Stubborn Archivist

by Yara Rodrigues Fowler

  And Elis sings—

  Não quero lhe falar, meu grande amor

  das coisas que aprendi

  nos discos

  But but

  But

  How can you explain your mother, who like all mothers looks very sexy and slim in some old photos, with her long curling hair and her John Lennon glasses but most unexpected of all, your mother, who no one has ever told you you resemble, in those old photos where she is hands in the air mouth open speaking straight white teeth into the camera, most unexpected of all in those old photos your mother is wearing some 1980s version of your face

  Because

  you speak in english

  (you speak to your mother in english)

  But

  You do not always speak in english

  at work

  on the street

  in the plane

  or at the airport

  (straight white teeth)

  But when you speak, move, in those moments when you speak you hear your mother’s voice

  2001

  Ana Paula, A Love Story

  For what feels like all the days—

  Depending what time her shift is, Isadora leaves for the hospital at eight a.m. rushing and kissing goodbye bye baby tchau bye. Richard leaves at eight thirty a.m., also rushing to drop off the baby, who is nine years old, at school on his way to work. Tchau tia, beijo! Bye! Tchau tchau tia.

  What Ana Paula does is she goes back to bed. She eats food in bowls (pasta, cheese, cereal, rice, leftovers) and looks at the English papers on the breakfast table and thinks about reading them and then she watches TV. She sits on the sofa eating more cereal and watching those English reality TV shows that specialise in mundanity. Neil and Priscilla need £300 for a holiday in Spain. She feels scared of the outside. She is deeply ashamed of this. She does not get dressed. Bridget and Roger’s mother left them a teapot they believe may be of historical significance.

  On the bad days when she can’t face them (sweetheart where is your bookbag? Please brush your hair. Did you brush your teeth? Richard I’m late and I’m hungry can you make me some toast? Did you do them properly? Okay let me smell your breath. Okay. Where is the jam? I don’t want jam. Yes jam is made of fruit but the sugar content is very high. Dad where is my bookbag? Yes I have got shoes on. Okay bye, bye, bye, tchau tchau, we’re late, okay beijo tia, byebyebye) on the days when she can’t face them she lies in bed holding in her morning pee until the house goes quiet.

  Ana Paula will never tell anyone this, especially not Marcos, but this is the only period in her life when she doesn’t brush her teeth. Ana Paula knows she should brush at least twice a day. Ana Paula believes in brushing at least twice a day, and flossing and mouthwash and visiting the dentist every six months. But she doesn’t brush her teeth. What she does if she has to leave the big house is gargle mouthwash. She stands in the bathroom next to her brush and she doesn’t use it. Every so often she wets it so that it looks used. Eventually the grit around her teeth stops feeling gritty and becomes soft and furry like moss. She runs her tongue along the moss. She uses toilet paper to wipe at the moss. (what the fuck am I doing)

  Each day she promises herself she will turn on the PC in the study where there are read and unread emails. She estimates that by now there will be between three and eleven in her inbox.

  In the afternoon when the kids’ shows start coming on (Art Attack, that cartoon about the Viking, that other nautical show, Captain Pugwash, the girl with frizzy hair in the very nice orphanage) she knows she has to clean up or hide before her niece comes back from her after school club. How did it get dark outside already? She puts on a blouse and a bra so that it looks like she’s been out and changed back into pyjama trousers.

  There are some days when she really has been out to class and on those days she is sweating and exhausted from speaking in English with the professor and the other students and washing and finding so many layers of clothes that match each other and then the rush hour tube ride back to Tooting in her big coat and socks.

  And then the baby comes bounding in in her little red riding hood coat with the big black buttons holding her little square bookbag and speaking without stopping tells her about her day, tripping all over the tenses and conjugations and breathing her baby breath on Ana Paula’s face—TodayIwentswimmingAndGabiandElliePwasthereNotEllieGshedoesn’tlikeswimming—tiavocêtahmeovindo?

  At five p.m. Ana Paula, who can’t cook, puts two potatoes in the microwave with some cheddar on them, a meal which the baby calls Jacket Potato.

  She asks—Jacket like coat?

  The baby pauses.

  Yep.

  This is her first dinner. (The second will be European and when Richard and Isadora come home, maybe ratatouille or sausages and mash or roast chicken and rice and salad. Richard is a good cook.) They eat it together in front of the television, maybe they watch Sleeping Beauty or Snow White or The Lion King. Ana Paula hopes the baby doesn’t choose The Lion King because then there will be crying and nose wiping and hugging and no but it’ll be alright and these things happen in the animal kingdom. They watch them in Portuguese because Isadora asked her to bring over the VHSs from Brazil. A Bela Adormecida, Branca de Neve, O Rei Leão.

  When they were at home, sitting on the sofa the baby asked her questions.

  The baby asked her whether she had also learnt about the Tudors and right angle triangles.

  No, I did not learn about the Tudors at school.

  Oh

  But yes I did learn about right angle triangles. I also had to learn English.

  And did you have boys in your class?

  No boys. None.

  Oh.

  And no boy teachers.

  What?

  No. I went to a school that was run by nuns. Freiras.

  The baby paused. Like in The Sound of Music?

  Like in The Sound of Music.

  Ana Paula tugged on the baby’s little polo shirt with the primary school logo on it.

  And we had to wear white shirts and big heavy brown tartan skirts down to our calves.

  Why?

  It was the rule.

  Was it hot?

  It was very hot. And we had white socks that came up to our knees, and they were very hot, especially in the verão.

  Oof.

  We used to roll up our skirts when we left the school gates and the nuns couldn’t see us.

  The baby looked at Ana Paula.

  But it was okay, I don’t think they minded.

  Were they strict and scary?

  No, the nuns were nice. They were very gentle. They all remembered my big sister. Even after all those years.

  Ana Paula looked at her hands.

  The baby looked at her.

  It had been a difficult month. The weather was turning cold and dark. They had been arguing.

  Ana Paula had come home from a seminar and laid on the sofa where her sister was watching the news. She said—

  So there is an English boy in my seminar, and the rumour is that he’s some kind of aristocrat

  What do you mean?

  Isadora turned down the volume.

  He is a baron or something. Or the heir. I don’t know these English titles.

  Oh really

  Ana Paula paused. He says he’s a marxist.

  Isadora looked back at the television. She did not want to talk politics.

  Mmm. Of course.

  He is bizarre, he wears old ripped jeans and dirty shoes.

  Isadora smiled and shook her head.

  Anyway he has ignored me so far—

  Claro.

  Ana Paula moved towards her sister on the sofa.

  But today he came over to tell me that he has named his cat—do you know what he has named his cat?

  Isadora said nothing.

  Ana Paula lowered her voice.

  He has named his cat Lula

  Her sister frowned over her glasses

  After—

&nbs
p; Yes

  Isadora was quiet and then she started laughing.

  Ana Paula started laughing.

  After school Ana Paula takes her niece to the Science Museum.

  On the tube the baby reads a book and Ana Paula holds her own book. The baby tells her when it’s time to switch lines and leads her through the interchanges at Stockwell and then at Victoria. The two of them hand-held move in the opposite direction to the commuters. After the barriers at South Kensington they walk down the subway. The baby likes to run along through this tunnel ahead of her aunt. And Ana Paula likes this part of the journey. She gives the baby change for buskers. There are no cars or traffic lights and the baby can just run and disappear and appear and she doesn’t have to worry.

  Ana Paula must admit that the museum is excellent. World class. Surely there cannot be a better one? Or if there is it must be in New York or Tokyo or one of those Scandinavian countries.

  Already since Ana Paula arrived, they have spent five whole afternoons in the interactive section, where her niece plays patiently with older and younger children. Only once has she had to intervene on baby’s behalf, when a belligerent older kid started pushing her around. Otherwise Ana Paula sits on a bench, holding her course book, watching the baby and listening to the sounds of the Science Museum.

  On other afternoons on other days, they spend hours in the rides section where Ana Paula has ridden the space simulator many many times because it truly is the best ride so why bother with the rest. Sometimes they visit the squiggly multicoloured basement, which really the baby is too old for but sometimes she likes to go down and check. Tia, this is where I used to play when I first came to the Science Museum. And the first cafe and the second cafe where she lets the baby order cake; and the 3D cinema.

  There is one part of the museum that the baby likes to visit every time. On the top floor. Not for long, perhaps two minutes. It’s a cross-section of a real Boeing 747. On the top half of the egg-shaped slice are the tiny overfamiliar details like the aisle carpet and seat belt signs and the life jackets under your seats, the blue-grey economy poltronas and the window flaps. And in the underneath bottom half of the egg shape you can see the huge thick metallic below belly of the plane.

  The baby does what she does every time, she stands tiny looking up at it.

  Wow.

  One afternoon, when she’s alone with the nine-year-old, speaking Portuguese (because she’s the only person the baby did not respond to in English and secretly she is tired of hearing the English words clunk out of her mouth like massive Lego bricks), she makes pasta with pesto from the Sainsbury’s jar for them to eat at five p.m.

  The baby asks her what she did today and she tells her that she had met a man called Marcos in her seminar.

  The baby has one question.

  Is Marcos your boyfriend?

  Ana Paula chews a mouthful of pesto and bow-tie shaped pasta.

  Yeah.

  Who’s Marcos?

  So who’s Marcos?

  Mahh-coss

  Can we meet him?

  In this house, when Richard was present, in this big house in Tooting, which, despite Isadora’s fuxicos and her statues and her big yellow paintings, was not a Brazilian house, Ana Paula and her sister had started a second life where they spoke to each other in English.

  So who’s Marcos!?

  I’ve heard from a certain source that you have a namorado called Marcos?

  Is it a Spanish name? Latino? Italian? Brazilian?

  And Richard said—Ana Paula they sent you to London and you found a Brazilian!

  Richard laughed.

  At Isadora’s suggestion, Ana Paula invited Marcos to the baby’s tenth birthday party. They always needed more adults and anyway there’ll be cake and brigadeiros and cocktail sausages and pão de queijo, which would be a treat for him.

  At first she was embarrassed by the idea. But another part of her wanted to show Marcos the house—its narrow height and English stained glass—and say, this is my sister’s house. Even if inside it was too messy.

  Marcos said he’d love to come. But Tooting is where? It’s erm at the other end of the Northern Line. It’s not far really.

  Marcos arrived at the same time as all the parents, got shuffled through over a pile of shoes and wrapping paper into the TV room, which they had cleared out to make room for the noisy and bulging yellow turrets of a bouncy castle. He stood in this room, slightly trapped in between the moving wall of the castle and the solid blue wall of the room, holding a small box with a bow on it. The parents, who were used to meeting miscellaneous Brazilians around the bouncy castle at birthday parties at Isadora and Richard’s, waved and smiled at him—Hullo! Hello! Alright? I’m well. How are you? I’m just dropping off my son—that’s him over there in the red T-shirt I hope he doesn’t get it mucky. Obree gah doh!

  Marcos nodded, tried not to laugh, smiled a big-eyed smile at them.

  Isadora lived through her daughter’s birthdays in terror of these English mothers who spoke slowly to her because she didn’t say their names right (how exactly was she meant to remember who was Kate and who was Katie and which one preferred to be called Cath). She found him, holding out food on napkins—Marr-cos! Bem-vindo! Marcos! Que prazer how lovely to meet you. Richard will take your jacket. Let me find you Ana Paula.

  When he saw her Marcos was smiling. He was still wearing a huge sheepskin coat and holding the small box wrapped in paper. Ana Paula kissed him twice on the cheek.

  They stood together in front of the moving yellow castle.

  He said—I have never been to a party with an inflatable castle!

  Ana Paula smiled. It is called a bouncy castle, like a bouncy ball.

  And looking at her niece on the castle, she said—Probably she is almost too old for it.

  Do you think?

  Yeah. It’s infantile, too childish.

  But she is a child still, no?

  Of course.

  Ana Paula watched her niece do a roly poly. Her baby fat was not dissolving but beginning to bunch differently. She sighed. She thought—this kid will never be long and lanky like her father.

  She turned to him.

  Did you know something?

  Marcos looked at her. He put a pão de queijo into his mouth.

  So last year at her party she had a bouncy castle too

  Uh huh

  I wasn’t here but what happened was that a little boy was crashing from side to side and ran into another kid who elbowed his face and he started crying, and when he looked up Isadora saw that he had a tooth missing—just a baby tooth—but he began to cry even more because he was scared that he would not get money for it from the tooth fairy.

  The what?

  It’s like called a fada do dente, she is like Papai Noël. If you lose a tooth you put it under your pillow and in the night—she leant in and he leant in and she spoke in a lowered voice—and in the night your parents will swap it for a coin.

  Aha

  So Isadora and Richard had to pause the whole party and evacuate the bouncy castle to find this boy’s tooth.

  Marcos looked at her, his face close to her face.

  And did they find it?

  They did.

  That evening as they put all the paper hats and tissue and paper and other endless rubbish into recycling bags, Isadora put her arm around her sister and kissed her. She said—

  I like Marcos.

  But you barely met him

  Isadora shrugged.

  E daí?

  Cecília Moreira Amado was not tense or anxious or sweaty as she knew other people often were after long-haul flights. She had, as she always did, gone to the little toilet as soon as she saw the grey English floor appear under the plane. She had washed her face, brushed her teeth, powdered her face, put on her lipstick, and changed her underwear, folding the used pair into a small plastic sandwich bag that she had brought especially for this purpose. Her feet didn’t hurt in their kitten heels and her undera
rms did not sweat in the cold English air.

  Ana Paula had left her mother’s house because she was tired of living there. And Cecília knew this. There had been no falling outs, like there had been with Isadora, over and over and over again, twenty years before. There were unanswered emails, but perhaps that was the way with emails. Ana Paula was older than Isadora had been. Ana Paula hadn’t thrown plates or told her she was a cold-hearted bitch or told her to go fucking fuck her golpista self. But Cecília Moreira Amado, whose parents were said to have come to the big city barefoot, could tell that her youngest daughter was getting tired of her. Tired of the house that they had built her. Tired that Dona Antônia had left without saying goodbye because Cecília had always been shouting at her for cooking Cecília’s family recipes wrong. Tired of São Paulo. This country where nothing worked. Tired of Brazil.

  It was Isadora who had said that Ana Paula should come to London. And it was Vovô Felipe who had said that Ana Paula should apply to study there. And then who knows what would happen? And even though it had all been her idea, Isadora had laughed and said—But this is the wrong time to be leaving Brazil, no?

  And Ana Paula had said—Let’s swap then. You go back to São Paulo and I’ll live in your big house in London.

  When Isadora had said on the long-distance line that Ana Paula was bringing someone for Christmas, Vovó Cecília said—Marcos? Is that a Brazilian name? But was Marcos a friend from São Paulo? Why didn’t she know him? Was he visiting?

  On the day of their parents’ flight Isadora had asked, did Ana Paula want to come to the airport? And she had said—No, there will not be space in the car, if Richard is driving.

  She waited in the house, showered, did not turn on the television.

  That Christmas Eve, Marcos strode into the hallway, suede shoes on the Victorian tiles, his brown hands on the textured patterned wallpaper that Isadora hated, smiling. Light brown curls falling over his face. Skiing jacket because his second cousins were Italian and had told him it would be very cold. Ohhh! He cried out and beamed and held his arms wide for each of them. Large hugs between broad shoulders and his short torso waist and booming laugh. Marcos.