Was I mistaken? Like the flag of a famous victory planted on some nondescript and nameless hill, I saw in him a Meneses—yes, a Meneses, with all the physical characteristics of a Meneses: his pale complexion, his prominent nose, his tendency to sloth and apathy, as ruthless in his aims as any other, as steadfast in his ideals, and as implacable and resentful as Demétrio himself. In short, a true Meneses.
More objectively, I noticed that he appeared dazzled. Accustomed to darkness, he suffered the myopia of all nocturnal creatures and, suddenly plucked from his usual habitat, he hesitated, blinking in the woundingly bright light. Then, steadying himself, he made straight for the coffin. He stretched out his arm and scattered a handful of violets over the body. It’s hard to be entirely certain what happened next: I only know (because it made such an impression on me) that absolute silence reigned, as if we were all waiting for a sentence to be read out. Borne aloft by a mysterious power far greater than ourselves, we soared free and weightless, the shadows of our mortal flesh and bones projected onto a backdrop of supernatural occurrences, against which were being played out not the petty details of our own miserable adventures, but the grand finale of an intricate dance in which there twirled and pranced the ghostly projections of the angels and demons buried deep within us. Suddenly, Timóteo, who had stooped down over Nina’s body as if to receive his orders, straightened up again, looked around one last time, and settled his gaze on the Baron. There, in all his baleful presence, sat the man who encapsulated all of Demétrio’s dreams, ambitions, and respect, and he was holding a piece of crumbling pastry in his hand. I repeat: I don’t know what happened next, nor what gesture of defiance or scandalous temerity Timóteo dared to commit—after all, insanity knows no limits. I noticed only that his eyes circled around the room and alighted on something, as if making a great discovery. Then he staggered, as if under the weight of an unexpected blow. I followed his gaze and saw, standing slightly apart from the group now huddled in the drawing room, my son, André. He was the person Timóteo was looking at, and Timóteo’s eyes shone so intensely, so revealingly, that they seemed to be acknowledging an old acquaintance, rather than catching sight of a complete stranger for the first time. He had not, of course, ever met or even seen André, for I had never let the boy enter Timóteo’s room. So the look of surprise on Timóteo’s face made no sense at all, and was made even stranger by that inexplicable air of familiarity, as if they already knew each other. Finally, he looked away from the boy and, as if this were somehow an answer whose meaning no one could understand, I thought I saw him raise his hand and slap the corpse’s face. Yes, he slapped the corpse. I have no idea why he did it, and even today the question still haunts me. Was it simply to demonstrate how little importance he attached to normal human behavior? Surely not, for on that score he had already crossed every possible boundary. Was it to challenge some occult force lurking in the dead woman’s shadow? Possibly. But as I said, I was never able to fathom the meaning of that strange gesture.
Then, in what was the crowning moment of the grand ceremony unfolding before us, a hoarse, inhuman sound emerged from his lips, and before I could ascertain the reason, I saw him turn on his heels and fall to the floor, clearly having suffered a stroke. But, oddly, he did not sway and fall in the way a normal person would when suffering such an attack. Rather, he spun around for a second and with him all his jewels. It was as if a medieval tower, studded with precious stones and mosaics, were suddenly shaken to its foundations, to its very core, and its luxurious rubble shimmered with a thousand colors like a shattered stained-glass window: amethyst necklaces, sapphire and diamond bracelets, emerald brooches, gold and ruby earrings, pearls, beryls, opals, all setting the whole room glittering with their splendid eyes, which, briefly, blazed with life, and then with one final, furtive glimmer, fell limp and lifeless on his prostrate body.
Among the onlookers it was as if a spell had been broken. I heard cries and voices, while the more attentive among them rushed forward to help. Meanwhile, the others, as if the retreat had sounded, began prudently to leave.
54.
From Timóteo’s Memoirs (ii)
I don’t know if it’s day or night, but it scarcely matters to me, since nothing in this world matters to me any more. A single force embraces and enthralls me, and my whole body throbs like a whirring dynamo. Yes, it’s hot, so the sun must be beating down outside. As I climb into the hammock, I lean over and shout: “Quick!”, and as the servants still seem to hesitate—is it the weight? the heat?—I again shout “Quick!” and beat my fists against the sides of the hammock. Their black skins gleam with sweat. (In the old days, when Anastácia used to carry me in her arms, I would ask her why her skin was so black, and she would reply: “Ah, master, that’s because where I was born there ain’t no day.”) An intense brightness envelops me, and I think I might faint from the shock of entering this world of sharp lines and angles. There seems to me to be an excess of color and the air itself seems full of drifting, weaving currents of fire. At the end of the verandah, the foliage shimmers in the sunlight, and from the kitchen comes the shrill, monotonous cry of a caged parakeet. I could never have imagined that the day could be so cruel; my body, so used to darkness, is pierced by a thousand darts of light. I give the order once again: “Quick!” and my voice, imperious and commanding, is like a crystal shattering into pieces. And off we go at a steady pace, while I think to myself: “What if the Baron has already left? What if Betty told me too late?” And at the same time, as I proceed down the hallway, familiar objects, forgotten details from my childhood come flooding back. That blazing pane of red glass high above the verandah, for example. The buzzing of a bee, only it isn’t a bee, it’s a fixed point in my head, a single prolonged note drilling through me. I lean over and tap the gleaming back of the servant closest to me. “It’s old Anastácia who runs the kitchen, and you’d never guess that she’s over a hundred . . .” And while all these memories rush into my mind, I suddenly find myself at the open door of the drawing room. I hear the muffled rumble of water beating against its four walls; I see small groups of people and hear a rustle of whispers. The drawing room hasn’t escaped the force of the searing sun outside, and in the sultry heat the visitors sweat and breathe with difficulty. From time to time, like an enormous mouth blowing in through the windows, a warm breeze crosses the room. The black servants stop and the voices stop: behold, my enemies stand before me. (Later on, sitting beside me and cooling my brow with a damp cloth, Betty will tell me: “Didn’t you recognize her? That tall woman in a purple dress was Donana de Lara—don’t you remember her? And the thin one dripping with jewels was the Baron de Santo Tirso’s daughter. Very old, but stinking rich. Didn’t you see Dona Mariana, from the Fundão plantation? And there were people from the town too. Senhor Aurélio from the pharmacy, Colonel Elídio Carmo, lots of them. I’ve never seen the house so full of people.”
I don’t know what impression I cause (and indeed I don’t give it a moment’s thought), but their stares reveal a degree of stupefaction. The hammock is still swaying, and I ask the servants to put me down. I sense I’ve gone a little too far, perhaps it’s these old-fashioned clothes, or perhaps these jewels that no one knows about, the necklaces and bracelets I stole from my mother’s jewelery box, or perhaps it’s my hair, which I haven’t washed or brushed in a long time. (Why would I? Who for? Life only has meaning when we want to reinforce the image of our idea of beauty in the eyes of another.) Standing there in all my lavish glory, I face down their stares as if I had just arrived from another world. At the far end of the room, almost against the wall, the dead woman lies stretched out, with a candle beside her. I go over to her, the bunch of violets in my hand. (Strangely, the space seems enormous and I walk with difficulty. Will they notice what’s happening to me?) Perhaps at one time I would have hesitated, but there’s no human force now that can hold me back. I move forward, and my eyes involuntarily, spontaneously, from deep within me, look for those brothers of mine who
I haven’t seen for years. There’s Valdo standing over there; it must be him, as thin and erect as ever. Perhaps not exactly aged, but more angular. The other one, farther off, beside the table with the body, is Demétrio: yes, he has aged and not in a way that smoothes and softens, but as if a burning fire had been lit inside him, leaving a trail of destruction in its blackened wake. His eyes gleam, and I realize he is watching my every move. What does he find strangest about me: the manner of my appearance in front of all these people whom he so respects? Or the jewels that cover me and sparkle with a thousand colors every time I move? What must he be saying to himself? What must he think of this pantomime that he cannot truly understand, but which, with all the shallow haste of superficial people, he must by now have already classified and catalogued? As I approach, people draw back—you would think I was wearing not emeralds and topazes, but the mark of some dread disease, a leper to be avoided at all costs. (Tucked up in their beds, on a night that will become the saddest in their lives, they will find out the reason for their disgust. For they will discover, with no possibility of escape or hope of salvation, the fiery tattoo with which it brands its chosen ones. And before the break of day, they will invent colors, perfumes, and sweet names for this mark, hoping that it turns into a flower. But no, it will obstinately continue to plague them, searing them like a wound, until finally the light of their existence is extinguished.) All around me now is a stagnant lake of silence. Finally, I see the sharp outline of the dead woman’s face under the sheet, and suddenly the room no longer exists, nor do the people staring at me, nor does anything that has gone before, not even the dream of which we are the living embodiment. We are nothing but our foolish impulses, which float above truth and time like ethereal, inhuman breezes.
I dare to reach out my hand and draw back the sheet: Nina. Here she is, her hollow cheeks, her slightly aquiline nose. I see her again, alive, as she was that day I went to find her in the Pavilion. She seemed happy then and had that air about her of someone who is at ease with herself. Her voice, capable of such abrupt mutations, saying: “When I die, Timóteo, I want you to bring me some violets.” Well, here they are, Nina. (At the moment I reach out my hand to place these violets in your coffin, just as I promised, just as you made me swear that day, I want there to be a brief moment of pure light and understanding between us. I never said as much to anyone, and I never would, if I didn’t know that somewhere far from this world you were able to understand everything about this confused comedy of ours. I would never say it, Nina, because outrage was always my first response when confronted by love. Long before the music of passion breathed into me its golden notes of madness, I had already renounced any semblance of decency and had challenged men with the image of something which—ah, poor me!—I could not accept without despising myself. I’m one of those people who cannot live without exaltation: I consciously debased myself because I felt I was less worthy than the others and that it was through martyrdom that I would raise myself above them and become the greatest of them all. The day came, Nina, when martyrdom could take me no further, and the grotesque clothes I put on became less of a snub to the others than a suit of leaden, deadly armor.
I remember the early morning, when the birds would be singing in the trees in the garden outside my window. That was the only time I dared draw back the curtain a little and gaze with indescribable pleasure upon a world that seemed to me the only one that merited any attention at all, for it was touched by purity. The world of morning, with its flowers that had bloomed during the night and the first breezes coming down from the distant mountains. The world to which I bade farewell forever.
Well, it was at precisely one such moment that I saw him. My hand trembled and I hastily drew the curtain shut. I had seen him, and he was the only living soul out there among the flowers. It was a man, Nina, young and fair-haired like a delicate pagan god, intoxicated with life and with himself. Do you recognize him now, Nina? Can you find him in that far-off place of yours? Can you see him, Nina, just as afterward we so often had to reinvent him just to satisfy our thirst, our impatience, our longing for him? He was a man, and the same trembling hand that had closed the curtain pulled it open again, a-quiver with all the surprises this world can bring. Yes, a man. But he wasn’t standing by my window and he wasn’t looking at me. He was looking at something in the window next to mine—and that window was yours, Nina. I kept it a secret, and I’m revealing it now as an act of gratitude. For that discovery, the daily vision of that man, was the one thing that nourished me during my long exile shut up in that room. It was my only contact with the world, the only sad and solitary intrigue in which I participated, ever since I chose to sacrifice myself for the pity of others. How many times, as he disappeared from view and the curtain fell once more on my darkness, did I feel a little of that blond flash of morning sun still burning my retina, still lingering in my hands! But I wasn’t fooled—it was your window, Nina, and every morning, in the sweetest and most spring-like of homages, he would carefully place a little bunch of violets on your windowsill. And then I, who had nothing but the vision of him for one moment each day and who lived only for the moment when I pulled back the corner of my curtain, I would wait until he had gone and, reaching out my arm—our windows were so close, Nina!—I would take the flowers for myself. It was like finally receiving in my hands a small fragment of the world, of his essence, of him. For now I know, Nina: youth smells of sweet violets. It’s difficult to say precisely how long my little game went on for. I only know that I lived on it for days and days, or at least as long as the season for violets lasted. Then, when you left for the first time (it’s strange, Nina, but one way or another you always seem to be leaving) and your window never opened again, how I suffered to watch him pass mournfully by that window where no one now lived! How inconsolably I suffered, the hours and hours I spent pacing restlessly around my room until the night outside fell upon me too, the sun darkened for the last time and he never again appeared because now there were no more mornings. And so I entered that natural death we call eternal night, all-embracing and all-encompassing, both inside and out.)
What a powerful thing the voice is: the echo of what she told me is more alive within me than the memory of her face. Was she beautiful? Yes, but the other Nina, not this one. The dead Nina is a creature reduced to her primitive, brute nature, her earthly matter. The Nina I knew, so restless, so fired by an inner flame that the others never managed either to locate or extinguish, no matter how they tried to hem her in or pin her down. It is a terrible truth, but we condemn everything that we love, first, to the slow death of our admiration, then to the insanity of our desires. In trying so hard to touch her fleeting spirit, we never succeeded in enslaving her (as was clearly our intention), but we were able to reduce her to this poor corpse lying here before me. Good, kind, amiable Nina? No, that’s nonsense. But evil, cruel Nina? No, that’s a lie too! For never had anyone so defied classification, so defied the petty strictures of human truth. Truth is not human, Nina. Do you remember the day . . .
There, I pay my secret debt. With a barely suppressed sob—that miserable body represents so many things to me—I scatter the flowers over her. Yes, Nina, there was a day, long ago now, when we scarcely dared to dream that victory would be ours. The alliance we later forged did not yet exist and we had not yet worked out the full extent of our plan. I was young and you were too—youth was the first thing that bound us together in this house of old people. I already had an inkling of it, though, on that other day, when, outside my window, I found a rose that had opened with the dawn. And so, standing before each another in that dawn, when my plan of vengeance was still in its infancy, I said: “The truth, Nina. Only the truth matters.”
The truth was lying there before me. I bent slowly over the body and looked at her drawn, shrunken face, her black, hollow eye sockets. I remembered that when she was alive I had only ever met her in the darkness of my room—I had no clue how she would react to the light, nor how she sm
iled, nor how her eyes sparkled when she spoke to others. Dead, her face told me little; it was a cold, brutish thing, as if roughly molded from clay. And yet those tight lips were trying to say something—a word, an answer, who knows. I leaned closer, so that my face almost touched the sheet covering the body. And, the closer I got, the more I realized that the word, the answer, would come not just from her mouth, but from her whole body. I leaned still closer, almost lying on top of her, because the dead speak softly and their hidden language travels the entire length of their stiff bodies. In her resolute silence she represented the cold indifference of the earth, where one day I too would lie equally indifferent to those who gazed upon me. Then something, I don’t know what, broke inside me and I stood up, my forehead dripping with sweat. I looked around me and saw that everyone was watching me. I scanned the room and what I saw made me tremble from head to foot: theirs was a petty, mean-spirited, suffering humanity, corralled like cattle within their own ineptitude and with no hope of escape. No breath of poetry, no touch of the supernatural would ever come to their rescue. They stood around the body awkwardly, expectantly, like vultures waiting for the opportune moment. I saw that this was the answer from those thin lips, closed now upon their own darkness. The path they showed me was the path to hell—a petty, human hell composed of all the infamies, foibles, and ordure of daily life. Suddenly a feeling came over me, a thirst for justice so strong that my eyes glazed over and my heart contracted as if in prayer. Oh, God! How I needed to believe in immortality! And yet, at the same time, I asked myself whether a Meneses could ever believe in immortality. My whole being was filled by such a strong need to transform and exalt mankind that I dared to open my lips and offer these words: “God, if you truly exist, then perform a miracle. Give me this miracle, O God in heaven, for I do not want to be merely the guardian of a corpse waiting to rot.” I begged so earnestly that my whole body seemed to change, as if a scarlet wave of fire and hope washed over me. And it was then, Nina, that I opened my eyes and saw him, him, Nina—the young man with the violets. There he was standing slightly apart from the others, as fair-haired as he was all those years ago and still young, his head up, as if to confront that look of surprise on my face. He arose like an angel above the devastation of his suicide and hovered, immortal, before my eyes. Then I understood everything, Nina: how we had sinned and how wrong we had been. The answer was not to be found in the dark cavity of your mouth, nor in your poor body destined for the worms. It was there, Nina, in the miracle of that resurrection, in him, eternally young, as you had once been. God is like a bed of violets whose season never ends, Nina. Once again, I felt myself soaring above everything, and the eternity I had so forcefully demanded opened before me and I slid into an abyss of music. Love is immortal, Nina, only love is immortal. Not the love that is simply the desire for the body, the hands, the face, the eyes, all of which give rise to false and short-lived sensations, but, rather, the spirit that produces the love of these things and transforms them, creating them out of nothing when they no longer exist. I felt I had been saved, Nina, I who had lost my way through my own excessive shame—and I felt saved not because I had freed myself from that shame, but simply because by clinging to that vision of beauty, I planted within my feeble self a faith in something, and through that faith I knew another Faith would come. Because God is vast, Nina, and with him there is no end to understanding, forgiveness, and beauty.
Chronicle of the Murdered House Page 57
