Near to the Wild Heart (9 page)

Once more she was overcome by sheer, inexplicable weariness. Ah, perhaps I should go, perhaps... She closed her eyes for a moment, permitting herself the birth of a gesture or of a phrase without logic. She always did this, confident that deep down, beneath the lava, there might be a desire already directed to some goal. Sometimes, when she closed the doors of consciousness through a special mechanism not unlike that of lapsing into sleep, and allowed herself to act or speak, she was surprised to receive — for she only perceived the gesture at the moment of its execution — a slap on her face from her own hand. Sometimes she heard strange gibberish coming from her lips. Even without understanding those words, they brought a sense of relief, and greater freedom.

And from the core of herself, after a moment of silence and abandon, there surged, at first pale and hesitant, then increasingly compelling and painful: I summon you from the depths... I summon you from the depths... I summon you from the depths... She remained still for a few more minutes, her expression vacant, listless and weary, as if she had given birth to a child. Little by little, she started to be reborn, she opened her eyes slowly and returned to the light of day. Fragile, breathing quietly, happy as a convalescent enjoying that first moment of fresh air.

Then she began to think that she had actually prayed. Not her. Something greater than her and of which she was unaware had prayed. But she had no desire to pray because she knew that prayer would be the remedy. But a remedy like morphine that numbs any kind of pain. Like the morphine one needs in ever increasing doses in order to feel any effect. No, no she was not so worn out that she should be cowardly enough to want to pray instead of discovering pain, of suffering and possessing it entirely in order to experience all pain's mysteries. And even if she were to pray... She would end up in a convent because all the morphine in the world would not be enough to satisfy her craving. And this would be the final degradation: addiction. Yet unless she were to seek an external god by some natural cause, she would finish up deifying herself in order to explore her own sorrow, by loving her past, by seeking refuge and warmth in her own thoughts, born initially with a desire for a work of art and later serving as familiar nourishment during periods of sterility. She was in danger of establishing and regimenting herself inside suffering, which would also be an addiction and form of sedation.

What was to be done then? What was to be done to interrupt that path, to grant herself some respite between her and herself in order to be able to re-encounter herself without danger, renewed and pure?

What was to be done?

The piano was deliberately attacked with measured uniform scales. Exercises, she thought. Exercises... Yes, she discovered feeling amused... Why not? Why not try to fall in love? Why not try to live?

Pure music unfolding in some uninhabited land, Otávio mused. Moments still without adjectives. Unconscious like the primitive life that pulsates in the blind, impassive trees, in the tiny insects that are born, fly, perish and are reborn unobserved. Meantime the music gyrates and develops, they live the dawn, the powerful day, the night, with one constant note in the symphony, that of transformation. This is music which is not sustained by things, by space or time, the same colour as life and death. The life and death in ideas, isolated from pleasure and pain. So remote from any human qualities that they might be confused with silence. Silence. Silence, because this music would be the necessary one, the only possible one, the vibrant projection of matter. And in the same way as one doesn't understand matter or perceive it until the senses come up against it, no one hears its melody.

And then? — he thought. To close my eyes and hear my own music which trickles slow and dark like a muddy river. Cowardice is lukewarm and I'm resigned to it, laying down all the heroic weapons which twenty-seven years of thought have granted me. What am I today, at this moment? A trampled, silent leaf, fallen to the ground. No movement of air to rustle it. Scarcely breathing so as not to awaken. But why not, above all, why not use the appropriate words and entangle and envelop myself in images? Why call myself a withered leaf when I am merely a man with folded arms?

Once more, amidst futile reasoning, he was overcome by weariness, a feeling of despondency. To pray, to pray. To kneel before God and beg. For what? Absolution. Such a long word, so full of meaning. He was not guilty — or was he? Guilty of what? He knew that he was, however, he clung to the thought — he was not guilty, but how he would love to receive absolution. On his forehead the broad, plump finger of God, blessing him like a good father, a father made from earth and universe, embracing everything, without omitting to possess even a particle that might later say to him: yes, but I have not forgiven you! Then there would be an end to the silent accusation which all things harboured against him.

What did he think after all? For how long had he been stuck there playing this game with himself? He made some gesture or other.

Cousin Isabel came into the room. 'Blessed, blessed, blessed', her hasty, short-sighted glance was saying, anxious to withdraw. She only abandoned that air of being a stranger when she sat down at the piano. Otávio flinched as he used to when he was a little boy. She then smiled, became human, lost that piercing look. She became more amiable and relaxed in her manner. Seated at the piano, her cracked lips covered in powder, she played Chopin, Chopin, especially the waltzes.

My fingers have become stiff, she said, proud of being able to play from memory. As she spoke, she threw her head back, suddenly appearing coquettish as if she were a dancer in a cabaret. Otávio blushed. Whore, he thought, and erased the word at once with a painful movement. But how dare she? He remembered her face leaning over him attentively, concerned about his stomach-ache. That's why I detest her, he thought illogically. And it was always too late: the thought anticipated him. Whore — as if he were thrashing himself with a whip. Yet even though he repented, he would sin again. How often as a child, just before falling asleep, he would suddenly become aware that Aunt Isabel was in the bed, unable to sleep, perhaps sitting up, her grey hair tied into a pigtail, her flannel nightdress buttoned up to the neck like that of a virgin. Remorse like acid pervaded his body. But he detested her more and more because he could not love her.

She was no longer capable of achieving as before that smooth transition from one note to another, that sensation of trance. One sound stuck to the other, harsh, syncopated, and the waltzes exploded, feeble, spasmodic and flawed. From time to time, the slow, hollow chimes of the old clock rang out, dividing the music into asymmetrical bars. Otávio remained there waiting for the next stroke, his heart in his mouth. As if those chimes were precipitating all things in a silent dance of sweet insanity. Those implacable chimes interrupting the music with the same cold and smiling tone, threw him back on himself as if into a void without any support. He watched his aunt's firm shoulders, her hands — two swarthy creatures leaping over the piano's yellow keys. She turned round and said to him, conceding the phrase out of sheer euphoria, graciously, like someone throwing flowers:

— What's ailing you? I'm now going to play you something more cheerful...

She broke into one of those ballroom waltzes, spontaneous and jumpy, which he couldn't recall having heard before but which were mysteriously connected with fragmented memories of the past.

— Not that one, Auntie, not that one...

It was too absurd by far. He was afraid. To beg forgiveness because he didn't feel ecstatic about her playing, to beg forgiveness because he had found her unbearable even as a little boy, with that smell of musty clothes, of jewellery ingrained with dust, as he watched her prepare him 'a nice little cup of tea to settle his tummy', when she promised to play him something pretty if he finished his homework. He could see her once more leaving the house. Her grey skin floured in talcum powder, her low, curved neckline exposing her neck where the veins stood out dramatically. Her low-heeled pumps like those worn by teenage girls, her umbrella brandished with disarming vigour, as if it were a walking stick. To beg forgiveness for wishing — no, no! — that she might finally die. -He shuddered, began to sweat. But I am not to blame! Oh! To go away, to plan his book on civil law, to get away from that horrible world, so repugnantly intimate and human.

— Now I'm going to play 'Birdsong in Spring' — Cousin Isabel informed him.

Yes, yes. I long for spring...Help me. I'm suffocating. Ridiculous spring had never been more spring-like and joyful.

— This melody reminds me of a blue rose, she said, half turning in his direction and smiling with a hint of perversity. Suddenly on that dry, wrinkled face, like a vein of water in the desert, the two little diamonds trembled on her withered ears, two tiny moist drops that sparkled. Ah, how exceedingly fresh and voluptuous... The old woman had possessions. But if she wore those drop earrings it was for a reason he never discovered: she herself had bought the diamonds and arranged to have them mounted as earrings, she carried them like two phantoms under her grey bristly hair.

This music reminds me of a blue rose, she had said, well aware that only she could understand what she meant. From experience, he knew that he should ask her to explain that expression and patiently give her the pleasure of answering him, biting her lower lip:

— Ah, that's my little secret.

This time, however, the exciting little game they'd played so often, did not take place. He simply avoided looking at the old woman and confronting her disappointment. He got up and went to knock at his fiancée's door.

She was sewing near the window. He closed the door, locked it and knelt down beside her. He rested his head on her bosom and once more inhaled that tepid, cloying scent of old roses. She continued to smile, absent, almost mysterious, as if she were listening attentively to the gentle current of a river flowing within her breast.

— Otávio, Otávio, she said in a hushed and distant voice. None of the inhabitants in that household, neither his unmarried cousin, nor Lídia, nor the servants, was alive -Otávio thought. Not true — he corrected himself: only he was dead. But he continued: ghosts, ghosts. Those remote voices, no expectations, happiness.

— Lídia, he said, forgive me.

— For what? — she felt a little apprehensive.

— For everything.

She vaguely believed she should agree and remained silent. Otávio, Otávio. It was so much easier to speak to other human beings. Were she not so deeply in love with him, how difficult she would find it to put up with all the misunderstandings on his part. They only understood each other when they kissed, when Otávio rested his head like this, on her bosom. But life was much more drawn-out, she thought with dismay. There would be moments when she would look straight at him without being able to extend her hand to touch him. And then — that oppressive silence. He would always be detached from her and they would only be able to communicate during special moments -moments of intense life threatened by death. But this was not enough... Their life together was essential precisely in order to live those other moments, she thought in terror, struggling to reason. She would only be able to utter the essential words to Otávio, as if he were some deity anxious to be off. If she embarked on one of those leisurely aimless conversations, which she so thoroughly enjoyed, she could see him grow impatient or observe his expression become exceedingly forbearing and heroic. Otávio, Otávio... What could she do? His approach worked like magic, transformed her into someone who was truly alive, the blood pulsing through her veins. Or else it failed to rouse her. It lulled her as if he were simply approaching by stealth to perfect her.

She knew that it was useless to take any decisions regarding her own destiny. She had loved Otávio from the moment he had loved her, ever since they were children, under the contented eye of his cousin. And she would always love him. It was useless to follow other paths, when her steps were guiding her along only one. Even when he wounded her, she took refuge in him against him. She was so weak. Instead of suffering upon recognizing her weakness, she rejoiced: she somehow knew, without being able to explain it, that from this weakness came her support for Otávio. She sensed that he was suffering, that he was hiding something alive and distressed in his soul and that she could only help him by explaining all the passiveness that lay dormant in her being.

Sometimes she secretly rebelled: life is so drawn-out... She feared the days, one after another, without any surprises, days of total devotion to one man. To a man who would use up all his wife's resources for his own passion, in a tranquil unconscious sacrifice of everything except his own individuality. It was a sham rebellion, a bid for freedom which left her terrified, above all, of victory. She tried for several days to assume an attitude of independence, something which she could only achieve with limited success in the morning when she woke up and before setting eyes on the man. It only required his presence, even its anticipation, to annihilate her completely, and reduce her to waiting. At night, alone in the room, she longed for him. Every nerve and muscle in her body aching. Then she became resigned. Resignation was sweet and fresh. She had been born for resignation.

Otávio examined her dark hair, discreetly combed back behind her large unsightly ears. He examined her body as firm and compact as the trunk of a tree, her hands firm and attractive. And, once more, like the bland refrain of a song, he asked himself again: 'What binds me to her?' He felt sorry for Lídia, he knew that even without any motive, even without knowing any other woman, even if she were the only woman, he would abandon her at some point. Perhaps even tomorrow. Why not?

— Do you know something! — he said — I dreamt about you last night.

She opened her eyes, glowing from head to foot:

— Did you really! Tell me about it.