exactly unaesthetic, but sad. During the time when Lião was doing thousands of surveys, she did one on the university coeds; how many masturbated? Incredible, the results among the virgins. Incredible. We are coming out of the Middle Ages, she said examining her papers. The inheritance from our mothers and grandmothers, see. Added up with the adolescent habits, it gives us this alarming percentage. Do you masturbate too? she asked, pinning the black eye of the Inquisition on me.

Two blond bees, the kind that only make love and honey, landed on my foot, first one and then the other. I shoo them gently away, the gesture must be gentle so they don’t feel rejected, you hear, M.N.? If you don’t want me, you should treat me like this, run along, my little bee! run along. Before flying off, the larger of the two rubs his two front legs together, as if he were washing his hands, and then strokes himself all the way down to his yellow-striped abdomen. You can’t see exactly where his hand stops, but what if Lião were to research the habits of bees, Tu quoque, bestiola? Bestiola means insect. And bees? Anyway she asked me and if I didn’t answer with absolute clarity it was because I could never exactly describe that afternoon so long ago. Masturbation? That? Thirteen years old, piano lessons. The Happy Farmer. I participated so fully in the happiness that the bench wobbled back and forth, the rhythm getting faster and faster. My chest bursting, my genitalia rubbing against the cushion with the same vehemence as my hands hammering the keyboard without hesitation, without error. I never played as well as I did that afternoon, something which seems completely extraordinary to me today. I dismounted the bench as one would a horse. At dinnertime, Mama kissed me, quite moved: I heard you practicing the piano while I was stirring the guava jam; you played divinely! I smiled down at my plate: my first secret. Romulo threw a ball of soft bread at me and Remo put a wasp in my hair, but when we went out on the veranda I felt as luminous as a star. And if Romulo hadn’t frightened me with a sheet, I could have walked on air for over two minutes. The second time was on the farm, too, when I was taking a bath. Also accidental. I got into the empty bathtub, lay down in the bottom and opened the faucet. The hot jet pelted onto my chest with such violence that I slipped, exposing my belly. From there, the water passed to my abdomen; when I opened my legs and it hit me right on, I felt, stunned, the old artistic exaltation, stronger this time although I wasn’t playing a piano. I closed my eyes when Felipe crossed and recrossed my body with his red motorcycle, Felipe, the one with the black jacket and motorcycle. I hid my face in my hands, wanting to run away and at the same time glued to the bottom of the bathtub with the hot water rising higher, it was already covering me, the bubbles breaking on my chin, why didn’t I open the drain? Satiated or unsatiated, my mouth (I?) asked for more. It penetrated me in waterfalls, it filled my nose, there, I’m going to drown! I thought with a jump. I leaped up and fled. Was it love? Was it death? All one single thing, I replied in a verse. I used to write verses then.

Cat came up to the bag that Lia had left in the middle of the driveway. She sniffed the leather, distrustful, sat down somewhat sideways, because of her pregnancy, and stared at Lorena who was perched on the bedroom windowsill. This room and bath—Lorena was certain of this—had belonged to the chauffeur of the family who had owned the big house. Underneath, the garage with a car which was probably antiquated. Above, absolute master, the untidy and sensual chauffeur, lover of the housemaid whose name was Neusa, a name spelled out many times with a shaving brush or white deodorant stick on the bluetinted wall. Of her, there remained only a few hairpins pointing out from between the cracks in the floor. And the jasmine perfume in a broken bottle on the bathroom floor. With a few small repairs, your daughter could be very comfortable here, said Sister Priscilla with an optimism that spread to Lorena, who was hanging onto her mother’s arm. Her mother, in turn, was hanging onto Mieux’s. She turned to him with a perplexed face, at that time she used to consult him even to find out if she should take an aspirin or not. Give me your opinion, dear. Won’t I spend too much? This is awful, she complained, repulsed by the scent of jasmine mingled with that of urine. Mieux winked at Lorena. He became euphoric when he had an opportunity to show off his prestige: It will be the most darling thing in the world, I already have some ideas. I want this bathroom pink, it’s important for her to feel as though she’s in a nest when she undresses for her bath, he said throwing his cigarette butt into the cracked toilet bowl. He slammed the door behind him and sniffed his handkerchief. I visualize this room in pale yellow; I have the wallpaper. A gold bed there in that corner. The bookshelf and table on that wall. Here in this space, a builtin wardrobe. Over there, a mini-refrigerator and a little bar, hm, Lorena? He picked a playing card up off the floor; it was a queen of spades, which he stuck upright in a crack in the door. And as Mama had gone on ahead and Sister Priscilla was busy closing the window, he seized the opportunity to run his hand over my ass.

Anything happen? I ask Lião who has come back at a run.

Panting, she kicked a wad of newspaper which Cat tore up.

Is the offer of tea still on? I’ll take you up on it after all. One more phone call like that one and I’ll go completely insane.

I quickly remove my pajamas and put on my black ballet leotard. I hear Lião coming up the stairs, step by step. When she’s happy she comes up them in three jumps, poor thing, flunking all her classes because she cut so many. Her lover in prison, her allowance gone, she gives over half of it to her famous group. Oh Lord.

Can I turn that down? she asks, going straight in the direction of the record player.

She turned it down so far that Jimi Hendrix’s voice sounds like that of a little ant under the table. I light the electric ring, do two more exercises to develop the bustline, and spread the cloth on the table. The cups, the plates. I bring my little bread basket with its red ribbon woven into the straw, going all the way around until the ends meet in a bow. I pause to admire the graceful pattern of the tablecloth with its big leaves in a hot green tone, through which, half-hidden, peers the Asiatic eye of an occasional orange. The pleasure I take in this simple ritual of preparing tea is almost as intense as that I take in hearing music. Or reading poetry. Or taking a bath. Or or or. There are so many tiny things that give me pleasure that I’ll die of pleasure when I get to the bigger thing. Is it really bigger, M.N.?

I’ll kill myself if he doesn’t call, I say opening my arms and going on tiptoe to the refrigerator. I have some marvelous grapes and apples, dear.

Lia sits down on the rug and begins to chew on a