“My dear little Lucrécia, today let’s do some nice grazing!”
“Grazing . . .” he’d said. She’d quickly return to the word that reminded her of dreams of dreams, terror escaping the walls and living calmly, she happy.
Had he been the one who’d transformed São Geraldo into a restaurant scene? the two of them would go together, she nearly jumping all around him — who was walking slightly behind, serious, perfumed: looking at the women behind her, taking interest in the middle-aged ones. Had it been Mateus who’d transformed the township’s inhabitants into middle-aged creatures? It didn’t bother him that his wife noticed his covetous stares, but wouldn’t allow more than that: the rest was the enormous private life of an outsider.
She was looking at him across the table, watching him spellbound. Oh, God, the wind of São Geraldo was saying quietly; but the second course was arriving. When they were heading back it was almost nice, the relief among the almond trees, and a recognition that she didn’t know where to direct: she was looking at the hill in the pasture. But, if she forced her feelings, everything would close without doors, she herself blocked by sudden resistance: which had ended up giving her a permanent balance, a certain pride in living, and such a generalized wonder, so impenetrable that it didn’t even have a next moment: she’d say: what a lovely night! and her mouth was merely amazed. What a lovely night, Mateus, and the shadow would descend more and more taming the things in the breeze.
Whatever used to be seen, had now spread invisibly throughout São Geraldo — the wind was rocking the branches in the shadow. And her commitment had spread through the whole world: she’d hear news on the radio — while jewels were being bought and sold, and great bales of cotton were piling up at noon: Mateus Correia would arrive for lunch, she breathing in the tanned skin of her husband, trying to guess what was going on? all around were the happy beginnings of spring, fashions changing, nails growing and getting clipped; civilization being erected, people strolling on summer nights — and she looking from the balcony.
Looking with her face aged and excited by fatigue, scrutinizing the arrival of her husband who on a Wednesday night had arrived late for dinner.
She was at the living room balcony, and behind her the machinery of the house was functioning with joy, the smoke breathing itself out from the stove — like an old story. Market Street full, however, of new lights and of new cars. Lucrécia was waiting for Mateus, plunging her face into the street, ai! she sighed on the second floor, trolleys and cars muffling the exclamation. Countless horns soft or branching out were filling the air of the house with noises, almost lights.
But through the muffled horns you could feel the pleasure of the streets like the fountains of a garden, the whistle of the policeman between the lampposts: something mechanical was happening in the world. And, behind her, the pair of socks drying on the chair. Ai, she was sighing with her face covered in powder, her husband wasn’t coming, ai! her exposed face was saying.
And suddenly the discordant sound, a train derailing inside the clock tower, one! — whitewashed face — two! — the house fire — three! it was eight o’clock and Mateus wasn’t coming! Her eyes were dry but the horns were weeping and from the street the smell of sugar and vinegar was rising.
How the township had been transformed! the sweat of the hot night was making clothes stick to the body, the exalted perfume of flour reaching up to the nose: everything waiting for rain.
In fact it was already raining. Widely spaced drops at first, and then, little by little, but already immeasurable, the whole world was raining — as far as you looked there was the furious and constant rain, the bathed streets were emptying out. The lights refreshed. Through the gutters the waters were running in a rush.
Seen from the height of a window the city was a danger.
Cars, with invisible drivers, were sliding in the water and suddenly changing direction, you couldn’t say why. São Geraldo had lost any purpose and was now functioning all by itself. Trolleys on their tracks were muffling other noises, and certain things were seeming to move completely silent — an elegant car appeared, tranquil, and disappeared. In São Geraldo a daily life had been born that no outsider would notice. It was raining and times were bad, it was a full-on crisis.
But there was a glory that up to that point hadn’t been reached. Indivisible by the inhabitants. If a murder took place, São Geraldo was the one who’d murdered. Never had things belonged so much to things. A spring had been forever uncoiled, and the city was a crime.
This city is mine, the woman looked. How heavy it was.
A few minutes later the rain stopped. The wet sidewalks were smelling to high heaven, the remains of the morning fish were being dragged toward the gutters . . . the bakery had already turned off its lights, the stars were clean.
The door opened and Mateus Correia came in drenched. She ran and hid in the man’s shoulders and he, surprised, smoothed his companion’s hair with wet hands. He had been the one chosen for her necessary downfall, and he was the one who was saving her: the woman cried from nerves, had the resistance of this world started to wear her out? she was crying happy, for an instant freed from the duty with which she’d been born, that they’d transmitted to her halfway and that she’d certainly transmit without explanations halfway too, hiding in his shoulder against the glory of an exploding São Geraldo — and Mateus seemed to know much more than he was letting on, since he wasn’t even trying to understand her; perfect, perfect, his wet hands upon her hair — she suffocated with happiness, suffering for having to love somebody else one day, since it had been foretold without explanations that she too would someday love with brutality, maybe to raise this city with yet another stone? the good husband, incomprehensible, she crying — there was no way around it, the woman was happy.
Meanwhile Mateus kept taking her to every new restaurant.
And the more restaurants that opened, the more guaranteed São Geraldo became. The abundance, the elegance, cigar smoke and hot dishes, they were such security! Lucrécia felt sorry for Ana Rocha Neves who was living on the farm and had never known what it’s like to live in such luxury and to eat those rich meats.
Ah, if Ana could see how São Geraldo was progressing! By now Lucrécia was trying to like those changes, afraid to lose her footing in the city and never reach it again. They were eating in silence. The ingratiating wife flattering him and flattering things slavishly: it’s good, huh? Mateus Correia would answer offended: well, of course! Which would silence her, even making her blush. She then tried another approach:
“But we don’t even like eating out, right?”
“Maybe you don’t, I do!” he answered sarcastic, humiliated. Not liking, would that destroy the superior order? Her husband was even letting her know that if he went to the restaurant by himself everything was different, convincing her so well that it seemed to Lucrécia that her presence was enough for things to be camouflaged: suffering, she’d interrupt him: look, a falling star! she said fawning over him, and it was a lie, who knows why. Back home, in the dark city, how tempestuous and hot happiness was.
In that time of happiness she always had lots of little wrinkles appearing, she’d keep up with the fashions in French magazines, mingling with that dusty era that aspired with suffocation toward posterity — while useful forms of thoughts were being employed: “in theory it’s great but not in practice,” this was said a lot, and in the light of a streetlamp the car was passing at full speed.
The next day, in the late afternoon, the two weeks of fine rain had ceased at last.
The prosperous city was glowing. On the sidewalks a few men raised indecisive faces: the sky was bright, almost green, almost neutral . . . And under the sharpness of the colorlessness the modest rooftops of São Geraldo were rising. For a rare moment, beneath the final illuminated raindrops, the city was unanimous. People were looking while blinking, recognizing the steadfastness o
f things. Their faces surprised as if warned that the hour had come. To turn their backs on the mature city, and leave forever.
Also the word “society” was being used a lot, in those days. “Society demands everything and gives nothing back, isn’t that right, sir?,” was said a lot.
“Society demands everything and gives nothing back,” Mateus said on that Saturday morning, in the middle of the conversation that both seemed to have been seeking for so long.
In fact they wanted finally to face off. And when by chance they started talking about husbands cheating on their wives, they both seized with gratitude the opportunity. She made herself comfortable with her sewing on her lap.
“It’s not considered a crime at all,” he said, “that’s how society is made,” he added with pride, his eyes moist with emotion because he was so good.
“Yes it is,” she said attentive.
“That’s how society is made,” the man repeated with forethought. “It’s not a crime for a man to have some interest in women but it’s a crime for the wife to be interested in another man.” — Such good sense and logic he had! both were hovering over neutral ground, neither wanting to be the first to take a chance.
“Right.”
“I never dishonored the home I created,” said the husband and they stared at each other afraid he’d gone too far — Mateus had used some wrong word. A certain fatigue had in fact overcome her, she was almost slipping into a sincerity that would make their superior conversation unbearable. She was straightening out the tablecloth, smoothing down a crease.
“The home I created I never dishonored!” the man repeated suddenly quite loud, as if changing the arrangement of the same words would make him more comfortable.
He won’t let it go, his wife was thinking. Ah, if she had someone to tell about this afterwards, how truthful she’d suddenly be and how she’d harm that man she didn’t know but knew how to wound.
She wanted her husband to stop talking but Mateus now irrepressible kept going explaining his character, his moral principles and his way of treating women — though none of this revealed him for a single moment. She was rolling up the edge of the tablecloth, daydreaming.
“Lucrécia,” her husband said with a certain anguish, “you’re not listening!”
“Yes I am, you were saying you’d be polite to women in any situation.”
“Yes, in any situation,” Mateus repeated disappointed . . .
They fell silent. She was looking at the floor without interest. He, on the other hand, excited by the nobility with which he’d described himself, was gazing avidly at his hands, restless and full of plans for the future. In fact he was realizing that speaking was his best way of thinking and that it was good to be listened to by a woman. He tried to start the conversation back up but Lucrécia was fleeing with a demeanor that seemed to him calm and sad.
Looking at her Mateus might have discovered that deep down he’d always been scared of her. There was nothing more dangerous than a cold woman. And Lucrécia was chaste as a fish. For the first time he seemed to notice in his wife’s face a certain helpless abandonment. He averted his eyes with kindness.
“And you, what are your plans?” he asked in order to please her, forgetting that he’d only thought of his own.
“Come again?” she awoke, “what plans? which? what are you talking about?”
He himself was spooked without knowing why:
“Nothing . . . you know, Lucrécia, plans, projects, you know . . .”
“What do you mean by projects?” his wife was demanding with irony. “What do you mean by that, do you have some plan for us?”
“What plans for us?”
“But, Mateus, didn’t you mention plans for us?”
“No, it wasn’t for us . . . I mean, yes, but I don’t know what you’re imagining, it was all well-intentioned . . .”
“Well-intentioned!”
“Yes, well-intentioned! why would there need to be bad intentions, my God!”
“But who mentioned anything bad? so things were bad between us,” she said stridently.
“No, it wasn’t that . . . I mean plans for you . . .”
“. . . you think I should have plans separate from yours?”
“No, for God’s sake, I also have my own but you . . .”
“. . . separate from mine?”
“Oh my God!”
“What are yours, Mateus.”
Thus put on the spot he couldn’t say what they were. And he was looking straight ahead incommunicable, halted with stubbornness along the way.
“They’re mine,” he said with pride and suffering.
“And might one know what they are?”
“To progress,” Mateus Correia finally said with effort and shame.
She opened her mouth and stared at him with enormous astonishment.
After a moment, the whole house took up its position on the street, and, defeated inside the dining room, she said:
“Yes, Mateus.”
“Don’t you think so?” he got excited, and, without knowing that her husband would die of a heart attack, she was afraid of his joy. “And don’t believe it’s just something in the air, I’ve got it all written down in my head, ok? tell me what you think, ok?”
“About what?”
“But about what I said, what the devil, Lucrécia!” the wounded fighter exclaimed.
“How am I supposed to know what you said,” she mumbled full of rage and despair . . .
It was the only time they faced off.
The beauty of all this is that she was so lost that she seemed to be guided. Rich and lost, the cinemas opening, the mirrors multiplying the spots. His asking, her responding, and a certain lack of control: she really couldn’t hold back certain phrases.
“I’m going to buy some sheer fabric for a blouse embroidered with cross-stitches!”
She had to tell him.
“It’s been so long since I’ve had a banana,” and she was almost grabbing Mateus by the lapel, he turning away uncomfortable. “A fabulous assortment of jewelry, Mateus! Mateus! my lips are opening,” she was informing him.
Until one day she said in the middle of a room full of guests:
“Rigoletto is always Rigoletto,” she said.
And she was startled. Could this be a pronouncement from another age? so much so that if there were young people in the room they’d look at her oddly. Lucrécia guessed it with fear.
São Geraldo was no longer at its starting point, she had lost her old importance and her inalienable place in the township. There were even plans to build a viaduct to connect the hill to the lower city . . . The plots on the hill were already beginning to be sold for future residences: where would the horses go?
Watching the arrival of men and machines, the horses were patiently shifting the position of their hooves. Shooing off the sunlit flies with their tails.
During this period Lucrécia Correia finally merged with what was happening. Ending up by admitting that she’d dreamed of this progress and had given it her own strength. Recognizing here and there traces of her construction.
She then started her strolls again, and a new firmness toward her husband was born. At this time he’d already started to work less and would occasionally spend hours at home, bored. And if both made up their minds not to go out, they’d constantly bump into each other in the rooms with irritation. One of them would need to be expelled, now that Lucrécia had recovered her former power. At the table he’d toss little balls he made from breadcrumbs that his wife would receive on her serious face, or crumple a sheet of newspaper, throwing the ball at her head:
“I’ll split your tarantella in two” — he called someone’s head a tarantella. She’d blanch.
By the time she reached the front door she was happier, opening her parasol in a dry sn
ap, balancing on the tightrope.
How well-equipped São Geraldo was. Ready to sail away? But where would that thing sail that, because it was of stone, had made its glory.
When she’d return, she’d find him smoking, on edge. As soon as he saw her come in, he’d put out the cigarette, circling it, tracking it down, and, with a pleasure for his foot: stepping straight on it, right on its light. Both would stare dazzled at the shredded cigarette. She stunned as if he’d just killed a rooster.
Things kept getting testier between people and even Mateus, who didn’t belong to the township, was withering with irritation. He’d head toward the window and say, as if ordering his wife to stay — because Lucrécia’s somehow victorious presence was suffocating him:
“Ok then. I’m going to see a little star.”
Lucrécia was the only one no longer affected by the tension of the city. Especially when someone would complain of the difficulty of getting a trolley or renting a house, Lucrécia Correia would lower her eyes trying to hide — that it was her fault.
But if she went to the doctor she’d turn chatty, getting mixed up with ever more precise and difficult expressions:
“It’s not quite pain, it’s more of an impression, doctor, and then I don’t feel anything, for months — it doesn’t quite get to be unpleasant, you understand? — Ah, and I also get chills for no reason,” she’d add after a while with haughtiness.
The doctor would listen, pretending to think. With his drowsy face he’d punctuate that woman’s every sentence. Oh, she was peculiar and irritating. São Geraldo was now full of a certain kind of woman who liked going to the doctor. Lucrécia had in fact put on her best dress. And now she was waiting modestly for the verdict. “Rest, ma’am, lots of rest.” She left imperious, calm.
The Besieged City Page 14
