Aleshandro eyes me the way you would a rain cloud. “São Paulo dangerous. Not Canada. You must not get hurt.”
“So I must stay inside all day?” You’ve got to be kidding me.
“Your mother loves you.”
I am offended by the idea of a perfect stranger speaking to me about my mother’s love. Especially a man who is practically a teenager. “Really?” I repeat, twirling my purse a little more as Aleshandro blushes. “And if I go out, are you supposed to follow me?”
“Truth, yes.”
“How far can I go before you’ll stop me?”
“One block, this way that way. Most three blocks.”
“I want to go to the lingerie store.”
He blushes again, dropping his hands in defeat, unaccustomed to the severity of the role of security guard. “Okay. One block.” He gestures, pointing down the street.
Chuckling to myself as I turn past the black iron gate toward the peach storefront of Fruit de la Passion, I skip a bit, amused by my new role as potential Canadian damsel in distress. That is until I notice that Aleshandro wasn’t kidding. The block of boutiques is an upper-middle-class oasis plunked in the middle of a crime-ridden neighbourhood, even if the Mont Clair pamphlet claims: “Privilegiously located in the heart of Jardins, the most noble area of the city.” I must keep in mind my guidebook’s warning: although Rio de Janeiro is one of the most violent cities in the world, São Paulo is “less safe than Rio.” Population estimated to rise to twenty-five million by 2025. Almost the entire population of Canada in one city. Most of the citizens dirt poor and desperate. The minority rich trampling all over their hearts for the latest ten-thousand-dollar alligator handbag.
Six or seven steps behind, Aleshandro sweats nervously as I gaze at the bras and panties and nightgowns in the store window. I can’t toy with him any longer. I walk an additional block for good measure, buy an item from the drugstore, and return to the flat like a good scared foreign girl to wait for my mother.
“You English. You kidnapping target,” Aleshandro sighs, handing me my room key.
“I used to be,” I reply, but he has no context to understand the comment.
The lobby rumbles. Aleshandro points up to the sky. “Helicopters to catch kidnappers.”
My father was always afraid my mother would kidnap my brother and me, and he would have little recourse or ability to protect us since he was confined to his bed or chair. My brother and I were, for years, film noir detectives or witness-protection-program clients on the lookout for a woman with thick black hair, dark glasses, and a coloured hairband who might be hunkering in the bushes outside our school, or in the stands of a basketball tournament, or beside the parked cars at a friend’s birthday party, calling to us: I have something for you.
My father’s fears were not unfounded. She did try to kidnap us once more, right after we were shipped to live with my father’s affluent brother and his wife and two children in West Bloomfield, Michigan, about eight months after her initial disappearance that cool November afternoon. A dark limousine had been circling the area for the better part of the day. We noticed it, but it faded into the background like a bicycle or a hockey net on a driveway. My brother was out front tossing a baseball to himself, and I was out back playing with my new sidekick, the family’s honey-coloured cocker spaniel, Prince. Next thing I know, my brother is screaming, running past me through the screen door and into the kitchen, tearing up the stairs, and Prince, prevented from causing any real damage by his leash, is leaping and barking at this woman I recognize immediately as my mother, though I react to as a rabid animal or unstable chemical. My Aunt Mary, a white woman with cold hands and a colder heart, was blunt: Hello, Theresa. I will make us tea and then you will leave. As they drank, my brother and I were swiftly smuggled through the front door to a neighbour’s home; three hours later my efficient Aunt Mary arrived with our clothes and school books and stuffed toys packed, two plane tickets in her bony hands. You can’t stay here any longer, she said with the dismissiveness of a mall cop. My cousins, teenagers, older than us by several years, who treated us warmly and curiously like exotic pets, sharing their go-carts and mobiles and toy airplanes with us, looked distraught but also relieved. We were interlopers in their otherwise normal upper-middle-class suburban life.
We never saw my mother again. In less than twenty-four hours, we were holed up with a French-Canadian family on farmland in a town an hour outside Ottawa. My father still refuses to admit we were placed in foster care. Instead, he likes us to think that he’d arranged for “friends” we’d never met, never heard of, and who barely spoke English, to take us in, no questions asked, for nearly a year while the house in Ottawa underwent renovations to facilitate his caring for two children on his own. We were the only people without white skin in that town, and the only ones whose French was textbook French, not colloquial French, and we were so advanced in our studies that the teachers gave us perfect marks on all our tests and sent us to their pathetic library to supplement their meagre offerings. We spent a year literally chasing chickens with their heads cut off—a task we were given as part of the yearly slaughter—snowshoeing through the forest and trying to make ourselves as inconspicuous as possible (as brown kids with buckteeth, high IQs, and lots of physical energy, not an easy task).
I wonder if Jit remembers that day in Michigan my mother appeared out of the blue? If I ask him, my brother claims obliviousness, total erasure of memory, then switches the topic to hockey trades. But it’s always been unclear what my brother actually remembers, especially since he’s older by eighteen months. Does he remember that his panic was so intense he ran right past me—his younger sister who less than a year earlier had screamed her heart out to keep him from being shoved into a strange car—without uttering a word of warning, only the smell and swiftness of his fear? She wanted us: But why? And here I am, awaiting the cause of that fear to escort me out on the town.
While I rest on my stomach on the bed, with almost zero knowledge of Portuguese, I attempt to read the book of Celeste Duarte Baptista poetry purchased at the mall bookstore, translating lines from a short poem entitled “Chuva Quente” (Hot Rains) with my two dictionaries: After two hours of intense concentration to translate fifteen lines, I think I understand that the melancholic speaker is watching her father cry for the first time, without knowing what he’s done to elicit the tears. She then stares up at the sky and addresses a star, asking “why she is so distant/why my voice never succeeds to reach her there.”
I think of my father, whose tears were shed quietly, like drops squeezed from a dried-up lemon, who never wanted us to see more pain than what was obvious by the constant tremors in his right arm, the degeneration of his leg muscles, the blueness of his toes. I see you cry/without knowing what you’ve done. Did my father ever blame himself for my mother’s flight? Did he blame bad luck, or did he rack his brain for earlier evidence of my mother’s fickleness or mental instability? He could never refer to her without disdain, and we were willing converts to his way of dealing with the loss—don’t mention her, try your best not to think about her. One of my biggest fears as I grew older was that I would look too much like my mother and my father would hate me by instinct. In fact, whenever I was in a particularly despairing mood, I would goad him: She was ugly, wasn’t she? How could you marry such an ugly, stupid woman? My father would look upon me with sorrow, as if sensing my worst fears: She did the best with what she had. Or, You don’t need to think about her at all. Or, Why worry about a woman you don’t need, who doesn’t love you like your old dad. And I would hug my deteriorating father, clinging to him as if he were a life jacket, not a discarded hole-ridden unfixable raft.
As translating from any language is mentally exhausting, but particularly from a language one doesn’t know (I experienced this for the first time in an Anglo-Saxon English course during my master’s degree, which required us to translate dozens and dozens of lines per night with our glossaries), I quit and write a
short letter to Chris about my impressions of São Paulo, rather than of my mother, but am unable to mail it because the hotel has no stamps and the envelopes in the room, no matter how much spit I apply to them, do not seal.
When my mother returns, I announce that I have been attempting to translate a poem by Celeste Duarte Baptista. My mother regards me like a cat who’s left a dead mouse at her door. This surprises me, because my mother’s c.v. highlights her work as a translator for the Brazilian Senate as well as for publishing houses.
There is so little appreciation for translation, she sighs, shaking her head as if she is picking up the offending rodent with a paper towel. I got tired of the ingratitude. Better to write your own work. You only have so many years on earth. I stare at the few lines that have taken me hours to compose, and I’m aware they are faulty and awkward but I suppose I did hope for a favourable response, either as a mother interested in the activities of her daughter—mothers do this, right?—or for my attempt to enter her language, at least. When she scans the sights I’ve highlighted in my guidebook, she shakes her head some more. Instead of a bridge, we’re at a dead end.
Women are like that, as unpredictable as the sea.
Soares pulls up in front of the hotel in his white hatchback to drive us to dinner, and as the orange roofs and grey apartments of the day give way to the samba rhythms and flickering lights of the night, without missing a beat he and my mother delve into the dangers of São Paulo, an ironic tourism pamphlet.
Ninety-one people die violently in Brazil every seven hours. Ninety-one Americans have died in the entire Iraqi war thus far. It is safer to be an American soldier on the front lines of war than a Brazilian. . . . That dance troupe you want to see, that music hall you read about, the cathedral you’d like to visit, they are all too dangerous. If you are inside the cathedral, you are fine, but going in or out you could easily be assaulted. See those children there, looking innocent, they are part of a gang, they will take not only your purse, but your shoes and socks and pants and anything else they can. . . . Soares was robbed again just last week by two normal-looking girls on their way to a party. It is why Soares will come and pick me up wherever I happen to be. He knows I will never rob him. . . . São Paulo is no place to walk. Brasilia is dangerous too, because people know many people living there are middle class or higher. There is money to steal. American money is very popular to steal. Everyone will assume you are American. No one knows what a Canadian looks like. They will take the chance that they are robbing an American.
Notwithstanding the brutal description of the city, our fellow diners at the Italian restaurant all smile as if unaware they are targets for violent crime. I order calzone. A black man in a black leather jacket over a dress shirt plays a synthesizer keyboard and sings popular Portuguese songs. My mother claps louder than everyone else in the restaurant—her hands pudgy but tightly sewn from her operations, they make a distinct noise like slapping pizza dough on a countertop—and ten seconds before a song ends. The musician appreciates her enthusiasm and croons at me.
What’s the song about? I ask.
Being in love. Like most songs, she replies wistfully. This man loves his woman so much that he will walk across the desert to see her image in a mirage.
What my mother thinks about love, besides that it exists ideally only in the movies, is unclear. Her love story was a tragic one because of my father’s accident, that much would be obvious to the most inexperienced of lovers. But I’m beginning to sense my mother blames my father for something else, something that has led her not only to reject her responsibilities as a wife and mother, but to reject the loving part of herself. To redirect that love through filters and onto screens and the white pages of books, rather than live with it bubbling through her veins, boiling in her heart, rather than risk a night where the pressure of unfulfilled emotions explodes into violent tears and accusations and despair, her self’s hot rains.
Did my mother expect her love to be perfect and pure and beautiful enough to cure my father? Like Bess in Lars von Trier’s 1996 breakthrough film Breaking the Waves—a movie that left me a blubbering mess—did my mother believe if she made a deal with god he would reverse my father’s paralysis? Or did she simply believe true love could overcome any obstacle—as so many do without imagining any obstacle might include the inability to work, chronic pain, inability to have sex, and the relentless crushing of dreams. In many respects, I’m beginning to understand that my mother still lives in love but always one step removed, like an expatriate who never relinquishes citizenship. My mother is the heroine of a love story gone so wrong she’s scouring all annals and inventions of love to find out where her story went, when it will begin again.
Hearing me speak English, the crooner starts to play American songs—Beatles, Neil Diamond, Billy Joel. No one here thinks I’m anything but Brazilian when they set eyes upon me, until I speak. With my exotic mixed heritage, my abundant curly black hair and olive complexion, high Indian cheekbones, and my penchant for vintage clothing and party hats, I am not used to this, and find it liberating to blend in. The names here are magical: Fabrizia, Jona, Graziela, Nubia. The few words and phrases I have learned in Portuguese are solid—Soares says my pronunciation and accent are perfect Brazilian (I have always been a good mimic)—but they are few and far between: bom dia (good morning); boa noite (goodnight); perdão (excuse me/sorry); and my two essentials socorro! (help!) and Onde fica banheiro? (Where is the washroom?). I wish I knew how to say more! Language is the irrefutable indication to all outsiders that even if my mother introduces herself as such, we must not have had much contact if I know only a handful of Portuguese words.
Red meat and cheese and grilled vegetables settling nicely in our bellies, we sit back and enjoy the hit parade and my mother tells me about a cousin living illegally in the U.S. How horrible to hide all the time, she laments. This is no life. To me, he is illiterate. As she continues her monologue on the horrors of hiding, and the despicable decline of basic values, particularly family values, in contemporary society, I register that for my mother “illiterate” is the supreme insult. Nothing to do with literacy per se, but with a lack of complexity, integrity, compassion. I also note that she possesses no sense of irony. Time is all we have, she insists, applauding loudly for Stevie Wonder’s “You Are the Sunshine of My Life.” Even God cannot give us back our time. On the way out, we thank our gracious singer and ring a large brass bell hanging over the doorway for good luck. Ding dong. Ding dong.
Next, a Brazilian musical: Constellation at Teatro Imprensa. The plot revolves around the plight of a number of characters competing to win a trip to New York by identifying American songs on the radio. All the songs are from the American 1950s: “Blue Moon,” “Only You,” “Unforgettable,” “Bario,” “I Can’t Help Falling in Love With You.” From the fourth row we have a great view of all the slapstick action and fifties-style twisting and bopping and tap dancing.
After about thirty minutes, my mother leans over and whispers: I am heartbroken. This is not the Brazilian music and dancing I asked for.
I am stunned to discover she actually has tears in her eyes. It’s very interesting, I whisper back. I normally don’t like musicals; in my vision of the world people don’t break out into inspirational song at the drop of a hat. To get me excited, a musical usually requires a twisted plot involving sexual deviants, monsters, cannibalism, the likes of The Rocky Horror Picture Show or Hedwig and the Angry Inch—but this musical is a cultural lesson so I don’t think I’m lying. I like it, I reassure her.
At intermission, as I admire the fact that unlike most Canadians Brazilians dress up for the theatre—I can’t spot a single person, young or old, in jeans or a sweatshirt—I elaborate: It’s like a translation, because they are not sung like the original American songs. Which is part of the point, I think. They’re still Brazilians fantasizing about American culture and places like New York, projecting their dreams on Buddy Holly or the Empire State Building.
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Convinced I am enjoying the spectacle, she flips out a small spiral notebook and, now laughing contentedly, jots down thoughts for a review. At the end of the play, the performers line up at the foot of the stage and sing a song in honour of VARIG, the Brazilian international airline, which the audience applauds enthusiastically, and my mother explains that VARIG, like Air Canada, is in danger of bankruptcy. Brazilians are very emotional about their airlines because they believe the airplane was invented by a Brazilian, not the Wright brothers. After the performance, the actors, still in costume, congregate in the lobby to meet and greet audience members and hear their thoughts on the play. My mother strides right up, shaking all their hands and complimenting them on a fine performance that, thanks to me apparently, will receive a very positive review from her pen.
Later, as we prepare for bed, I insert the only purchase I have made on my own since my arrival—foam plugs I bought from the local drugstore while Aleshandro hovered outside—into my ears. Muffled due to the foam, as if spoken under water, my mother offers another one of her out-of-the-blue confessions:
Outside, Priscila, I am able to smile and be pleasing and forget the horrible things people say and do to me. But inside, I know it’s doing much harm, much harm. You shouldn’t judge me.
Then she laughs. She laughs a lot. Like I do. Our personalities are more similar than I’d like to admit. I, too, have found putting up a good front, keeping one’s head up and smiling and laughing no matter what the circumstances, impresses people and makes them want to be around you, even help you. As I child, this is how I survived, forever pleasing those in authority—teachers, coaches, friends’ parents—by being the child who surpassed all the others in test scores, who accumulated the most assists on a basketball court, who would enthusiastically offer to wash the dishes after a home-cooked meal. While there were certainly times, especially as a teenager, when my heavy-metal T-shirts and skull rings and penchant for morose poetry gave my melancholy away, rarely did this undercurrent of anger and depression interfere with my ability to excel and please. My teachers praised me for my stellar grade point average. My coaches could count on me to sink those crucial foul shots near game’s end and to organize everything from extra workouts to team jacket orders. My friends’ parents welcomed me as a positive influence as if math and science and geography scores rubbed off like chalk. Look at what she’s been able to accomplish, and under such circumstances! “Such circumstances” being, of course, a sick father and a non-existent mother; and, later on, a fifteen-year-old living successfully on her own, going to school full-time and working full-time at a drugstore, paying her bills and gunning for university scholarships. Yet, deep down, deep down, the damage could not be eradicated, like toxic waste under soil. Like my mother, I would need to find an outlet for my dissatisfaction with the world; and, for both of us, this outlet is writing.
Projection Page 7
