The Girl in the Photograph (25 page)

He kissed her lengthily.

“Panther’s eyes. I want this panther …”

“I can’t,” she said and rolled herself up in the sheet, crossing her arms, hands clenched.
“Now I’m a mummy.”

He bent toward the floor and looked vaguely around. He picked up the bottle but put
it back.

“I’m hungry, Bunny. I want to eat something, come on, let’s eat together,” he called
running toward the kitchen. He opened the refrigerator. “Great! Fabulous, I’m finding
things, look how much cheese. Wine, there’s wine, eeeh … I’m cold, Bunny, I want to
get under the covers.”

“What time is it? I need to leave right away. What am I saying, what am I saying.
It doesn’t matter. I’m depressed.”

He put on his sweater and stretched it almost down to his knees, then went running
back to the kitchen.

“Come here, Bunny! A fabulous sandwich.”

He’s already peeled a whole loaf of bread and now he’s on the second one, scratch-scratch
with those indecent fingernails. Sickening. What if I call? This is his fiancée. Please
tell him that I’m late because I suffered a slight accident and had to file a police
statement, millions of questions. Nothing happened to me but the poor priest. Why
priest? To make it more unusual. It’s not every day that a priest has his head mashed
under a wheel. The black smock. The black suit with that white backwards collar, I
love those little white collars. But that took you all this time? No. That wasn’t
it. The problem was that my friend Lia was shot. The guerrilla. Guerrillas are like
that, they let their attention wander for one minute they get plugged. I’m here in
the Emergency Clinic I have to hang up because there are millions of people. I don’t
know which Emergency Clinic it is, I don’t know. How can I. The address? You want
the address? He wants the address. Already suspecting it’s a lie, the scaly one doesn’t
know anything didn’t see anything but he’s already suspicious.

“Come on, I found some more stuff,” calls Max but his voice is lost in the middle
of the sound of china breaking. “
Aiii
, I dropped everything.”

I hide my head under the pillow. I’m scared Max. I’m scared. Lião said. Who cares,
she’s just jealous. Why doesn’t she save her advice for the flea-bitten types in her
group? All she’s good for is to flap her big mouth about Guevara Guevara. Who cares.
Next year. Mother Alix will be matron of honor, she loves me to pieces she does a
lot for you all, but for me—! Lorena will be a bridesmaid too, she’ll bring her mother
who is a VIP. The moneyed rural class you know what that means. Lião can come
dressed however she likes, an intellectual leftist could go as a Gypsy and be interesting
but Lorena and her mother. So. The nuns with their little party clothes. All the clergy
doing me honor. I’ll have to come in on the arm of somebody, who can I ask to give
me away. Professor Langue, there. Professor Langue with his stamp of a lord, he could
even wear a dark business suit, a decadent lord but classy. Shit what class. My dress
very simple but rotten chic. Everybody thrilled the scaly one thrilled just look at
the bride I came up with. She was on magazine covers she modeled in London last month.
A university student. She dropped out but next year.

“Max, next year I’m going to re-enroll at the university, you hear?”

Everybody is dropping out, swarms of girls and they all tell me the same thing, “I
dropped out.”

A fiancé usually gives important presents. He could give me the leopard coat couldn’t
he? Why give me money? Does he think I only need enough to pay for a low-rent boardinghouse
and buy pins? That’s what he thinks, the bastard. I have debts I’m going to have my
tonsils out.

I tip the bottle into my mouth my pores open my chest opens. Life. If only it weren’t
for this Negro howling I really don’t like Negroes. Or whites either, I don’t like
anybody. They’re all a bunch of bums who don’t miss a chance to piss on my head. Now
it’s my turn to piss, I scream and laugh from happiness. Max I love you I love you
I love you. I kiss his shoe which is on top of my bikini. His shoe. I love his shoe
I love all of him but I have to go I have to go. When I get unblocked we’ll wallow
in pleasure together, I want to wallow in pleasure. I kiss my Agnus Dei which I pinned
to my bikini I love my Agnus Dei I love Mother Alix my saint don’t be sad because
in January my saint my saint. Shit now where’s my clothes. They all disappeared. I’d
like to be invisible and go out like that guy in the funny papers what was his name?
He goes in and out and nobody sees him.

“I have to go, Max.”

The drawer falls out. It doesn’t matter he doesn’t ask questions. He’s not like the
other one who even suspects Nona. I got sick, why not? A feminine sickness I’m very
feminine, so there. So come on Annie because my brother is a gynecologist he’ll examine
you let’s go there immediately, let’s go dear, open your
legs a little more please? Now relax, very good. There, wasn’t that quick? You can
put your panties on because you’re the prettiest knocked-up fiancée my little brother
could ever find. Lorena is sick. It’s Lorena who has to have an abortion. “Abortion?
What kind of crummy friends do you have, anyway?” Your sister’s the crummy one. Lorena’s
from a rich and ancient family. When your Nona was eating rotten bananas in the hold
of a ship, Lorena’s family—. And even Lião. A guerrilla and all but her father was
a very important Nazi officer. Her mother had a sugar plantation. My friends. So.
So get dressed you bitch. What are you waiting for there in your birthday suit.

“I’m making some fabulous food!”

Ana Clara steadied herself against the bathtub and surveyed her reflection in the
mirror. Wrinkling up her lips she examined her teeth, her tongue. She sat on the edge
of the bathtub to urinate. Holding her head in her hands she twisted a curl of hair
around her finger.

“Do you think I look older than twenty? I think I look so old.”

“There’s this guy I know,” he said coming back into the room. He rubbed his hands
over his wine-spotted sweater. “My friend. The greatest cook in the world. We could
…” He lay down silently, carefully, as though he were afraid of waking someone who
was sleeping on the other side of the bed.

“And if I got cramps all of a sudden? Wouldn’t that be a solution?” she thought sponging
her belly and genitals with a wet towel. “That’s it. I’ll tell him I got the cramps,
took a very strong pain-killer, went to sleep and lost track of the time.” She wiped
her face with the towel. “It’s not proper for a fiancée to mention such things but
that’s tough.” In the mirror she studied her shiny face. And Lião with her theories
about the superiority of women. “What an idea. Stupidity. One case of the cramps and
everything’s screwed up. If it isn’t cramps it’s a kid hanging onto her and that’s
that. Even a guerrilla can’t escape it. Women have to be the way they are. Get dolled
up. Wear beautiful things. The only advantage I see, the only one, is our being able
to make love without getting all messy. I need to tell Lião that so she can repeat
it during one of her little meetings,” she reflected and laughed, pouring cologne
over her breasts and thighs. She jumped on one foot, giggling and wincing, “Shit,
it really stings!” In the red lacquer medicine cabinet, beside the talcum powder,
was a silver cup, which Ana Clara took out. With the point of one red fingernail she
affectionately traced the name engraved in the middle of the wheat-and-flower design:
Maximiliano
. She filled the cup with water, added a few drops of lavender, and gargled. She spat
into the sink, grabbing the shower curtain so as not to fall down. She brushed her
hair with renewed energy, teasing it until it stood up in a crown of rings. With the
moist point of her eyebrow pencil she accentuated the rust-colored line of her eyebrows.
Her hand trembled as she put eyedrops in her eyes. With the other hand she secured
her wrist as she began to apply eyeliner; the brush slipped, smearing her eyelid.
Again she began the difficult cranelike movement, her left hand sustaining the right,
arm glued to her body, mouth half-open. She shut her eyes. “Am I drunk?” Taking a
packet of aspirin from the cabinet she chewed one between her teeth and drank from
the faucet. She sat down on the floor to put on her stockings and black silk jersey
blouse. Around her neck she wrapped the silver chains that were spread over the rug.

“Give me your mouth,” Max began, making an effort to open his eyes. His dilated pupils
rolled upward and disappeared in the back of his eyesockets.

She put on her black velvet coat that almost reached her patent-leather shoes with
their antique-style buckles of hammered silver. Her head throbbed between her hands.
This pain. Discovering Max’s pants beside the armchair, she explored the pockets and
with an automatic gesture removed a roll of money and put it in her coat pocket without
counting it. Under the chair was a pack of American cigarettes. She thrust two fingers
inside and searched the bottom. In her tweezerlike grasp she drew out a fine strip
of carefully folded tissue paper from between the cigarettes. She pinched it gently
and closed her hand over it, then turned euphorically to the bed. Max slept tranquilly
in his blue pullover. She covered his legs, adjusted the pillow under his head.

“Sleep, love. I won’t be long, go to sleep.”

Picking up the cigarette that burned in the ashtray, she buttoned the collar of her
coat and went softly out, walking zigzag but upright, with her back straight and her
head high. In the street, she moved faster beneath the drizzle which was thickening
into rain and squinted up at the tumultuous sky. “Shitty night. Shitty town,” she
muttered signaling toward the cars that
passed at high speed, all going in the same direction with headlights beaming high
and horns complaining at those who lagged. Ana Clara motioned at a taxi which didn’t
stop. She waved harder at the second one, protecting her eyes from the glare with
her purse.

“Imbecile! Bastard!” she screamed at the fleeing driver.

The bald man in the lustrous black car drew up beside her. He made a sweeping north-to-south
gesture:

“I’m going that way, want a ride?”

She summed up the man and car in a rapid calculation. Panting, she leaned toward the
door which opened. As she got in, she lost her balance and fell against the steering
wheel. Violently she jerked loose the hem of her coat which had caught in the door.

“I’ve been on this corner since eight-thirty. Would you have the time?”

“Since eight-thirty?” the man replied in amazement. He pointed a gloved finger to
the dashboard clock: “But it’s almost eleven o’clock, miss. Any trouble?”

Ana Clara clenched her head between her hands.

“What a headache. Do you have any aspirin? Give me a cigarette.”

He slowed the car and turned down the volume of the radio, which was commenting on
a soccer game. He examined her in the rear-view mirror, from which hung a little velvet
teddy bear.

“You’re upset, have you had some trouble? There’s everything you asked for in the
glove compartment, you’re welcome to it. What I don’t have is water. Or whiskey either,”
he added with a smile.

She ripped open the envelope of aspirin with her teeth, choking in a sudden attack
of coughing.

“I was at a party when they told me. I’m afraid it may be too late, I don’t even know
if he’s still alive.”

“Who?”

Painfully she swallowed the aspirin tablets. She rested her head against the back
of the seat, rolling her hair around her finger.

“My father. He had a stroke in his office. Could you drop me off in the Sao Luiz neighborhood?
Please, take me there. But let’s go faster, could we? Sorry.”

The man accelerated the Mercedes and turned off the radio.

“But when was this?”

“I’ve lost all notion of time, I have the impression I’ve been on that corner for
hours. I was at a party when—oh, my poor father! My poor father! He was coming out
of his office, he’s a lawyer.”

“Is this the first?”

“What?”

“Stroke. Is this the first one he’s had?”

“I think it’s the second. The first was when my brother was arrested, my brother is
a terrorist. To this day nobody knows whether he’s alive or dead. He disappeared.”

The man chewed the ends of his long moustache.

“I’m an industrial executive, not a doctor. But if I can help you, I’d be glad to.”

You can. By closing your factory, you bastard. Murderer. You throw the debris on all
our heads and then. Next year I’m going to throw mine too. A house on the beach and
another in the country. The rabble can go screw themselves.

“This air would give anybody a heart attack. Do you live downtown?”

“Well, lately I’ve been practically living in my country house, I have a delightful
estate outside town. And now with the helicopter it’s like going from here to the
corner. Have you ever ridden in a helicopter?”

It’s all I do, thought Ana putting away the pack of cigarettes she had taken out of
the glove compartment. Furtively she inspected the chrome-plated lighter.

“What kind is it? Your industry?”

“Meat-packing,” he muttered and slammed on the brakes as the light changed. “See that?
It’s too much, the green light turned red without any warning. Where’s the yellow
caution light? On vacation?”

She looked for the lighted cigarette that had fallen from her hand into her lap. Imbecile.
Mongoloid. He ought to learn to drive.

“It was nothing. You drive marvelously.”

“You have to be suspicious of even the traffic lights, let alone other drivers.”

“Really. I have a Corcel but I avoid driving.”

The man examined her, disturbed.

“His office is in the Rua São Luiz? Your father’s office.”

“Yes, one whole floor. He’s a big-time lawyer, my father. Fransisco de Paulo Vaz Leme.”

“But do you think he’s still there? He couldn’t be, what would he be doing there?
Naturally they will have taken him to the hospital.”