The Girl in the Photograph

by Lygia Fagundes Telles

  I don’t want to tell her that I can’t go any faster than this because I can’t see a thing.

  “We’re almost there, take it easy. You get out first, I’ll push the body from the seat and you pull her and lift her out, hold your arm around her to keep her upright. Then we’ll walk, me on one side and you on the other, got it?”

  “Perfect. Then the guard from the park can come and help us, right?”

  “There’s no guard. Look, here it is. Oh Lord, we made it, we made it, see the tree? Let’s talk very naturally as we get out.”

  I turn off the motor. The headlights. I kiss the feet of God, Hallowed be thy name!

  “Look on your side first. Nobody?”

  She opens the door.

  “Nobody. Quick!”

  I kneel on the car seat and push Ana Clara toward Lião’s extended hands. The head rolls and bumps against my lip, cutting it. “Be careful, Annie!” I almost say. When I get out, Lião is holding her as if the two of them were about to dance, arm stretched forward trying to take Ana’s hand. They connect, palm against palm. She bends the arm and brings it around her shoulder with such a graceful motion that for an instant I have the sensation that Crazy Annie, touched by our efforts, has resolved to collaborate by encircling Lião with her arm. Lião has the harder job; I realize her strength when from the other side I secure Ana’s dangling arm around my neck almost without effort. The little park is as round as the top of the blue-gray tree; it seems more intimate, more secret, closed in by the fog. I want to remember a verse of Garcia Lorca’s and can’t but I quote at random, we need to keep talking, talking in low voices like two delirious friends helping a third, the unsteadiest one is also the prettiest, where was the party?

  “As intimate as a little park, the idea is that but I can’t remember, a poem of Lorca’s do you know it?”

  “I don’t remember anything, I think I’ve forgotten everything and I’ll never remember it again, see, I’ll never again remember anything, anything,” Lião keeps repeating as she looks from side to side.

  The tips of Ana Clara’s shoes drag through the fog-white sand. Lião tries to lift her higher and can’t; I guess at the grooves the shoe-tips leave in the sand and remind myself to erase the marks on the way back. I hear a heavy motor (a truck?) pass close by and move away.

  “Look at the bench. We can rest there a little, right, Lião? Maybe I’ll remember the poem, it’s about a park just like this one…”

  “Deserted, isn’t it? What’s that up ahead of us?”

  “There? It’s only a little pine tree. Deserted. But that poem, do you remember it?”

  “Perfectly. I remember, I remember. Quick, Lena.”

  “Don’t you want to sit down a minute?”

  She sits down, pulling Annie, who almost falls off her lap. The stone of the park bench is icy. But her face is exactly like it. Once seated against the tree trunk, she falls sideways in the direction she prefers and stays balanced there, her cheek on the stone, her hands folded against her breast. I pillow her head on the handbag, taking care not to mark her chin with the clasp. I pull the dress over her ankles, straighten the shoe buckle which was twisted on the way, and dust off the shoes.

  “Lena, come on! Let’s go!”

  I clasp her icy hands, thinking of opening them. But she prefers them closed.

  “We love you very much. God take care of you.”

  Lião encircles me and drags me off.

  “It’s by Lorca, you’re right, it’s about a park. Did you say intimate?”

  I can’t talk, I’m crying and undoing the shoemarks with the soles of my sandals.

  We are in the car. I hear Lião’s teeth chattering. Or are they mine? I drive around the park but I can’t see either the bench or the visitor, only the top of the tree through the mist.

  “And the night began with stars. Such big ones…” I say.

  I look for the flannel cloth and clean off the windshield. Ana Clara’s perfume is still with us. Lião must have had the same thought; she has opened the window slightly.

  “The baby, Lorena! The erotic baby!”

  “What baby?”

  “The one that was hanging from the mirror! I gave him an indoctrination and it stuck, your chauffeur took it off! Perfect, perfect. Things like this give me hope,” she murmurs relaxing her body. “I think it’s been a month since I slept. Oh Lena, Lena, it’ll be all right, won’t it?”

  I don’t know if she’s talking about Ana Clara or the trip. The trip, of course. Of course.

  “It’s going to be marvelous, dear. I have an intuition, it’ll be wonderful.”

  And I feel a brutal stab of joy. A desire to laugh, talk to people, say nonsense, write nonsense. Oh Lord, the exam. It’s time to go in, jump into the shower, drink a glass of milk (I’m in the mood for milk), erase the clues in Annie’s room and run to the Department. I’ll need to go out before they—Before.

  “But isn’t it really marvelous, Lião? When we’re on God’s side,” I say and brake the car.

  “But is God on this side?”

  I kiss her lightly, dry the last few tears (I’m not going to cry any more) and put my handkerchief inside my purse.

  “We have thousands of things to do, Lião, thousands!”

  “Right. We could stay here talking until the end of time, come on, get out. Hurry, Lena.”

  We get out. We’re shivering with cold. I hear the little bell tinkling on her chain but it has rung other times during this night. I look at the hems of her pant legs. And her hair escaping from under the cap, raveled in the wind. It’s good-bye but we’re not to say it’s good-bye.

  “Come on, Lena, go in, quick. You go in front. Don’t stand there looking at me, it’s almost getting light!”

  “The cross!” I remember. “I’ll put it on your windowsill, on the outside, don’t forget to get it! You won’t forget?”

  “Fine, perfect, I won’t forget, now get going!”

  I open the gate. When I turn around, she’s in the same place, laughing. She raises her arm, first closed in the revolutionary salute. I blow her my most diaphanous kisses on my fingertips. I ascend the stairway in three jumps (it shrank), get the cross from inside my jewelry box, come down again, go across the garden and leave it on her windowsill. Lião is already inside and I know she saw me but she pretended not to. When I close the door of my room I have to stop and breathe deeply. Deeply. I turn on the record player and choose a record at random, without looking. When I hear the one I’ve chosen I grin. I go straight to the bed, make a tight bundle of the bedclothes, open the clothes hamper and push the bundle inside. The lid resists, grumbles, pops back twice but the third time gives up and stays closed. The bathtub with the bathwater still in it. A tenuous spiral of soapsuds floats on the cold surface. I turn my face away, stick my hand in the water and pull out the plug. While I wait I regard the bath salts in their glass jar, I never saw gold nuggets but they must look just like that. I open the hot-water faucet and while I lean over the tub, the residue I knew was there is carried away. I open the closet and choose some clean sheets, green? The bath towel can be white. I turn on the shower and feel its warm steam in my mouth. The mist outside is already dissipating and here another one is gathering, ah, I mustn’t forget to advise the girl from Santarém that if a striped kitten answering to the name of Astronaut appears. Kitten? But hasn’t he grown up? In short, a striped cat. Advise me and you will be generously rewarded. And if a rather obscure voice should call me on the telephone, the voice of a man who prefers not to leave his name. I view my profile in the misted-over mirror.

  SELECTED DALKEY ARCHIVE TITLES

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  MICHAL AJVAZ, The Golden Age.

  The Other City.

  PIERRE ALBERT-BIROT, Grabinoulor.

  YUZ ALESHKOVSKY, Kangaroo.

  FELIPE ALFAU, Chromos.

  Locos.

  JOO ALMINO, The Book of Emotions.

  IVAN NGELO, The Ce
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  The Tower of Glass.

  DAVID ANTIN, Talking.

  ANTÓNIO LOBO ANTUNES, Knowledge of Hell.

  The Splendor of Portugal.

  ALAIN ARIAS-MISSON, Theatre of Incest.

  IFTIKHAR ARIF AND WAQAS KHWAJA, EDS.,

  Modern Poetry of Pakistan.

  JOHN ASHBERY AND JAMES SCHUYLER,

  A Nest of Ninnies.

  ROBERT ASHLEY, Perfect Lives.

  GABRIELA AVIGUR-ROTEM, Heatwave and Crazy Birds.

  HEIMRAD BACKER, transcript.

  DJUNA BARNES, Ladies Almanack.

  Ryder.

  JOHN BARTH, LETTERS.

  Sabbatical.

  DONALD BARTHELME, The King.

  Paradise.

  SVETISLAV BASARA, Chinese Letter.

  MIQUEL BAUÇÀ, The Siege in the Room.

  RENÉ BELLETTO, Dying.

  MAREK BIEŃCZYK, Transparency.

  MARK BINELLI, Sacco and Vanzetti Must Die!

  ANDREI BITOV, Pushkin House.

  ANDREJ BLATNIK, You Do Understand.

  LOUIS PAUL BOON, Chapel Road.

  My Little War.

  Summer in Termuren.

  ROGER BOYLAN, Killoyle.

  IGNÁCIO DE LOYOLA BRANDĀO,

  Anonymous Celebrity.

  The Good-Bye Angel.

  Teeth under the Sun.

  Zero.

  BONNIE BREMSER, Troia: Mexican Memoirs.

  CHRISTINE BROOKE-ROSE, Amalgamemnon.

  BRIGID BROPHY, In Transit.

  MEREDITH BROSNAN, Mr. Dynamite.

  GERALD L. BRUNS, Modern Poetry and the Idea of Language.

  EVGENY BUNIMOVICH AND J. KATES, EDS.,

  Contemporary Russian Poetry: An Anthology.

  GABRIELLE BURTON, Heartbreak Hotel.

  MICHEL BUTOR, Degrees.

  Mobile.

  Portrait of the Artist as a Young Ape.

  G. CABRERA INFANTE, Infante’s Inferno.

  Three Trapped Tigers.

  JULIETA CAMPOS,

  The Fear of Losing Eurydice.

  ANNE CARSON, Eros the Bittersweet.

  ORLY CASTEL-BLOOM, Dolly City.

  CAMILO JOSÉ CELA, Christ versus Arizona.

  The Family of Pascual Duarte.

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  LOUIS-FERDINAND CÉLINE, Castle to Castle.

  Conversations with Professor Y.

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  HUGO CHARTERIS, The Tide Is Right.

  JEROME CHARYN, The Tar Baby.

  ERIC CHEVILLARD, Demolishing Nisard.

  LUIS CHITARRONI, The No Variations.

  MARC CHOLODENKO, Mordechai Schamz.

  JOSHUA COHEN, WitZ.

  EMILY HOLMES COLEMAN, The Shutter of Snow.

  ROBERT COOVER, A Night at the Movies.

  STANLEY CRAWFORD, Log of the S.S. The Mrs Unguentine.

  Some Instructions to My Wife.

  ROBERT CREELEY, Collected Prose.

  RENÉ CREVEL, Putting My Foot in It.

  RALPH CUSACK, Cadenza.

  SUSAN DAITCH, L.C.

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  NICHOLAS DELBANCO, The Count of Concord.

  Sherbrookes.

  NIGEL DENNIS, Cards of Identity.

  PETER DIMOCK, A Short Rhetoric for Leaving the Family.

  ARIEL DORFMAN, Konfidenz.

  COLEMAN DOWELL,

  The Houses of Children.

  Island People.

  Too Much Flesh and Jabez.

  ARKADII DRAGOMOSHCHENKO, Dust.

  RIKKI DUCORNET, The Complete Butcher’s Tales.

  The Fountains of Neptune.

  The Jade Cabinet.

  The One Marvelous Thing.

  Phosphor in Dreamland.

  The Stain.

  The Word “Desire.”

  WILLIAM EASTLAKE, The Bamboo Bed.

  Castle Keep.

  Lyric of the Circle Heart.

  JEAN ECHENOZ, Chopin’s Move.

  STANLEY ELKIN, A Bad Man.

  Boswell: A Modern Comedy.

  Criers and Kibitzers, Kibitzers and Criers.

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  The Franchiser.

  George Mills.

  The Living End.

  The MacGuffin.

  The Magic Kingdom.

  Mrs. Ted Bliss.

  The Rabbi of Lud.

  Van Gogh’s Room at Aries.

  FRANÇOIS EMMANUEL, Invitation to a Voyage.

  ANNIE ERNAUX, Cleaned Out.

  SALVADOR ESPRIU, Ariadne in the Grotesque Labyrinth.

  LAUREN FAIRBANKS, Muzzle Thyself.

  Sister Carrie.

  LESLIE A. FIEDLER, Love and Death in the American Novel.

  JUAN FILLOY, Faction.

  Op Oloop.

  ANDY FITCH, Pop Poetics.

  GUSTAVE FLAUBERT, Bouvard and Pécuchet.

  KASS FLEISHER, Talking out of School.

  FORD MADOX FORD,

  The March of Literature.

  JON FOSSE, Aliss at the Fire.

  Melancholy.

  MAX FRISCH, I’m Not Stiller.

  Man in the Holocene.

  CARLOS FUENTES, Christopher Unborn.

  Distant Relations.

  Terra Nostra.

  Vlad.

  Where the Air Is Clear.

  TAKEHIKO FUKUNAGA, Flowers of Grass.

  WILLIAM GADDIS, J R.

  The Recognitions.

  JANICE GALLOWAY, Foreign Parts.

  The Trick Is to Keep Breathing.

  WILLIAM H. GASS, Cartesian Sonata and Other Novellas.

  Finding a Form.

  A Temple of Texts.

  The Tunnel.

  Willie Masters’ Lonesome Wife.

  GERARD GAVARRY, Hoppla! 1 2 3.

  Making a Novel.

  ETIENNE GILSON,

  The Arts of the Beautiful.

  Forms and Substances in the Arts.

  C. S. GISCOMBE, Giscome Road.

  Here.

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  The Enamoured Knight.

  WITOLD GOMBROWICZ,

  A Kind of Testament.

  PAULO EMÍLIO SALES GOMES, P’s Three Women.

  KAREN ELIZABETH GORDON, The Red Shoes.

  GEORGI GOSPODINOV, Natural Novel.

  JUAN GOYTISOLO, Count Julian.

  Exiled from Almost Everywhere.

  Juan the Landless.

  Makbara.

  Marks of Identity.

  PATRICK GRAINVILLE, The Cave of Heaven.

  HENRY GREEN, Back.

  Blindness.

  Concluding.

  Doting.

  Nothing.

  JACK GREEN, Fire the Bastards!

  JIŘÍ GRUŠA, The Questionnaire.

  GABRIEL GUDDING,

  Rhode Island Notebook.

  MELA HARTWIG, Am I a Redundant Human Being?

  JOHN HAWKES, The Passion Artist.

  Whistlejacket.

  ELIZABETH HEIGHWAY, ED., Contemporary

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  ALEKSANDAR HEMON, ED.,

  Best European Fiction.

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  Blind Man’s Bluff

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  Darkling Plain: Texts for the Air.

  Flotsam and Jetsam.

  Langrishe, Go Down.

  Scenes from a Receding Past.

  Windy Arbours.

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  The System of Vienna.

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  YORAM KANIUK, Life on Sandpaper.

  HUGH KENNER, The Counterfeiters.

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  Joyce’s Voices.

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  A Tomb for Boris Davidovich.

  ANITA KONKKA, A Fool’s Paradise.

  GEORGE KONRÁD, The City Builder.

  TADEUSZ KONWICKI, A Minor Apocalypse.

  The Polish Complex.

  MENIS KOUMANDAREAS, Koula.

  ELAINE KRAF, The Princess of 72nd Street.

  JIM KRUSOE, Iceland.

  AYŞE KULIN, Farewell: A Mansion in Occupied Istanbul.

  EWA KURYLUK, Century 21.

  EMILIO LASCANO TEGUI, On Elegance While Sleeping.

  ERIC LAURRENT, Do Not Touch.

  HERVÉ LE TELLIER, The Sextine Chapel.

  A Thousand Pearls (for a Thousand Pennies)

  VIOLETTE LEDUC, La Bâtarde.

  EDOUARD LEVÉ, Autoportrait.

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  MARIO LEVI, Istanbul Was a Fairy Tale.

  SUZANNE JILL LEVINE, The Subversive Scribe: Translating Latin American Fiction.

  DEBORAH LEVY, Billy and Girl.

  Pillow Talk in Europe and Other Places.

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  ROSA LIKSOM, Dark Paradise.

  OSMAN LINS, Avalovara.

  The Queen of the Prisons of Greece.

  ALF MAC LOCHLAINN,

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  Out of Focus.

  RON LOEWINSOHN, Magnetic Field(s).

  MINA LOY, Stories and Essays of Mina Loy.

  BRIAN LYNCH, The Winner of Sorrow.

  D. KEITH MANO. Take Five.

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  To an Early Grave.

  DAVID MARKSON, Reader’s Block.

  Springer’s Progress.

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  CAROLE MASO, AVA.

  LADISLAV MATEJKA AND KRYSTYNA

  POMORSKA, EDS.,

  Readings in Russian Poetics: Formalist and Structuralist Views.

  HARRY MATHEWS,