by Luiza Sauma
“Really?”
“Yes, and then you can carry on with your life.”
I looked at the door of the TV room, which was open just an inch or two. Beyond it, the corridor was dark.
I looked back at Luana and took her hand. “We should go away together.”
“What?”
“After my exams. To Marajó—the blue house.”
“What excuse could we give for both of us going away? Especially me—when do I ever go away? I barely even get time off.”
“We could try a motel.”
“What if someone sees us?”
“Let’s carry on as we are, then.”
I stood up to leave. She stayed on the sofa.
Sometime in the night, I heard the door of my room open. Or rather, I felt it: a change in the air. I had been dreaming about Mamãe—we were shopping for clothes at Barra Shopping, but I couldn’t find the swimming trunks I wanted. All of them were painfully small. Mamãe looked gaudily beautiful, like a film star. As we walked through the empty mall, all I could think was, she’s not dead. Why did I think she was dead when she’s so obviously alive? It hurt to look at her.
When I saw a figure standing in the darkness, I wanted to scream, but like in the worst nightmares, no sound would come out. Then I realized it was just Luana, wearing the flowered lilac dress that she’d worn in Marajó—now relegated to nightwear—with the light from the corridor illuminating her curly hair. She closed the door, and I couldn’t see her anymore, but I heard her moving towards my bed. Her smell of coconut soap and skin gave me a hard-on.
“What time is it?”
“Shh,” she said.
The soft thud of her dress, dropped to the floor. Bare feet padding on the wooden floor. I felt her slip into my single bed next to me, her body cool and dry against my dream sweat. She wrapped her legs around me. Naked skin, smooth and plump to the touch, one thigh on either side of my body. We kissed quietly but with desperation. From her mouth down to her breasts, down and down. In the dark, she could be any girl, not just an empregada. She was wet and warm, rankly sweet like an overripe fruit. She turned over on all fours and I entered her from behind. When the bed started creaking, we moved to the floor—me sitting, and her on top.
And afterwards.
“What will become of us?” she said.
“I don’t know.”
“You’ll find another girl at university and I’ll still be here, cleaning up after you.”
I heard her sniff in the dark and realized that she was crying.
“Hey, hey, don’t cry.”
“Life is so simple for you,” she said between quiet sobs. “I don’t even love you, I just envy you.”
“What do you mean?”
She left the room without a word. I didn’t sleep much after that. Things became slowly visible in my room as darkness lifted—my desk, the cartoon characters on my sheets, the framed photo of Mamãe with the hummingbird on my bedside table—and I thought, that’s it, the day is lost. I’ll be too tired to study. Meu Deus, I’m fucked. I stared at the ceiling until the room went from gray to yellow, then got up for breakfast. It was five thirty, but already my father was sitting on the living-room sofa, reading the paper and drinking a coffee.
“You’re up early,” he said.
“Couldn’t sleep.”
I could hear Rita and Luana in the kitchen. When Luana came into the living room, her face showed no sign of what we had done, or what she had said. She wasn’t in uniform, but in a denim dress that looked brand-new. She looked fresh and awake.
She put a pot of coffee on the table, said, “Good morning, André,” and disappeared back into the kitchen.
“Why couldn’t you sleep?” said Papai, rising from the sofa and heading over to the table. “Nervous about the exams?”
“Maybe.”
“Thinking about Mamãe?”
That made me feel guilty. Maybe I should’ve been thinking of her, but I wasn’t. Only in my dreams. “Yes.”
“It’s been nearly two years. Can you believe it?”
“No.”
I stared at my plate. I was so tired. Rita came in from the kitchen and wordlessly arranged the fruit, bread, cheese, and ham on the table. Her dark brown skin was shiny in the morning light. Papai and I ate in silence, then I took the bus to school. Soon it would be over. My limbs felt like lead. I couldn’t follow one train of thought without another barging in on it. Thoughts of Mamãe, eclipsed by Luana, eclipsed by Daniela, eclipsed by how tired I felt, how much I would like to lean against the dirty glass and close my eyes.
Later that evening, my father was sitting on the sofa wearing his work suit, reading a book and listening to Puccini’s Madama Butterfly. It was on so loud, I wondered how he could concentrate on the book. Rita and Luana were in the kitchen, talking and cooking.
He looked up, over his glasses. “Revising hard?” He was reading a French translation of Anna Karenina.
“Yes.”
It was a lie. After school, I had gone to Daniela’s flat while her parents were out, and we had fucked in her air-conditioned bedroom, surrounded by soft toys. My tiredness lifted once I saw her lying on the bed, her long blond hair swept to one side. Just as we were about to finish, her empregada, Dada, called her to the kitchen, and she shouted, “Wait, Dada! One minute!” as she moved up and down, sitting on top of me, her face pink and sweaty.
“You’ll be at university soon, if all goes well,” said Papai. “Are you excited?”
“I suppose so. First I need to pass the exam.”
He raised his eyebrows and grimaced at my self-doubt. Then his face softened, as he gestured towards the book, still in his hand. “You know, this was one of your mother’s favorite books. Have you read it?”
“No.”
“It’s all rather hysterical.”
“I don’t know the story. Can you even read French?”
“More or less.”
“Maybe that’s why you’re not enjoying it.”
He put the book facedown on the coffee table. Twenty pages in, at most. “Could be. She was fluent, though. She studied in Paris when she was a teenager—did you know that?” He looked up at me, his face heartbreakingly sincere and open. His upper lip twitched.
“Yes, of course.”
She talked about it a lot, always showing people that photo with the Eiffel Tower. But I couldn’t imagine what my mother had been like in Paris, at eighteen. How could she even exist without me, let alone enjoy her life?
“You haven’t been coming to the surgery very much lately.”
“I know, I’ve just been—”
“Don’t worry about it. You’ll be at medical school soon, learning from real teachers. It was just something I thought you would enjoy, working together.”
“I did enjoy it.”
He waved this away. His olive skin hung off his face, like an old man’s, and was peppered with black moles—too much sun in his youth. His hair was still mostly black, but with a few gray strands. “I’m glad you did.”
He walked out of the room, towards his study at the farthest end of the flat. I picked up the book. The pages were browned and dog-eared, the spine cracked. Inside the cover was Mamãe’s maiden name, written in her curled, elegant handwriting: Beatriz Maria da Silva Melo. I closed my eyes and sniffed it—sweet old paper and glue—put it back on the table, and went to the kitchen to get a glass of water. Luana and Rita were sitting at their plastic table, chopping vegetables. Back in the laundry area, Mickey Mouse sheets were hanging from the ceiling rack.
“Hello, André,” said Rita.
“Hi, Rita, how was your day?”
“Not great. I went to see my friend in hospital. She’s not well.”
“What’s wrong with her?”
“Too much work, too little money. A hard life, she’s had.”
“She’s got cancer,” said Luana, looking up from her chopping board. “It’s gone to her bones.”
“But she h
as very nice employers. They’re going to pay all her bills until she’s better.”
“It’s not going to get better, Mãe. It’s in her bones.”
“I’m praying all day, in my head. It might just be a test for her.”
“I hope your prayers work,” I said.
“Se Deus quiser.”
Luana sliced a tomato in two and the knife hit the board hard, as if it could go right through.
TWENTY-ONE
After our last day at school, I came home the next morning so drunk that I felt sober. For one night, we forgot that the exams were still ahead of us. The gang had ended up at Rodrigo’s cousin’s house up in Santa Teresa, an old mansion with a swimming pool. On the terrace we heard gunshots from the favela nearby, then saw the sun rise over the city. Rodrigo, Gabriel, and Carlito dive-bombed into the pool in their underwear, screaming, and the girls were laughing, and lights were pinging on all over the city.
Back at home, long past waking-up time, I opened my bedroom window to let in the air and lay back in bed. I hadn’t even said hello to Luana and Rita in the kitchen—too drunk and tired. But then there was a knock at my bedroom door.
“Come in.”
She was in her white uniform, her feet in white rubber flip-flops. Her face a caramel blur because I wasn’t wearing my glasses.
“Good morning,” I said, pulling the sheets up around me, just in case Rita suddenly showed up, but then I heard the vacuum cleaner turn on at the other end of the flat and relaxed.
Luana closed the door behind her. “Did you have fun?”
“Yes. School’s over.”
“Good for you. I need to talk to you.”
“Come here.”
She walked over to my bed and sat down on it, and I wrapped my arms around her, feeling for her breasts, searching for her neck with my lips. She winced. I probably smelled bad.
“My period hasn’t come.”
My lips stopped searching and went numb. “What? In how long?”
“It should have come four weeks ago.”
“How can that be?”
“You’re the doctor—you tell me.”
“You haven’t done a test, though?”
“I can feel it.” She put her hands on her stomach. “I can feel that it’s there. I don’t know how.”
I withdrew my arms and flopped back onto my bed. “Fucking hell.”
Luana lay down next to me, nuzzling her face on my chest. She put her arm around me. I felt a small puddle of tears forming where her head was lying, but she wasn’t making a sound.
“What are we going to do?” I said.
“You know how, don’t you? At your father’s surgery?”
Papai had sworn me to secrecy, but I had told Luana about his night job.
“You want to kill our baby?” I said, raising my voice a notch, then remembered who we were, where we were. “I don’t know how to do it. Anyway, it’s out of the question.”
“I’m your empregada.”
“We could have it. We could get married.”
Is that what I wanted? No, but it was something to say. I put my hand on hers and looked down at her tearful face. Just for a moment, I glimpsed a smile, but Luana twisted it into a frown.
“Don’t be stupid.” She squeezed her eyes shut and shook her head.
Rita’s vacuum cleaner turned off. Luana stood up and smoothed down her uniform.
“Splash your face first,” I said.
Five minutes later, two vacuum cleaners hummed from opposite ends of the flat.
That morning I lay in bed, drifting in and out of sleep, praying, asking for forgiveness, asking for my sins to be reversed. None of this would have happened if Mamãe hadn’t died. Grief, it had unhinged me—I didn’t know what I was doing. If only I could go back, do things differently. Break it off with Luana. Never have kissed her. Spent the day with Mamãe, instead of going to the beach with my friends. She’d still be alive or maybe we’d both be dead. I fixed all of it in my head.
I could buy an abortion—from another doctor, obviously, not from Papai—and we could pretend to forget. Soon I would be at university, and then I would leave home. Perhaps move to Europe, like I always wanted. I would marry and have children with someone like Dani, but not Dani, and Luana would work for another family, just as she had said.
I ate lunch alone, at the dining table, listening to Luana and Rita chatting in the kitchen. You would never know something was wrong from the bright, lively tone of Luana’s voice. We had both become so good at pretending. I went for a walk by the beach—keeping my head down so no one would recognize me—and climbed the Arpoador rock between Ipanema and Copacabana. Surfers were still out, jumping on their boards, being dragged under waves, coming up spitting—even as the sunlight faded, and the sea turned gray. I remembered the river in Pará, how wide it was, so that you couldn’t see the other side. I walked home and had dinner and tried to keep my mind off Luana—which was impossible, because she was serving the food.
Papai noticed something, though, because he said, “Why are you so quiet?”
“I’m just tired. We were out pretty late.”
“The end of childhood. It’s a bittersweet thing.”
“I don’t think that’s it.”
“Have a rest, then.”
But I had to go out that night to the Lovers Motel in Copacabana with Dani. She had planned the whole thing. “I’m going out.”
“What about your work?”
“I’ve been studying all day.”
I hoped that Luana and Rita couldn’t hear us. When I was younger, I never worried about them hearing me, as if they didn’t exist.
“Don’t tire yourself out. You’re only at the beginning, filho.”
“Beginning of what?”
“Your life. Everything.”
Yet it felt like the end. I left the table while he and Thiago were still eating. My father’s eyes followed me out of the room like a dog’s following a bone; I could feel them on the back of my head.
The motel was a short cab ride away, but I was meeting Dani for a drink first in Ipanema, on the beachfront. I needed it. What I didn’t know was that she had also invited Carlito, Rodrigo, and Isabel along for drinks. I saw them as I walked up to the bar and composed my face into a pleasantly surprised expression.
“Hey, cara!” shouted Carlito. He blew a smoke ring into the air and smiled as it wafted away.
“How’s it going?” I said. I sat next to Daniela and planted a kiss on her cheek.
“You can do better than that,” she said. She turned her face and kissed me on the lips, with tongues. Everyone else on the table went, “Wooo!”
“Well, at least someone’s getting lucky tonight,” said Rodrigo, whose eyes were sleepy and red.
“Shut up, you babaca,” said Isabel.
“Come on,” said Carlito. “Have a drink. It’ll cure your hangover.” He put forward an empty glass and filled it to the top with frothy, cold beer. “Let’s forget our worries.”
“What worries?” said Dani, who already looked drunk.
“The vestibular,” said Rodrigo.
“I’m not worried.” Dani took my hand in hers and smiled toothily, as if we were in an American movie. Everything would be OK in the end. (No, it wouldn’t, no, it wouldn’t.)
Carlito proposed a toast. “Saúde.”
“Sexo!” said Dani, which made everyone laugh.
We stayed for an hour, then Dani tugged me on the arm, looking up at me with those blue eyes, which seemed more dull than dreamy—the gold all gone. “It’s time to go.”
“Don’t stay up too late,” said Carlito, his dark curls shaking with laughter. “You have to study tomorrow!”
Dani and I walked down the street holding hands, sticky with sweat. We passed a popcorn seller, and a delicious buttery smell filled the air.
“Pipoca!” he shouted.
“You want some?”
She shook her head. I was the one who wanted some, bu
t we kept walking.
“Why did you tell them where we were going?” I said.
“Why not?”
“Because it’s private.”
“Come on, they’re our friends. Are you embarrassed?”
“No, just—”
“Stop talking, André, otherwise I’m going to change my mind.”
We caught a cab to Copacabana, where prostitutes were stationed at each street corner, in miniskirts and high heels. Half of them were girls, the other half were something in between. Lovers Motel was on one of those corners, a neon heart buzzing over the front door. We got out of the car. A girl was standing outside wearing gold hot pants, a bikini top, and white platform heels.
“Want some company?” she said blandly. Close-up, she looked around seventeen. A black girl with sloppy red lipstick and skinny legs, not yet grown.
“No thanks,” I said.
“No worries, have fun.”
Daniela dragged me into the lobby, muttering, “Don’t speak to the prostitutes.”
The door went ding! as we walked into the reception, which was lit by a single bare bulb and staffed by a neatly dressed middle-aged man. He looked like a bank clerk or a primary-school teacher, not a sex-motel receptionist. He had seen thousands of teenage couples like us, playing at being grown-ups, unable to find anywhere else to fuck.
When he opened his mouth to speak, I saw that most of his teeth were gone. “Welcome.”
I needed to leave.
“We’ve got a reservation,” said Daniela.
I needed to leave, but I stayed rooted to the spot.
“What’s the name?”
Yes, we could get married, Luana and me. Papai would get over it in the end. It wasn’t the end of the world, just because she was an empregada, just because we were young. We could buy a flat with my inheritance from Mamãe. I would go to medical school and Luana would stay at home with the baby.
“Senhor and Senhora Cabral,” said Dani.
Luana Cabral, that would be her name.
Dani turned and winked at me. I opened my mouth to say that I needed to leave, but I didn’t say anything. The receptionist took a key from the wall, dangled it over Daniela’s open hand, and dropped it. On the key ring, there was a wooden heart. How many dirty, sex-covered hands had touched that key? Hopefully he cleaned them when they were returned.
