The Girl in the Photograph (37 page)

“It’s impossible,” she said, entering the room.

Lorena was mounted on Ana Clara, massaging her heart. There was still the cool odor
of mint. Or was it camphor?

“I gave her an alcohol rub but it didn’t help. Let’s try this, oh Lord.”

Crossing her arms against her body, Lia tried to control the tremor which was causing
her to shake from head to foot. She clenched her jaws in order to speak.

“You don’t know what you’re doing Lena, let’s call a doctor. The emergency clinic,
call the emergency clinic. Mother Alix has the number. You don’t know how to do this!”

“But I do. I’m doing exactly what should be done,” said Lorena, massaging with determination.
She turned her face to Lia without interrupting her movements and lowered her voice
as if afraid that Ana Clara would overhear. “She’s dead. I’m only trying, can’t you
see? Oh Lord, Lord, Lord.”

But didn’t it seem like a joke? “It can’t be,” thought Lia letting her bewildered
gaze wander about the room. The silver-buckled shoes placed side by side at the bathroom
door. The patent-leather purse on the floor, next to the head of the bed. The red-and-green
plaid blanket covering only Ana Clara’s feet, a good thing because she didn’t want
to see her feet. She stared at Lorena astride her waist without the slightest weight,
knees
dug into the mattress, features hardened in the effort of concentration. A cup with
a little leftover tea in the bottom. The box of talcum powder with the yellow puff,
Lorena hadn’t had time to clean off the talc that had fallen on the table. She glanced
again at the purse; it was half-open. Again the cup and her stare fell unresisting
on the dead girl’s face. “Dead? But she isn’t dead!” Lia wanted to scream. She came
closer. Ana Clara watched them through the green crack of her eyes. “You’re kidding
us, right, Annie?” The half-moon of cross-eyed glass was almost ready to open, the
half-smile of the mouth was ready to say something, rehearsing something funny to
say, why didn’t she say it? As if suddenly she found it funnier not to say anything.
Lia took her hand, opened it. In the palm, a little talc ingrained in the cracks.
And the memory of warmth like an electric iron unplugged—how long ago?—preserving
the heat in its metal plate.

“She was sleeping in the same position as when I left her,” said Lorena jerkily, out
of breath. “I was happy because I was afraid she might wake up and try to go out,
she must have had a date with somebody. I put her dirty clothes in the hamper and
laid my hand on her forehead, a strange chill. Then I called her, shook her, pounded
her on the chest, that works sometimes … nothing. Nothing. I even did that test with
the mirror, I got my little hand mirror from my purse. Oh, Lião.”

“But was it before you went out? Do you think it was before?”

“How should I know? She came in shouting that she had a fencing foil stuck into her
chest, it must have been a pain in her heart, I don’t know, I don’t know, Lião, for
the love of God, dear, don’t talk to me just now.”

Lia drew nearer. She pressed Ana’s static pulse with such intense searching that she
only transferred to the dead girl the throbbing of her own inflamed fingers. Had she
said the
dead girl?
She surveyed the half-naked body beneath the red bathrobe, how thin she was! Only
now did she realize how much weight Ana Clara had lost, she paid so little attention
to her. The purple bruises on her breasts and arms. What had been done to her? What
had she done? Wait, wasn’t she breathing? Didn’t that gasp come from inside her?

“Go on, Lena, don’t stop, I think she’s breathing!”

Lorena’s voice was the murmur of a mother who, already tired out, calls to her daughter
hiding in some dark corner:

“Ana, Aninha, can you hear me? Ana, come on. Come back, Ana. Do as I say, I know you’re
there, I know you are. Come on, come back.”

She steadied herself on her knees, squeezing Ana’s flanks between her feet, pointed
toes turned inward. Her hands pressed strongly against the other’s kidneys; she galloped
lightly without touching the saddle, only her hands moving up and down to the rhythm
of artificial respiration.

“Thousands of times she came in drugged, see. Thousands of times! What was it she
took this time?”

Beneath the blind curtain of hair, Lorena’s voice rose and fell with the movement
of her hands, at times reduced to a whisper:

‘“
Come, then, Advocate: turn your merciful eyes upon us
.’ Upon us!” she exclaimed throwing her hair back over her shoulders.

Are they crazy, these two? What kind of a sinister joke is this? thought Lia. She
wanted to say something but couldn’t; she was accompanying the variations of the massage.
Lorena was creative, she was inventing movements like this caterpillar one, her wrists
glued to Ana Clara’s chest, only the fingers opening and closing like caterpillars
burrowing in the ground, slowly outlining the obstinate heart.

“Lena, what if we called them? The nuns have experience!”

“They wouldn’t do any better than I’m doing. Close the window.”

Why bother with the window and not the record player playing that saxophone music
over and over? She ripped her cap off and her hair sprang outward, electric. She pulled
the cap on again, jerking it furiously down to her neck, and whirled around on her
heels. The tremor was back; she hugged herself hard. Oh, the absurdity of that saxophone
howling like a damned dog. Yet at the same time. She couldn’t explain it, but wasn’t
it the music that somehow created an atmosphere of expectancy? As long as there was
the saxophone and as long as Lorena continued to perch on top of her, battling. Silence
would be the worst possible thing. She splashed some whiskey into a glass and gulped
it down with her eyes shut, if she could only scream the way people do on the mountaintops.
Or in the ocean, scream until her voice gave out, drain herself screaming and, beaten,
go on screaming though only the voice of the opponent could be heard. “Shit!” she
said between her teeth, almost crushing the glass in her hand.

“I should have done something to help her and what did I do? Made speeches. This bitch
of a habit of making speeches.”

“There was nothing anybody could have done, dear. Nothing.”

And Lorena dominating the situation, tense but contained. Oh, Lena, go ahead, make
her work like that miserable clock that would stop out of caprice even when it had
been wound, if you had quick fingers you could hold the pendulum and swing it back
and forth, once, twice, go on by yourself now, go on! She pounded the wall with her
fist. Seen from behind, gasping over the body, Lorena appeared to be trying not to
make her breathe but to take part in some desperate erotic game. Lia needed to bite
her lip not to scream, “Enough!” She drew closer. A drop of sweat ran down Lorena’s
forehead and fell on Ana Clara’s breast. It rode sweetly, softly, in an abandon which
contrasted with the tension of the rider galloping firm and fast above.

“Nothing, Lena? Let me see.”

With difficulty Lorena straightened her body and raised her hands so Lia could put
her ear against the exposed breast. The cold smell of camphor, and beneath, the talc
almost as intimate as sleep.

“I thought she was reacting. Hm, Ana Clara? You really aren’t coming back?” moaned
Lorena wringing her hands. “Mother Alix will be sad, or my Lord, give me inspiration,
for the love of God, inspire me,” she pleaded and jumped to the floor: “Let’s check
with the little mirror.”

“Enough, it’s no good,” thought Lia covering her face with her hands, oh, the dreadful
scene of the little mirror luminously reflecting the doll’s mouth, she had learned
this from her uncle, he had done the same thing with Grandma Diu, did Grandma go on
a long journey? There was no answer, he couldn’t look her in the eyes. She doubled
up her sob-racked body.

“It’s so senseless!”

“Be careful, Lião, you’re going to wake up the nuns!”

“So what? Can’t I cry out loud? She’d dead, Lena, she’s dead! Why are you whispering?
Why all this mystery?”

“I have an idea, I’ll tell you later, but for now don’t yell, for the love of God
be calm.”

“Calm? But aren’t we going to call Mother Alix? Wake her up, wake everybody up immediately?
Isn’t that what we’re going to do?”

“Wait, Lião we’re not going to wake up anybody yet, I already told you, I have an
idea. Take it easy, okay?”

I rub my face against the cushion and before my eyes overflow again I see Lorena take
up her missal, she has discarded the mirror and opened the black missal. During the
massage she was pinkish, but now she’s pallid again, hair thrust behind her ears,
lips pursed. Ana Clara too is now in a formal position, the robe closed, her arms
folded across her chest. Simply taking a rest after the bath and the talcum powder.
Lorena must be satisfied, she managed to give her a complete bath before she died.

“You mean we’re going to hang around waiting for the nuns? And the police? Is that
what you want? Celebrate her death with whiskey and biscuits? We have to wake up Mother
Alix, Lena! To explain that there wasn’t any miracle, she was hoping for a miracle,
isn’t that sweet? A small miracle,” I say and stuff the cushion into my mouth, oh!
if I could only howl from pain and anger.

Just a minute, please, motions Lorena with that gesture I know so well. She is standing
straight, praying from the missal, her lips moving almost silently, eyes transparent.
Total beatitude. I wait, desperately eating cookies from the tin, I would explode
right now if I didn’t have something to chew on. In the midst of her imperturbable
reading, she places her hand on Ana Clara’s forehead.

“‘
Agnus Dei, qui tollis peccata mundi, dona ei requiem sempiternam.’
’”

I feel like hurling the cushion at her head, now she’s playing Mass. I pour more whiskey
down my gullet and almost come apart from coughing. My voice feels like a flame coming
out my throat:

“Lorena, use some sense and stop these theatrics, see. You’re going to call Mother
Alix and I’m going to disappear, give me time to close my suitcase and get out, I
can’t be anywhere in the neighborhood when this death explodes and the police install
themselves in this place! The papers will say she died of an overdose of barbiturates,
you know what that means, don’t you? I’ve got to get out of here,” I say drying my
eyes on my shirtsleeve, I don’t want to cry but my eyes continue to flow like waterfalls.
“You’re perfect, the nuns are saints, but what about me? We’ll leave the body in her
room, we won’t call anyone, or better yet, we’ll carry the body…”

I can’t go on. I pull off the cap and wipe my face: Ana Clara has become
the body
. Names, nicknames, they’ve all disappeared and only
the body
remains. I said
the body;
I accepted her death. And Lorena taking charge of things with hardly any affliction,
if she cried at all it was only a few sparse tears I didn’t see, Loreninha completely
composed, lighting her incense and telling me to be calm.

“Of course you have to disappear, dear. Leave the rest to me.”

“The rest?”

She blows on the lighted stick of incense. The smoke begins to escape in tenuous threads
through the holes in the gold incenseburner.

“I have an idea, I tell you. Leave it to me.”

“But dammit, I want to help you! It’s best she be in her own room, we can take her
now, afterwards you come back and lock yourself in here, tomorrow you go take your
exam, you don’t know anything. I left yesterday, you didn’t see me, I want to Bahia,
to Alto do Xingu, I wasn’t in town when she died. End of story. Isn’t that what we’re
going to do?”

I kick the cushion. No, it isn’t. The idea is something else.

“Go on, Lião, don’t worry about me, you can go.”

“But first I want to know what you’re planning, I’m not going to run out on you like
a rat, I want to help! What marvelous idea is this you have?”

She has opened the closet and is choosing a dress. So the wonderful idea is to dress
Ana? Of course not, she must have more things up her sleeve, she looks at me with
the air of a priestess. A stained-glass tone of voice. I squeeze Ana Clara’s hand.
Is it colder or is it only my impression? Her hair uncurls as a I stroke it between
my fingers. The smell of soap is very much alive. I pull her by the ear and her head
slides obediently in the direction I pull, oh, Annie, what confusion, girl. The night
before I leave.

“But what happened, Lena? Didn’t you say she was better after the bath? That she talked,
laughed? Wasn’t she better?”

Over the chair Lorena spreads a long black dress with silver embroidery starting at
the high collar and following the line of buttons down to the hem.

“She talked, laughed, cried, the same old delirium with something
lucid in the middle, oh, how could I have known? She saw God, last time she saw Him
too … She called for Mother Alix, for the boyfriend, she thought he’d been arrested,
I calmed her down. She asked for whiskey, I promised I’d pour it into her tea. She
wanted her purse, I gave her her purse. Then she asked to hold my hand, the last thing
she asked for was my hand, she wanted to hold it.”

She bends over to look for something in the drawer, her shoulders shaken by silent
sobs, the same slow crying as Mama. Whiskey, she had wanted whiskey. And the purse.
I whip my head around as if there on the floor it were a snake instead of a handbag.
Half-open, exactly, half-open. While Lorena was making tea, changing the record. It
was inside her purse, she thrust her hand down to the bottom and got it, see. My head
throbs. Lorena dries her eyes with one of those handkerchiefs of hers, she gave me
two, what ever became of them? She doesn’t want me to see her crying, she has to give
me a good example, she hides her tears by pretending she’s still looking for things
in the drawer but she already separated the smoke-colored pantyhose and the lace lingerie.
I grab her by the shoulders from behind: