Away from Home (22 page)

“Will you always keep everything simple for us?” she asked. “Will you?”

“Will you?”

“I can’t even keep things simple for myself.”

“You’re very beautiful,” Sergio said.

“Thank you.”

“Don’t ever say thank you when I tell you you’re beautiful.”

“All right.”

The waiter came over and stood by their table holding a menu. Sergio ordered for both of them, and the waiter went away.

“How strange …” Helen said.

“What?”

“When I’m alone with my husband there are always the children there, or the servants, or our friends. And when I’m alone with you there’s a waiter or a taxi driver or a room full of strangers. Do you know that I haven’t been alone with anybody—really alone—for eight years?”

“And you think that’s the way your life has to be?”

“When you grow up you try so hard to keep a little part of your life separate, just so it will belong to you. You don’t think you’ll ever have the luxury of being alone with someone you love until you’re too old to care about it. And we’re all so
proud
of ourselves for turning ourselves into public property.”

“To be alone with the right person for a little while can be a lifetime,” Sergio said.

“When I said thank you before,” she said, “it wasn’t only because you told me I was beautiful. It was for a lot more.”

“I want to make love to you,” he said.

For an instant Helen thought of how it would be, allowed herself to think of it, and then it seemed too far away, across a bridge she could not cross. She shook her head. “I don’t know,” she said very softly. “Please give me time. I don’t know.”

He was looking into her face and she could see his eyes move, like someone reading a page. She had never seen anyone look at her that way before. At first it startled her and she had a moment of resistance; then she was flattered and touched. She felt herself become weak and gentle under the movement of his gaze. She knew then that one person alone looking into a mirror is never beautiful; it is only when two people are together and know they are beautiful to each other that they really are. But she knew too that other forces are at work: the past, the demands and needs of other people, the whole framework of separate lives that meet and part again. She wondered if she would ever find enough courage in the knowledge that Sergio found her beautiful and desirable to make that beauty last when he was gone. Someday he would go away from her; that was inevitable and she was not alone. The tragedy would be that when he left, or when she left him, someone who thought she was a special woman, separate from all others, would be gone, and gone with him the proof that she was.

She gave a shaky laugh. “I’m thinking about the end already,” she said, “and we haven’t even begun.”

“We have begun,” Sergio said softly and intently. “Oh, yes, we have.”

This time she lifted his hand to her face, as he had lifted her hand many times to his lips, and she laid her cheek against his fingers. It seemed a natural gesture, something she had a right to do. She remembered the thoughts she had had before he entered the restaurant, her resolution to end their meetings, and then she ignored that thought as quickly as she had put away the thought that they would become lovers. She knew they could not remain in this in-between state forever, that the in-between stage was perhaps the shortest of all. But she would not think about it. For the first time she would not think about anything at all; she would only let things happen. If the bumblebee, not knowing he was not able to fly, could therefore fly, then she would be that way too. She did not know yet whether she had changed since she had known Sergio or whether she was for the first time finding out what she really was like. But she knew she was no longer frightened.

“What are you thinking now?” Sergio asked.

“I’m wondering how I could have lied to myself for three days.”

“We all do that. It seems safe.”

“But no more.”

“You’re different, suddenly,” he said. “You’re gentler.”

“I am?”

“Gentler … and lovelier. No more tenseness in your face. Your eyes are different. I can see into them.”

“What do you see?” she asked, trying not to lower her gaze.

“What is the best thing you would want me to see?”

“This may sound odd to you,” Helen said. “I … what I want you to see is … a woman.”

He sounded almost awed. “You are that,” he said. “
Oh, you are that
.”

CHAPTER 10

During the hot nights in the weeks preceding Carnival, people danced and dined outdoors at the
piscina
of the Copacabana Palace, ate broiled filet that was cooked on hot coals and skewered on long swords in the tiny back yards of outdoor
churrascurias
, sat at tables overlooking the mosaic sidewalk and the beach and the stream of cars on Avenida Atlantica and drank beer from heavy glass steins in cafés that looked more like cafés in France or Germany. Rio was filled with tourists, cheerfully paying high prices they thought were low, innocent of spiraling inflation that set angry passengers to overturning and burning buses during the daytime. There were tourists from everywhere, from Europe, from North America, from other parts of South America. There were also the usual Rio café habitués; the handsome, seemingly jobless young men, tanned to the color of a gentled, honeyed cordovan from months of lying on the beach, emerging clean-shaven and white-toothed from bachelor apartments of incredible disorder, of three-legged beds, empty beer cans under the bed, torn sheets with shoeprints on them, cigarette holes burned blackly into the mattress, a whole world of endless young orgy shut away behind locked doors.

Inside Sachas, open “from seven to seven,” the wealthy danced to a lively orchestra in an air-conditioned room and drank real whisky from its original bottle set on the white tablecloth with a bucket of completely transparent ice cubes made of purified water. In the smaller, less expensive
boâtes
(Brazilian café society loves French words but spells them its own way) there was louder conversation, perhaps guitar music, perhaps air conditioning, and the lights were brighter. And then there were the tiny bars along the beach where an opened door emitted a blast of frigid air and the sound of a phonograph being played, and perhaps the sweet-flower smell of antiseptic. Outside these bars prostitutes sometimes barely into their teens loitered, called out, clutched at a passer-by’s arm, waited all night until they found a customer or perhaps ended up alone, dozing hopelessly on the steps of an apartment house, their heads on their knees, their arms wrapped around their heads.

This was Copacabana, but in other parts of Rio it was quieter. People waited in line to pay twelve cents to see an air-conditioned film, or they sat with their families at late dinner in their apartments, or they put their children to bed. It was summer, which is always a crazy time, different from any other time of the year; but most of all it was before the Carnival, and anything could happen.

In her apartment at Ipanema, Leila Silva e Costa was entertaining Carlos Monteiro at dinner. She had entertained him before, with friends, and several times he had taken her to quiet, obscure restaurants to dine, but she had never before invited him to her apartment alone. He seemed even more nervous than she was. He arrived at eight, having been invited for eight; and this surprised her. Most Brazilians arrived up to an hour and a half late. Being excited, almost like a schoolgirl, Leila had been all ready by eight o’clock herself, so it was no tragedy.

He followed her into her library and stood there admiring her shelves of books, which he had seen before, a glass of whisky in his hand, blinking his eyes nervously. She had put a stack of classical records on the phonograph, but because her children were always getting at the phonograph and record collection trying to play with them, the records were terribly scratched and Leila was ashamed. She knew an intellectual like Carlos would think she was a careless woman who did not take care of beautiful things.

“My children …” she said.

“Yes?” He turned to her and took a quick gulp at his whisky.

“They have ruined the records, I’m afraid. I can’t prevent them. I hope it isn’t all spoiled for you.”

“Oh, no,” Carlos said. “No. Schubert’s
Death and the Maiden
. Very lovely.”

“It’s very tragic,” Leila said. “I sometimes feel when I listen to it that it was written for me.”

“For you?” He seemed startled. “Why?”

“The violins seem to reach out for me when I listen to it. The way Death was reaching out for the Maiden. I don’t know, really. I only know how I feel.” She smiled at him, her eyes opened wide, and sat on the couch spreading her red chiffon skirt about her. She had had this dress made especially for him; it had been completed today. The color of fire. Perhaps he would think of her differently in it.

Carlos did not sit down. He turned again to look at the titles on the spines of her books. “You have read Voltaire!”

“In French,” Leila said demurely.

“One must read
Candide
in French in order to get the true flavor of the style.”

“Yes,” she said, although she had never read it any other way. “Will you have some cashews with your whisky? A small sausage?”

He came over to where she was holding out a little silver plate and he took a sausage. He gave her a nervous smile but he did not sit down. She thought he looked like a man of the world, a scholar who knew how to make money as well. He wore a beautifully cut Italian silk suit. He was of medium height and thin, with graying hair that made him look older than forty, although she knew he was forty because in Rio you knew everything about everyone. He had a clear-cut, aquiline profile and vague, scholarly eyes. Leila thought he was very handsome. But he had never married. Forty years old and never married … She wondered if he would think he was too old for a woman of twenty-nine. No, men of forty usually thought
she
was too old for
them!

She moved the corner of her red chiffon skirt aside to make room beside her on the couch. “Sit down, please.”

Carlos sat next to her and drained his glass of whisky. He seemed less ill at ease. “I like you very much,” he said.

“Do you!” She knew her smile was radiant, but she did not care. She had never been much good at hiding her emotions from anybody; whenever she felt happy it came bursting out.

“You are the only woman I can talk to,” Carlos said.

“I hope we will talk together many, many times.”

“I hope so too.”

She put more ice into his glass and poured more whisky. For herself, soda water, with a drop of whisky to color it, like a child’s drink. When she leaned forward to give Carlos his glass she hoped he could smell the perfume she had put all over her shoulders. It was real French perfume, not the
barato
they sold here and pretended was real.

The maid came in to announce dinner. “Please take your drink with you,” Leila said. “She serves very slowly.” She led the way into the dining room, walking with her back very straight, wondering if Carlos were noticing how tiny her waist looked in the full-skirted chiffon dress. She was none the worse for having had four children; she hoped he would realize that.

They sat opposite each other at the narrow end of the long, rectangular table. There were lighted candles in silver candelabra. It was a lengthy dinner with many courses, but all of them very light because of the heat, so that he would stay for a long time but not become so full that he would become unromantic. She wondered briefly, as they sipped at their delicate wine, if she really wanted Carlos to become romantic. This was the first time she had thought seriously of a man since João Alberto, and yet with Carlos it was entirely different. She admired his mind; he even awed her. He was handsome, in a distinguished way that awed her too. She did not feel a physical urge toward him as she had toward João Alberto, and yet, lately, she felt a stubborn, maddening urge for him to kiss her. At least he could kiss her. It was not kind of him never to try to kiss her, even when they were alone in a romantically darkened restaurant, or in his car, or at her doorway saying good night. It made her feel as if he did not want her or care for her at all; and yet tonight he had said that he
did
like her, that he liked her
very much
.

“You have such a look of concentration on your face,” Carlos said. “What are you thinking?”

“I am thinking of Plato,” Leila said with a little smile.

“Perhaps Plato the man, not Plato the writer.”

“So I have that kind of look?”

“I think you do.”

“To tell you the truth,” Leila said, “I was thinking what a terrible thing it is that you have never kissed me.”

“Now?” He did not seem startled or frightened; he seemed only amused. “Do you want me to kiss you now?”

“Why not?”

He rose, laying his napkin neatly beside his plate, and leaned across the table. Leila half rose too, and Carlos laid his hands very lightly on her bare shoulders and kissed her gently on the lips. “There,” he said, smiling, and sat down again, and arranged his napkin across his lap.

Leila’s head was swimming. She sat down again, slowly, like someone in a trance, her wide-open eyes fixed upon his face. She could hardly remember the kiss, it had been so light and brief, and yet he
had
kissed her, he had touched her bare skin with his hands, he and she were not apart. She sat there smiling tenderly at him and now it was she who was nervous.

“Do you know something?” Carlos said softly. He shook his head, smiling back at her. “You are only a child. A beautiful child. Someone should take care of you.”

“Yes …” Leila breathed.

“Someone will,” he said. He put his hand on hers and patted it. “How soft your skin …
Someone will
.”

The rest of their dinner passed as vaguely as a dream for her. She dimly heard herself whispering to the maid, offering Carlos more wine, suggesting he have a cigar with his
cafezenho
. She had been running a home since she was seventeen and presiding at dinners—twelve years—and it came automatically. But she had been dating men only one year, since she had recovered from mourning her lost marriage, and she felt confused and elated. When he kissed her she had felt her heart leap up; it was her heart she had felt, not his lips. Her heart had sprung from her mouth like an invisible bird and it circled the room, its fright mocking her. She wanted to put out her hand for it and comfort it, cradling its panicked wings, but she did not know how. She sat there in the candlelight, smiling, speaking in a soft and womanly voice of books and philosophy and music, without her heart, almost without her mind.