Vovó Cecília looked at her granddaughter—Have you washed your hands?
The baby held out hands that were damp but clean.
Vovó Cecília held out her own hands which had long elegant fingers with neat crisp nails painted dark red; also clean.
Me too.
Vovó Cecília put her fingers into the butter, scooped a digitful and spread it between her hands.
This is so the brigadeiros don’t stick.
The baby nodded and did the same, rubbing the butter all over her fingers and palms and the back of her hands.
Agora do like this—she took a palm of the cold chocolate leite from the corner of the dish and rolled it into a ball the size of a two real coin in her buttery hand. She held out the shiny ball for the baby to see.
The baby nodded.
Now like this—she plopped the ball into the plate of sprinkles and rolled it around until it was covered.
Vovó took the squishy sprinkly chocolate ball between her pointer finger and thumb and put it in the corner of a new clean plate, where it sat expectant.
Pronto! Ready to do your own?
But the baby had already begun.
As the baby and Vovó Cecília rolled the thickened chocolate into brigadeiros, a woman with dark skin wearing a hair net on the top of her head began to set the table around them. Vovó Cecília did not look at the woman, but the woman looked at Vovó Cecília. Looked at her butter shining hands.
Later, before bed, Vovó Cecília, the baby and Ana Paula sat on the plush sofa to watch the novela, the baby in the middle. This novela was set in Victorian times on a big farm in the North-East of Brazil and told the story of Bianca, a very beautiful sixteen-year-old with blonde hair that curled out of a bonnet, and a heart-shaped face and a heart-shaped mouth and huge brown eyes and breasts that rose in her corset when Aurélio, with whom she was desperately apaixonada, left and entered the frame.
Aurélio wore a necktie and boots and often had dirt on his hands. He was a modest young farmer who had recently come into money because of a tragic accident involving a cart horse. His neat jaw was covered in stubble and he had brooding eyebrows and a broad chest and thin falling ringlets of light brown hair.
Bianca and Aurélio’s love was forbidden but often they found themselves alone—in the pantry, in the stables, against the door outside her father’s study.
This time they were outside, walking through a sugar cane field as the sun set. The tall crop rose around them. Aurélio pulled Bianca close. She was almost crying, her mouth open. He leant in, as if to kiss her. She closed her eyes.
But I can never see you again, Bianca.
Aurélio!
I am sorry.
Aurélio held Bianca’s chin in his hand, her tears falling onto his fingers.
He looked away from her. But I must go.
She held her hand out after him—
The interval music began.
Vovó Cecília stood up. The phone was ringing.
I’m going to see who it is, perhaps your mother.
Ana Paula and the baby sat on the sofa together.
Are you excited to see your mum and dad again?
The baby shrugged. Uh-huh. But—she held up three fingers—it’s only been three days. That is not very long.
Ana Paula laughed. No? But you are very grown up.
The baby smiled.
And are you excited to go to the beach? The yellow house?
The baby nodded—I am! Yes!
What are you going to do there?
I’m going to swim in the sea, jump big waves, make a sandcastle, have an água de coco and an ice cream.
Me too.
Ana Paula nodded.
But only one ice cream?
The baby pulled a face at her.
They were quiet.
Then Ana Paula said—You don’t have an empregada at your house in London?
The baby shook her head.
You have someone who babysits you and someone else who cleans but they only come some days and then they leave?
The baby nodded.
But if you and your parents lived here you would have an empregada.
Why?
Because you could.
At bedtime Vovó Cecília wrapped the baby in several thin blankets and kissed her face and told her a story. Sometimes it was the story of what had happened earlier in the novela or in another novela, or in a film for grown ups that the baby had not watched.
But today the baby asked for uma estória verídica. No it didn’t have to be a new one.
The story began like this—
Once upon a time there was a girl who had just turned nineteen. She wasn’t too tall or too rich or too beautiful but she was from an honest, hardworking family. She was the second of seven brothers and sisters, can you imagine that? She had big brown eyes and very straight teeth. Yes she was considered to have excellent teeth, and a lovely smile. Her name was Cecí.
Cecí lived in a city called São Paulo. Yes, she lived not too far from where we are now. She had finished all her schooling, and had come to live at her aunt’s house. Her aunt was a very mean old lady. She was in fact Cecí’s great-aunt. And the aunt didn’t like Cecí and was always telling her that she was going to send her back to her father’s house to live with all her brothers and sisters, which made Cecí sad and afraid. Cecí didn’t think her aunt would really do it but she couldn’t be sure.
Now Cecí had some friends in the city, her cousins mostly. They lived nearby and were all the same age. And together they did nice things like go to the movies and go for walks and in the evenings they got dressed up and went to balls, although her aunt was very strict and made sure Cecí was always back by ten p.m.
Now. The dresses Cecí wore to the balls were always very special and very beautiful, because her and her cousins were very good at sewing—everyone was back then because you didn’t just go to a shop and get clothes that fit you, instead you went to the cloth shop, you looked at all the materials, then you chose the one you liked best and you could afford, and over days and days you made it into a dress for yourself. Making yourself a new dress could take weeks.
There was one ball that Cecí was especially looking forward to. She decided she would make herself the most wonderful dress. She chose two fabrics, one that was a kind of pale cream and one that was a dusty pink. For weeks Cecí would work on this dress. Cecí stayed up at night to finish this dress before the party, sewing and cutting and sewing in seams. The dress was tight around here—the waist—and long and layered after that and cream and pink and Cecí made herself matching gloves that went all the way up to her elbows. And gloves were not easy to make.
The ball was on a Saturday and Cecí finished the dress just in time on the Friday. So she wore the pink and cream dress to the party, ironed her hair and she wore the gloves to her elbows, and although lots of men asked her to dance they were all too short or too dull or too ugly and when she went home at midnight she hadn’t met anyone she liked.
But
But
But one day the next week, in the middle of the day when Cecí was wearing her normal clothes, her hair barely cleaned and pressed and done properly, a lawyer came round to Cecí’s aunt’s house for dinner. The lawyer was helping Cecí’s aunt with some problem she was having.
Now, not everyone thought the lawyer was good-looking. Cecí’s aunt didn’t. But Cecí thought he was exceptionally handsome. He was quiet and polite and had long eyelashes. And although they had dinner together, because she thought he was so handsome, Cecí said not one word to the lawyer! She felt very silly. She was sure he would not have noticed her.
But
But but but
The next afternoon, when Cecí came home from her errands, her aunt said that she had received an unexpected visitor at the house that morning. The lawyer! He had come to ask if he could take Cecí out for an ice cream and coffee on Monday.
Of course Cecí told her aunt to say yes
. She was very nervous. She chose a nice dress, did her hair. But back then things were very different. Back then men and women weren’t allowed to be alone together, so when Monday came Cecí’s horrible aunty came for coffee and ice cream too! As a chaperone. Cecí was very embarrassed to have her aunt listen to all their conversation but still they spoke about Cecí and the small town where she was from and her brothers and sisters, and where he was from and his family and most of all Cecí thought that the lawyer was even more polite and good-looking than he had been at dinner.
And so they fell in love. The next Monday they had another ice cream and coffee, and the next Monday after that the lawyer came round for dinner. And when they were together they would talk and Cecí would stare at his long eyelashes and she would almost forget that her aunty was there.
After three months they got married. Although Cecí was nervous she was very happy because she loved the lawyer very much and because it meant that she wouldn’t have to live with her aunt or her brothers and sisters.
They had a wedding and moved into their own little house in the big city.
And on the very first evening when they had their own house and Cecí was unpacking her clothes for the very first time, the lawyer her husband saw her white and pink dress and he said what is that for, and she said for balls. They had never been to a ball together so the lawyer had never seen Cecí’s pink and white dress before. She told him that she had made it herself. She told him about the gloves that went to her elbows.
He said—I want to see you wear it.
So she put on the white and pink dress carefully and her new husband watched her. He did up the little satin buttons at the back and she pulled on the gloves all the way to her elbows, and her husband the lawyer with the long eyelashes told her she was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen.
In the night the baby dreamt in Portuguese.
The words fell around her brain bleeding like clothes in the wash—
the sound of Melissa
the sound of Melissa saying her name
the sound of Melissa who was a stranger saying her name
the sounds of it like hot water
Senhora—
Dona Cecília
Dona
Cecília
Cecí
amada
Cecí—
apaixonada
That morning, still on English time, the baby had woken up early. She sat in her room. Tried to unfasten the window. She opened the book she had and read a chapter.
Then she got out of bed. She opened the door of the wardrobe in her room. It was full of her vovó’s clothes. They hung above her, so she touched them from below. She felt the hems.
She heard a movement in the corridor. She closed the wardrobe and sat on the bed.
She had breakfast with Vovô Felipe and Vovó Cecília. He was drinking coffee and eating a ham and cheese toastie. Vovó Cecília peeled a mango, cutting the mango meat into slices then handing the stone for the baby to suck on. (Later, she would hang the mango skin on a small plate under one of the trees in the garden for the hummingbirds.)
Vovô Felipe began—
Your mother has told me that you are already reading books.
The baby took the mango stone out of her mouth. I am!
That is very good.
You must also learn to read in Portuguese.
The baby frowned.
It is very important. But it doesn’t have to be right now. Right now you can concentrate on English.
The baby sucked on the mango stone.
Portuguese is becoming an important language.
Later he would begin a history lesson—
Em mil quinhentos e
Pedro Álvares Cabral
Árvores what kind of árvores
Cabral cavalo cabrito
But Vovô I thought Columbus discovered America
No. Christopher Columbus discovered América do Norte.
América is a continent—two continents.
And Brasil is in América do Sul
There is also América Central and the Caribbean.
Let us look at the map.
That night she asked for another estória verídica. A different one.
Let me think.
Do you know about your vovô’s vovô? He was a farmer many years ago. He had a small farm in a town by the edge of the jungle. Yes—like Aurélio.
And before he had come there had been nothing on the edge of the small town where it was very hot, just the jungle trees and plants and animals. Spiders and snakes and monkeys and fish in the river and onças all covered in spots. Onças!
When he had gone to live there with his brothers they had had to hunt for food some days, and chop down trees for wood to build their house and farm and they would get bitten by mosquitoes all night long.
If they needed something they couldn’t get one of them would go into the market in the small town and trade something.
Over time their farm grew. They built fences and stables and coops and bought animals and bred other animals. They got two cows, and made milk and cheese. They got chickens for eggs and eventually they would plant corn in the fields. They had a goat but it was very badly behaved.
They built a wooden cage for the goat and some of the other animals. The brothers had become very strong by this point from carrying things around the farm. Like Aurélio.
Your vovô’s vovô had in particular become very strong. And very good at hunting. He could always be relied on to go out and come back with a capivara or a fish or boar or some other animal that they could roast on the fire.
And one night he was gone and he came back with an onça!
Back then onças were much more common. They were the predators of the forest. You would never be allowed to hunt an onça now because of the laws but back then there were many onças in the jungle. His brothers woke up in the morning and there was an onça in the cage!
But they did not eat the onça. They might have made it into a carpet or perhaps they let it go back into the forest although they would have to be careful it didn’t kill the cows.
But your vovô’s vovô kept disappearing in the night.
And one morning he came back with a young índia. Because there were still índios living deep in the jungle.
No—they did not keep her in the cage.
The next day when everyone else had finished breakfast and they were alone the baby repeated this story to her tia Ana Paula.
Do you know it?
Yes. I have heard it.
Ana Paula frowned. But I do not think that is a real estória verídica.
Oh
I think—Ana Paula paused, searching for a word in English—I think that this story is just bragging. Like showing off. By vovô’s vovô. I do not think it really happened.
Oh
These were the photographs on the wall—
A baby—her mother, Vovó Cecília’s legs in the side of the frame.
A sixteen-year-old, her mother, smiling too broadly all her teeth showing, her face taking up all of the frame, her hair cut into an oval around her chin.
And one of them together around the same time, Ana Paula, a toddler in her mother’s lap, both wearing dresses. A yellow wall behind them.
A child, this one was Ana Paula, you could tell from the black hair cut with a fringe, about four years old. Sitting on a chair, wearing a light pink dress with a white collar.
Ana Paula, her hair up in a bun with strands coming out, in long black clothes and eye shadow and lipstick holding a roll of paper, graduating.
Her mother standing, in a fitted dress, fifteen years older than in the other photograph, her dad with longer hair in a suit and smart shoes. Looking at each other but not facing, hands almost together, the flower beds outside Wandsworth Town Hall in the background.
Vovô Felipe, in a photo greyed with light a young man with fuller eyebrows in a white shirt and dark tie.
An ancestor who had V
ovô’s nose and a moustache, black and white and faded, not smiling, wearing a shirt and a tie and a hat.
Her grandmother with another face, skin softer lips darker face all in a white veil, her body in a white dress.
They were back in the Shopping. Just a few last minute presents and panettone. The baby loved panettone. She would be a grown up before she realised that it was not an everyday food or an originally Brazilian dessert and that it was not traditional to eat it soaked in milk.
The Shopping was huge. It was not like where they went shopping in Tooting. The carpark was massive with lots and lots of levels all hot and dark with the smell of petrol. The Shopping was not only where you went to buy clothes and presents and watch films, but also where you went to buy food and go to the supermarket.
They stood in the aisle with a trolley, the baby holding the front.
Do you remember where the panettone is?
I remember!
So lead the way!
She led them down the aisles past the bread and the piles of cheese and the long legs of meat and fridges.
Perfect!
The baby smiled.
Your mother asked for some things can you remember what they were?
Protetor solar
Yes.
They walked to the toiletries aisle.
Let’s buy her shampoo too.
Did you know—Vovó Cecília touched the baby’s left pigtail and then reached for the conditioner—did you know that your hair grows faster in the hot climate?
She brushed her granddaughter’s forehead, her fingers beneath the hair.
They moved down the aisle.
Vovó Cecília touched her hand above the curve of her own wrist.
Vovó Cecília took a bottle from the shelf. The baby held her other hand.
She moved her lips together and looked at the baby’s face.
A Casa Amarela
There was not always a yellow house here.
Did I ever tell you the story of the yellow house? No it was not always here. And did you know that it belongs to your vovó and not your vovô? Although yes of course you are right that they share their things. Yes of course—they both look after each other and share their things. They have been married for a very long time. But still the house came to them through Vovó and this is an unusual thing.
Stubborn Archivist Page 6
