Alentejo Blue

by Monica Ali

  ‘But what would you say it’s like? How would you describe it?’

  Antonio took a deep breath. ‘I’d say . . . that it’s nice. Very nice.’

  ‘I’ve seen her on television, the wife, the reporter. You can tell it’s not fake jewellery she’s wearing.’

  ‘That’s right,’ said Antonio, clearly hoping that settled things.

  Teresa wet her lips. ‘I just want everything to be perfect.’

  ‘Me too,’ said Antonio, squeezing her knee too hard.

  A butterfly, powder blue, lit briefly on the neck of her bottle, on the table top, on the back of a chair, tilting and turning like a heroine making a dizzy escape. Teresa watched it dip and flutter across the room to the bar, where it wheeled away from the line of old bent backs and shaved necks and dropped suddenly to the floor.

  Listen, Teresa addressed it silently, I know how you feel.

  The café had been open three hours and already it felt like it had been there for ever. Although the door and one window stood open, the air was thick as paste and compromised by fish. The walls were a valiant shade of green but on them hung last year’s calendar and a stupid painting of a bullfight. It was an internet café without the internet and nobody expected any better. People took up their places, the old ones at the bar, the younger ones at the tables, as if no other course were possible and this sense, this weary inevitability, pressed down on her and made her yawn.

  She stretched and looked behind her and saw the English writer seated close to the chest freezers. His lips were red and full, the blood too close to the surface. He had a notebook open but stared into the middle distance as though he were having a vision. In a way he was handsome with his blond hair and bloody lips but he made her skin crawl. Clara said he was banging the other Englishman’s wife. Was it true? It made a kind of sense. Better that they keep to their own.

  The writer looked at her then. He seemed to know she had been staring. Damn him, she thought, turning. What does he want here anyway? Suddenly she was filled with rage. She drained the last of her beer. Don’t be so stupid, she told herself. You are going to London and he has come here. What is wrong with that?

  She gazed in desperation round the room, certain that if she left everything would change. Didn’t she want that? Didn’t she?

  She thought about the other Englishman, who never washed his clothes. How annoying it was. It made a mockery of her going all the way there with him wandering around here like that. When she was in London she didn’t want people to look at him and think of her. It was so unfair. And really and honestly even if the wife was sleeping with the writer the least she could do was to wash her husband’s clothes.

  ‘I’ve got to go,’ she said and picked up her purse.

  Antonio had that look again. He whispered, ‘I am prepared, you know, for tomorrow.’

  ‘OK,’ she said. ‘What do you mean?’ Maybe he meant candles. She had bought some already but that didn’t matter.

  ‘I’ve got some, you know, of those things that we’ll need.’

  ‘What things?’

  Antonio blushed but he almost looked angry. ‘You know, when we . . .’

  A stomach interjected itself across her line of sight. A high-pitched voice said, ‘Internet café, yes? Internet café?’

  Antonio leaned back, lit a cigarette and blew smoke rings. There he was. The trainee mechanic of a village garage.

  ‘Senhor Vasco,’ said Teresa, ‘I’m afraid the connection isn’t working yet.’

  Vasco made some reply but at a frequency unintelligible to the human ear.

  ‘Ah, yes,’ she said vaguely, gazing up the undulating slope. From this angle his head appeared several sizes too small. It was tiring, almost dizzying, to keep noticing the way all these bodies failed to fit properly together.

  ‘Tell me,’ said Vasco, fingering his braces, ‘is my life worth something?’

  ‘My life won’t be,’ said Teresa, smiling, ‘if I don’t get back to the shop on time.’ She stood up.

  ‘Senhora Mendes explained everything to me. She said, “Now I can sleep soundly, with a price on my husband’s head.” She said, “Teresa will come to see you too. She won’t forget about you.”’

  Teresa looked at Antonio but he was no help at all. There was nothing to do but surrender. ‘When would you like me to come?’

  ‘When I was a young man,’ said Vasco, ‘I worked abroad, in Provincetown, Cape Cod, the United States of America . . .’

  Teresa took a step backwards.

  ‘. . . and there was a notice that hung in the kitchens . . .’

  Though she did not see his feet move, the great bulk of him drew nearer.

  ‘. . . it was placed there by my manager, a very conscientious man, and it said . . .’

  His face looked like the bread dough that Mãe rested on a marble slab.

  ‘. . . do not put off until tomorrow that which can be done today . . .’

  He rubbed his hands together, which surely signalled the end.

  ‘. . . and so I propose to you that we set the appointment, without delay, for this very evening. I shall expect to see you then.’

  Sometimes she felt like a social worker. Teresa set her brochures out on the cracked Formica bar and pulled up a stool. Vasco’s café was empty. He was wiping the tables with a damp rag and humming. Every time he moved past he caught a chair or a table leg and set the flimsy plastic vibrating. She watched him in the cloudy mirror. The last of the evening sun wound gold around the spirit bottles and licked up the mirror’s edge. The wooden legs of the stool were warm as sleeping kittens and she wrapped her own around them.

  ‘All done,’ cried Vasco, hurrying to the other side of the bar. He flicked the rag over his shoulder. One end wrapped round his neck but he did not notice or mind. ‘This business,’ he said, ‘is a constant war on germs. Now, I am all ears –’ he located the relevant items – ‘you see, all ears.’

  ‘Good,’ she said. ‘Well. What I’m here to talk about, of course . . .’

  ‘I’ll tell you one thing,’ said Vasco, ‘that so-called internet café will never last. Even when – even if – they get their little gimmick working, that will not save their skins.’

  ‘Very true,’ said Teresa. If she could get started straight away there was a chance if not to make a sale then at least to get out of here before dark. ‘Could I ask you first to take a look at this?’ She turned a brochure towards him and tapped it smartly with her pen.

  Vasco picked up the brochure without a glance. ‘Always read the small print,’ he advised. ‘When you go into business without knowing the small print you are in deep, deep trouble. Let me say just this . . .’

  This meant he was going to talk for a long time. She cast about for a way to head him off.

  ‘. . . if Eduardo had come to me openly and honestly and said, “My son, Armenio, wants to open up a café, what advice do you have for him?” If he had come and spoken to me this way I would have revealed to him the small print. This business is about details. I learned that many years ago. It was a long apprenticeship, many years in the United States of America, and I was trained by some of the best. Some people think there is nothing to it, just put out the tables and chairs and people will flock and throng, but I didn’t achieve this –’ he waved the brochure at the empty seats – ‘all this, without paying attention to detail.’ Vasco pulled the grey cloth from round his neck and assaulted the Formica.

  ‘If you turn to page four,’ said Teresa, ‘the main points are clearly laid out.’

  ‘Yes, yes, I know,’ said Vasco, as though he had been studying it closely. ‘Cheap beer, I have to tell you, is not enough. Tonight, they will go. Everyone is there for the cheap beer, but how long before they come back?’

  Teresa shrugged. Why had she thought he was sad? Vasco was fat because Vasco was greedy. Greedy people thought only about themselves. If Vasco wasn’t so selfish he would let her go.

  Vasco rolled the brochure and it sprang
apart in his hands. ‘They are fools,’ he said, wheezing, ‘Eduardo and Armenio are fools. They are slitting my throat and also slitting their own with this cheap beer.’

  She was here just to keep him company. A single customer was better than none. ‘Super Bock, please, and a small plate of olives.’

  Vasco shifted her papers, performed a quick swab and set up drinks for them both. He relaxed and let his weight rest against the counter. It was fascinating the way the flesh piled up on the surface, colliding roll upon roll beneath the stretched aertex top.

  When she had left the internet café Ruby was going in. They looked at each other in a way that acknowledged that they might have plenty to say if they spoke. Teresa wouldn’t mind telling her a thing or two, only for her own good. Save yourself, she would say. These boys, you don’t know what they’re like. They want you to make them wait.

  ‘This should be straight and simple,’ said Vasco, ‘you tell me what you’re selling and I’ll tell you if I’ll buy. I’ve known you since you were a little bald baby. No need for fancy talk here.’ He topped up her glass. ‘And another thing I’ll say is that not only have they no grasp of detail, they have no grasp even of the principles. What kind of fool spends money on computers without first purchasing a cooker? Cheese toast, ham toast, cheese and ham toast!’ The words bubbled from his mouth coated in spit and scorn.

  Teresa sucked on an olive. How long had Francisco been sleeping with Ruby? Did they talk to each other afterwards? Did they grasp even the principle of love?

  ‘Internet café,’ squeaked Vasco. ‘They think they are so clever, they think it is the future, but what do they understand?’

  Mãe didn’t understand about Francisco. Her own son and she didn’t know him at all.

  ‘Do you know what is the future of this place, Teresa? It is not cork and olives. Do you know what it is?’

  What if Ruby got pregnant? What would Mãe think then?

  Vasco mopped his brow with the all-purpose cloth. ‘You only have to look south, Teresa. Think, think! When the tourists come, who will be prepared?’

  The olive pit had dried her tongue. She took a sip of beer and let it sit in her mouth. The sour warmth of it made her vicious. She wished Ruby was pregnant. Let Francisco leave school and marry her. See how Mãe liked that.

  Vasco’s breath was jagged. The words squeezed through where they could. ‘Internet they get anywhere. Internet they have at home. They want something different, you see, they don’t want what they already have.’

  Francisco would say it wasn’t his baby. He got away with everything. Teresa forgot there was no baby and feasted on the unfairness of it all.

  ‘Old-world charm,’ said Vasco, heaving himself off the counter. ‘Armenio can’t buy that. Oh, I’m streets ahead of that boy and he doesn’t even know it. I have travelled, you see, and I understand the modern mentality. In America, if a thing is a hundred years old it is worshipped. I know why the tourists will come.’

  Teresa nodded, not knowing what he had said. Antonio’s words at lunchtime undressed right there and then, their meaning all too clear. I am prepared, you know. She kept her face turned downwards. Sorrowful Mother, the dirty mechanics of it all!

  ‘Some old-fashioned dishes,’ said Vasco and kissed his fingertips. ‘That will bring them flocking. Do you know what I made today? A salad of pig’s ears and tail, just like my mother used to do, with a little raw onion, garlic, coriander, olive oil and vinegar. So tasty I don’t even want to sell. I tried it and I said, “Now, Vasco, is it fair? Is it fair to attack young Armenio with a secret weapon such as this?”’ He laughed and coughed and held his chest as though it might fly apart.

  Would she confess to Father Braga this sin she was about to commit? She would not. She would say, bless me, Father, I have argued with my brother, Francisco, and I was rude as well to Mãe.

  Vasco made a recovery. He said, ‘This businessman who is coming, you have heard of him, Marco Afonso Rodrigues? He is Eduardo’s cousin, so Eduardo thinks he can do what he likes.’

  She went to church just like the next person, but she wasn’t going to tell him that. Father Braga was old, anyway, and always said well, well, well, isn’t it so on God’s great earth? He kept on reading the same sermons and Teresa knew better than to bother him with a sin he would rather not hear.

  ‘He was in the tourist trade,’ said Vasco. ‘Like myself.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Teresa. ‘Right.’ She sat up tall and disentangled her legs from the stool. ‘Shall I just leave that with you, Senhor Vasco?’ she said, touching the brochure. ‘It has everything you need to know.’

  ‘Yes, yes,’ gasped Vasco. ‘No, no.’ He gripped the edge of the counter now. ‘I have been thinking it over. There’s no sense in it at all. The money comes only when I’m dead, isn’t that right? What good is it then to me?’

  ‘Ah,’ said Teresa, adopting the hushed tone that was advised, ‘should anything unfortunate happen to you, you have the comfort of knowing that your loved ones will have everything they need.’

  It was getting dark and Vasco turned away and fiddled with the light switches. He reached then under the counter, brought up a box of crisps and began to replenish the basket that stood by the till. ‘Of course,’ he said, ‘my loved ones. Leave the brochure here.’

  Teresa slid off the stool and looked out of the window at the dozing street. She said, ‘Goodnight, Senhor Vasco. If you have any more questions let me know.’

  The high, airless voice followed her to the door. ‘Teresa,’ it said, ‘when I die, I will leave this place. My nephews will come from Porto and Lisbon to sell it and they will not remember my mother’s salad, the right proportion of ear and tail and a little dash of red wine vinegar. But maybe you will tell them, maybe you will say, “Oh, Senhor Vasco, he had such plans.”’

  She dreamed of the house at Corte Brique. She walked through white-carpeted rooms filled with sunlight, a breeze lifting the white muslin curtains that fell to the floor. She walked through the kitchen, all silver and white, and she had almost to close her eyes. There were doors that slid open – they seemed to dissolve – at the approach of her bare feet and rooms without function or form save that of their beauty and size. In a room without beginning and end she lay down on a couch with carved black legs, upholstered in raw white silk. She discovered she was naked as the couch stroked her legs, her back, her neck and she turned belly down and began to moan. She moved her hips and parted her thighs and rubbed her hot face into the silk that lapped all around. There were hands on her now, all over her, and a voice that was calling her name. ‘Who is it?’ she said, without looking round. ‘Who is it?’ The hands rubbed every thought from her mind. She turned over again and lifted her hips and opened her lips and her eyes she kept tightly closed.

  In the morning she put mascara on and a dab of red at each cheek. She winked at the mirror and blew a kiss at the cherries and bows. From a certain angle her nose was straight and proud and she practised a little, looking up and to the side.

  ‘You had the face paints out?’ said Francisco. He tried to give her a hug. He was always like that, pretending he was nice all the time he was being vile. It worked on Mãe, no problem.

  Teresa pinched his cheek and said, ‘I love you, little brother,’ and that shut him up all right.

  Leaving the house, she paused in the doorway and stretched up to touch the beam. When she came back through the door she would not be the same. And also she would tell Mãe about London. Perhaps Antonio would be there, and Mãe would see that they both had to let her go.

  She wore her black slingbacks and a white cotton dress with blue flowers that matched the paint that framed the door. Alentejo blue. There she was, in a picture, in a moment, setting out for the rest of her life.

  The clock said twenty past three. If she looked at it again she would take it down and smash it. She stood up because her dress was getting crumpled. She sat down because it was too late anyway, and when she rode to Corte Brique on
the Vespa it would only get creased again. She should have brought it in a bag and changed at the house.

  After lunch there had been a rush but now there was nothing to do. Teresa kicked the floor and the cashier’s chair spun round. This morning Senhor Jaime had put rat poison in the storeroom. That was the highlight of the day.

  Teresa looked at the shelves: the cereal boxes and packets of biscuits, the disposable nappies and toilet rolls. It was a crime that she was locked up in here. No one could expect her to stay. Antonio would understand. Perhaps not at first. But when he got over the shock he would kiss her and say, ‘I’ll be waiting for you, my love.’

  She tried to get the evening organized. She knew how she wanted it to go. First they would drink wine in the kitchen and only their fingertips would touch. Antonio would be so nervous he would hardly say a word. There would be music because he was taking a portable stereo and she was bringing some CDs, sweet sad fado that would fill the air with tender longing.

  Next they would move to the sitting room and lie side by side on the rug. She imagined a white rug but really the colour should not matter. She would lie on her front and cross her ankles in the air; her dress would fall loosely on her thighs. An orange rug, for instance, would clash with her dress. Please, she thought, let it be white.

  Teresa stood up and walked along the aisles, past jars of jam and pickled onions. It was getting out of hand. The rug, she told herself, is neither here nor there. The point was they would lie side by side, shoulders in line, and talk of everything intimately and kiss and rub noses and maybe nibble an ear. After a while she would encourage him, let his hand travel further than it had gone before. The kitchen would be amazing. She wondered if they would go back in there. And what about a tour of the house? Perhaps they should start off with that.

  I have something to tell you. I’m going away. I have something to tell you. I need to go away for a while. I need to tell you something. Antonio, please don’t cry.

  They would set candles around the rug.

  London wasn’t the end of the world. Perhaps he would come and see her there.