Stubborn Archivist
Page 12
Is he going to try and fuck you
Does he want to fuck you
Do you want to fuck him?)
He says—Now the weather in this country is not so intolerable, we should have some beers on the common.
That Saturday was the first day of the year above twenty degrees. She woke up early and straight away. All the pasty English women were on the common in bikinis and all the men were playing football with their shirts off. If her tia were there she’d be wearing a fleece.
During the day she lay on the grass alone. She took her blue bike and she took a book.
She spread out her limbs and closed her eyes. Lay in a star shape.
She checked her phone. Nathan had texted her asking if she wanted to go to a Peruvian restaurant in Hackney? And also, he’s just finished Love in the Time of Cholera, which of course she must have read, and he’d love to know what she thought?
At home that week she cooked every evening. She used YouTube videos to make beans better than her mum. She sat at the kitchen table and flicked watching the end of each of the videos and she found the beans that looked most gooey and browny red and right, and then she went to the very beginning and followed the instructions. She started with onions, garlic and bacon. Slice slicing. She put her mum’s old records on and opened the kitchen door to the garden. Pressure cooker whistle cooking.
And after taking his first bite her dad smiled at her over the table.
Her mum said—This is great thank you darling.
Every time as soon as she started chopping her mum said—Can I help?
She laughed, every time saying—No Mum. Please do not help.
Look at these warm nights! Jade said.
And Elena said—Let’s go out out out, you’re on holiday!
You can go out without tights and the sun stays up until midnight!
No it doesn’t—she said—Ten p.m. latest. We’re not in Norway you know
Oh really?!
Mmhm.
But the nights were getting shorter. Not yet warm but warmer.
She wore a thin coat that was black but satin and shining like pyjamas. At the start of the night when they ran down steps and escalators to catch trains and buses her thin and open-buttoned coat flew out behind her, rising in the wind
And on the way home—
Behind her on the full and steamed up N155 at four in the very early morning in the dark hours before sunrise, she could see the outline of brown curly hair reflected in the window. Around Elephant and Castle she heard the sound of a woman’s voice laughing laughing and repeating the name—Marcela Marcela
Marcela
For some reason that she can’t explain—
Standing at the back of a really very nice party in Camberwell with a bunch of Jade’s friends from art school who were putting on a sort of exhibition, she starts to talk about him.
She’s at the back of what had been a kitchen on her phone. The back door is open and outside the sky is pink coloured.
It’s just a little place, an old terraced house that’s about to be turned into flats that’s been stripped down, turned into a kind of gallery with fairy lights and a makeshift bar and bits of art coming out of the unplastered ceiling full of people in wide leg trousers and beards wandering around.
A girl who she’s met a few times approaches her. They stand together at the back of the party. She holds out a packet of rolling tobacco.
Oh
I’m smoking, do you want one?
No, no thank you.
The girl looks at her—You alright?
Yeah yeah course
Boy trouble?
No. No
The girl is looking at her. Do you have a boyfriend?
She looks up.
No. No.
Haven’t had one in years actually.
The girl smiles at her.
Yeah fuck boyfriends right
Right.
Pause.
They step outside into the garden, which is concrete, full of broken furniture and small climbing plants. The girl lights her cigarette and looks at her. Behind them the sky is watery pink
Then—
I did used to have a boyfriend
Yeah?
Yeah
It was about five years ago
Yeah
But it started seven, six years ago, when I was sixteen, fifteen.
Oh yeah? Was he your age or
Yeah a little older but not much
Always the way.
Well the boys our age were—
Yeah the worst.
Mmn.
So what happened did he disappear
No no he’s still like—she moves her hands around—about.
Do you still see him?
Um
She looks out into the garden and then the sky.
He’s a doctor now actually.
Fancy!
Yeah.
So what happened, did he move or?
No he stayed. He trained at the hospital near where we grew up near my house. Where my parents work.
Oh. But it didn’t work out?
No
The girl looks at her. She looks into the garden and then the sky.
No it didn’t work out
She looks into the garden and then the dark pink sky.
He was my first boyfriend actually. My first—everything.
She takes a long bath that night. And after and before she looks in the mirror.
She had always thought she’d have grown into a grown up body by now—bigger breasted and tall.
Yet here she was.
(never have I ever have I ever)
She looks at his name on the screen.
Lastly
You dress with the anxiety
trimming your pubes
moisturising your skin with the expensive moisturiser that smells like ripe mango
scrubbing your dolphin body in the shower bath
putting on black pants and a black bra
And the anxiety fills you with the sense of the unsexy alienness of other people’s bodies, their jelly fleshy weirdness
(What does he do in Tooting?
Does he ride a bike into work
Can he afford a travelcard
Does he go out to the same places you go to?
Does his body look how you think his body looks
Who is he having sex with?
Are the people he fucks English or Brazilian?
Men and/or women?
Where does he meet people? Online? In bars?
Or on trains and in shops and on the street?
Would you fuck him if you saw him on the street?
Would you fuck him?)
Mum-mãe
One evening—
You help your mum load the dishwasher. Dad, who cooked, watches the ten o’clock news in another room.
She turns on the machine and you wipe the table. She pauses for a moment before feeding the dog.
Who wants tea?
Me.
OK.
She fills the kettle, and then as the kettle boils she feeds the dog. This is what happens after dinner.
The dishwasher and the kettle vroom wurr slush and the dog crunch crunches his food.
The water boils and she pours it on the tea bags then carries the mugs over. One mug has four black and white portrait photos of dogs looking into the camera arranged in a square with the caption “The Beagles” on it. The other says “Science Museum.”
She puts the milk on the table, and then sits down. Outside is dark. She smiles and closes her eyes.
Ahh.
How was your day darling?
Good.
Did you manage to speak to the—She moves her hands around.
You frown at her. Yeah.
She nods.
You hold your mugs and listen to the kitchen sound.
You look at her.
Mum.
Yeah?
Mum.
Yeah baby?
Can you teach me the swear words in Portuguese? I don’t know them, and no one in our family really swears.
She closes her eyes again. Tia Ana Paula swears. Maybe not that much in front of you.
Okay. But yeah that’s what I mean. I don’t even know it when people are swearing.
I can try and teach you.
Ok, cool.
Not that I’ve sworn in Portuguese much in the last thirty years.
She picks up her mug, hovering her nose above it to test the temperature.
You wait.
There’s filho da puta, which is a very serious one
Right. You wouldn’t use it?
No, no—
Do people disapprove of it?
Sim, it’s frowned upon by some women, feminists.
You nod.
Also merda, you know like French.
Yes.
There’s porra, which is male ejaculate.
Right.
People say like—she holds up her hands—“Porra! I can’t believe that happened!”
Okay!
Foda-se, vai se fuder is like go fuck yourself. It’s an irregular verb.
What does it mean?
Go fuck yourself.
You nod.
Also tomar no cu, that’s the same but it means take it up the ass.
Okay.
There’s also caralho, like “ah caralho!”
Ok yeah. I’ve heard people use that one.
It’s like saying “fuck!”, you know.
Ok. What does it mean?
Penis. It means penis.
Cool.
Both of you sit at the table warming your hands on the tea as it cools to a drinkable temperature.
Mum—
Yeah?
What swear words did you used to use?
I used to say, I don’t know—she nods and drums her fingers on the table—we said like porra. Oh also cazzo.
Cat-zo?
Yes. It also means penis.
Right.
The etymology is Italian I believe.
She drinks her tea. You drink your tea.
Cool.
She looks at you and smiles and closes her eyes.
Thanks Mum.
It’s okay boneca.
Your mother never hit you.
Yes she got angry, slammed doors, cried, had called you a bitch but only sometimes. You did all those things too.
(Crazy fiery women those latin ladies, right)
You were thirteen. Wearing skinny jeans on your unskinny legs and mascara. You were taller than your mum but still much shorter than your dad. You had just gone to the theatre.
(This is a terrible story)
The three of you were on the tube. Mum sat down. She was wearing a big blue dress.
Oval
Sit on my lap
No!
Just if you want to sit—
I don’t want to sit
Okay.
Stockwell.
Clapham
Your mum put her hand on your hand.
You pull away.
Mum!
Clapham
Clapham
She says—What did you think of the play?
Silence.
I liked the costumes a lot, what did you think of the main woman, baby?
Um
What did you think, baby?
Mum don’t call me that.
Your mum looks away
Okay.
Your mum looks at you.
So did you like the play?
You pursed lips speak. It was alright.
She looks away from you, as if speaking to the carriage—I love living in this city, having all the galleries and theatres and museums
Your dad nods. Mmm.
Putting little quote fingers in the air she says—When I’m here I don’t feel foreign
But you are foreign
And then you also say—Coming here and stealing all our jobs
Your dad looks at you.
Your dad panics. He says—Don’t say that.
It was a joke
Your dad says—Never fucking say that
What do you mean? It’s a joke
He looks at your mother.
Your mum doesn’t look at you.
Balham
What
You’re repeating what you’ve heard somewhere. Don’t fucking do that.
Your mum is sitting down still and crying.
People are looking.
Look just calm down don’t be angry at me I haven’t done anything
Apologise to your mother
But
Apologise to your mother
Jesus
Do not swear at me young lady!
That’s not swearing!
Do not answer back
Oh my god!! Ohmygod!!
You feel your throat crunch.
You don’t look at your mum.
Tooting
In the house you go to your room and cry.
Later, you find your mum having a bath.
You knock. You stand by the bathroom door.
She says your name.
She says it in the way that even your dad can’t say it.
There is a silence the size of a house.
You say—
Mum
Mum I’m sorry.
You hear the bath water move.
She says—
I love you
I love you baby.
Muhhm
Mãe
Mummy
Mamãe
Mum
Mum
How can you explain your mother who is like the buttress root of a tree spreading across the red sofa in your warm grey green living room with woolly socks on and wet hair in some kind of home dying kit bonnet from which she has carefully excluded one lock of grey, her glasses on a string around her neck which curves forward as she squints into her laptop and types with two fingers?
How can you explain your mother who had had to leave the room when dad was reading out loud the scene where the Death Eaters appear at the Quidditch World Cup. It happened again and again. Books four to seven are so dark she had said it reminds me of she had said it makes me anxious—
Your father can be silly. Very handsome also but nevertheless
When we moved in together he did not tell his mother. And it was not because he was embarrassed of me—your grandma, Grandma Suzie, actually always liked me very much. And also your Grandpa Simon. That was not the problem, they would have loved to hear that your father had found a person—they were very happy and I think relieved when we told them we were getting married—but your father would have these long conversations with his mother where they would talk about the garden and quince trees and greengage vines and the apple bushes and he would ask them whether the something something had had fruit yet, and were they going to make it into jam and perhaps he should come up soon to chop down the branch of the oak of the
And eventually I said—You should tell your mother because it will make her happy. And also because it is true. So your father called her, and that time he spent only fifteen minutes talking about the garden, and then he told her. And your grandparents were happy. They said—Oh how lovely, you must both come up and visit, and they sent us the beautiful earthenware bowls with the dripping brown and green that we still have although a couple have broken.
And they said you must come to visit. So we did. We got in the car and we drove to their house, which was the first time that I had ever gone that far north before, apart from when me and Kalpana got the train to Edinburgh for the weekend, and they were extremely welcoming and lovely. They made a dinner and we went on walks—they made us sleep in a room with twin beds, which I thought was very funny—it was all very proper
We were about to leave, saying bye bye bye with all our stuff in the car, and I was feeling very welcomed—especially by your grandma who is so loving and an affectio
nate person—and as your father shook hands with Grandpa Simon, I gave Grandma Suzie a kiss and a hug. Um abraço. This is the way that I greet everybody. She looked a little startled, but then I hugged your grandpa and then of course as is normal your father hugged Grandma Suzie and we got into the car and drove off.
In the car back your father was very quiet.
And then he said—You know, that is the first time I have hugged my mother in fifteen years.
But before you go to your new big school let me tell you about my school.
No it won’t take very long, it will not be a long story, I can tell you it while your dad finishes making food.
I went to a school run by nuns. I went to a Catholic school run by nuns who were in a convent near the house we lived in in São Paulo. We wore these heavy ugly brown skirts, and long white socks
It was a mortifying outfit to wear as a teenager and I also had my big round glasses like the Beatles—
I was never religious.
When I was a student we thought that is not really marxism. But working educating reading reprinting sometimes in secret—we used to do it in a church. Just a small church with one room or two nothing fancy or ornate, a small church with an old old priest. I don’t know what the nuns would have thought. I don’t know. It is complex.
People were disappeared. My friends were tortured. I didn’t see my family for years. I was very young.
I don’t know my darling.
When you were fourteen—
You took a book from the bookshelf in the front room an old book with heavy dark red covers from before books were bendy and had pictures on the front.
Holding that book for the first time you thought it had come from your grandmother’s house in Yorkshire
Crumble fray hard back, in old red with the golden print font
N O R T H A N G E R
A B B E Y
and the horizontal golden lines on the spine
Opening it, for the first time, that first time you saw stamped on the inside first page—
06 NOV 1980
And then in a circle crest—
BIBLIOTECA
UNIVERSIDADE DE SãO PAULO
Dr.
Dra.
Isadora
Doutora
Dr. Amado
Dra. Amado
Doctor doctor
Isa
dora
Izz
Iz
My wife
Eu sou
Isadora
Izer door ruh
Isadora is—
One day your mum comes into the kitchen at the back of the house where the door is open to the steps to the garden, and you are cooking and you are playing her records that you have never listened to together