The House in Smyrna (13 page)

No. I'm not.

How cruel (and beautiful) that life goes on after you.

It was Saturday night, and the music was playing at full volume. I was dancing in my underwear as Linda Scott sang,
I've told every little star
. A beer in my hand and several empty cans on the table. Dancing is like having sex, I had said before putting on the music. You pretended not to hear me. You didn't like to dance. You left me alone in the living room when I turned up the volume. That's okay, I thought. Few things are better on a Saturday night than beer, music, and being alone. Go do something else, it's fine by me. I danced and didn't think about it. I didn't think about anything. I smiled and smiled and danced and smiled. I swayed from side to side, my hand resting lightly on my hip.

It wasn't long before you were back. You couldn't handle being alone when I was fine with it. You appeared in the hall with your usual sarcastic smile, holding a beer and a cigarette in one hand and a CD in the other. You turned off my music and said: I'm going to put on that song you love. I nodded, smiling, liking the idea, not knowing yet what song it was. You came over and stroked my neck, brushing back my long hair, and then you kissed me and pressed the cold can to my breasts and tipped a little beer on my breasts and sucked my nipples and asked: So dancing is like having sex, is it?

I laughed, a drunken, light-hearted, happy laugh.

Is it? Is dancing like having sex?

I laughed again.

You tipped your cold beer over me and pulled away. Then I heard the song, our song.
My baby shot me down.
You had that look in your eye that terrified me.
Bang, bang.
You took aim and fired. You didn't even need a gun. You fired and fired and fired and your hands were free. You shot me down and I couldn't dance anymore, I couldn't move anymore. You left me alone again, and I didn't even know why. Lying on the ground until morning, I cried, mourning my own death.

He didn't know anything. He didn't know what I was doing in Lisbon, why I was there. When we met I still had my suitcase with me, and all he knew was that I had just arrived. And he thought that was all. That there was nothing before or after. I was at the A Brasileira. I had just had a coffee and decided to ask a passer-by to take a photo of me next to the statue of Fernando Pessoa. He was walking past with his hands free, so I said: Excuse me, would you mind taking a photo of me? He smiled, as I would too if someone asked me to take a photo of them in front of Sugarloaf Mountain in Rio. He didn't say anything and just took the photo. Then he wanted to make sure it had turned out okay. I took the camera and said: See, you just turn this dial.

What do you think? he asked.

Hmm, would you mind taking another one?

He smiled and nodded. I invited him to join me if he had time.

Sure, but why don't we go someplace else?

It was my turn to smile. Okay, why not? But would you mind if we didn't go very far? It's just that I've got my suitcase with me and it's a bit heavy.

We continued the smiling game, each grinning at what the other one was saying, as if we were both exotic creatures with funny accents, but also as if we understood each other perfectly and knew what the other one wanted.

The bar wasn't terribly close, but at least I didn't have to carry my suitcase. (I'll get that, he said politely.) It was certainly less touristy and, perhaps for that reason, cosier. We had nothing to talk about; we could have talked about everything, or anything. We had our whole lives to tell, but none of it seemed to matter very much, as if everything or nothing were the same. We ordered two Imperials and just drank them. And looked at each other. The silence between us grew until it was enormous, almost absolute, interrupted only by the occasional sound of us swallowing beer or blinking. When silence grows unchecked, when it is really big like that, it is even more dangerous. And that was what happened between us: the silence kept getting bigger and bigger, and so did the danger. The silence had been there for so long that if we spoke we'd have lost everything we'd created, as if a single word could make us ugly and uninteresting. We didn't hear the people shouting beside us, the men walking in and out, the women laughing too loudly, the young man arguing with the waiter because his sandwich wasn't the way he wanted it. We didn't hear the waiter asking us if everything was okay, or the glass falling off his tray and breaking on the floor. It was as if the world around us wasn't the world, as if the world was merely what existed between us. We didn't know anything about each other besides silence and stares, and, for that reason, there was no modesty, no shyness, no fear — there was just desire, silence, and danger, when we kissed for the first time.

Amnesty was granted in August 1979. One month later, she disembarked at Galeão International Airport with a dozen other political exiles. Photographers from most of Rio's newspapers and magazines were there to capture the euphoria of those arriving and the people who were there to greet them. The baby she was carrying wasn't bothered by the crowd, or frightened by the number of people who wanted to hold it. It seemed to recognise the home it hadn't seen before. When the Amnesty Law was passed, she had said: We don't need to go back right now, we're fine here in Portugal. The magazine likes my work as a correspondent and you've made contacts in the party all over the world. And our daughter is so small
—
it's too early to travel by plane, to change environments. But he had insisted: Our place is there. And it is there that I want to make the revolution.

He ended up convincing her that it was time to return. They hadn't seen family and friends, eaten cheese buns, or drunk caipirinhas for a long time.

It wasn't easy to pack. After all, they had been in exile for five years. They had to give away many things: paintings, sofas, their oven, their fridge. Many others — rugs, books, ceramics — they sent by ship. Their clothes went with them on the plane. She went ahead with the baby, while he stayed on for another two months to take care of paperwork and fulfil some party obligations. Before she left, she called her closest friends together and told them that, while she was happy she was going to see her loved ones after so long, she was sad to be leaving her Portuguese friends behind. There was one to whom she was especially close (they had met in Albania, where, at a party dinner, they had looked at each other and smiled when they saw a fly land in the leader's soup as he delivered a long, pompous speech) and whom she knew she'd miss tremendously. Their daughters were almost the same age, and it hurt to think that they wouldn't grow up together, as the mothers had so often imagined.

As she disembarked, a shiver raced up her spine and her heart beat faster. Who would be there to greet her? The wait for her luggage seemed interminable, even though she was chatting with an acquaintance she had bumped into in the arrivals area. She wanted to get out of there quickly, to really arrive. When she noticed the glass dividing wall she walked over, her bold olive eyes searching for a familiar face. She was surprised to see her father coming towards her, trailing his hand lightly over the glass. It had been so long! She would have said he was exactly the same, if he weren't a little more wrinkled and stooped than the last time they had seen each other. Their eyes glistened, but no tears fell. Imitating his gesture, she placed her hand against the glass as if she were holding his, and it was as though the glass didn't exist; they could even feel the heat of each other's hands. Suddenly he pointed at his granddaughter, noticing her for the first time. She looked from one to the other, from her father to her daughter, thinking things that were too obvious, too simple, things that reassured her that returning had been the best choice.

She felt a hand touch her shoulder. The acquaintance had come to say goodbye: I think your suitcases might have arrived. She was disconcerted. Oh, great, she said. I'll go take a look. And they wished each other good luck, all the best. As she pulled her bags off the carousel, she couldn't think about anything else: she wanted to rush out and hug her father, unfazed by the tumult that awaited her, the flashing cameras, the friends wanting to know how she was, her daughter being passed around. All she wanted was to feel that she had arrived.

You won't believe where I went today.
Where?
Strolling through Rossio Square, I suddenly saw, in large red letters, the name Pastelaria Suíça.
You're kidding! You went to Pastelaria Suíça?
Yes, you used to talk so much about their cakes and sweets that I never forgot the name. I couldn't believe it when I happened across the large al fresco area, with waiters walking back and forth holding trays piled high with goodies.
I used to love to sit at one of those tables and have a nice strong cup of coffee with something sweet. I'd pick a different one each day
. This is it! I thought. This is the place my mother always used to talk about.
How could I not? I remember as if it were yesterday: your grandmother had died in October 1977. In June 1978, on a sunny spring morning, Rossio Square brimming with people, I nervously walked into Estácio pharmacy to pick up the result of a pregnancy test.
Positive
, it read.
You're pregnant!
announced the little piece of paper. I jumped up and down, laughed to myself, beside myself. The square had never looked so beautiful. It was life's reply. I went to celebrate at the Pastelaria, where I ate until I had no more room
. That's exactly what I did. I sat at an outdoor table, with all the clamour of the square around me, the tourists, people out for a stroll or hurrying along for whatever reason. And I ordered two pastries: one for me and one for you.

I don't know if we were ever on the same wavelength, if there was a moment when we could state that we loved each other as a joyous truth, or if we just wandered through each other's lives like the vague characters of a certain Chinese filmmaker who portrays love as an impossibility. Every time I see his films I think about us, our impossible love, our love that went unrealised despite the years we spent together. I wonder if it could have been any different, or if the strength of our love lay precisely in its impossibility. All the times we embraced and I felt in my heart the painful certainty that you weren't mine. All the times we made love and I felt that it wasn't to each other, and that the distance between us wasn't a gap but an abyss. As if I was trying to hold your hand but you had no hand, as if I wanted to tell you I loved you but you had no ears. Although we lived under the same roof, shared the same bed, and did so very many things together, it was as if there was a knife with points at both ends wedged between us, and in order for us to get any closer we'd have to skewer ourselves simultaneously in the only possible embrace: of a blood-stained death.

I asked where his white horse was, but he said he didn't have one.

What about princely clothes?

I don't have any either.

A princely name?

Nope.

Well, do you have a bouquet of flowers?

I don't. But that's easy to fix
—
just a minute.

When he returned, he was holding a sweet-smelling bouquet of colourful wildflowers. With both hands behind his back, he said: Pick one.

Left, I said.

And, holding out his right hand, he said: Here, these are for you.

The flowers were beautiful. I smiled. I smiled a lot, sincerely. He took the bouquet from my hand and placed it carefully on the ground. Then we kissed. A tender kiss. We left holding hands, knowing that we weren't eternal, that we weren't prince and princess, but that our lips understood each other, that our mouths pressed lightly together was, perhaps, love.

I know you'll understand me. You've always been by my side and you know me well. We have come this far, hand in hand, and mine are moist with your sweat. We'll do everything with calm, great calm. Now it's my turn to tell you: don't be afraid. I stroke your face with my free hand. I feel you squeezing the other one. Don't be afraid, I repeat. You don't say a word. Your eyes fill with tears, as eyes typically do when one says goodbye. We are in the bedroom, and I can't stop looking at you. I don't want to forget a thing, not a single detail, although I know that one day I will — one day I will no longer be able to recall with precision the size of your nose, the shape of your mouth, the thickness of your hair. I know that one day I'll need a photograph to remind me of the small things. I thank you one last time and promise to keep your memory alive. My eyes are tearing up too. But I am no longer afraid. Gently, I pull your hand away from mine, and feel a little relieved when they part. Wait, I say. Even more gently, I take the ring off your finger and place it on mine. You smile, approving of my gesture. I tell you I'll take care of it, just as you once took care of me. Your smile grows broader. I take you in my arms and, together, we slowly lie down on the bed. I make you comfortable and run my hand over your hair, your face. I pass my hand over your eyes and you understand, you close them. I give you a big kiss for the last time. Then I take the two tips of the sheet bunched up at the foot of the bed and pull it over you, covering you entirely, like a burial shroud.

I don't know how many glasses of wine we had drunk. We had been naked for hours, sprawled across the floor, the bed, the sofa. Talking about unimportant things, very important things. Touching each other softly, without any hurry. We both knew the eternity of the hours that passed. I asked him: So, are you going to come live in Rio or am I coming to Lisbon? And we both laughed, a lot. We hooted with laughter. We also knew the brevity of time, which allowed us to play like two children, teenagers who make plans even when they're sure they'll never come to fruition.