“Virgínia, look at that almost red cloud. . .”
She was smiling:
“Yes, yes. . .”
He’d stared at her slowly, piercing, never letting her escape, never:
“What exactly did I say?”
She’d tried to speak, got mixed up, blushing.
“I knew you hadn’t heard,” he’d sighed shrugging.
Confused and eloquent she was explaining:
“I didn’t hear the words, I really don’t know what they might be but I answered you, didn’t I? I felt your mood when you spoke, I felt how the words were . . . I know what you meant . . . it doesn’t matter what you said, I swear . . .”
She’d ask questions carefully and never hear the answers. But she preferred to tire herself rather than let distractions happen. Often enough when he’d finish speaking she’d laugh and she shouldn’t have laughed. The two would then look at each other for an instant. Thrown suddenly into a horrible sincerity, impossible to disguise. Waiting. And then even whatever was good and cordial would happen very quickly, bring in the background the memory of that undeniable glance, raised like a statue. If she were more intelligent she could have erased the past with new words or even by participating a little more in whatever he was saying. She had however few thoughts in relation to things and feared repeating them over and over; she never used the right expression, always making mistakes even when she was sincere. Sometimes she simply didn’t know what to answer and would fall inside herself searching. During the time it took her to respond to him, each moment was noisily lost in the limpid and bottomless field that was her empty attention and she’d catch herself observing them wearing themselves out instead of seeking a convenient reply. Until a light desperation would singe her, she’d look at the things around her, the world was coming up vast, bright, smiling, she would grow so winged and lost that she no longer cared about giving up — she’d retreat pale up to the last instant inside her and take refuge there. And from there she’d say almost without pain from erring so much:
“Yes, Vicente, yes,” after all yes added nothing and everything calmed down in its place. And when they turned on the radio and a song rang out he’d murmured:
“An unbearable kind of music . . .”
He hadn’t said anything extraordinary but his calm demeanor without so much as contempt fit well with the nature of that day — she didn’t like it either and traced a movement of repulsion that was perhaps too strong, her lips pressed in disgust. He smiled looking at her and she, animated, living, spoke with disdain through her teeth as if she had triumphed:
“No, I don’t like it . . . so . . . so intrusive . . .” her face unmade itself immediately, the expression beneath it emerged engorged, surprised and childish because he was opening his brown eyes behind his glasses, trying to understand her, his shock saying ashamedly, benevolent: but Virgínia . . . what’s this all about, Virgínia? Yes, she’d gone too far; because really how could music be intrusive? perhaps she’d wanted to say: the music had no dignity in its joy, as she’d heard said once, yes, that was it! but now it had become impossible to explain. And even — no!, she hid hard and alone, so if he wanted to judge her he’d have to judge her in silence. She was unpleasantly surprised when Vicente would interpret her. How other people’s understanding would dry one out. She would watch her words with curiosity but afterward couldn’t meld her discoveries with herself — how useless it would be to split a branch from a tree, make a chair out of it and give it back to the tree: whatever he’d make of her she’d never take back although she carried it with her. She’d rather he spare her — only from Daniel could she stand the attempts and the errors because Daniel and she were made of the same hesitant material and never approached things laughing; the maximum joy of both would fit into a little smile of Vicente’s. To distance herself thus from Vicente and move toward Daniel scared her and she stuck to Vicente so suddenly that their bodies practically crashed into each other and when she looked at him Vicente smiled. And hadn’t that almost been the reason she loved him? because she’d foreseen that Vicente could laugh out loud not barely like Daniel but in a stupid laughter that in the middle of its effort recalled her impossibility to laugh louder — and that would cause a joyful tenderness, a desire to forgive with a laugh and forget. Also in love she’d let him guide her — and the only way in which she thought about it boiled down to seeing herself once again watching him move, speak. Just as she could err by herself: she’d always serenely thought of herself as a great lover until he’d come along, proving her wrong — and thus the months went by. She’d rather Vicente not have embraced her every time punctually. She’d rather not have seen him change his voice and his gaze as if he were finishing one phase and starting a new one. She’d rather he didn’t desire her so strongly at times, almost paralyzing her with hurried astonishment — although all that really only happened confusedly, powerless, without provoking even a defense, taking on the only possible form of life. She never had enough time to get used to his phrases because he’d say another as soon as he was finishing the first, she never had enough time to get used to his caresses because he’d immediately move on to the next leaving her still focused on the previous one — so those were the secrets of life. She’d let him guide her . . . yes, yes, every once in a while in a surprising bit of news she’d realize what he desired and her poor body would hesitate in mystery, all of her would widen and she’d lose herself receding deaf . . . — it would be impossible to pass through her being with one of her own thoughts. She’d never try to move ahead of Vicente; she followed him because she couldn’t carry by herself, in her damp hand, that quick star that would sometimes lose its shape like a frozen drop that turns into liquid; everything so dangerous, simple, and light . . . so that was the secret toward which she’d been heading ever since childhood; the center of desire was resplendent and somber, electric and so terribly new and fragile in its contexture that it could destroy itself just by going a bit deeper, just by sparkling an instant more.
They had a little something for dinner at night. Afterward she was going home, the tram cutting the dark. She was feeling that she was going back, that she was going back. If one day he’d think to accompany her home she might experience a deep and stifled satisfaction like the one a married woman must experience every moment. She was jumping from the tram and walking the small stretch on foot. She was opening the door, going up, looking for a moment at the things before flipping the switch — she was connecting herself to everything without touching anything. She’d lie down and pull the white sheets in the darkness — the quiet moment before sleep was coming as if she were falling then into her true state. And that moment was so profoundly quiet that it would dissolve the entire day, tossing her into the night without fear, without joy, looking, looking.
It was finally the natural thing to live alone. They’d barely rented an apartment when Daniel already got a life she no longer fit into. In the first letter to the Farm he’d written that they were enrolled in a language class and that he himself had found a neighbor’s piano to practice on. In fact they didn’t even know how to get around, find classes or neighbors. They intended above all else to reassure their father and then, since Father was reassured, they themselves calmed down, forgot about taking a class and were just living in the city. And in that way money was growing in power — Daniel would spend almost all of it, soon enough he’d found friends and met them outside the house. Virgínia would stroll, stroll. One day she too had gone out with him — the house was someone’s, it was so long ago, Daniel was playing the piano, a lady was playing, her slender arms almost stuck to her hips, her head leaning without strength, people were smoking, there were blonde girls, calm sisters who were also talking politics, Adriano standing between the window and some thing. There she’d met Vicente.
“In any case smile a little,” Vicente had said playing, “it’s the best stance in the face of life.” He’d al
ways loved to talk about the face of life. She was looking at him inexplicable.
“I cannot laugh,” she’d said trying to be intelligent and serious, and had spoken about something “deep” or “profound.” Vicente’s eyes were slightly shining, amused:
“Ah, so whatever is deep is tragic . . .” — He had the gift of jolting others people’s words by merely repeating them, his lips unhurried, delicate, she’d find out later. “Deep.” She’d looked at him, found it difficult and useless to respond, smiled flirting with exhaustion and excitement. She’d never seen him again, as if forever. Deep was neither tragic nor comic, it was a tree, a fish, she herself — that was the impossible and serene sensation. Her life had gone on as if she hadn’t met anyone. Then lots of time had passed until the door had opened, she’d interrupted some thought forever, forever, had waited with her sewing in her hands, Daniel had said:
“Virgínia, this is my fiancée.”
For long and hollow minutes the room was seeming empty, the house silent and full of wind. But Daniel, Daniel, how could you . . . Above all she barely knew Vicente and love seemed to her unfamiliar, so it meant a sudden break with the past. She was a tall body, well-made and compressed, topped by an oval, hard, and limpid face, a feminine ivory laugh. From the sight of her clothes a memory came to her of the smell of a recently printed magazine, some pages still closed. But Daniel . . . An air of intimate hygiene, of pureness achieved at the price of antiseptics and amidst the difficult conversation that bright and new phrase, new like a new object, that had left a silence of eyes lowered in the air: I was always busy, I never had time to feel bored. Daniel and Virgínia weren’t looking at each other. Perhaps when she grew old, who knows, Virgínia had thought while serving too-strong tea in broken cups, perhaps when she grew old, with some wrinkles and a more concentrated color . . . Yes, yes, who knows? for now she was so horribly free from loving herself. Not like Vicente whom she was just now getting to know. No, he wasn’t free from loving himself, with him love was like the inside of closed eyes, dragged quickly in incomprehension, in dark satisfaction full of unease, she was realizing this now. And he was beautiful, besides. He wore glasses. There were moments in which his lines would become so full as if about to say something — his body was big and strong but as if made of a single newborn muscle flexible with freshness, he could wrap her up like an octopus and yet his flesh was firm and Virgínia could crash into it. Except his eyes were excessively wide, sometimes silly behind the glasses opening a pause in his face, without merging completely into it. And his lips would come together sometimes distracted and floppy in a horrible expression of fullness and abandon, something like a decomposition — she was turning away, her heart beating quickly, wanting to take refuge in the sight of an inanimate thing, ah go quickly into a perfect region where cold is mixed with light. Certain gestures of his, some words were brutally alive and almost blind, rushed him into a slow center of blood and greed, filled her with nausea and dread — where was that intelligent goodness of his face? She would watch him fascinated, her heart hot after a few instants; yet she could barely manage to free her gaze, she would gain an almost painful coldness, her body would stiffen in its fibers as if wanting to escape as much as it could from that warm life underneath bearing a sincere, almost base perfume. — One day Mother was having lunch, she’d received some sad news and was crying while in her teeth you could see bits of what she’d eaten! — oh everything that happens is innocence, at the same time that’s what she was feeling and forgiving. Fullness would stuff her then. If she’d pick up a book she’d find inside it the same viscous movement, souls ingratiating themselves in forgiveness, love seeking love, sacrifices laughing, cowardice and extreme warm pleasure. By God, that was man. Even if she were flipping through an essay on traction machines in a bookstore, in the quality of reasoning she would find feminine and masculine perfume, words falling into line blushing and excited, the path in search of an idea winding around, ascending, living . . . love, love, piety, remorse, kindness permeating even freshness, sticking it inside the same heat. She was now understanding Daniel’s expression, that vaguely terrorized face that he was wearing during the period of nights out from home. Also inside him the tissues would cross in a vegetal structure and he had been thrown into the center of the woman, there where was pulsing the blood of the world. That was the secret of life, then. She was then loving Vicente just as the days run. In fact she was going astray from any desire and her only refuge was the pure thoughts of humanity, the serene dry things, compact — the construction sites near which she would stop short in the streets like a pregnant woman gripped by a weird desire and a new sensibility. At that time she had no sooner eaten than she’d seem repulsed by the food in which still pulsed the memory of a previous life. Without knowing, she’d repeat to herself as in a perfect prayer: whitewash iron sand silence and purify herself in that absence of man and God. Encouraging words, honesty, the need to get close to intelligent and noble people, the need to be happy, almost the need to speak before dying, all of that would seem to lift her through space as if she were bearing a rush of smooth air beneath her body and she herself were a frightened, grateful, tired bubble, “arranging her life in the best possible way.” At the moment when the rush would stop — and would it ever stop? she didn’t know that she was wondering while moving through disgust and through darkness — she would fall violently in-what, suddenly walking fast after the fall, guiding herself without wasting time to make up for the lost life, guiding herself to-where, eyes open, alive, without cruelty toward herself and without pity or pleasure because she would no longer need to punish herself, without a single word, that was it, without a single one, by God, washed as if after a great rage. To free herself from maternity, from love, from intimate life and in the face of other people’s expectations to refuse, to land hard and closed like a rock, a violent rock, who cares about the rest — as she knew how to be Daniel, without even knowing with precision what she was thinking, feeling darkly resentful. Only the first time had she really liked the sea; later she was uneasy so she’d lean against the wall to look at it, forcing herself be moved. She’d feel like a liar, without thoughts but as if she were touching something dirty, her shriveled soul was avoiding, avoiding. Every once in a while, breaking her fear, she was liking it again so strongly that that made her as if forever comprehensible to herself. Amidst these new feelings she’d find herself in some way close to Daniel. But against what? her fake power was waning with disappointment and slowly a troubled sadness was overtaking her, she wanted to rejoin right now the movement shared by everyone, being happy with them, accusing-offended very quickly with humility, without any power so that nobody could refuse her now, quickly, after she in a thoughtless gesture had sought, crazy, to free herself.
The Chandelier Page 12
