Chronicle of the Murdered House

by Lúcio Cardoso

  Valdo showed little interest in her plan. Firstly, because he knew Nina well, and secondly, because he was far too immersed in his own sorrows to give the necessary attention to such an unlikely proposal. He simply shrugged, and Ana concluded that she had won.

  It was not difficult to imagine what she was going to do in the capital. After studying minutely the details of the journey, she said her goodbyes and left the Chácara, taking up rooms in an obscure boarding house in Flamengo. From there she began to write a series of letters intended to deceive her husband and Valdo (for Ana was quite convinced her sister-in-law would never under any circumstances return to Vila Velha, and so there was no need to try and find her), saying that she had found the fugitive, but that she was sick and needed to be looked after, and that they could not, therefore, return until Nina was completely cured. So as to avoid any awkward questions, she added that Nina’s illness appeared to consist of nervous instability and physical exhaustion, and other more or less obscure symptoms of some non-existent disease. Demétrio replied once or twice to her letters, sending her money and telling her to take her time. And so Ana stayed, while the real motive for her visit, her pregnancy, advanced toward its conclusion. As for Nina, Ana did not at first go to see her, but she did find out where she lived, both in order to salve her conscience and because she knew that sooner or later she would be obliged to go and find her. At this time, Nina was living in a luxury hotel, or so it seemed to Ana’s inexpert eye. On certain afternoons, walking slowly on account of her condition, she went as far as the door of the hotel and spoke to the doorman and to the other staff, trying to piece together the details of her sister-in-law’s new life. Ah yes, Nina was living well, on her own, whiling away her hours in that bourgeois hotel. She had always had the gift of being able to choose luxury and idleness over anything else. Then, when Ana sensed the birth was approaching, she took herself off to a hospital. A few days later, she returned with a son in her arms. And only then did she decide to go and find Nina. Only then was she ready to appear before her. Nina was still in bed and took fright when she saw Ana, dressed entirely in black, standing motionless in the doorway. At first, neither of them spoke, but merely scrutinized each other cruelly. Finally, Ana stepped forward and spoke. She had come to fetch her. Valdo wanted her to come home. Nina laughed: she would never go back. That was her final answer. Still standing, Ana stared at her coldly, for it could scarcely be said that she had expected any other answer. And when Nina scornfully showed her the new clothes and jewelry she owned, adding that she would never give them up for the bland, insipid life of the Chácara, Ana asked calmly where the child was, the Meneses’ heir. It was Nina’s turn to stop in her tracks then and stare at her in astonishment: the child? How could Ana be so naïve as to think that she, Nina, would keep the offspring of that despicable clan? She had no idea where he was; she had left him at the hospital where he was born, with one of the nurses. She had made a point of abandoning him. (Nina was certainly capable of such a thing. She was certainly cruel enough to do that, her flaws were what made her the person she was. Cold? Indifferent? But perhaps she should not be judged on that one action.) Ana merely said: “I’ll go and find him.” And although Nina did not reply, she was nevertheless sure that Ana really would go and find him. Why? Simply because that was how it should be, and in stating that she would never return to the Chácara, she was probably only telling half the truth. She knew vaguely that she would return one day. When? Well it scarcely mattered. But when the moment came, she would need an alibi, a reason to confront the hostile gaze of the Meneses again. And so Ana left. And then she confessed to me, her eyes fixed on mine, that she had never gone to the hospital and had never tried to find any of the nurses. The boy she had brought back to the Chácara as Nina’s son was not Valdo’s heir and he wasn’t a Meneses either; he was the fruit of her own passion for the gardener. Valdo had not asked any questions and had not even shown the slightest sign of gratitude for the news she had brought him. It was as if during all the time she had been away only one day had passed at the Chácara; one long, heavy day filled with silence, shadows, and resentment.

  In that stifling room in the Pavilion, the dying woman tried to grab my hands. Her voice was almost inaudible after her long account of events, but even so, freed of the weight that burdened her, she seemed to gain a final burst of energy.

  “That is what I did, Father. André was my son, not hers.”

  There was a pause.

  “But, my child, during all that time, did you not even once, just once, think of him as your son and treat him as such?”

  “My son!” Her voice rang out almost angrily. “What did it matter to me if he was my son? He was alive. He had everything he could possibly need. How could I accept him or consider him a son of mine when everything within me froze at the mere idea of it, at the thought of my husband’s reaction and my punishment. Ah, Father, no one enters the Meneses family with impunity!”

  “But not even for one single day, not even for a single minute . . .”

  She seemed to remember something:

  “Yes, there was one day. A long time ago. She told me that his eyes and mouth reminded her of Alberto. So I went into his room and tried to force him . . . But Father, why remember such things now?”

  It was clearly pointless for me to insist; she would not understand then, just as she had never understood.

  “But,” I asked, “didn’t Nina ever realize the truth?”

  Ana heaved herself up on her elbows. I could see her eyes shining again:

  “That is something I have always suspected, Father. Nina must have known André was not her son. On one occasion”—and even I trembled at what she said—“I came across her crying in the little storeroom off the hallway. It was the same place where they had laid Valdo on a couch after his attempted suicide. Nina was sitting on the couch with a crumpled piece of paper in her hands, probably a letter. Seeing her so distressed, I sensed (although I don’t know why) that my moment of triumph had arrived: that piece of paper, that letter, must be the proof of some misdemeanor, a crime perhaps, which, when revealed, would destroy her forever in the eyes of everyone. What mad, unbounded hope seized me at that moment! I threw myself upon her and tried to snatch the document from her. She did her best to stop me and then, when she saw that she could not fend me off, she cried out just one word, a man’s name: ‘Glael!’ I froze, and at the same time I had the feeling that she had just named someone sacred, someone I did not know and who was probably her real son, conceived of her own flesh. Had she lied to me? Had she, in fact, not abandoned him anonymously to the tender mercies of a nurse? I don’t know, because that woman was contradiction personified, and there was a side to her entirely plunged in darkness. I didn’t have the courage to persist and so I left her. It was time to go, and, in any case, I could already see Valdo coming down the hallway.”

  Noting my silence, Ana touched my arm:

  “And during all that time, Father, she allowed André to think he was committing the most heinous of sins.”

  “Is that possible?” I could not hold back a groan. I was almost struggling for air.

  “Compared to all the rest, Father, isn’t that the worst, the most wicked, of crimes? Driving that boy to such despair, to such remorse, for something he did not do?”

  I could not contain myself and stood up. She followed me with her gaze:

  “Perhaps you’ll say, Father, that by taking on the weight of a sin she did not commit, or that was not at least as grave as it appeared, she possessed a greatness that none of us . . .”

  At that moment a sob, a deep, genuine sob, burst from her lips:

  “That’s what it is, Father. How does one weigh guilt? I think that is what has forever hardened my heart.”

  And then, possibly sensing the condemnation that lay in that strange substitution of which she was only now realizing the full implications—Nina taking the blame for something she had not done, while she, Ana, had hidden her own
grievous fault out of fear of the Meneses—her voice suddenly exploded, filling the tiny room:

  “And I, Father, am I not to be saved too? Did I not sin like the others? Did I not exist?”

  What could I say, how could I reply now that the final moment had come? I believe this was the only time I came to regret my priestly vocation—for what rose in my chest was regret, rather than a cry of deep, inconsolable sorrow at the irredeemable blindness of the human condition, its helpless incomprehension. Of all people, why come to me? Me, a sick old man, an uneducated, rather unintelligent priest whose one goal in life has been to serve and fear God, not to disentangle these intricate human problems? We country priests are nothing but doleful beasts of burden, plodding horses of only moderate utility, as blind and confused as any other men and distinguished only by our constant, anxious desire never to stray from the paths of righteousness. But how do we discern the paths of righteousness among so many others? How do we render justice and dictate God’s will? I drew back and, as she implored me with a mixture of incoherent words and tears, I stood by the barred window and looked up at the darkening sky. A great void opened up in my soul as if there were nothing inside me, neither the fear nor the remembrance of God. A refusal, a rejection. A searing, bitter taste rose suddenly into my mouth.

  No, there was nothing I could say. Once, certainly, I had said something about such matters, but it was so long ago that I could no longer remember. And no doubt it was this that burdened her. What good would it do to repeat words that had once had real meaning, but which now seemed so strange and paradoxical, as if they had been spoken not by me but by others in my place? The house of the Meneses no longer existed. Its last redoubt, that cellar, which had once sheltered love and hope, would also soon fall into ruin. It was this place that Ana had chosen as her refuge, just as creatures fleeing a flood seek shelter on the highest point of the roof. At that precise moment, the house of Meneses was disappearing forever. A last glimmer of its existence still flickered in the form of that dying woman. I knew what I could say: “My child, what you said is perfectly valid. We are not to blame for the way things are, but it’s still valid. So many of us confuse God with the idea of goodness. Or we reduce Him to a simple notion of evil that must be avoided. Goodness, however, is an earthly, human measure. How can we use it to measure that infinite thing that is God?” But those words, those precise words, did not come to my lips because she would not have understood them and would have continued to plead with me, not in the name of God (whom she did not know), but in the name of the sin that had always tormented her. And so her soul would have to endure, alone, until the very end, the consequences of her errors. Perhaps I am mistaken, but it scarcely matters. Absolution from a priest who has lost sight of good sense scarcely matters either. The crime whose origin I could not reveal to her was not that she had concealed the fruit of her love, nor that she silently acquiesced to another woman’s sin. No, what I reproached her for was not having understood and accepted her own errors, and having shrouded in anonymity her one cry for salvation. The Meneses had taken her back, and the struggle that ensued had become merely a struggle between Meneses, with no profound consequences and without ever—ever!—losing sight of that human measure of goodness which they had chosen as the supreme standard of their existence. But, alas for us, God often takes on the appearance of evil. God is almost always everything that shatters the hard, tangible surface of our everyday existence—for He is not sin, but Grace. Even more than this, God is action and revelation. How can we think of Him as something static, a thing of inertia and stillness? His law is the law of the storm, not the calm.

  I turned back to her, prepared to grant her forgiveness, but in the name of precisely that evil that stood in opposition to her rudimentary notions of morality, an evil which I would offer to her as a supreme indulgence to the dying. Then evil, clothed at last in the form of the divine Grace she had so forcefully denied, could assuage her pain and give her the certainty that she and her mortal essence had lived and suffered right up until the very last. But then, standing in that almost pitch-black cellar, I realized that Ana Meneses was no more. I leaned over to close her eyelids and, while I cannot be sure, I do not think I saw in her face any sign of the peace we associate with the dead.

  Lúcio Cardoso (1912-1968) is one of the leading Brazilian writers ofthe period between 1930 and 1960. As well as authoring dozens ofnovels and short stories, he was also active as a playwright, poet, journalist, filmmaker, and painter. Within the history of Brazilian literature, hisoeuvre pioneered subjective scrutiny of the modern self, bringing to the fore the personal dramas and dilemmas that underlie perceptions of collectiveexistence.

  Margaret Jull Costa is one of the most acclaimed translators of modern times. She has translated dozens of works from both Spanish andPortuguese, including the works of Javier Marías, José Saramago, Eça deQueiroz, and Fernando Pessoa, among many others. Her translations havereceived numerous awards, including the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award, the Oxford-Weidenfeld Translation Prize on three occasions, and the Portuguese Translation Prize. In 2014 she was made an Officer of the Order of the British Empire.

  Robin Patterson was mentored by Margaret Jull Costa, and has translated Our Musseque by José Luandino Vieira.

  Benjamin Moser is a writer, editor, critic, and translator, as well as thenew books columnist for Harper’s Magazine and a frequent contributor to the New York Review of Books. He has published translations into English from the Dutch, French, Spanish, and Portuguese, and is the author of Why This World: A Biography of Clarice Lispector. He currently resides in the Netherlands.