The Girl in the Photograph (36 page)

“It’s yours. You’re going to inherit books, too, I’m leaving them all behind, I’ll
only take three or four. Say, is your alarm clock working? I loaned mine to somebody
who didn’t bring it back and I have to get up at the crack of dawn,” I say approaching
the bookshelf. “But tell me, why didn’t you go to visit Mama? I did the best I could
to hold things together, I was very refined, but the dear little girl was very much
missed.”

Lorena bent over to examine the mounds of books that spilled over the shelves onto
the rug, forming a sinuous trail to the bed. She peered under the bed and pulled out
a green knit blouse and two more large stray books.

“I could say that Annie ruined my plans but that’s not true, I had the whole evening
free to go and didn’t because I was waiting for a phone call from M.N. I left a decisive
note for him at the hospital.”

“Did he phone?”

“No. Only Mama, she talked with me for five hours right after you left. She wants
me to move in this week, can you imagine?”

“And are you going to?”

Prudently Lorena sniffed the blouse, spreading it out on the floor. She rolled it
up with the socks that were among the newspapers.

“I have to, Lião. The psychiatrist, Mieux, and of course the drama of getting old.
It’s sinister, this drama, all of a sudden she seems a hundred. She needs me.”

“Fine. But get out as soon as you can, see. Say you’re in need of your shell, a vacation
in your shell, and take off. Is she likely to marry again?”

“It depends, dear. I know exactly how it’ll be, it was the same way with my grandmother.
Granny would get dolled up and so on, but every time something really unpleasant would
happen, she would assume her old age until the displeasure passed and she would gradually
resolve to get in shape again. This happened several times, she’d fall and get up
again, fall and get up again. During one of these falls …” Lorena sighed. “Oh, now
I remember, there was a nursery rhyme my nanny used to sing, listen, listen:”

She straightened herself, cleared her throat and, after taking the lozenge out of
her mouth, sang in her weak, polite voice.

I squat down and sing with her in the most serious tone I can manage:

We laugh softly, hunched together.

“My aunts thought that rhyme was a sacrilege, on account of the third gentleman,”
I say and have a happy surprise, my cap! I thought I’d lost it. I yank it down over
my ears. “But look, about Mama. I’d love it if tomorrow she’d bathe herself in those
perfumes and go running out—”

“On the tips of her toes!”

“That’s it, on the tips of her toes.”

Lorena goes back to sucking her peppermint. She starts piling up the papers.

“I’ve seen Mama go to pieces and recuperate three times, poor little thing. The first,
when Romulo, my brother, died. The second, when Daddy was hospitalized, she suffered
more on the day he was hospitalized than on the day he actually died. The third time
was when she had to sell the ranch. She recovered all three times, of course. This
is the fourth, dear.”

“Well, then she’ll recover again,” I decide as I kneel in front of Lena. I shake her
by the shoulders, she seems to have become a child again, oh, if she goes back to
live with her mother she’ll be even more of a child. “You’ve got to live your life
in your own way and not the way other people decide, oh Lena, Lena, I can’t explain
it, but that story of Time devouring his children, wasn’t it the god Cronus? He would
give birth to them himself and then devour them all. But the truth is, it’s not Time
that swallows people but a mother like yours. A little like mine, too. Pay attention:
Get out and she’ll dedicate herself to another cause, to charity, God, who knows,
maybe she’ll even adopt a child. My mother adopted one, she’s radiant back home with
a little girl whom she kisses and punishes as much as she wants. But at any rate,
yesterday I took some measures, I can embark in peace.”

“Measures? What measures, Lião?”

She’s extremely excited, she must be thinking about M.N. I grab her as though I were
taking hold of an insect, by the ears.

“Oh, forget that guy, forget him! All you two ever do is exchange little notes, letters,
as if one lived on Venus and the other on Mars, ridiculous. It’s fright, he’s quaking
with fright. This very minute I’m trembling just to think about getting into an airplane,
but it’s healthy to be afraid of airplanes, we’re land animals, perfectly all right.
But fear of
loving?
”

“He can’t stand the idea of other people suffering, dear. His wife, gobs of kids.
The problem of remorse.”

“But what remorse?”

Softly Lorena rolls onto her side, her head pillowed on the clothes she has collected.

“In one of his letters—” she begins. She implores patience as a I lift my arms: “Wait,
dear, let me tell you, in one of his letters he described how when he was a boy he
found a periwinkle on the beach one day, one of those mother-of-pearl kind, the underside
rolling up in spirals and ending in a ruffled crown, you know how they are? He took
a piece of wire and poked the snail out through the bottom, it came out in pieces.
Then he washed the shell, poured alcohol, ammonia and perfume into the opening, and
left it in the sun to dry. Two days later it began to smell frightful, as if the dead
snail were still inside. He poked at it again, more water, more soap, nail-polish
remover, gasoline, he tried everything. The next day the smell was still there. Through
the acetone, gasoline, alcohol, there was still that horrible stench. He ended up
throwing the periwinkle back into the sea; he knew he’d never find another one like
it, but he threw it back into the ocean.”

Now Lorena has discovered some cigarette butts; she gathers them up and looks underneath
the newspapers as though searching for something. An empty matchbox turns up. Continuing
her housecleaning ritual, she sticks the butts into the box. I wait. And the metaphor
of the periwinkle? Isn’t it a metaphor?

“Then what, Lena? The periwinkle?”

“Well, the smell of the periwinkle is like the smell of memory. The rest of his life
he would smell that odor, can you imagine? His wife’s suffering, his children’s. His
own suffering too, wasn’t it Tolstoy who said it? Man experiences only two kinds of
suffering: physical pain and the pain of remorse.”

“Perfect. If I understand it right, you’re the periwinkle, which isn’t much of a compliment,
a very trashy metaphor. But if this periwinkle was such a rarity, with a crown and
so on, he could have tried a little harder, couldn’t he? If he weren’t so selfish
and comfort-loving. Much easier to throw the periwinkle into the ocean, by this time
you’re in the middle of the Atlantic.
Kaput
. So don’t talk about this man any more, enough. You’re going to love Guga, we talked
a great deal, he knows all the facets of the drama and is disposed to save you. Super-divine.”

“But where did you see Guga?”

“I stopped by the theater, he was experimenting with the guitar, he composed a fabulous
song. He’s enthusiastic about the idea, enthusiastic.”

“He is?”

“Of course. If Mama presses too hard, he’ll even get married in a frock coat, he’ll
go through anything. As able as you are, in six months’ time he’ll be taking two baths
a day.”

“Lião, are you crazy? You mean you gave him encouragement?”

“Obviously. At times he smokes a little pot, but with a more or less balanced girl
like you he won’t even take aspirin any more.”

“More or less? Did you say
more or less
balanced, Lião?” repeats Lorena rolling over the newspapers.

Slowly Lia took the clothes out of the open suitcase on the table. She smiled. They
smelled just like Lorena’s closets. Very refined, very special, she thought unfolding
a gray cashmere pullover, oh, wouldn’t that just fit Miguel? She rubbed it against
her face, laughing. A little more contact with the
gens lorenensis
and she’d be branded on ears, nose, and throat. She turned to look at Lorena who
had become still, dreaming among the newspapers. Had he really existed? This Romulo.

A jet engine’s roar pierced the night and died away. The meowing of nearby cats grew
fainter until it blended with the howling of a dog. Someone threw a rock at it and
the dog ran away whining. The cats remained.

“For the next twenty years I’ll be elegant in the wintertime,” said Lia trying on
the red cashmere. She hugged herself. “I feel like a kitten, oh Mama, my very best
wishes, may you rise up and sally forth again!”

“Amen. Oh, I almost forgot,” said Lorena rolling up two pairs of jeans that she found
under a chair. “Sister Bula was very happy to tell me that the new boarder is about
to arrive, the medical student. Apparently she’s something of a genius. She comes
from Pará, how about that?”

“Pará?”

“Santarém. I already told them she could have my shell,” she sighed, a light shadow
passing across her face. She shook herself: “My maid can wash these tomorrow, you
have to travel with everything in order.”

“But those jeans are clean, Lena.”

“No, dear, they’re not. Leave it to me, she launders divinely.”

“Look at the
cache-misère!
Isn’t it sumptuous?” asked Lia putting on the coat which was in the bottom of the
bag. “And the scent, Lorena. The scent of riches.”

“Softer, Lião, they’ll wake up. We’re shouting.”

“Let them wake up! I’m too excited, I can’t talk any softer,” she retorted, coming
nearer Lorena. “I visited Mother Alix today. She’s quite a strange woman.”

“Strange, how?”

“Quite strange,” repeated Lia looking at the garden. She brought her hand to her mouth
and ran her tongue over her fingernails. “She reminds me of the ocean at Amaralina
Beach back home in Bahia. I know that ocean better than my own hand, the color of
the water at any given time of day, all the fish, the shells, the rocks, no surprises,
see. But one afternoon while I was diving, a plant rolled itself around my foot. I
brought it back to the beach. It was sort of blue, I’d never seen one like it, with
smooth little leaves like tiny blue fish and meatcolored roots, so there must be other
things like this plant under the water? I began to view the ocean with greater respect.”

“What did you talk about?”

“Assorted biscuits. At times she pretends to be innocent, but she’s as much aware
of everything as we are. Or more so, the woman is really something. The main topic
was Ana Clara.”

“Oh Lord. I have to go immediately, I actually forgot about her. And my exam tomorrow
morning at eight. But what’s the matter, Lião? Why are you staring at me like that?”

The family photograph albums are in the trunk in the garage, Ana said she saw the
oldest one with the velvet cover. On top of the trunk, covering it, are old chairs,
rolls of carpet, boxes, frames. The octopi guard the mystery of the sunken ship.

“There’s no more time, see.”

“For what?”

“Research,” I say and watch Lorena jump out the window with the elasticity of a ballerina.
She grasps the bundle of jeans and balances it on her head, glancing toward the window
of her room.

“What are we going to do, Lião! About her. If only this famous fiancé would show up.”

“I bet this famous fiancé doesn’t exist.”

“No?” she fixes terrified eves on me. I turn my own away.

“Who knows. She’s so confused. Can I borrow Mama’s car tomorrow early? I’m going to
take my suitcase to a friend’s house near the airport. And do one or two other things.”

“Of course dear. Mama must have taken kilos of tranquilizers, she won’t wake up until
late.”

I watch her cross the garden, carefully choosing where she will step like a cat wearing
gloves. She pauses in the middle of the driveway and listens, then proceeds. Only
a silhouette cut out of the fog, a fog as white as her sandals has gathered. I lean
over the windowsill. Just a few more hours. I should tell Lorena that I won’t even
be here long enough for those clothes she’s washing to dry. I remember the broken
hourglass, once I went into Dad’s office to get a red pencil and bumped into a glassful
of time. I panicked, seeing time arrested on the floor, two handfuls of sand and the
broken glass. Past and future. And me? What became of me now that the
was
and the
will be
had been smashed to pieces? Only the narrow funnel of the hourglass had survived
the fall, and in it was a grain of sand in transit, it hadn’t yet committed itself
to either side. Free.
I am
, I say and feel like running to Lorena and advising her that if we keep on woolgathering
at the present rate, we can participate in the next philosophical convention wearing
little silver owls on our shirt collars, oh! I take a deep breath and look outside.
In the lighted window Lorena is making frenetic signals to me, she’s beckoning me
with her hands, her head. When she sees me start toward her she disappears. I trip
over two cats who flee in the direction of the wall, trample the daisies, and get
halfway up the steps. I’m out of breath. My legs buckle as she bends down, leaning
out of the open window. Our faces are so close that I don’t even need to go up another
step to hear her.

“She’s dead.”

I extend my hand wanting to grasp her voice through the fog.

“What, Lorena. What are you saying?”

The whisper is as icy as her minty breath.

“Ana Clara is dead.”

Chapter 12

“Did she faint?” asked Lia. “Was that if?”

She waited for an answer, still immobile on the stairstep. “It’s impossible, it can’t
be. Can’t be can’t be,” she whispered to the garden below, which seemed to be a garden
from another time, seen under the same circumstances, with a voice from beyond the
window telling her in a whisper that someone was dead. The same fog. The same hollow
feeling in her chest. But now the night smelled like peppermint lozenges. She turned
to the window: empty.