The Girl in the Photograph (8 page)

“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-f 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.