by João Almino
Later, in front of Block E at 102 South, an abandoned square, some benches, not a soul. I sat down. The hopelessness of a failed life descended over me. I felt defenseless before the cruel world. I cried for the first time since I had returned to Brasília. I wasn’t crying for Aida. I was crying for myself. I was crying for the fact that in losing her I’d lost the best thing I had achieved over the past few years or perhaps in my entire life: some sense of dignity and the expectation of unwavering love.
I noticed the sign: “Jesus, the only salvation.” Me, entering a church? I’d never do that. I read it again: “Jesus, the only salvation.” No harm could come to me. I went in.
On the door, another sign: “Worried about tomorrow? About the job shortage? Love?” Below, the answer read: “But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you. Take therefore no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof. (Matthew 6: 33-4.)”
– Brother, you look like you need help, said a well-dressed woman, with straight black hair down to her waist. She was carrying a Bible in her hands.
I said nothing.
– The Lord is always aware of our problems. He helps those who want to be helped, she continued.
I kept silent.
– If you need to, you can come to us any time, day or night, the woman went on, handing me a card with phone and fax numbers and email addresses.
Dazed, I put the card in my pocket.
The light coming through the large windows around the curved walls made patterns in the shape of hieroglyphs that I was meant to interpret. It was mysterious writing, made for me, that can be seen in the photo above. There are three lacy gray bands climbing the pale blue wall where I read a trace of hope. Aida had faith. Faith could move mountains, miracles were possible for special people, and there was no one in the world with more faith or who was more special than Aida.
August 31, late at night
Today when Laura arrived, Marcela jumped up and made a fuss over her. Laura then told me she’d been introduced to the other, first Marcela.
– When she found out I knew you, she didn’t even hide her joy from her husband. She said she’d been your girlfriend, right in front of him.
By the expression she used, “girlfriend,” it’s clear that she has good memories of me. It’s fair to include a few more lines about her in my Book of Emotions, although what’s worth telling is not supported by my old diary, which I had already completed when we started seeing each other again, or by any of the photographs, unless I can locate a certain photograph of an empty bed.
– She’s still a vigorous woman. Thin. A nervous way of speaking, restless eyes. She told me herself that she’s new and improved after several plastic surgeries and a complete regeneration treatment.
– She didn’t need those things to keep herself young. She can’t be more than fifty years old.
– She wanted to know if you were married, if you had children. I told her you had a dog.
– I hope you didn’t tell her the name.
– I left it for her to discover.
Marcela breathed deeply as if she understood.
I never attained the same degree of freedom to talk about myself with anyone else as I have with Laura. May her internship last forever! It will be a way to inject myself with doses of youthfulness each time she comes.
She helped me find one more photo of the purple ipê for my book, and another of Antonieta lying on the bed with Aida.
– She was a friend of ours, a gorgeous woman, I explained.
I called her attention to the boy with sad eyes, leaning out the window.
– It’s Mauricio on the day of my marriage to Aida.
– May I print it? she asked and told me she’s seen Mauricio once in a while. She said nothing more, nor did I ask.
[September 2]
41. Spring sacrifice
Upon seeing the card on my night table, Aida wanted to know what church it was from. I told her about the sign that read “Jesus, the only salvation” and everything else that had happened.
– It may be a call, a warning.
Two days later she repeated that same impression. I remember the date well because it was September 11 and Paulo Marcos called me to discuss the scenes of horror on television. We went out with Carlos and Ana to an interquadra bar.
– This is of no importance to us, Paulo Marcos observed.
– It ends up affecting everyone, my friend, mainly because they’ve decided it’s a war. This will end up creating more terrorists, more resentment, the cells will reproduce on their own all over the place, in the Middle East, Europe, the U.S., Carlos ventured.
– It’s intolerance against intolerance, Ana said.
I was living my own September 11, and I decided to call one of the numbers on the card. I explained Aida’s situation, asked if they’d see non-members of the church and off we went the following Sunday.
In the temple, a roughly sixty-year old Pernambucan stone-mason confirmed that when he was possessed by the devil he pounded on the walls, rolled on the ground, and hurt himself all over.
– But ever since Jesus freed me from drugs and liberated me from Satan, he declared, I dedicate myself to only two things: my family and the church. I bear this witness to the honor and glory of merciful Jesus.
A woman took the floor to talk about her marriage:
– When I met my husband, he had just been saved by the Lord after spending more than twenty years living as an outcast. I didn’t believe in religion. Soon I was baptized, descending into the waters beneath the fire of the Holy Spirit. If today I’ve found and love Jesus, it was for the love of my husband.
The story of a middle-aged man caught our attention:
– Three years ago I had been diagnosed with an incurable lung cancer. After several sessions in our church, the doctor who had told me there was no hope confirmed that the tumor had disappeared and he never understood how the God of the Impossible saved me.
Afterward we watched a cleansing session. Those present moved their arms, yelled phrases in unison, and some of them went into a trance. A bishop dressed in white took the head of one of the possessed women in his hands and moved it from side to side. That’s how the ceremony of liberation began. The prayers to stimulate the manifestation of the devil grew to a crescendo, accompanied by the solemn timbres of an electric piano. Those present spun around with their eyes closed, with their hands crossed and placed over the top of their heads. After that they threw their hands first in the direction of the possessed woman and then backwards.
– What’s your name, demon? the bishop repeated the question several times, until she answered almost incomprehensibly, with an angry guttural voice:
– Exu.
– Who else? Are you alone? Are any other demons present?
– I’m alone, the woman answered.
– What is your name, Exu?
– Exu Skull.
– What have you done to this poor woman, Exu Skull?
– I’m taking her to perdition.
– She’s not to blame for this. It’s Exu who’s inside of her. What do you think? Can Jesus save her from this Satan?
– Yes, he can, the crowd answered.
– Do you think she can be saved? Yes or no?
– Yes, they all answered.
– In the name of Jesus, leave this woman’s body, the bishop said, placing his hands on her head. He repeated it several times, raising his voice:
– Out, out, in the name of Jesus. I want you to help me and to pray with me: “Out, out, out.”
The crowd yelled in a chorus, all raising their hands and then throwing them back:
– Out, out, out.
The woman opened her eyes, as if she were suddenly coming to.
– Are you feeling all right? the bishop asked.
– Yes.
– Thank the Lord.<
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– Thank the Lord, they repeated.
Aida watched everything very calmly, but she didn’t want to submit to that ritual. The bishop gave her a white ribbon with the inscription Father of Lights, for her to tie around her wrist while she mentalized the evil from which she wished to be liberated. He blessed us with a branch of rue and gave us fluidized water.
– Put these portions of salt on the table or in the corners of the apartment. This rue soap is to rid the body of impurities and this bottle of oil is to repel the evil eye.
I don’t know how much faith Aida placed in that. But she told me that she would use the soap and the bottle of oil.
When we got home, I noticed that the acacias painted the rear of the block yellow and the leaves of the sapucaia-nut tree had changed from green to purple. Another brighter purple appeared on the ipê that had flowered as was to be expected in the month of September. For someone who doesn’t know my story, photograph # 41 of that purple ipê against a smooth bright blue sky seems innocent and happy. But when we reached the block that Sunday, Aida’s tree, the one I had selected as a symbol of who I should be and that I was now photographing, seemed sad and unhappy, signifying sacrifice and death.
[September 4]
42. Landscape, its hidden meanings
Ana invited me to her birthday party. Not knowing about Aida’s illness, she asked me to pass along the invitation to her as well. I didn’t do it so as not to irritate her. Even if she were healthy she’d never accept an invitation from Ana. I went alone, with no guilt, because I felt tired; I deserved to surround myself with joy, and I had the right to a break from my dedication to Aida.
I competed with my brother Guga for a dance with Tânia, and my persistence was rewarded. While Guga sniffed coke and, being a great dancer, was inevitably successful with all the available girls, I concentrated on Tânia. Her still recent pregnancy didn’t diminish her vitality and added a radiant beauty to her face.
– I had an ultrasound. It’s a girl, she told me.
I started to think that I could be more than a godfather, a father, to that child. Better than acknowledging a son who had become a criminal. I ended up dancing with Tânia until very late. I hadn’t had so much fun in a long time.
When I got home Aida was sleeping with Antonieta by her side. As I took their photograph I managed to wake them. That’s the only photograph I’ve ever taken of Antonieta. Ever since she avoided meeting me at the Water Hole Park, I had never been relaxed around her, not even after she’d started to spend a lot of time in our apartment. She talked to me as if nothing had happened between us. It was better that way. In fact, little had happened outside my imagination, which after flying so high had its wings clipped.
– Where have you been? Aida asked me, when Antonieta left.
– I went out to take photographs.
It wasn’t a complete lie. I carried the camera over my shoulder and had taken a photo of Tânia.
– At this hour? She must have noticed I smelled of alcohol.
The next day Ana called her to say she was sorry about her illness and, without meaning to, gave me away. I could never forget Aida’s sad eyes that day staring out one of her apartment windows as if she were thoroughly analyzing the distant landscape made up of hills, similar to the ones I’d photographed on the day of my imaginary walk with Antonieta in the Water Hole Park, the place where I had met Tânia too. I set the camera on the tripod and used the zoom. A tiny plane crossed the horizon. What can be seen beyond the hills and beneath the camera is what makes that photo dear to me. It looked like a landscape before the storm or already in the eye of a hurricane. Even so, it calmed me and enveloped my mistakes in beauty, because in the green and blue layers of the far-off hills the landscape was created out of the shapes and colors of doubt, promise, frustration, guilt, and also love.
September 4
The pleasure of dancing with Tânia, which had been so great, ended right there, in that pre-dawn, but the guilt remains with me today because it’s the nature of pleasure to be fleeting while guilt is intractable.
So many are the names of pain—abandonment, egotism, scorn, bitterness . . . With Marcela here by my side, I’ll be forgotten. If anyone remembers me, let it be for the loves I’ve had, all so different one from another. All of them, loves.
September 5
Today I drank half a bottle of red wine. I gave up drugs and distilled alcohol long ago. In old age, the body can’t handle them. Red wine doesn’t always agree with Brasília’s temperature but disagreements have their merits. I offered Laura a glass. She doesn’t drink. Or smoke.
Together we reviewed at least three years. I asked her to choose a photograph of Antonio, Veronica, and the children, as well as a series taken in Vila Paulo Antonio, of which I have vivid memories.
Today Vila Paulo Antonio is one of the most violent towns in the vicinity of Brasília. A few years ago my photographs were requested for a book about its “before and after.” The “before” I thought was dull, ugly, and squalid. Over time, the dull, ugly, and squalid were carried by progress to greater lengths and to an even higher degree of misfortune. The streets I photographed, whose beaten earth preserved a certain rural dignity, were poorly dressed in potholed asphalt and cheap commerce, like a naked Indian who left the jungle to become shabby in the city.
– Have you seen Mauricio? I asked Laura.
– Regularly. We even met yesterday.
– He’s abandoned me.
– He adores you. He’ll never abandon you.
I get the impression that they’re dating. This doesn’t surprise me but it’s annoying, because I still want Carolina to be the chosen one. In my duty as godfather, I’ll do anything within my power for that to be the outcome.
The dating theory annoys me for another reason too. No matter how inopportune and even absurd it might be to think this way, it’s as if I were losing Laura to Mauricio. I sent him an email. Why has he disappeared?
September 7
I wrote a little every day during precisely three months. I don’t know if I’ll have the energy to keep up this pace.
Today is Independence Day, and they’re celebrating my national virtues and defects in the street. On the computer I heard the description of the military parade being broadcast on a television channel. I also listened to a speech about everything the country has accomplished in the world: industry, agriculture, space . . . Praise and more praise for the technological advances . . . I didn’t get all choked up. I prefer moral and political advances. My patriotism never went beyond the attempt to destroy Eduardo Kaufman, a cancer in our political culture.
To tell the truth, I haven’t even decided whether I’m for or against national borders. I learned a lesson in world politics: sometimes those who defend borders want to perpetuate injustice and mediocrity, while those who favor abolishing borders are certain to be the invaders.
September 7, afternoon
The first photograph, taken by Niépce, is the same age as independent Brazil: it’s from 1822 and shows a table set outdoors, trees in the background. This thought came to me for no particular reason, but gives me the excuse to join the street party. I commemorate the birth of photography.
[September 10]
43. No more no less
When Mauricio noticed the dishes of salt distributed in the corners of the apartment, I had a frank conversation with him.
– I prefer to tell you that your mother is suffering from a serious illness . . .
– I know. She has cancer, right?
I hugged Mauricio.
– I don’t want to live with my father. I want to live with you.
– I promise that I’ll always be with you. Or better yet, you’ll come live with me.
– Father doesn’t want me to. He wants me to live with him.
– We’ll see. We’ll figure it out.
The first step would be to marry Aida. She was divorced, she could get married. I returned to that subject.
– I want to marry you because I love you. I had already proposed.
– Before you knew about my illness.
– That doesn’t change my decision.
I collected the necessary paperwork. I wanted the wedding to take place promptly and to be married under the system of separation of property, so Aida’s family wouldn’t think that I intended to make a claim to the inheritance. Her siblings were limited to three pale sisters, two older and one younger than Aida, who had arrived from Goiânia and were camped in our apartment.
In a matter of days I convinced the justice of the peace and the priest to come to our house for the ceremonies. The civil ceremony, followed by the Catholic one. Tânia and Paulo Marcos, still separated, Antonieta with her boyfriend, and Aida’s sisters were the only people present. Tânia, contemplative in her austere beauty, was the matron of honor in the Catholic ceremony.
Aida’s joy, aided by make-up and the vibrant yellow of her dress, overrode the effects of the disease. I don’t want to dwell here on the description of the rain that seemed to sprinkle that happy September afternoon with sadness. The Northeasterners had brought the term “cashew rains” for those few sudden showers that coincided with the start of the flowering of the cashew trees.
– You’ll take good care of Mauricio? Aida asked me again.
– I’m not just going to take care of him. I’m going to adopt Mauricio. Legally. I’ve already started the legal procedures.
I took a photo of Mauricio, thoughtful and reclined against the window before the civil ceremony got under way. One foot against the wall, uncombed hair, he looks at the camera with doubt and distrust. He’s wearing a shirt with long, wide sleeves and has his hands in his pockets. There are photos that only acquire their full significance when compared with others of the same subject. Such is the case of this one when contrasted with photograph # 15. Mauricio now has an adolescent air about him, and not only because of his height. He had matured in a matter of months. A photo is measured also by its ability to portray its subject in the truest, most accurate manner. For me, photograph # 43 above is absolutely faithful; it is Mauricio himself at that moment, no more no less.
