The truth is that ever since I told the boy of his mother’s return, I’ve noticed a marked change in his behavior. When I told him, he seemed to receive the news in an agitated, almost febrile way. There was a peculiar gleam in his eye, and I was aware that while I was speaking, there were questions he was burning to ask, but did not dare. What questions? Why? When he had never before heard a word about her. What sorcery was it that could cast its spell from so far away? My surprise was all the greater given that, since Nina’s departure (I hope you don’t mind if I call her by her name) I had forbidden anyone to speak to him about her. I kept my feelings of astonishment to myself, all the time pondering the possible consequences of her return.
I did not witness the climactic moment of their meeting, but I could imagine what must have occurred, knowing that my wife, despite a penchant for melodrama, was never much given to displays of emotion. Despite this, I saw the full impact of that encounter the next time I saw my son. The change, Father, was extraordinary. That spirited determination of his, which I had so admired as evidence of his self-control, was gone. Hesitant and pale, with dark circles under his eyes, he was the image of someone who had assumed the burden of some great sin. We were in the hallway, and when he saw me coming toward him, he pressed himself against the wall as if afraid. I had never before seen him do something like that. I quickened my pace and stopped in front of him. For a moment, we looked each other in the eye, and my gaze expressed not condemnation, but a desire to understand and forgive; his, however, was evasive and terrified, apparently struggling not to give away a possibly criminal secret. You may well think, Father, and with good reason, that I am exaggerating, and that I was being too hasty in drawing such conclusions when it could all have been mere happenstance. I too wondered about that, but subsequent facts, together with some more general observations, justify my saying all these things.
Nina had already been back with us for some time, and I had noticed that not only had her behavior changed, for she had become more silent and more restless, as certain animals do when danger approaches, but that my son’s behavior was also becoming ever stranger and more rebellious. I considered it my duty to intervene, and spoke to him about it. He refused to be drawn and fled the room. On another occasion, I tried to grab him by the arm and he, who had never before dared to talk back to me, looked at me, eyes blazing, and said: “What gives you the right?” And I let him go, feeling slightly ashamed, as if the fact of being his father really did not entitle me to take such stern action. Indeed, I felt myself to be a stranger. (I know what she would think if she read these lines: “Jealousy, Valdo, your eternal jealousy.” Perhaps that was the accusation I saw in my son’s eyes. But then, Father, what is jealousy if not our desperate concern for those we hold dearest? How could I possibly abandon André to the rage and fury I felt was imminent?) If I had never really been what might be called a loving father, at least I had managed to establish with my son a relationship of mutual manly respect and honesty. Now, unexpectedly, I found myself cast in the role of enemy, excluded from all his interests and anxieties, little better than a stranger. I searched in vain for a solution to the mystery. Or rather, although my intuition already knew, deep down, what was going on, I tried to run away from it, like a man fleeing from certain secret evils. But I could not equivocate for long, and I soon discovered what really lay behind all this. It was Nina, of course; and the corrupting influence of her personality—the same influence I had seen her deploy so cunningly and seductively in the past—was beginning to take hold around me. At that moment, Father, I trembled from head to foot, for I understood full well the peril my son was in. And it was then that I glimpsed the full extent of my mistake. For there could be no doubt about it, I had made a mistake, and a terrible one at that. Nina should never have returned. You may suspect, Father, another reason for my pounding heart; that I was troubled by something I did not even dare confess to myself; that not all my feelings had died and that I did still love her, perhaps as much as I had loved her in the early days. And I would deny this, and say that I feared only for the safety of the young adolescent living under my roof. Nina is not to blame, I know; she may not even be aware of what she does, but evil is part of her nature, and everything about her gives off the unbearable stench of decay. How I must have loved that creature, in the days when I did love her, to be aware of these intimations of my own death and the possibility of my own destruction, and yet still embrace them! Or—and here I scarcely even have the courage to suggest it—might it not be precisely the vision of my own death that had held me in thrall to her? And yet, despite all this, I found myself unable to make the slightest gesture; frozen, vanquished. Once again, I would have to witness all the conflicts provoked by her presence, and once again I would have to watch the drama swirling around my door, unable to do anything to prevent it, like some helpless victim who has brought about his own downfall.
I think it was my keen sense of what was going on that led me to speak to Nina. It was nighttime, and she was getting ready for bed, wearing a dark dressing-gown, tied around her waist, that only emphasized the paleness of her skin. (Ah, Father, I must finally confess, since this letter is rather like a confession, that despite everything, and to my eternal misfortune, that woman has always exercised a pernicious influence over my senses. I was never able to look at her without a tremor of desire. Even now, after fifteen years of absence during which I imagined her defiled and sullied by the hands of others, the fire within her gone, burnt out, I still cannot look at her without a thrill of excitement, such is the power of her beauty and the feminine grace of her movements, even when disguised beneath a man’s bulky dressing gown.) After watching her in silence, I went over to her:
“Nina,” I said, “I want to talk to you.”
She looked up at me, her face still utterly impassive. Would she, just from those few words, remember other similar situations and understand what was going through my mind? In any event, the mere thought of it made me freeze. She waited, her eyes fixed on mine. In response I sat down beside her and, trying to sound as sincere and sympathetic as I could, said:
“Nina, what I have to say is very difficult. Not least because there’s no pleasant way of putting it.”
I must have hesitated, and, seeing my discomfort, she smiled—not as a normal person might smile in such circumstances, but cynically, almost defiantly. Her attitude immediately made my blood boil (ah, we are so weak, Father!) and the words came out before I could stop them:
“Don’t play games, Nina. This is serious. This time around I won’t allow a repetition of what happened before.”
Her expression changed, grew serious, and she gave me a hard look.
“What are you accusing me of?” she asked. “What have I done now?”
I hesitated again, not knowing how to express my thoughts. It was almost impossible to tell her, just like that, what I was accusing her of.
“It isn’t exactly an accusation.”
She eyed me warily.
“Coming from you it can only be an accusation. Well, come on, Valdo, I’m ready for anything.”
I looked down and, beneath her half-open dressing gown, I could see her breasts trembling with emotion. This troubled me even more, and not only did the words escape me, but reason itself seemed to desert me, and I could no longer remember why it was I had come to see her. She was waiting calmly, alert to every flicker of emotion in my face. Then, painfully, realizing the ridicule I was exposing myself to, I stammered:
“My son . . .”
At these words she stood up, as if touched by an electric current. I raised my head and saw the fire in her eyes, her body tense as if ready to lash out in defense.
“Is there nothing you would not stoop to, Valdo?”
All I could say, almost in a whisper, was:
“And you, Nina . . . is there nothing you would not stoop to?”
She tugged at her robe and drew herself up in a gesture of anger or pride—and that simple mo
vement offended me more than any words. It was almost a modest gesture, and I had assumed her to be beyond all modesty.
“Are fifteen years not enough to drown your jealousy?” she said with bitter irony. “And after all the wrong you did me, it’s not your son, but our son who . . .”
What she was suggesting did not bear repeating and, succumbing to the outrage she felt, whether justifiably or not, she turned her back on me, and leaning on the tall chest of drawers, she began to cry. From the bed, where I remained seated, I watched her body shaken by sobs, and to my surprise I found that it did not move me as much as I might have expected; watching her, I asked myself whether this might not just be another of her performances.
“I am not exactly accusing you, Nina,” I replied after a pause. “I just want you to tread carefully. André is still a child.”
She turned to face me, her eyes full of tears:
“But what exactly are you suggesting? No, Valdo, I can’t imagine you capable of such monstrous thoughts.”
When she turned, her robe had come loose again, and it fell open slightly to reveal the curve of her breast. You may well wonder if this was her final, desperate bid to seduce me.
“And yet . . .” I added coldly.
“No,” she cried, hurling herself at me, “this is all your jealousy, your horrible jealousy. That’s what’s driving you, making you suspect even your own son. Ah, if only I’d known!”
And she fell onto the bed, sobbing. She clawed at the crumpled bedspread and, strangely, she seemed to be not so much in the throes of grief as of unbridled pleasure. Then, gradually, she calmed down and fell asleep. I took one last look at her body stretched out on the bed, my mind troubled by ideas of various sorts; seeing her lying there, so defenseless, I couldn’t bring myself to hate her. I tiptoed out of the room and went to lie down in the hammock on the verandah.
So that’s how our conversation ended that night, Father. It is also everything I know. However, once I had recovered from my momentary agitation, neither her tears nor her behavior convinced me of anything. I see my son becoming ever more restless and withdrawn, and yet have not one piece of evidence to incriminate her. Perhaps it really is just a figment of my imagination; perhaps I still suffer from that lingering, poisoned residue of jealousy. In both these matters, only you can advise me, no one else. I have reached the point where I can no longer solve anything myself: I lack both the necessary clarity of mind and the impartiality. I shall anxiously await your letter or your visit here to the Chácara. It is the uncertainty that torments me most, for that woman can make one doubt everything, even reality.
23.
Betty’s Diary (iv)
26th – A pig was slaughtered yesterday, and the black servants were busy in the kitchen preparing sausages. I went to chivvy them along because Senhor Demétrio always complains that the smell of fried pork-fat gives him a headache. The maids were standing around three large wooden troughs, their hands deep in the soft meat—and the usually quiet kitchen seethed with laughter and chatter, while Anastácia, whose sight was already failing, was seated on a stool before a basin of warm water, cleaning the intestines. I sat down with her, and it was then that I received a message saying that Senhor Valdo was asking for me. Since he never normally asked for me, and since I was not normally to be found engaged in such domestic tasks, I thought it odd, and, for some reason, felt a touch annoyed. However, I was just about to go looking for him, when he appeared at the kitchen door. At the sight of the servants working away, he hesitated, looking somewhat sheepish, as if he had committed some fault deserving of reproof. But seeing that I was occupied, he came over to me, all the time glancing furtively around him.
“Betty, has my brother been in here?”
“Senhor Demétrio never comes into the kitchen,” I said quietly, while the black servants, noticing him for the first time, very slightly lowered their voices.
“Did you want to talk to me about something?” I asked.
“I did,” and there was an almost pleading look in his eyes.
“If you’ll just wait a moment . . .” and I had already begun taking off my apron, when he said:
“No, no, Betty, there’s no need for that. We can talk right here.”
He glanced around him and noticed, at one end of the room, the large pine table where the servants usually took their meals.
“Let’s go over there,” he said, pointing at the table.
I imagined the comments this would provoke.
“But Senhor Valdo!” I cried.
“What’s wrong? At least no one can accuse us of hiding.”
He was right, and so we went over to the table, which, as well as being away from the other servants, was closer to the smoking, crackling fire.
“Are you sure the smoke doesn’t bother you, sir?” I asked, perching on the end of one of the benches.
“No, not at all,” he said, “Besides, what I have to say won’t take long.”
He sat down on the same narrow bench worn smooth by all the many servants who had sat there in the past, and which gave the rough-hewn seat a human dignity it had lacked before. Seeing him sitting there, saying nothing and drumming his fingers on the cracked wood of the tabletop, I started talking, in an attempt to break the awkward silence. I said that, lately, Senhor Demétrio had been conspicuous by his absence, not just from the kitchen, but from the hallway, the drawing room and any of the other rooms too. (I kept to myself most of the other things I had noticed, namely, Senhor Demétrio’s increased irritability and nervousness. He wore a permanent frown and was displeased with everything, as if nothing in the house was right. I had even caught him sniffing the air, as though sensing the imminent arrival of some misfortune—and symptomatic of these changes was that he and his wife—who usually kept well away from each other, so much so that they were rarely seen together—now appeared to have found a common enemy and thus a reason to join forces and support each other. It did not take much imagination to guess who that enemy might be, and so it was hardly a surprise when, one day, out in the hallway, I heard Demétrio saying: “Ana, from now on, I want my meals sent to my room.” She merely nodded and said nothing. But he added, with a sigh: “We are living through dark days, Ana, and who knows how it will all end.” Dona Ana did not answer, but her attitude could not have been more eloquent. It was impossible not to see her reserved manner as a distillation of the Chácara’s long tradition of disapproval. I could have told Senhor Valdo this too, but felt this would be anticipating matters and so I kept quiet, waiting for a better opportunity.)
When I finished speaking, he nodded thoughtfully:
“So you haven’t seen him, Betty?” Then stroking his chin, he said in a quieter tone. “It’s never a good sign when my brother disappears.”
“Why don’t you go and knock on his door?”
He did not answer, but from the look he gave me, I could tell that he was trying to win my trust. I was touched by this, since, he was generally very aloof and barely acknowledged my presence, despite all the years I had worked there.
“You can say whatever you want to here, Senhor Valdo,” and, as a guarantee, I glanced across at the servants hard at work at the far end of the kitchen.
“The fact is, Betty,” he began, “it isn’t Demétrio I want to talk to you about.”
“Who then?”
He looked at me again, and this time I felt he was struggling for air. Ah, if I could only meet him halfway and, by touching on the matter that so paralyzed him, help him lay down that heavy burden and thus bring a little relief to his poor troubled soul. He must have sensed this impulse in me, because, leaning closer, he suddenly put one hand familiarly on my knee:
“Betty, I desperately need your help. If you knew how much a word from you would mean to me at this moment . . .”
“Oh, Senhor Valdo!” I cried, and my eyes filled with tears.
He bowed his head, as if searching for the best place to begin, and he was so overwhelmed by emotion
that he was almost panting. (My thoughts inevitably went back to another time, many years earlier, when, again, he had summoned me in order to ask me to keep a family secret—and when I compared those two occasions, it seemed to me he had been less upset and had got to the point far more quickly on that earlier occasion. Perhaps the difference was simply that he had aged, and, sitting there before me, he seemed to be blindly grappling with some deeply shameful matter. But then, as now, I could not help him, and whatever it was he wanted to tell me, he would have to do so of his own volition, not prompted by my pity.)
“Ah, Betty, Betty!” and with that cry, he turned to me like a vast open sky torn in two by a flash of lightning. “Betty! What can I say? I need your help, she is here, and it’s just terrible!”
So that was it. That was the cause of his suffering, and I wasn’t in the least surprised, because, the moment he came into the kitchen, I knew what it was about. However, I had never imagined things had gone so far, nor that he would feel so defenseless in the face of danger, so hopelessly indecisive. If there really was a danger, as Senhor Demétrio had so often pointed out to him, should he not have taken steps in order to safeguard not just his own happiness, which would require no effort at all, but also the untouchable purity of those around him? What I was hearing was the despairing cry of a man surrendering to fate. And if so, if he lacked the strength to condemn her outright, this was because his suspicions had not yet put on flesh, and the evil seeds sown by his brother had not borne the fruit of justice that should have destroyed her forever. But how could they think such dreadful things about a person? He had already tested me out on another occasion, and in different circumstances, and then he had received from me only what the truth told me I should say. And now, again, I had to be bold and say what I thought.
Chronicle of the Murdered House Page 28
