“A strange animal?” I asked, trying to catch his eye.
“Yes, a wild dog or a wolf.”
Once again there was a short silence. I shut the book firmly and enquired:
“In that case, how can I be of assistance?”
He reached out and placed his hand on my arm, and by the way that hand trembled I understood that we had reached the crux of the matter.
“What do you advise?” he asked. “It is for this, and only this, that I have come.”
It must of course be true, for nothing would induce me to suspect a lie lurking behind such a bold affirmation, but even so I could not help but laugh:
“But, Senhor Demétrio, I know nothing about hunting! You would perhaps be better off asking . . .”
He shook his head violently:
“No! No! There are reasons why I have come to you. You could, for example, suggest to me a poison, or some deadly substance that could be placed in a trap.”
“One does not kill wolves with poison,” I said, and ostentatiously put the dictionary back in its usual place on top of the cash register.
The precise meaning of my gesture, its willful indifference, was not lost on him. He stared at me, and with such hard eyes, filled with such sudden, aggressive resentment, that I felt a shudder run through me. There was no doubt he had come here for some other reason, of that I was certain, and, since he feared broaching the subject directly, he was equivocating, circling around the problem, waiting for me to come to his rescue. He could see that I had not the slightest intention of helping him out (why should I? For a very long time, indeed since time immemorial, there had never been the slightest hint of affection between the Meneses family and me), and it was this that had drawn from him such a piercing look of rage. Instead of encouraging him in his confession (or whatever it might be), I changed the subject completely, as if that story about a wolf had never been mentioned. As it happened, one wall of the pharmacy was in a very bad state due to a small explosion caused by an inexperienced assistant. I pointed to the exposed bricks and ruined plasterwork, adding with a smile:
“These are hard times we live in, Senhor Demétrio! Just look at that wall in dire need of repair. For two months now I’ve been trying to raise the necessary funds, but I still haven’t enough to purchase even one brick!”
Standing before me, motionless, he followed this apparent digression with the utmost attention. He was probably trying to find in my words a hidden meaning, an insinuation of some sort. All I meant was that the wall needed repairing and I did not have the necessary funds. Nevertheless, he had a sudden flash of inspiration, and his eyes lit up as he once again reached out his hand and touched my arm:
“Perhaps I can help you. Who knows? A brick or two here or there; we’re always glad to help our friends.”
I was standing with my back to him as he said these words. I turned around slowly and looked deep into his eyes. I thought I could see stirring in those depths a glimmer of something like hope—what kind of hope I could not possibly say, so shrouded and secretly did it flicker before me, so seared into the sad depths of that soul. He did not look away; on the contrary, he offered himself to me like an open book, and we stood for several seconds as there passed between us, rapidly and invisibly from one to the other, incoherent thoughts, fragments of ideas and feelings, things that the subconscious barely brought to the surface, but through which we were able to reach an important level of mutual understanding.
“A few bricks . . .” I murmured, “are exactly what I need.”
“Shall we say . . . a cartload?” he suggested, leaning familiarly over the counter.
He was certainly breathing faster, and his now bright eyes avidly scanned my face, searching for a word of ready acquiescence with an almost shocking degree of haste and lack of decorum. Even so, I shook my head sadly:
“A cartload? Let’s say three, Senhor Demétrio. I could scarcely fill that gaping hole with fewer than three cartloads of bricks!”
Something akin to a smile—a minuscule, meager smile of victory—appeared on his pallid face. As I was expecting, he nodded his agreement. We had reached a place from which it would be impossible for me to retreat, and so it was in the serenest of voices that I returned to the initial subject:
“A wolf on a country estate is always a dangerous thing. Nevertheless . . .”
He repeated that word back to me, as if pronouncing it took enormous effort.
“Nevertheless . . .”
I took a few paces around the shop, trying to behave as naturally as possible.
“Nevertheless, there do exist practical means of eliminating them, without having to resort to poison.”
“Such as . . . ?” he prompted.
I left him without an answer for a moment and stepped through into the rear of the house. I should explain that my private quarters consisted of a small, dimly-lit backroom with treacherous floorboards, whose only advantage was that it offered me a place to lay my head at night right next to the shop, and thus enabled me to attend to any customer who might appear at a late hour. However, news had spread that some thieves were operating in the town and this was probably why I had taken to keeping a small revolver among the linen in the top of the chest of drawers. “They won’t catch me unawares,” I said to myself. So I opened the drawer, rummaged through the sheets and soon found what I was looking for. I returned to the pharmacy as silently as I had left, and placed the gun on the shop counter.
“What’s this?” asked Senhor Demétrio, not daring to touch the object.
“Oh,” I exclaimed, “just a little plaything. It’s very easy to handle, but will put paid to any wolf.”
He seemed to hesitate, staring all the while at the gun, still not touching it. I don’t know what conflicting thoughts were doing battle deep within him, only that in due course he slowly reached out his hand, took the revolver, and, raising it almost to eye level, examined it closely.
“It’s a woman’s gun,” he said, polishing the mother-of-pearl inlay on its grip.
“It belonged to my mother,” I explained.
He turned the revolver this way and that, and I could clearly see the satisfaction in his eyes.
“Does it work all right?” he asked, pointing the barrel toward the back of the shop.
“Perfectly.”
And, trying to dispel his last remaining scruples, I added:
“They don’t make guns like that any more.”
From that moment on, he was, you might say, fully convinced. Watching him, I wondered whether he had come to my house specifically to obtain the gun. Would the Meneses, so richly endowed in resources and stratagems, really not already have such a weapon? In what circumstances would they use it? What reason would they have to compromise some other person by a course of action that they were, in all likelihood, about to embark upon? And if the matter did indeed concern a wolf—the idea seemed almost ridiculously naïve—then why did they not find a simpler way to kill it, with a trap, for example? I shrugged my shoulders: it was a transaction that suited me well.
Senhor Demétrio squeezed the trigger, swung out the cylinder, even rubbed the barrel on the sleeve of his jacket. It was evident that all this filled him with an intense, secret pleasure, as if, in the dim light of the pharmacy, he could already sense his enemies being felled. He eventually finished his examination and stared at me, and I swear that behind the smile that spread across his face lay a very deep, possibly ancient sentiment, shamefully immoral and cruel—ah, yes, the shrewd smile of someone who feels perfectly confident in the value of the transaction he has just entered into. At the same time he placed his hand on my arm:
“Thank you, my friend. I do believe there could be no better method for killing wolves.”
I returned his smile and we bade each other goodnight. Senhor Demétrio made his way out into the street, clutching the revolver in his pocket, while I, shaking my head over the mysteries of human nature, returned to my dictionary.
; 4.
Betty’s Diary (i)
19th – The mistress (I think that’s what I’m expected to call her . . .) was supposed to get here today, but, at the last moment, we received a telegram saying she would only arrive tomorrow. It didn’t really matter to me, after all, a few hours here or there makes no difference, but I could see how badly the news affected Senhor Valdo. I saw the sad look on his face as he stared out of the window, the telegram still in his hands. Despite the persistent fine rain, he had gone out into the garden himself to pick some of the loveliest dahlias. While we were tidying the house—moving furniture, plumping cushions, discovering old objects dismissed as redundant, but which somehow gave the house an air of discreet luxury—he seemed extraordinarily lively and happy. He told me not to worry if Dona Nina did not at first understand my position in the family, because it wasn’t necessarily easy for someone new to realize that I wasn’t just one of the servants, but had occupied the rather different position of housekeeper since before his mother’s death. When I remarked that, with the arrival of Dona Nina, there would perhaps be less need for a housekeeper, he mentioned Dona Ana and asked if her arrival had lightened my load at all. I laughed and said, no, it hadn’t, and he assured me that it would be just the same if not worse with his wife: she hadn’t the slightest notion of how to run a house, especially one as large and complicated as this. And then he was so jolly, so full of joshing and jokes, that old Anastácia, who never normally leaves the kitchen, said, her eyes full of tears: “It’s a real treat to see the master so cheerful . . .” When the telegram arrived, the atmosphere changed, just like that; Senhor Valdo didn’t say another word, but simply folded up the telegram, put it in his pocket, and went to his room. I felt so sorry for him, because Senhor Demétrio had been making fun of him, saying that he had already been to fetch his bride once and come back alone, and that now he might have to resort to violence to drag that “beauty” away from Rio de Janeiro. But then that’s what this family is like, always going into a sulk and hiding away in their rooms when things don’t go to plan. A great silence descended on the house and, finding myself alone again, I was just getting started on another task when I heard a very insistent “psst” and a voice calling me: “Betty! Betty!” At first, I thought it was Senhor Valdo with some further piece of advice, but soon realized that it was only Senhor Timóteo. I still did not move, for I had been given strict instructions to ignore him, but then from the hallway came another cry of “Betty,” this time sounding so urgent and anxious that I could not simply turn my back on him. Ever since the rift between Senhor Timóteo and the rest of the family, one famous evening when he smashed half the family’s glass and china, I had only rarely entered his room, firstly, because I had been made to promise not to help him in any way as long as he persisted in his eccentric ways, secondly, because I found his sad obsession so upsetting. Personally, I think people should be allowed to do what they like, as long as they don’t offend others. Senhor Timóteo’s behavior seemed to me more of an oddity than a perversion—or whatever other term the others chose to use.
That occasion was further proof of the bizarre habits that had essentially become the norm in his world: when I turned, I saw that Senhor Timóteo, fat and sweating, was wearing a fringed and sequined dress that had belonged to his mother. The bodice was far too tight around the waist and here and there a little imprisoned flesh was bursting out of the seams, tearing the fabric and making any pleasure he might take in dressing up seem like a real torment. He moved very slowly, setting the fringes swaying and, all the time, fanning himself vigorously with a sandalwood fan, which wrapped him in a cloud of sickly perfume. I couldn’t quite say what he had on his head, it looked like a turban or a brimless hat, from beneath which emerged lush blond curls. He was, as usual, wearing make-up—taken, like his clothes, from his mother’s room after she died, for she, in her day, had also been famous for her extravagant way of dressing—and make-up only highlighted his enormous nose, so characteristic of the Meneses family. His nose, however, was his only markedly masculine feature, because although he wasn’t yet as plump as he later became, the excess fat smoothed and softened his features, reducing any lumps or bumps and creating new dimples and indentations in his rose-pink flesh, so that he rather resembled a vast, splendid china doll, shaped by the hands of a rather incompetent potter.
“Sit down, Betty, sit down,” he said, pointing at a chair with his fan. “Do sit down—if, that is, you still care about me.”
“Why wouldn’t I care about you, Senhor Timóteo? As far as I know, you have never done me any harm.”
He shrugged and his whole heavy body shuddered:
“No, I haven’t, but oh, I don’t know . . .” he said with a touch of nostalgia.
And coming over to where I was sitting, this time pointing his fan at me, he said:
“When I decided to be independent . . . Betty, do you believe that one should listen to the voices in one’s blood?”
“What do you mean, Senhor Timóteo?” and there was not a hint of pretense or false surprise in my voice.
His eyes grew suddenly very serious.
“I am ruled by the spirit of Maria Sinhá. Have you never heard anyone speak of Maria Sinhá, Betty?”
“Never, Senhor Timóteo. Don’t forget, I’ve only been employed here for a few years. Besides, talking isn’t exactly one of the family’s strong points.”
“Yes, Betty, you’re right, you’re always right. That’s the good thing about you simple folk.”
“Who was Maria Sinhá?”
“Oh,” he began, and his voice was filled with genuine emotion, “she was the purest, most noble, most misunderstood of our forebears. She was my mother’s aunt and the marvel of her age.”
He fell silent for a moment, as if trying to damp down the enthusiasm provoked by the thought of Maria Sinhá—and then, in a calmer voice, he went on:
“Maria Sinhá used to dress like a man and go for long rides on horseback—why, she could ride from Fundão to Queimados faster than any of the best riders on the estate. They say she used a gold-handled whip to beat any slaves she encountered on the way. No one in the family ever really understood her, and she died alone in a dark room in the old Fazenda Santa Eulália up in the Serra do Baú.”
“Well, I’ve never heard anyone speak of her,” I said, convinced that this was all pure invention.
“Well,” he said with a laugh, “who but I would dare to speak of her? For many years, when I was a child, there was a portrait of her in the drawing room, immediately above the large sideboard, with a black crepe ribbon tied around the frame. The times I would stop and imagine her swift horse galloping through the streets of Vila Velha and envy her outrageous behavior, her freedom and her whip . . . When I began to reveal what the others so delicately term my ‘tendencies,’ Demétrio ordered that the painting be hidden away in the basement. I, however, feel that Maria Sinhá would have been the pride of the family, a famous warrior, an Anita Garibaldi, had she not been born in this dusty backwater in Minas Gerais . . .”
His voice shook with anger, as if he were not quite in control of it—and since the whole story seemed very strange to me, I remained silent, thinking of the family’s long history of failures. He noticed my silence and went back to fanning himself, saying in a different tone:
“What do they say about me, Betty, what do they accuse me of?”
And with a touch of childish pride, he added:
“I’m in the right, though, as you’ll see!”
I looked at him, as if expecting some explanation. He sat down heavily beside me:
“Yes, one day you’ll see, Betty. The truth will out.”
And he laughed again, for longer this time and with a certain relish, his head back.
“After all, what does it matter how I dress? How can that possibly change the essence of things?”
I couldn’t help but admire him in a way: there he was, complete with plump, padded bosom and glittering sequins. T
he sequins were like a symbol of him: rather splendid and completely useless. What could have brought him to his present state, what contradictory, disparate elements had shaped his personality, only for it to explode, unexpectedly and forcefully, under the pressure of the inherited prejudices of the entire Meneses tribe? Because that strange sexless being was a true Meneses—and who knows, one day, as he was predicting, I might well see the old family spirit resurface, in its profoundest, most rustic form, the same eternal wind that had driven the fate of Maria Sinhá.
Chronicle of the Murdered House Page 6
