by Frei Betto
“Can I say something, tio? Promise you won’t get mad?”
“Of course, Bia, say whatever you like.”
“I think my head is redonda like a spinning top. Everything goes round so fast I go crazy. But yours is quadrada like a box of books. I like what you’re saying, but I don’t get it. I was never taught these things. All I know is, when I screw, it’s like a weight lifted off my shoulders.”
LUNCH
Cândido invited Mônica to have lunch with him and Beatriz in a restaurant near the publisher’s. There was no reason to think the Alto da Boa Vista neighbourhood should represent any kind of danger to the girl, and he wanted to straighten things out between her and Mônica. The anthropologist treated Beatriz very harshly. If it hadn’t been for the fact that Beatriz was a child and that he considered it wishful thinking, Cândido would have said Mônica was jealous.
Cândido and Mônica shared a roast chicken with farofa and agrião and both ordered a caipirinha. The girl chose spaghetti bolognese. Just being outside filled her with joy; being attended on by waiters and getting to choose a dish was almost too much.
INTERLUDE
“She really is fine, isn’t she?”
“Yes, Odid, she’s the perfect woman. Not a girl, like Cibele. And she’s much more attractive than ngela was.”
“ngela was good-looking, though.”
“She was picture-postcard pretty,” said Cândido. “Mônica is like a spiritual love affair.”
“Why don’t you say that nonsense to her?”
“Are you mad, Odid? Think about how she might react!”
“Come on, man. All women like being told they’re attractive,” Odidnac insisted.
“They do when it comes from a man they want to hear it from. I’m not sure that’s the case with me. And when gallantry comes uncalled for, it too easily leads to friendly sympathy. There’s nothing worse than that.”
THE CHOICE
Beatriz recounted, in her own way, the conversation she’d had with Bramante, which amused Mônica a good deal. Cândido felt relieved that the tension between the anthropologist and the girl seemed to be lifting.
“Tia, what do you think, does the man choose the woman or the woman choose the man?” Beatriz asked, as the waiter placed a glass of orange juice before her that was nearly as big as her head.
“Women choose men,” said Mônica, “even if we sometimes make it look like it’s the other way round.”
“Why do you say that with such certainty?” said Cândido, intrigued.
Mônica turned to face him.
“The proof lies in a biological phenomenon: the ovum chooses one spermatozoon from the thousand that knock at its door.”
Cândido chased a chicken breast around his plate with a knife, unable to pin it down in the oil that seasoned the agrião.
“You might be right,” he said. “I’ve never managed to start a relationship with a woman who wasn’t interested in me first.”
Cândido talked of his past loves, but he could tell Mônica wasn’t really listening. She seemed distant, lost in thought, and she never took her eyes off Beatriz. He didn’t draw attention to it, as he didn’t want to bring up anything sensitive. Mônica accepted another spoonful of rice from the waiter and ordered another orange juice for Beatriz.
Conversation resumed and Beatriz, her mouth smeared with tomato sauce, stared at Mônica, trying to follow what was being said. Then the girl suddenly intervened.
“I hardly understand a word you’re saying. But there’s one thing I wanna ask you, tia, can I?”
“Of course, Bia,” Mônica said, turning to face her. “Ask me whatever you like.”
“Don’t you want to be my mamãe?”
Mônica blushed. She leaned right back in her chair and took a deep breath. To buy a little more time, she took a sip of her caipirinha. Her black eyes welled with tears. She tried to cover her reaction with a timid smile.
Cândido watched them both in silence, not wanting to get in the way of the intimacy developing between the two females. Mônica stretched both arms out on the table and held the girl’s hands.
“I am and always will be your amiga, Bia. But what if I agreed to be your mum and then one day your real mum appeared? I try to avoid sticky situations.”
INTERLUDE
“Look at her, man. Wouldn’t she make a lovely wife? Why don’t you and she adopt Bia and start a family?”
“Have you gone mad, Odid?!”
“Admit it, you’re proud to be out in public with such a beauty! Have you seen the way guys on other tables have been looking at you, all jealous?”
“They’re looking at Bia, Odid. It’s not every day a kid like her eats in a restaurant like this.”
“Come on, man. Don’t be so naive. They’re looking at Mônica! Just like you are, devouring her with your eyes: those long fingers, the smooth back of her hands, her gazelle-like neck, her dark face, her wide eyes, her mouth, just made for kissing.”
WHAT TO DO?
Cândido faced a dilemma. He couldn’t keep Beatriz at the publisher’s any longer – Eduardo Lassale had made it clear that the girl’s presence had become a problem – but nor could he break one of Dona Dinó’s golden rules and take Beatriz to live with him. Moreover, he worried that the girl’s presence would draw police attention to the hotel again.
BRUTAL WORLD
The police were still hunting for the young fugitives. Cândido promised to look after Beatriz for as long as she was still at risk. He frantically searched for a new place for her to shelter.
The girl was desperate, vulnerable, frightened of being left alone. She was alive to everything Cândido did, not letting him out of her sight.
“What are you working on, tio?” she asked when he sat down at the computer.
“I’m reading Doutor Bramante’s study of sexual habits.”
“Why don’t you just go to a puteiro?”
Cândido stopped reading and looked at her.
“For one thing, because it’s like playing a game with marked cards. The women fake affection and pleasure when all they’re really interested in is the client’s money. It’s more extortion than it is a relationship.”
“Don’t I know it!” replied Beatriz.
“Don’t you know what?!” Cândido said, alarmed, spinning around in his chair to face her.
“The doorman of a hotel down in Flamengo arranged for some rich gringos to screw me,” the girl said. “I went up to their apartment, did it with them, took their money and left. I had to share the grana with the doorman though.”
VIGIL
Everything clouded over, covered with thick fog. Voices and people seemed distant, figures undefined and shadowy. Nothing was vivid except for Mônica, and he contemplated her blissfully. He could make out every twitch of her smile, the vibration of every pore on her face. They were so close he could count the lines on her forehead, the first signs of her first wrinkles. Her teeth, powerfully white, burst forth every time she opened her lips. Her discrete, delicately pointed nose and her eyes, like two black fish floating under arches of eyebrows.
Mônica’s image was so clear that it was as if she were an actress filling up the cinema screen and he were a spectator sitting in the front row. Not a single detail escaped him. He could even see the slight deviation in her left eye that obliged her to use glasses for reading.
His focus moved on to her hair, its jasmine perfume. Then he lowered his eyes to enjoy the shape of her breasts, firm beneath crimson silk. At the heart, a slight pinching, as if something was worrying her. He recalled the Song of Songs and mentally recited it:
Thy two breasts are like
two young roes that are twins,
which feed among the lilies.
Until the day break
and the shadows flee away,
I will get me to the mountain of myrrh
and to the hill of frankincense.
Thou art all fair, my Mônica;
there is
no spot in thee.
THE VERDICT
Cândido sat at the table, stirring the sugary residue in his cup with a teaspoon. Dona Dinó asked him if he wanted more coffee. He nodded.
“Can I speak to senhora for a moment?”
Dona Dinó put the coffee on to warm and dried her hands on her apron. She pulled a chair up next to him, curious and attentive.
“I’ve got a major problem and I need senhora’s help,” he said. He spoke with his head bowed, staring at the table. The sun split the table’s surface in two. The sunny side was creeping towards an open tub of margarine.
“Don’t worry, meu filho,” she said supportively. “All things in life have their solutions. God takes care of fifty per cent of our problems, time solves the other fifty.”
Cândido noticed that the shaded area around the margarine was reducing at an alarming rate.
“There’s a street kid called Beatriz who’s mixed up in some trouble. She’s only twelve years old. The police want her dead. I managed to hide her at the publisher’s, but Lassale has had enough. He’s worried she’ll harm his business. I can’t put the girl out on the street. I would like senhora to let her live here until I find a proper solution.”
The old lady stood up and walked away. She turned off the gas on the bain-marie and picked up the enamel coffee pot, protecting her hand with the end of her apron, and poured Cândido a cup.
“What would we tell the other guests?”
“Nada,” said Cândido. “If anyone asks, say it’s something to do with my work and she’s only here temporarily.”
Dona Dinó stood in silence by the cooker for what seemed like an eternity. The sun reached the tub and the yellow of the margarine intensified as it melted. Cândido pushed the tub into the shade with the tip of his finger and put the lid on.
“Does senhor know,” Dona Dinó said in a deep, drawling voice, “that Marçal is still present here in the hotel? Sometimes he passes me in a flash and won’t let himself be seen. Bringing a girl here who’s wanted by the police would be adding fuel to the fire. But it’s also unfair to abandon such a young creature.”
Dona Dinó rested one hand on top of the other on the end of her broom. She stiffened her thin arms. Her wilted skin made Cândido think of the cold hams that used to hang in the monastery pantry. The old lady looked down at the joints of her fingers, concentrating so hard she let go of the broom. It fell to her right and banged on the floor with a dry crack.
“I’ll make a bed up for the girl in the laundry room out the back,” she said, pronouncing her verdict.
EMPTY
Cândido went running up the stairs to the publisher’s, anxious to tell Beatriz and Lassale the good news. But the girl wasn’t there. He looked for her in the office, the kitchen and the bathroom but couldn’t find her anywhere. Then the cleaner told him, “I’ve just come on the bus and I saw the garota hurrying down the road towards Muda.”
Cândido rushed into the kitchen, crouched down and ran his hand around the back of the sink fitting. The revolver was gone.
EPIPHANY
Dear Cândido,
Something new is breaking out inside me. I’m glad of your friendship, which is truly a joy to behold. But there’s more to this than just a feeling of empathy and trust. Am I in love? Lately, you’ve been a constant presence in the echoes of my heart. It’s not my head that’s remembering, mentally replaying a film I’ve seen. It’s more a rousing evocation of your presence. I cannot help but conclude that, besides being a work colleague and friend, you’ve become a very special person to me.
I assume the feeling is mutual.
Yours,
Mônica
6Spiritual Paths
Cândido stared at the sheets of paper laid out in front of him. It was stuffy in the hotel room and he felt hot and bothered. He was bare-chested and droplets of sweat clung to the hair on his skin. To his right were the sexologist’s notes, to his left the anthropologist’s – Mônica’s – the woman who dominated his every thought.
He had to transform this jumble of data into something palatable to the public, a task that was hard enough without his concentration being constantly sidetracked by Mônica. It was far easier to correct and rework someone else’s text than come up with your own, he concluded. Especially for someone who didn’t consider himself blessed with literary talent.
Mônica’s smile opened up in his mind. He looked despondently at the computer that Lassale had supplied him with. The screen had gone to sleep; little fish were swimming in an aquarium. He moved the mouse to reactivate it. Mônica popped back into his head. Words and phrases refused to flow from his fingertips. He knew roughly what he wanted to say, what the content should be, but how to say it escaped him. Writer’s block before a blank screen.
He made an effort to push Mônica from his thoughts, take hold of an idea and just type. Disconnected words lined up across the screen, confused, illogical. He began the same paragraph three or four times. He compared versions, cut them back, added to them and read them out loud, searching for the right effect, like a musician trying out different chords. Mônica refused to go away. He opened classical texts at random, drank in their style; he listened to music to sharpen his senses. He called upon his muses, tried and tried until he was exhausted, working to the maxim that genius is one per cent inspiration, ninety-nine per cent perspiration.
The publisher was in a hurry and Cândido was under pressure. He felt like a sterile mother whose husband was demanding a child.
HI-TECH DISAGREEMENT
Lassale was hunched over the desk, his head poking out from behind a pile of books and papers, his glasses sliding off the end of his nose. He was visibly displeased. He read as if peering through a magnifying glass and only looked up when he heard Cândido drag a chair over.
“Ah, good, you’re here,” he sighed.
Cândido nodded a greeting to the publisher.
“Have you had a chance to read the first instalment yet?”
Cândido had handed the final draft in to Lassale’s secretary the previous evening.
“I was up until the small hours ploughing through it,” Lassale said, as if boasting. “And I have to say, I’m not very satisfied.”
Cândido crossed his legs. He tried to hide his disappointment. He wasn’t sure how to react.
“This, here,” Lassale went on, picking up a bundle of sheets, “reads like a psychology essay. I was hoping for something more consistent and uniform. This is just a mishmash of hypotheses.” He threw the reams of paper onto the table, as if rejecting the work of an amateur.
Cândido took a deep breath. He gave himself time to put his thoughts in order and rein in his emotions. When he’d composed himself he said:
“I’ve tried to make a clear distinction between fact and fiction. With fiction, the author can change the story as much as the publisher wants until it’s deemed ready for the marketplace. But for a collection like this we have to be faithful to the facts. Even if our imagination would prefer something different, we have to be true to the data Bramante and Mônica unearthed in their research. They set out a variety of models for human relations, specific to different periods and cultures.”
Lassale looked away, weary. None of this bore any relation to what he’d been hoping for. Cândido watched him run his fat fingers through his thick hair, ruffling it on top.
“Maybe the murder and the girl’s disappearance are distracting you from your work?” Lassale suggested in a faltering voice.
“The murder has been cleared up. At least officially…” said Cândido.
He knew that neither Beatriz nor the gory goings-on at Hotel Brasil had anything to do with it. What was holding him back was Mônica.
“The collection’s thematic range is very broad,” said Cândido, avoiding the question. “Perhaps this has prevented the project from having the didactic quality we’d hoped for; the scope just won’t allow for it.”
“Sim,” Lassale interrupted him, �
��but I was hoping for something simpler. As Bramante suggested, something that would jump out from the magazine stand and catch the eye of the executive with the imported car just as much as the domestic maid with her shopping basket.” He paused before adding, in a shaky voice, “In this age of uncertainty, what is sex between a man and a woman? How does spirituality come into it?”
This brought Mônica back into Cândido’s thoughts.
Lassale leaned over the desk, animated by his own questions.
“What’s the common denominator between sexuality and spirituality?”
“The way in which a person is a person derives from his or her concept of God,” Cândido suggested. “People differ according to how they differ on this concept.”
The publisher cut in, “What about agnostics like me?”
“In the case of agnostics,” Cândido said, “it’s values and principles that count.”
“And how does that apply to sexuality?” asked Lassale, his professional interest now taking a back seat.
“The less guilt a person feels,” said Cândido, “the healthier their sex life.”
“You’re not suggesting,” objected Lassale, “that libertines and the depraved serve as our yardsticks?”
“Não, of course not,” said Cândido. “Their lack of scruples is a matter for psychotherapists like Bramante’s wife. What troubles me is the distance that exists between body and spirit, between love for one’s partner and love for God.”
“And you think,” questioned the publisher, “that this distance should disappear?”
Cândido remembered Mônica again.
“Sim, I think so,” he said, before adding, as if something in the air had set off a chain of memories, “and then we’ll be brought into the bed chamber, as the poet inferred, where a hug becomes an embrace, a caress becomes a holy kiss, copulation becomes communion, eroticism becomes agape love, pleasure becomes liturgy.”
Lassale leaned back.
“Cândido, such a poetic view of things is so naive!” he said, a sarcastic smile hanging from the corner of his mouth.
