The Girl in the Photograph

by Lygia Fagundes Telles

  “But what if he’s not there any more? I can wait, Lorena, don’t panic, is it in that building there? But the door’s already locked, isn’t it?”

  “No, it isn’t there, it’s farther ahead. Stop here, I want to walk. The fresh air will do me good.”

  “But it’s raining, girl! Here, keep my card. It has my office phone. Will you call me?”

  “Of course. First thing in the morning. Tomorrow.”

  He kisses my hand. I open the door and fall to my knees on the sidewalk. And he’s still talking I think he’s coming up behind me. I run away. I wish I had skates. I always wanted skates. To go skating off down the road, all by myself. The rain has passed but I’m freezing cold. I could have asked him for a loan. Would he have given it to me? What about the card? Who knows, I threw it away. Valdomiro. Mercedes-Benz. He wouldn’t give me a thing.

  “Cognac,” I order the bartender.

  He just stares at me. Why does he look at me that way? I raise my head and get my money out, do you suppose he’s thinking.

  “Domestic?”

  “No, imported, the best you have.”

  I stick my hand in my pocket and tear open the tissue paper. I drink slowly. My eyes and mouth fill with water. How hidden we are. And how free. Hell, why does that fool Lião talk so much about liberty. We’re free, look here nobody knows what I have in my pocket. Nobody knows what I’m swallowing. Thousands of people all around me and nobody. Only me. Right this minute swarms of people are murdering and being murdered and who takes any notice. Right in this building up above. Thousands. That’s neat. Do things right in front of others.

  “Good evening.”

  There’s an old man in front of me saying Good evening. Now what does he want this old man. He looks like a beggar in that raincoat people are getting overconfident. He wants my company, the bum. He’s unaccompanied. Me too. The night of the unaccompanied. I drain my glass. I’m serene as a queen it’s glorious to feel like a queen. To feel like somebody else. Enough of Ana Clara. I’m Lorena.

  “I’m waiting for my husband.”

  He wants to say something and doesn’t. He leaves, scraping the dirty soles of his shoes on the dirty tiles of the floor. And what if he’s my father. What if all of a sudden he should be my father. I run after him and tap him on the shoulder. I look for myself in his face.

  “Do you know what time it is, sir?”

  He shows me his wrist with its gray hairs, the man who could be my father doesn’t have a watch. I need to control myself so as not to burst into tears. What joy. I’m happy happy. Maybe he is. Maybe he isn’t. It doesn’t matter he doesn’t know that he’s two people, the one who stays in the bar and the one who goes off arm and arm with me. I have forgiven him everything. I was certain we’d meet some day. The men in the doorway multiply as though reflected in mirrors. I walk proudly between the clusters, passing among them with my secret, like a ship. I’m a ship sailing by in the distance, all lighted up. I see myself passing far away and it’s spectacular to see myself parting the sea. I raise my coat collar and become a muffled ship. The voice the voice calling me. I turn around and there he is arm and arm with me. My father and I in the sea-filled night. He doesn’t know anything. I’m a little girl and he doesn’t even know.

  “You are beautiful. Beautiful!”

  “Thank you,” I say and smile. He’ll never know why I thank him.

  He puts his arm around me. I can feel his desire like a heavy weight, his desire is an anchor but the night is so light, could there be a more weightless night? The father and the daughter. They meet in the night. I rise up weightless like the night and everything is silent where I am. The stars pass, pass and illuminate me I can grab that one by the tail. Taxi?

  “Taxi?” I cry and the headlights blind me.

  “We don’t need a taxi, Gorgeous. The apartment is close by, a lovely little place, come on. Lean on me and I’ll help you. What’s my pretty girl been drinking? Naughty little thing! Aren’t you going to tell me? Huh?”

  “Rain.”

  He laughs. Teeth. He has good teeth. He doesn’t have a watch but he has teeth. The watch doesn’t matter, but the teeth. Shit, he’s handsome. He had to be a handsome man, I knew it. My father is with me. I’m protected. Protected.

  “My whiskey is first-class, we can have a drink and listen to a little music, do you like tango? I have a collection of Gardel records, I’m crazy about Gardel. But my God, you really are beautiful, you look like a goddess,” he says squeezing me harder. “I dress sloppy this way because I don’t care about appearances, I’m the Bohemian type. But if I’d guessed I was to meet a goddess like you, I would have worn a tie and tails!”

  I’ve become transparent. Transparent. I can see myself because I’m transparent, my rose-colored tissues my intertwined veins, my organs organized in their compartments I’m completely in order inside like that plastic man in the store window there was a man turned inside out standing in a store window. All order and light. So much light that I need to close my coat so nobody can see, the Heart of Jesus is in my breast. The shock makes me so dizzy that I trip and cry out. It’s Him.

  “It’s Him!”

  The man is startled too and grabs me. We fall down together.

  “What happened, what’s the matter with you? What was it? We could break a leg, Gorgeous. Did you get hurt?”

  If I tell you will you believe me? Mother Alix, listen. He is here hanging inside my chest with the crown of thorns I don’t pray or anything and He chose me, do you see? He came to reside in me, of all people! I want to shout because it’s damned glorious for Him to have chosen me but I’ll only tell you only you. I have to be serious and dignified with my Resplendent Heart. If He chose me it’s because I deserve it He saw all that humiliation so much suffering He remembers what I suffered with all those bastards who. I was a child and those bastards I couldn’t defend myself or anything I was a child.

  “I couldn’t, shit.”

  “Crying, Gorgeous? Do you hurt somewhere? Tell your hermano,” he murmured, humming as he picked up her purse which she had dropped, “Si precisas una ayuda, si te hace falta un consejo”…

  “My name is Lorena, Lorena Vaz Leme.”

  “For me you’re Gorgeous, I’ll just call you Gorgeous. You’d win any beauty contest easily, when I see the hags that enter them nowadays. You have an exceptional face, I can’t see what’s underneath your coat but I can guess, I’m an expert on the subject. But don’t cry that way, can’t you walk a little farther? Lazybones. We’re almost there, I live very close, a Bohemian has to live in the Bohemian zone, right?” he exclaimed, laughing. “You’ll like my little old-fashioned place, there’s even a Victrola that winds up, you know how they work? What a stupid question, you were only born yesterday. Gorgeous, gorgeous. That’s it, I want you laughing, I like happy people. And I’m a sad man. I adore tango music, we’ll hear some tangos.”

  “But I’m not alone.”

  “Of course you’re not, what amazing news. Careful, Gorgeous, hold onto me, did you twist you foot? Later I’ll give it a massage, I used to be a masseur. Masseur, sportswriter, radio announcer, real estate dealer, oh, the paper I sold. I’ve been many things, everything but rich. When I was young I even had a body-building school, to this day I do my exercises, put your hand here. See? Forty-six years old and not a sign of a tummy. A bullfighter!”

  I was late because. My father and Jesus I know” I know it’s hard nobody understands. So simple. He crushes up the bread and the rat it’s a rat he has in his hand. I meet his gaze full of anger and fear. I’ll never be afraid again. I’m made of light and he’s nothing but scales. Scales and darkness. It doesn’t matter.

  “I couldn’t care less. So.”

  “Look here at all my old stuff, I surround myself with antiques.”

  The wide bed, covered with a crocheted bedspread, occupied almost the whole room, which was made cozy by silk pillows and family photographs pinned to the walls, among them snapshots of semi
nude men in athletic poses. The family pictures were old, yellowed and conventional with their groups of men and women in black, surrounded by children in sausage curls and boots. On the bedside table was a lamp with a shade fringed in colored beads and a little Victrola protected by a lace doily.

  “My family,” she said opening her arms. “My family.”

  He took off her coat, folded it over the chair with the satin cushions and knelt in front of her. She swayed. Lightly he ran his fingers over her black stockings.

  “What a physique. Your physique, Gorgeous! Those legs. I don’t want you to take off your shoes or stockings, I adore black stockings, very long like these, do these go all the way up? They sure do,” he murmured kissing the buckle of each shoe. “Gorgeous, gorgeous.”

  “The pictures,” said Ana Clara pointing in wonder at the walls. “The boy with the cat. My brother, shit, my brother.”

  “Yes, Gorgeous, we’re all brothers, let the world go by outside and here in our little corner … but come rest a little, lie down here, put your head on the pillow, pure kapok, isn’t it soft? Are you comfortable? Gorgeous. Let’s have a little whiskey to warm us up, what about a drink? Scotch. My friend keeps me supplied, he works for the customs, I have friends everywhere! But let me look at you…. Gorgeous.”

  “My cat disappeared.”

  “Don’t worry, I’ll find you another one, come on, drink. Can you hold the glass? I’ll put on a tango to complete the atmosphere, a real tango, hum? I was a singer for a while but my voice started to crack, I smoke too much. Cigarettes are poison.”

  “I have to go,” she moaned, twitching. She threatened to get up: “What time is it?”

  “What’s this, what silly talk is this? The night is young, Gorgeous, come on, drink. Careful, don’t spill it on your blouse … oh, you already did. Never mind, it’ll dry. Gorgeous.”

  “Next year. Next year. January. I already said.”

  He adjusted the handle of the Victrola and wound it up. The violins surged nasal and vehement. At each turn of the disc the needle hurdled the deep scratch and lost control in its descent, then re-encountered the groove. He drew close to her.

  “I want you to stay very quiet, just like you are, completely dressed,” he murmured with a heavy voice. “I want you to stay nice and quiet while I read something to you, are you comfortable? Give me your glass, I’ll give you some more later, now stay just as you are. Isn’t it lovely, this tango? ‘Bien sabes que no hay envidia en mi pecho! Que soy un hombre derecho!’… wait a second, I’ll be right back.”

  Slowly she rolled her head back and forth on the pillow and crossed her clenched hands over her breasts.

  “I have to go. My father. It doesn’t matter because my father.”

  With controlled gestures he undressed. He folded his clothes, methodically piling them up piece by piece, until he was naked. Then he inhaled and exhaled, expanding his chest, contracting his abdomen. Gravely he walked to the drawer of the larger table covered with an old Spanish shawl. From it he took a tattered magazine, with the picture of an old movie actress on the cover patched together with pieces of adhesive tape. He lay down beside Ana Clara without touching her, his entire body trembling. From beneath a red satin cushion embellished with tea-colored lace he brought out a pair of glasses and put them on. His hoarse voice stumbled over the words.

  “‘When on that dismal afternoon at Waterloo, a desperate Napoleon ordered all batteries of his near-defeated troops to pour out their ammunition in a concentrated volley, a deluge broke from the floodgates of the firmament, engulfing the battlefield. At that moment, hearing the artillery drumming halfburied in the mud and the celestial thunder rolling amid the drenching torrents of rain, the phenomenal man whose Caesarean glory glimmered in the final twilight of the Hundred Days must have exclaimed with his eyes turned to the heavens, We concede!’”

  He paused. He breathed with effort, wheezing through dilated nostrils, his teeth whitened with saliva. He turned over on his stomach and straightened out the magazine which was open on the pillow. His stringy muscles continued rigid, left foot tensing spasmodically in a cramp. He bit the cushion and raised his head, pulling his lips back into a grimace as he read under his breath:

  “‘Other famous conquerors, upon releasing the final expirations from their heroic breasts, perhaps have heard the cosmic elements of Nature resound with fury in the awesome solidarity of thunderbolt, lightning-streak and flood. Great leaders do not succumb without tempest, tumult and storm, in order that their fearful glory might further magnify the terrifying splendor of the loyal and choleric heavens. No one will deny that Rudolph Valentino was the greatest conqueror of our remarkable times.’”

  Moaning, he pulled himself so close to the sleeping Ana Clara that he could almost press his foaming mouth against her cheek. He relished the scent of her perfume, teeth grinding between clenched jaws. Placing the open magazine on her belly, he drove his elbows into the mattress. With painful breath he adjusted his foggy glasses and lowered his haggard eyes to the text:

  “‘Of course he did not make Andromache a widow, nor accept the duel with Achilles. He did not conquer Gaul, destroy Carthage, nor take Constantinople. He did not fight in the battles of the Crusades nor was he at Trafalgar. He did not cross the Berezina River nor pierce Lopez of Paraguay with his lance. However, he did more, infinitely more …’” he croaked ripping off his glasses. The bedspread wrinkled under his twitching hands, as his sweat-soaked body jerked in contortions. His voice was a thick wheeze.

  “‘He conquered the hearts of all the women who saw him on the screen, and they barely saw him … yet having only glimpsed him, they experienced the swoon of Platonic love … which, according to the physiologists … is the most dreadful and subtle form of passion … that finds no end that finds no end in infinite insatiability!’ “

  He sank into the pillow, arms open, and grew still. The pasty sound from the wound-down Victrola gradually faded.

  Chapter 9

  Ana Clara making love. Lião making speeches. Mama making progress with her analyst. The nuns making dessert, I can smell from here the warm aroma of pumpkin cooking. I make philosophy. To be or to exist. No, it’s not to be or not to be, that’s already been thought of, let us not confuse it with the philosophy I just invented. Absolutely original. If I exist, then I am not being (something or somewhere) because for me to exist it is necessary that I not be something or somewhere. Now where can I do that? A very good question: Where can I exist without being something or somewhere? Only inside myself, of course. In order for me to exist entire (essential and attributes) it is necessary that I not be anywhere except inside myself. I do not disintegrate in Nature because Nature takes me and gives me back wholly; there is not competition but identification of elements. Only that. When I am in the city, I disintegrate because in the city I don’t exist, I am (somewhere); I compete and within the rules of the game (there are thousands of rules) I must compete well; consequently I have to be something—competent—in order to compete as well as possible. Thus to compete as well as possible I end up sacrificing existence, mine or somebody else’s, it all comes to the same thing. And if I sacrifice existence for mere being, I’ll end up disintegrating (essential and attributes) until I’m totally pulverized. Vanity of vanities, all is vanity. We come to a Biblical conclusion but it answers all the questions of this confused and disintegrating world. The madmen ruling over the living and the dead. Those few who manage to hang onto the reins of madness will prevail, who will they be? Polluted lungs and minds. An important role is reserved for the psychiatrists. And for the prophets, I have even more faith in them. I think I’d be more useful if I’d studied medicine, what good will laws do us in the future if they’re already in the state we know so well? A marvelous psychiatrist. The unfortunate thing is that when I read a book about mental illnesses, I discover symptoms of almost every one of them in myself; I’d be a psychiatrist too well acquainted with madness. Saved through love. Oh Lord. Why doesn�
�t M.N. call if only just to say … I’m not pretty, an undisputable point. But isn’t my IQ much higher than normal? And I do have a certain charm. Somewhat obscure, it’s true, but “if you search you shall discover the gold buried in the earth.” L’or caché.

  I close my tract, it’s already very tractable. I wish the exams would start, oh, this strike. There was a time (a good while back, right?) when we used to study together, Lião and I. Ana Clara wasn’t yet so ambulatory-delirious, poor thing. She used to study one or two problems with us, muse over her plans, and then try on my clothes, but she didn’t bother us much. It was the period of research, Lião wasn’t committed to the revolution yet, she was studying normally. Statistics. Formulas. She even wrote a paper about what causes drivers to hang trinkets from the rearview mirrors of their cars. There were two clear-cut groups: those who did hang up knickknacks and those who didn’t. The latter revealing an obvious intellectual superiority over the others, in the Lianine view. For me, a simple matter of good taste, you hear, M.N.? Would Plato have hung his little boy’s bootie on the mirror of his Porsche if he had driven a Porsche? Naturally it was his wife or daughter who hung that miniature hat up. A little Mexican sombrero, ay, yay, yay yay! Didn’t Mieux hang up a little erotic baby in Mama’s Corcel? If Lião had seen the sombrero hanging in M.N.’s car she’d have turned her thumb down, kaput. And Lião knows. She knows everything, even the number of prostitutes who derive pleasure from their work and those who don’t, she’s researched that as well. She wandered about the red-light zone for an entire month, bag and briefcase in hand, asking the most original questions. When she started working with doped adolescents she joined her famous group. If she’d stayed on a little longer she’d have been wearing a white apron by now, working in her child-psychiatry clinic, they all start out very humbly and pretty soon they’re booked solid until November. The adults have already dived into that whirlpool up to their ears, now it’s the children’s turn. One less psychologist, which is la-men-ta-ble. Her thesis would have been: The Importance of Black Embroidery Silk in the Pre-natal Individual.