With the perspicacity of those who have long been turned in upon themselves, he understood that, with those simple words, he had crossed a line—so iron-clad was his emotional discipline, and so unaccustomed was he to making concessions to mere human frailties. And returning to his more usual manner, he replied with a nod of the head. The meeting was over. Then something happened that I certainly wasn’t expecting. I turned to leave for the second time, and I again heard his voice:
“And in the event . . . in the event of . . .”
I turned around. He was standing up, leaning slightly forward, and it struck me that he was markedly paler than before, perhaps on account of the sheer effort he was making. I did not reply at once because a curious change was taking place in my mind. From where I now stood—around ten paces away—I examined my brother and, for the first time in my life, I saw how fragile and alone he was. He wasn’t a man who lived by the kindness of others, looking for favors or seeking their indulgence; he had no need of that, and never revealed the slightest flaw in his nature that might incline anyone toward sympathy. On the contrary, he had always hidden himself away, aloof and enclosed as if behind solid walls, incapable of any expression or movement that might arouse the interest or affection of his fellow creatures. For he was completely ignorant of any form of human communication, and since he never conceded anything in such matters, neither did he receive anything in return. His existence, at least as far as I could tell, was identical to that of certain plants, mysteries of Nature, that live a rootless, niggardly existence suspended entirely in the air. But now he was different—and the suddenness of that change made me wonder if everything else was pure artifice. He had stood up intending to utter a cry, but even that, feeble though it was, seemed to diminish him and make him vulnerable to my compassion, shedding a brutal light that cut him in two—one half dense and secret, the other cool and composed, both halves displaying their inner workings like a building that suddenly opens up before our eyes. He looked smaller, a mean, humiliated figure in his dull, dark clothes, his aura of authority dissolving as if by magic. And there, defenseless before me, stood the real Demétrio, in as much need of compassion as any other human being caught in the wheels of the unexpected and the dramatic.
“In the event of . . .” I repeated, not wishing to finish the phrase and hoping he would do so himself.
I saw his lips tremble and he let out a deep sigh:
“In the event of something happening, an accident of some sort.”
He was skirting around the danger, not daring to say the word and suffering like all of us. My satisfaction on discovering this was so great that I had to control my feelings before I could reply with the necessary feigned indifference:
“Betty and Ana are in there with her. And André will always be somewhere nearby.”
This information did not seem to please him very much; he remained standing, his hand resting on the back of the chair as if he needed support. And so, with a shrug, he finally seemed inclined to let me leave. Before going, however, when I was already at the door, I turned to look at him one last time: he stared back at me, as if waiting for a gesture from me, a word of solidarity, or whatever it was that might save him from himself, from being abandoned there at the mercy of the unknown events bearing down on him. We stood there looking at one another for a moment, and I can guarantee that, just as when a conspiracy is revealed, I suddenly understood his silence, the hostility, the impenetrable Meneses aura with which he surrounded himself, the origins of his supposed superiority to me and everyone else—he, Demétrio, a little man, whose heart certainly no longer functioned normally, and who was now returning to his proper place, gutless and torn apart by timidity and indecision. Ah, yes, I must confess this discovery gave me a frisson of pleasure, and I smiled. It was the first time I had smiled like that, and there was neither triumph nor disdain in my smile, just the certainty that we had reached the frontier he had so feared, and where, finally, it was not just him or me crumbling into dust, but the entire edifice of our despotic family, built upon pride and position and possessions and money. He could see what was going through my mind, for his anger made him turn paler still and I saw him grip the chair-back even more tightly, as if he were crushing it, but the truth was that, just then, he needed me more than I needed him. Why? The question hung, unasked, in the clear, crystalline air. I still did not know the reasons, if any reasons existed, but at that moment, facing each other across the drawing room, which also seemed not to know him—him, the master, the head of the family, the eldest brother—I could swear that there was very little to choose between us, except that he was far, far unhappier than I was.
The door closed behind me and I found myself in the hallway. I had scarcely taken a step when I saw the figure of Ana approaching. I can’t explain why, and possibly there was no reason, but every time I saw my sister-in-law I felt a certain unease. However discreet and silent she was, apparently trying as hard as she could to occupy as little space as possible, I could not help feeling that her life was ruled by mysterious thoughts and that her every gesture, even the most banal and meaningless, obeyed some silent motive which she dared not reveal to anyone. In the hallway, unfortunately, it was impossible to avoid her.
“Is she sleeping?” I asked as we passed each other.
She gave me an apparently expressionless look. I repeated the question.
“No, she’s awake,” she said. “But she seems more comfortable.”
She clearly wasn’t going to say any more, and was about to move away, when I caught her arm:
“I’m going away, Ana.”
She stared at me somewhat taken aback, but waited for me to explain. I told her I was going to find a specialist, and that I probably wouldn’t be away for more than two or three days—just enough time for me to find some sensible, responsible doctor who would be willing to come back with me to the Chácara. She was still staring at me dubiously, as if casting doubt not on my words, but on the relevance of my actions. And indeed the more I spoke, the more unjustified my reasons seemed, and the journey suddenly seemed ill-timed and pointless. When I stopped speaking, she merely said:
“Very well.”
But seeing that I did not move, she added:
“Betty and I will take care of everything. There’s no need to worry.”
That was all we had to say to each other. She walked away and, for a moment, I followed her with my eyes and watched as she disappeared into the drawing room. It struck me how completely Ana had assimilated the Meneses way of being; how she had embraced the austere lifestyle of the Chácara and learned to be parsimonious in word and deed. Nina, on the contrary, had never adapted, and had lived there like a perpetual excrescence, always on the point of leaving, always coming back. Even now Ana showed just how much she had entered into the spirit of the family, accepting the current situation without a murmur, lending her silent support without anyone asking her to or even reminding her of her duty. Perhaps there really was some mystery hidden deep inside her, but whatever it might be, I was quite sure it would never surface, for she would rather die than share her true feelings with anyone. As these thoughts were going through my mind, I made my way out into the garden. I wanted to be alone before my departure, so as to gather my thoughts and plan what I was going to do. As I walked through the darkness, I looked back at the house all lit up, its windows open, shadows moving about inside; the Chácara, always apparently so tranquil, looked very different to those of us who knew its habits. It was curious to see and there was even a certain charm about it—a new breeze seemed to blow through the house and it stood there attentively, as if prepared for important events. I couldn’t remember ever having seen the house so ready, and I would perhaps have been proud of its new demeanor if it did not bring with it a heavy heart and a sense that, like certain gravely ill patients, it was only opening its eyes now in order to witness its own demise.
45.
Ana’s Last Confession (i)
I w
as the first to discover the bad smell. I was sitting next to Demétrio, the presence of illness in the house having somehow brought us a little closer. He had finally emerged both from his room and, very slightly, from his customary reserve: he walked about the house now, looked at the other people, and seemed even to expect some explanation from them. Once, I even found him going very slowly down the steps into the garden, his hand shading his eyes from the bright sun: with his head of white hair, ruffled by the light breeze, he cut a very odd figure. Indeed, he rather resembled a relic that has stepped out of its casket. Seeing him prepared to sally forth into the daylight made me wonder if he was afraid. Did he feel death haunting the house? Why else would he abandon familiar territory and venture into places where he had never previously set foot?
Spending, as we did, long hours alone in each other’s company, we were bound together by expectation. We occasionally exchanged a word or two, although without making any direct reference to the illness, but however carefully we maintained that silence, whichever way we turned, the illness and the room outside of which death was lurking were always there between us. I would often secretly examine my husband, and I became aware, almost moment by moment, of his growing decrepitude. This realization filled me with rebellious thoughts, and I, who had always been his faithful shadow, now took certain liberties, I would occasionally leave his side or deliberately not answer his questions, pretending I was asleep—and he would put up with it. His eyes seemed to be begging me to say something, and without knowing exactly what that something was, I could sense its meaning.
One day, when we were, as usual, sitting side by side, both of us pretending to doze—our mutual defense—I looked up and asked:
“What’s that?”
He immediately opened his eyes:
“What?”
“That smell.”
He took a deep breath, then, shaking his head, said:
“I can’t smell anything.”
“It’s coming from the hallway . . .”
He took another breath, and this time he agreed:
“Hm, perhaps it’s the smell of some medicine or other.”
“Yes,” I said, “but mixed with something else.”
I did not, however, have the courage to name that “something else.” We remained sitting in the same position, me patiently knitting, and him staring into space—but the image of the thing we dared not name was there in the air between us, astute and cold. Now and then, he would again raise his head and take another deep breath, doubtless trying to ascertain whether the bad smell was still there or had vanished on the breeze. It had not, of course, and while I continued busily knitting, I could easily feel, with no effort at all, that the smell was growing stronger or, rather, establishing itself and filling all the empty spaces in the house. It wasn’t a passing wave, a mere odor wafted in by the wind from some heap of excrement or a dead animal lying somewhere. Demétrio had, by then, realized what it was.
“You had better go and see,” he said, fidgeting in his chair.
“Why?”
“To find out what’s happening.”
I stopped my work, put down my knitting, stood up and, without another word, went to the patient’s room. As I approached, the smell grew more persistent, revealing the laboratory where it was being processed. And I should say right away that it was not the continuous, insinuating bad smell that, later, pursued us day after day, impregnating everything—clothes, cups, furniture and utensils—with its saccharin odor of death. Just then, as I approached the room, I still found it bearable, thinking it merely a bad smell, even though it turned my stomach, but it would not be long before I could only walk about the house with a handkerchief pressed to my nose. I had seen other people die, sadly, abruptly and with no smell at all—my own mother, for example, who had died of a stroke—but this was the first time I had seen someone decomposing as if under the influence of some violent internal combustion.
I went into the room and, in the darkness, saw Betty straightening the pillows. She seemed untroubled by that atmosphere saturated with strange odors. As soon as she saw me, she put one finger to her lips.
“She’s sleeping,” she whispered.
We huddled in a corner and, indicating the handkerchief I had now produced, I asked if she knew where the smell was coming from. She seemed troubled and said:
“I don’t know, but something’s definitely not right, and she knows it.”
“Has she said anything?” I asked, with a hint of prurient curiosity.
She glanced over at the bed, then drew me farther away, as if fearing her patient might overhear her indiscretion.
“Poor lady!” she murmured. “When I was changing the bedding, she said: ‘Betty, I think I’m rotting away inside.’ I told her the smell was to do with the extremely hot weather. She shook her head and said: ‘No, it isn’t. If you wouldn’t mind, would you do me a favor?’
And when I asked her what that favor was, she said: ‘Could you rub my body with eau de cologne?’”
“And did you?”
Betty looked at me, shocked:
“Of course I did. And if you saw the state of her back . . .”
“What do you mean?”
“It’s like one big sore.”
“But how come,” I said, surprised at what she was telling me, “when there’s been no sign of anything like that.”
Betty pointed to a pile of sheets thrown down in one corner:
“You see those?”
“What are they?”
“Sheets covered in blood.”
We stood in silence, listening to the labored breathing coming from the bed. Perhaps hoping to take advantage of my being there, Betty bent down to pick up the sheets. I was filled with a sudden horror of being left alone with that decomposing presence.
“No, let me do that, Betty. It’s best if you stay here.”
And I took the bundle from her. The smell it gave off was far more intense, and it was easy to see now what it was: bad blood mixed with some other fetid, greenish substance. I again pressed my handkerchief to my nose and left the room, the bundle under my arm. In the hallway I met Demétrio, who, too impatient to wait for me in the drawing room, was pacing up and down in the hallway. As soon as I saw him, I feared I would have to tell him what was happening, but one glance at the sheets was all it took, and I could see that he had understood everything.
I went out into the backyard, in order to put the dirty sheets in the laundry basin. In the dusk now filling the air, I looked back at the Chácara, which, with all the windows open and the lights on, stood out with unusual clarity. We weren’t used to seeing it like that. Anyone observing it from a distance would have found its invaded, violated appearance strange. And yet, there was in the metamorphosis it was undergoing, from the roof down to its most secret underpinnings, a silence, a waiting, which gave it a dignified humanity. Looking at it now, it was impossible not to see how important that moment was: as if the house were waiting with rapt attention for the storm to pass. Up above, in the blue air, I could hear the roar of an invisible current, the wind, and the house was also doubtless listening to that gale with its stone ears, stone nerves, stone soul, silent and evocative, like a musical instrument lying dying in the vast countryside. I myself, why deny it, felt I was being transformed too, as if my very essence were dissolving, decomposing, becoming part of the sickly air impregnating everything, and creating for me, in the void, an entirely new situation. Yes, whatever I did, however I struggled and argued with the facts, the truth is, I had not expected her to die, and certainly not like that. To me, this was not a normal end or a solution to many painful, problematic things—this was not a natural fading-away, like a thing disappearing, all sharp edges smoothed away, all dissonances vanished, with everything finally being thrown into the bottomless pit of time—no, this was a sudden, senseless punishment, an act of aggression, a sign of a righteous god’s will or wrath. And yet, however strange I found the effect of that death,
I had to acknowledge the existence of a divine Providence watching over all of us, and no one could tell me otherwise, not even Father Justino. The proof was that pile of bloodied sheets, and I had no doubt that they bore solemn witness to the fact that my prayers had been answered. As I was thinking this, I clutched the bundle to me, like someone pressing to her heart a token of friendship. What did I care if the sheets stank, what did I care if they were drenched in sweat and in her dying breath: burying my nose in them, it was as if I were smelling a bunch of fresh roses, for what that blood-stained ball exuded was not revenge, but an exciting, carnal odor of blood and spring. I even waltzed around with them; above me, invisible chords were playing a victory song, and I spun around as if I were drunk, and with me spun the landscape in that first and only dance in which I allowed the joy of my entire being to overflow. Anyone seeing me would think I had gone mad, and they would not have been far wrong, because such solitary joy is like a glass of champagne knocked back in one: it immediately turns the head and produces an effervescence very similar to that experienced by those who have lost their wits. I don’t know how long I danced around like that in the dark, embracing that ghost composed of crumpled sheets; I know only that I turned and turned, feeling in my nostrils a strong scent of violets and crushed heliotropes, like the scent given off by a drawer in which old ball gowns have been stored away. Finally, panting and sweating, I sat down next to the laundry basin. The bundle fell from my arms. For a while, I sat, motionless, my face resting on the cold concrete base. God does exist, I kept repeating to myself, an unbending God capable of unleashing his thunderbolt even on his favorite creations—even on those favorites, who, like Nina, had infringed the strict laws to which all human beings must submit. Now I could live in peace, because I was sure God had heard me and was not indifferent to my poor prayers. My feeling of amazement had nothing to do with the ferocity of the decree handed down, and knowing that brought me a kind of barren serenity, lacking in subtlety and in joy too. What I was enjoying as I finished my dance was the consolation of a mission completed.
Chronicle of the Murdered House Page 49
