The Girl in the Photograph (33 page)

“I arrived dressed in turquoise-blue, so lighthearted, almost happy. I looked in the
mirror and felt that I was exactly as old as my face appeared; I had a facelift but
I know that the important thing is to have inside us the age that is on the outside.
I rehearsed what I was going to say. ‘Dr. Francis, today I woke up feeling so well!’
As if during the night a fairy godmother had come to me, one of those good fairy godmothers
from the old tales, with a magic wand. Don’t suffer any longer, dear, she said touching
my head with the wand, don’t suffer any longer, don’t suffer any longer, she kept
repeating and just then I woke up and felt different. I
am
different, Dr. Francis, different! No resentment toward Mieux, let him have his deceits,
his pettiness, isn’t it better simply to say good-bye like two well-bred people whose
life together has become insupportable? That’s all. No rancor, no bitterness, isn’t
it better that way? He is younger, let him find someone his own age, as he did before
we lived together. Let him go away and leave me alone, I’m preparing myself for solitude.
Look in my eyes, Dr. Francis, I swear I’m not bluffing, I woke up breathing deeply,
my chest open and my head high, the fairy godmother touched my head, remember? Don’t
suffer any longer … I don’t want to promise anything Dr. Francis, but I think that
today a new phase is beginning for me, I’m feeling splendid. Or almost so. Or almost
so,’ I repeated to myself as I brushed my hair, smiling at the mirror, making the
face I would make as I went in: ‘Well then, Dr. Francis?’ I heard her footsteps coming
from behind me, she always manages to come up from behind. Her rubber-soled footsteps,
she wears those nurses’ shoes. I started when I heard her voice at my shoulder: ‘What
are you doing here?’ I just stared at her. What? Has she gone crazy? How can she ask
me something like that, what am I doing here. ‘Have you forgotten? Don’t I have an
appointment today?’ I panicked slightly, I’m absentminded, have I gotten my days mixed
up? Isn’t this Tuesday? So then she gazed at me a long time and smiled, I swear she
smiled as she put her hand on my shoulder, ‘But Dr. Francis is dead, hadn’t you heard?
He died. He was buried yesterday, they say he had a cardiac arrest, how could they
not have notified you? The funeral was late yesterday afternoon.’ I grabbed my purse
and ran out, I didn’t even wait for the elevator, I ran down the steps with her voice
accompanying me, the funeral was late yesterday afternoon. Late yesterday afternoon,
oh God. I wonder how such cruelty is possible.”

I unwrap the third bonbon which is also a chocolate-covered cherry. Besides the invention
of Scotch tape, I consider them one of the most important inventions of the century,
these liqueur-filled bonbons with a cherry in the middle.

“I can’t explain it, Mama, but I don’t see how that was cruel. Didn’t he die? If so,
then she had to tell you. It wasn’t too skillful, obviously, but I don’t see why
cruel
.”

“An excellent occasion to humiliate me with his lovers, the time was hand-picked.
Just today the maid answered two telephone calls, the more daring one gave her name,
Karin. ‘Do you want to leave a message?’ the maid asked and the little prostitute
giggled, ha, ha, ha, no, it was better to give it
in person
. I’d like him to turn up right now so I could tell him to pack his bags, Pack your
bags up immediately and get out of my house! Get out of my life, you wretch! In the
beginning, little presents, flowers, how deluded I was by his politeness, there couldn’t
have been a more attentive man. He wanted to open an interior-decorating store, so
I gave him the money. Then after that he invented an advertising agency, more money,
I spent what I had and what I didn’t. Cynic. Scoundrel.”

This one instead of a cherry has a grape stuck fast in its rose-colored cream. And
I don’t really know why there comes to me the phrase of a genial politician:
To govern is to grasp
. Very refined, as Mama there would say. I wad the bonbon wrappings up into a little
ball. Courageously I take a deep breath. Here we go:

“But are your problems real? If it’s a toothache, what can a psychiatrist do? I want
to study structuralism and don’t understand it because I’m too stupid, what good will
a doctor do me?”

I almost say, if your problem is old age, and if old age has no cure, see. She doesn’t
see. She stares at me from deep in the pillows but she’ll never see that she is old
and that no psychiatrist in the world is going to make her young again. Was the role
of this Dr. Francis to help her accept old age? Or to keep the famous flame burning,
even letting himself be loved like the character in the novel? Spiritualities. I don’t
know, I’m getting exhausted. Another route:

“Don’t you have faith in God? If so, then He’s more important than Dr. Francis, He’s
above all else. I can’t explain it, but what good is it to have God, if in a difficult
moment you can’t draw sustenance from Him?”

She smiles.

“I’d like to go into a convent. I think I’d be happy in a convent. I would stay there
so quietly, watching the world from far away, growing old in peace, without witnesses,
I’m terrified of witnesses. I’ve discovered that what frightens me most about life
and death alike are the witnesses. I’m always meeting someone who remembers me on
this or that date, the witnesses are so attentive, their memory! Why do people have
such memories? I was at a dinner having a lovely time and someone came up and stared
at me. He stared hard and then started one of those conversations that make my flesh
crawl: ‘I don’t think you remember me … ‘Oh God, when I hear this beginning I go cold
all over, it starts like that, I’ll bet you don’t remember me! I look vague and disguise
my reactions but it doesn’t help, the witness is a voracious beak pulling the meat
off my bones, peck, peck, it won’t turn its prey loose, what voracity! ‘Wasn’t it
on…’ the date. Before anything else they recite the entire blessed date. Even the
hour. This one wanted me to remember him from my début dance, which coincided with
my birthday, remember? I quickly say I remember, ‘Oh, how could I ever forget? I remember
everything, I certainly do!’ But he was insatiable, he started reproducing the entire
party as if it had been yesterday, we danced to
Stormy Weather
cheek to cheek, at the time that song was obligatory, just as it was obligatory to
dance with one’s faces together, right?’ Mieux was laughing with sheer joy, he was
across the room but when he intuited the subject he came running. ‘There was an enormous
cake on the table, all white, do you remember?’ I had forgotten the cake entirely
but not he, ‘A cake with little doves made of spun sugar, fluttering over a satin
bow whose ends reached to the floor. You offered each guest a dove, there were fifteen
because you were fifteen years old that day, remember?’ I swear I could hear the wheels
turning in people’s heads as they made their rapid calculations, if she was fifteen
on that date, then today she must be … Oh God oh God. I had to drink almost half a
bottle of whiskey in order to stay at the party until the end, laughing and talking,
even smiling at that monstrous imbecile who came up looking like the cat who ate the
cream and asked me if perhaps he had committed an indiscretion, ‘You aren’t mad, are
you?’ ‘Of course not, I adore you, let’s dance cheek to cheek like on that night,’
I said, wanting to shove his face into the fireplace, let him be cheek to cheek with
the fire. Oh God, how awful, how awful.”

I get up. I want to make pee-pee, walk, get a drink of water, eat something salty.
Oh, the session with me was a double one. I begin to see why they charge so much.
Kotig
.

“Is the bathroom here? Excuse me just a moment.”

The night of the bedroom extends into the lilac bath, which sparkles with starlike
reflections. I have to leave the door open because she continues to talk as I fight
with the zipper which pinches my skin. From the toilet (pardon me, Lorena) from the
throne I see the objects glittering on the marble console; they remind me of the ones
in the rose-pink shell. Colored bath salts in crystal bottles, ermine powder puffs,
pots of cream, gold rings from which hang towels with a large M embroidered in purple,
Lena’s L is in pink. Her voice flows heavier and faster:

“He made me go out with him almost every night, parties, parties, ‘Don’t you want
to go? Then I’ll go alone.’ I didn’t want to go but I would, more clothes, more hairdressers,
every morning early I’d be at the beauty salon, my scalp was burning from so much
hair spray and dye. I got a little relief when I bought
five wigs. I’d change my wig, put on my makeup and go running after him, nightclubs,
dinners, cocktails,
vernissages
, he took to investing in paintings, he never had the slightest culture but he thought
he was an art connoisseur, he was on the point of opening a gallery. In the intervals,
the absolute multitudes of his friends, he’d meet a couple today and tomorrow the
couple would be installed here, little drinks, little outings. My eyes closing, my
face falling, ‘But do we need to entertain so much, Mieux?’ ‘Of course we do, isn’t
it part of my profession as a decorator?’ Later, the profession of advertising also
demanded contacts, contacts, and naturally the profession which was to come afterward,
that of
marchand
. Oh God, oh God. ‘But what’s the matter with you?’ he would ask. ‘Are you tired?’
‘No, of course not, I’m fine!’ I would answer wanting to lie down on the table from
exhaustion, I started taking stimulants to withstand the late nights and keep my eyes
open, ‘It was wonderful, wonderful!’ He’d laugh that little laugh, how well I know
that little laugh. ‘It was fun wasn’t it? Didn’t you enjoy it?’ All on purpose. Pure
mental cruelty, my dear. Do you know what mental cruelty is?”

I open the jar with the powder puff. I unscrew the bottle of perfume covered in mirrors,
she collects perfumes like her daughter collects little boxes, bells. Mental cruelty?
I was still a child when I heard Grandma telling about the husband who insisted that
his wife, who wore false teeth, should try some carmelized guava, it wasn’t sticky
at all. Today I’m going to write a long letter home, the more I see of other people’s
parents the more I love those two, my German and my Bahiana. Your kind of letter,
Mom, full of good judgment and asking your blessing. They’re eaten up with worry over
my militancy, I don’t want any more of that, I’ll say this trip is part of my odyssey,
Dad read the
Odyssey
and finds a certain heroism in the gypsy wanderings of youth because of their lack
of calculation and altruism. Oh, Dad, I love you but I can’t stand morbid love, mine
is wholesome. A Nazi, just as he could have been a Communist, he’s the passionate
type too, capable of being moved by a uniform, a hymn. A really crazy German. When
he discovered it wasn’t the way he thought, he ran so far he ended up in Salvador,
saravá
brother!

She is still talking about mental cruelty, illustrating it with a story that has a
caterpillar in it.

“I have to go, see. What about the suitcase?”

“Wait, dear, have some tea first, press that button again, what do they do there in
the back? Four servants,” she sighs, taking up the mirror from among the sheets. She
looks at herself, puckering up her lips as if to kiss her own reflection.

“And what about Loreninha? We had planned to go and visit Dona Guiomar but it seems
she’s in jail, I don’t know why the police persecute these poor people. She has never
failed, she predicted that Remo, my son, would go to North Africa, she foresaw the
death of Dr. Francis, ‘You are going to lose a very dear person,’ she warned me. She
predicted Mieux’s betrayal, she prophesied everything. If Lucretia were still alive
she could give me her blessing, I think she was once a slave.”

“So I can take the suitcase today?”

“Certainly, dear, Bila packed everything, there are lots of winter clothes, Mieux
is worthless but his clothes are very good. You know how to drive, don’t you? Take
the car and leave it there with Loreninha, maybe she’ll decide to come. My dear little
girl. She was such a well-mannered child, so sweet. She would collect pebbles, leaves.
She was always saving some little animal that had fallen in the river. Is she still
a virgin?”

“Yes, still.”

“I’m so happy to know that she continues to be pure,” she murmurs with an expression
of beatitude. But at once she frowns. Her voice becomes fogged over: “Don’t you think
she shows too little interest in sex? At times I’m so afraid, do you understand what
I mean? Lately there seem to be so many of them, these girls …”

I chew on a bonbon.

“I don’t want to be rude, Mama, but I think it’s completely absurd to worry about
that. You speak of mental cruelty. Now there’s the worst form of it, a mother worrying
whether her son or daughter is a homosexual or not. I understand parents who worry
about drugs and so on, but worry about other people’s sex? Taking care of one’s own
is hard enough. Excuse me, but I get upset over any interference in the southern zone
of others, Lorena calls it the southern zone. The northern zone is already so overrun,
so bombarded, why can’t people free themselves and let others be free too? A prejudice
as hateful as racial or religious prejudices. We have to love our neighbor as he is
and not as we would like him to be.”

As I say this I think immediately of Ana Clara. I have to love her. Hard, yes. I get
irritated and impatient. But then, am I trying to be a Christian?

“A woman without a man ends up so unhappy, so full of complexes.”

With a man too, I want to tell her and hand her the mirror.

“Full of complexes because everybody keeps nagging at her. That isn’t Lorena’s case,
I’m no longer thinking of her, I’m only saying that it’s already so difficult to grow,
to be loved by the person one loves. And for someone else to come along and determine
the sex of that person—!”