TESTIMONY
Translated by John Byrne
The Bible says that Cain killed Abel for a trivial motive. Homer sings that the beauty of Helen destroyed Troy.
A neighbour of mine suddenly committed suicide.
Opening the papers, we read that a man was killed in such and such a place, struck down with a hoe – or stabbed, or shot – for no real motive: for a glass of wine, for the sake of a couple of coins. Sometimes when we think about it, it seems as if sanity is something which just bobs along on the surface like a bit of cork on water.
Gentlemen: the doctor doesn't waste time studying the effects of an illness except better to discover the root cause. Why not adopt the same method with our own misfortune? I compare it to the mouth of a river whose real source is often our mother's breast.
During my military training in Mafra very strange things began to happen to me: turning a corner, passing by the shops, the butchers, the cafés, the chemists, it was not uncommon to find myself the object of pointing fingers, of brazen murmurs, even from the young bucks.
«That's him, that cadet!»
«For something so trivial!»
«For nothing at all!»
«The poor dead thing, six feet under!»
It's true that there was no doubt that I had behaved irresponsibly, but why did it have to be my arm that did the deed, and not another's? The local gossip, which at that time centred on the Cova Funda, called me a cynic, a «revolting cynic». For these poor people, here is the confirmation; because, looking deep into myself I found the seeds of our own evil. And let me tell you, Lia's grief transcends any trivial or attribute them to a kind of fate – glorious for some, deadly for others – but irrevocable for everybody.
Lia knew so little about it because it was she herself who sent that soldier to the coach, when I and my colleagues arrived in Mafra; we gazed at the Convent almost disdainfully, almost indifferently – as though we took it for a very different kind of monument – while a hubbud of children buzzed around us: «Hey there, cadet, have you already got a room?»
«Cadet, do you need a room?»
» Cadet, there's a room..."
(Damn it, everything was redolent of the barracks, even the people, even the colour of the houses!)
Why was it she who sent that soldier, who came up to me, took my suitcase with no hesitation and said: «Our major Escoto's widow is waiting for you, cadet.»
Why did she send you, indeed, I ask.
Fate is what marks out all human dramas; it is Fate that brings disgrace, bus disgrace is no more than the mouth of a river which often has sprung from our mother's breast.
Lia's mother had attached herself to an elderly man when she was very young. This man, deceased A. N. Scoto, was a distant relative of ours; but ever since he had been a student he had lived such a rash life (or, as I heard tell when I was little, such a scandalous life) that we at home lost the thread of things at the precise point where his second wife fled to Paris, and he got divorced a little bit later. It was only eight years ago that we heard, vaguely, that he had died in Mafra; I had never met him. After all, the soldier told me, he had married for a third time, in Oporto, and had had two daughters, notwithstanding his advance age, and...
Indeed, I am hardly up the stairs, the door opens by itself and Lia appears, one of them, radiant with my arrival. Here she is close to me, between the old furniture in the little sitting room, opening to me the door to her soul as if I was the one whom she has been awaiting for so long with a sharp, unfailing anxiety. There she was: serene, very white, small, with the high forehead of «papa's» portrait and with such a serious, pure demeanour that I was stunned. And of course, that certain type of «mama» was a complete contrast; excessively fat, sleek – though some might use a stronger term – quite coarse, it's true, but her uninterrupted, unrestrained flow of speech was at least excusable, for at some point I sensed in her one oh those not uncommon types who have acquired some sensitivity at the cost of much poverty and suffering. In addition, she had read a few novels and suffered from asthma.
She was often terribly short of breath – it was wretched – and her husband has spoken a great deal about us, had retained and interest right up until his death. She was from Trás-os-Montes, she was called Conceição (Dona Conceição). After great tribulations which God had so unjustly inflected on them, Lia had secure the position of schoolmistress at Chèleiros. And, in short, because they had to take in a paying guest for the spare room, they didn't doubt that I would give them the pleasure of accepting. They though of me as family, obviously. They were already counting on me last year. They knew all about me, through my colleagues.
That was fine by me. But I confess that I found her speech a bit of an ordeal, like a new chapter in the romance of the major. We had always lived well. My father is a notary in Portalegre and my mother inherited property in Castelo de Vide, which we have been selling off little by little. I would prefer not to reveal any of this now, but it does explain how that belated kinship awoke in me a reaction strong enough to reject it. Finally, when I was able, I addressed myself directly to Lia; I wanted to shake her out of that seraphic gaze.
«Your sister isn't here; of course, she must be already married...»
Lia's face clouded over; she faltered: «No sir, my sister... nut why did you say that, cousin?» She asked the question so clumsily, with such a lack of art, that I adverted my avid eyes.
Dona Conceição heard and she stopped telling the story of her life – «from the time when I was a queen», detailing all the cities she had visited, «even Milan!» – and sighed: «Juja...»
I understood immediately that I had touched on one of those sensitive, secret areas with my dreadful, indiscreet curiosity. Embarrassed, I waited in some apprehension, and perhaps the fact that I seemed to be expecting something impelled D. Conceição to sigh deeply, forced her to fight for air once more: «Juja... she died», she said sadly, opening her heart.
» What! She died?» I blurted out, like an idiot.
«For us...»
«For us, no, mama,» Lia retorted generously, recovered now: «I love her just the same, perhaps even more, poor thing!»
Lia fixed her brimming eyes on some distant point, and Dona Conceição confided in me the cruel secret which made her lips tremble: «She left me for Lisbon...»
Lisbon, pronounced in that way, meant a forbidden world – something like sensuality, wonder, mystery. In that choked moment I had a glimpse of Juja, tempting – the Rossio, a car, sparkling lights, luxury, pomp, a room – and I ardently desired that she, the adventuress, might not be a cold, saintly beauty like her sister, not so refined and autumnal.
Lia was twenty-five years old; in truth she had been waiting for me. Since her papa died, the only door in the house left open was the one to the kitchen garden, and from the garden one could see pines, a vine, windmills, waving lilacs and the endless sea, nothing more. Looking down from the top of the house she could see the shining black road flow away, the road of pleasure, love and display because it led to mass, balls, walks, teas, the carnival. It went in the direction of the towers and cupolas of the Convent and on to the railway station, to Lisbon, to the whole world – that black road. Lia had also been along it, but now that her life had quite simply lost its lustre it was the road which held her back. They moved on, abandoning her, those who marched abreast and brought up the rear. It was then that she, dressed in mourning, locked her house and shut herself away. But her heart kept vigil, night and day, afraid lest a man with golden hair and celestial blue eyes knock at her door and retreat in despair when she didn't come to open it.
And so I brightened Lia's black fate, imagining all this with a cruel smile as soon as I found myself alone in my room, breathing heavily with satisfaction. In fact, there were hundreds of eligible men for every eligible woman in Mafra; and within my first hour there I was, luxuriating in the knowledge that Lia's eyes were tenderly watching me at my toilet – as, humming, I washed, polished, combed – unchangingly passive, promising, eyes longing for other longing eyes. Lia wasn't a passionate woman; nor was she blonde. She was different and I was weary of Lisbon, and of its clinging «floosies» tanned and sensual. Mourning had locked the window of that house and the door, and so Lia grew like a luxurious little stem in the dampness of a gloomy, basement room.
The Captain welcomed us with some hackneyed speech but his intention – coercion – was still clear enough through the mask of the old soldier. There was no mistaking the harshness of the words – «You are soldiers» – and a little later he repeated: «You are soldiers like anyone else.»
In order that we understood this simple fact, he made us stand in line at the office door for the whole afternoon – in the hot sun of a Sunday afternoon. We couldn't say a word. The Convent had been equally repellent: the sheer weight of the place leaves everyone feeling crushed; but, at night, the Esplanade Bar resounded with great guffaws. Nor did the captain want any music in the streets, so we went out with the other so-called gentlemen, making up the most disrespectful verses. Ah that point I turned for home. It was Autumn and the night was growing cold – I made my excuses. My aim, I realise now, was while appearing light-hearted and hesitant, to worm my way into the life of two innocent creatures.
I found them playing cards in a small room, overlooking the yard, which they used as a kitchen, sewing room, and as I could see, a smell dining room. They invited me to take a seat, and I put down my copy of the O Século which I usually read in bed. Ah, begged Done Conceição, with a not unsweet tenderness, could I not lend them the story for a few moments?
I held it out to her but Lia grabbed it hastily and set about searching through it impatiently, ruffling the paper with her bare, ladylike hands, like the wings of a white dove; I couldn't help smiling as I observed her in surprise. I couldn't clearly define how felt but it was pleasant, nonetheless. I only managed to place it when the mother, also agitated, justified her daughter's behaviour in all earnestness: «This for her is like a little bit of heaven. It's the greatest pleasure in the world». And all the while Lia was devouring some horrific chapter of the Phanton Submarine – I think that's what it was – with a look of delight that was almost sensual. The horizons of that ingenuous girl seemed so narrow, so limited to me that just by crooking one finger I could call her mine.
Let's not mince words: our pleasures are utterly relative and reveal a great deal about our souls. Dona Conceição, «en famille» like this and beneath the table lamp, had rather lost something of her over-bearing, monstrous ways and anxious and imploring, demanded: «Just tell me Lia, were they saved?» The cards trembled in her fat fingers, she repeated the question, each time in more honeyed tones. Lia waited lust enough to heighten the effect and at last, sighing deeply she nodded that yes, they had been saved – all of them.
What a relief, thank goodness! Dona Conceição couldn't read at night, it upset her. I offered my services, but Lia, radiant with the defeat of the pirates didn't want to play anymore; she hardly realised, woe betide us, that was about to set in motion the disgrace that would end in such a violent downfall. She started up the ancient machine with its battered horn; it stood, badly lit, hidden away in a corner of the room.
How could they still have kept it? The music, equally old-fashioned, burst out of there, just as indistinct and tired. However, Lia was enjoying her self, she sang, twirled around once in the small free space, watched me furtively. Without her lips moving, I heard her heart calling: «You seem so kind, ask mama, and come and embrace me!» And when I hesitated: «Come on, don't waste any time».
Her anguish dragged on until her lingering gaze said to me again: «Please, I haven't danced for eight years. Why don't you come? I know full well why not, you don't think me worthy «I went. I kissed her eyes – at least in the mystery of her life which, to our misfortune, some higher purpose had marked out for sacrifice.
Lia was not a good dancer but she abandoned herself body and soul – docile, content like a lost lamb in the arms of its shepherd. I noticed Dona Conceição later; she was pretending not to spy. What for? There seemed to me to be no point in this cruelty to Lia, in not letting her live.
«Give me my coat, daughter, I'm feeling cold». Lia let go of me and ran towards the coat. I saw clearly that as she handed it over – it was a black fur coat, quite shabby – the poor girl received a terrible look of reproach; in her dismay she barely managed to return the glance to me, dismayed. Thus provoked, I put on a new record, a new needle, overcoming Lia's hesitation by means of one simple gesture as we slipped into each other's arms. Dona Conceição took out her rosary, her lips trembling with fury and, in that way of hers, again brought up the matter of the lack of air. Perhaps she needed to go to the window... like hell she did. She squinted out of the corner of her eye, she prayed. Did she want to convince me? I kissed Lia on the mouth while her mother was fussing about. And Lia didn't hear her, but pressed herself closer, wanting to be next to me and to forget herself. What desire! And then she raised her white neck to me, her gaze too; I thought to find in her the same sense, the same gratitude, as in animal that we had led to the water and which greedily drank; but Lia's gaze showed me that she was disturbed, deeply so, naively, impossibly, desperately so. Her state reflected a drama which she managed to express in half a dozen simple, choked words: «You wouldn't harm your Liita, would you?»
She had delivered herself to me. Like a bubble of soap that had come, so vulnerable, iridescent, to rest intact in the flat of my outstretched fingers. Liita! Indeed, the whole moment seemed unreal to me; that pathetic phrase, so improbable. Lia, worthy of sorrow. I had committed a brutal sacrilege.
«Cousin José», Dona Conceição butted in, crossing herself and gathering up her beads, «you don't mind if I ask you something, do you?
«Oh, my dear lady, by all means... Please...»
«It's just that... could you come and play a hand, if that isn't too much; and talk with me a little bit, too.»
(How kind! She was trying to beguile me.)
«But don't you want to go to bed?» I said.
«I don't sleep. I wish I could, but I can't, my hart won't let me». And then, looking at my left hand, she added: «What a handsome ring our cousin has! What a beautiful sapphire! My husband had a ruby, but the ring was the same.»
«You have noticed, too», said Lia, in surprise. «It's the symbol of everlasting love, isn't it, Mummy?»
The truth of the matter is that I don't think of Lia at all during the night. Lately at the Apollo I have been mixed up with a chorus-girl. She was a bit common; at that time she was called Georgette and had run away from her father in Oporto. She was related to «a former Governor of Angola». You can't imagine what a bloodsucker she was. It was no use my changing my digs or my café; when it came to tracking me down she was like a policeman. She followed me tenaciously to the Baixa, to Estoril, to the Arcádia. How many times had she made me miserable, sticking to me like glue. I can see her now: her fine lips, swollen, proud. She lived in the Rua do Arco, with some fat, rich fellow, in a place with a tiny verandah. Fair enough, It was she who attached herself to me once more, laughing, making a fuss, tapping her tiny foot instinctively, in delicious desperation, until she fell on the bed crying about something or other.
At that time I felt I loved her, because I felt she was a woman. But the nasty piece of work cottoned on to this very quickly and from that moment started to feign her weeping! I didn't kick her or hit her: one night I just left her, naked, her lips swollen with poison or blood, in cavalier fashion, for good. The relief was as if I had pulled out, painlessly, and not without some pleasure, a corn or callous rooted in my soul. Horrible creature! I had hardly awoken when I cast her aside. I shook her off like some confused nightmare, at the crack of dawn, before daybreak. Jumping out of bed, I remembered Lia; perhaps she was still sleeping. How good it would be to go on tiptoe and surprise her in her soft white sheets. To go into her room and enfold her sweetly, as imperceptibly as the dawn light enters and enfold her sweetly, as imperceptibly as the dawn light enters and enfolds her. At first diffused, fearful, less bashful little by little, now bolder, more insistent even to the absolute dominion which arrives with the crowning glory of the sun.
But this mere imagining; apart from anything else Lia sleeps with mother. What other fancies will my imagination bring me? I am holding at bay other, sadder matters, either from shame or remorse. On this morning they had, as they had told me the previous evening, to set off for Chèleiros, it being Monday, a schoolday. And so we were able to go together to the barracks. I remember that Dona Conceição was complaining about the drizzly wind, about the distance and that I resented the fact that Lia put up with all this; she seemed short, walking by my side, nestling close to me when she could, carrying now in one hand, now the other, a small bag of clothes. She lifted her melting eyes to me repeatedly as if to plead: «Who will help me one day to escape this torture?» She would have liked to stay with me once and for all, slave that she was, and creep away before sunrise. The promise of her lips was mute, the desire embrace of her arms invisible; she had to be content with just holding out to me the tips of her delicate fingers as she left. There we went, the countryside still asleep. The convent was like a great stain against the eastern sunrise. I slaked Lia's thirst there at the side of the road with the living water of which the Evangelist speaks.
«Can you be there, cousin?» babbled her mother. «It's an hour or more on foot.»
«Perhaps», I said.
I have to say it again, quite sincerely, frankly (We said goodbye, see you soon, simply enough). It made me believe that she would enjoy more than anything seeing Lia really loved – with marriage at the end of it, why not? I was from a family to which she had always aspired: I had a degree – in arts; I was the heir to some great pile – probably mortgaged, although nobody knew for sure. Lia with her gifts, rare enough these days, of education and honesty – a heart of gold, unsullied, beyond price. Certainly she wouldn't have enough problems there. But for that there was cousin Conceição, the «mummy», With nothing else to interest her, she could be the lady of the house.
In short: the neighbour from the ground floor would do my room; I could have the use of the yard; I could make myself at home. At home? How? There was no electricity in the house and it was a kilometre from the barracks. What nonsense. Only now, saying these words to myself again, do I realise how ridiculous the situation was. «So it was because Lia was there, then!» gloated one voice. «She‘ll come to spend Saturdays and Sundays there». Even so. I would go out I decided. And I went off to that pile and thence to the parade ground.
«Half turn!... out turn!»
«Shoulder arms!»
All morning on parade; all afternoon in class. By evening I was tired out. The peace of that sheltered house suited me well; perhaps that was where the spirit of one of my father's relatives roamed around. Little by little, from the old bed, from the desk, the walls, from the worm-eaten, unwaxed floor, or perhaps even from the echoes that lingered, Lia's downfall had begun to creep into my soul.
Major A. N. Scoto's orphan carried out her duties with the air of someone who, although innocent herself, had to atone for some wrong – there was nothing else she could do – in order to save her own life and that of her «mummy». Why did she persist in calling her «mummy». She earned 250 escudos a month and they had this place in Mafra with its rent fixed long ago and, thank God, covered by subletting the ground floor. (Lord forgive me: I'm telling all these things, of trying to cover them up?) Furniture, gold – bracelets, earrings, maybe keepsakes – even clothes, everything was little by little swapped, quite deliberately, for they daily bread. The piano, too. A major's uniform. With some of this money Juja ran away to Lisbon where in some street she would buy some fruit and a ticket for the lottery, which she would perhaps just give to some lover.
During lunchtime on the second or third day – I'm not sure which – I turned up at the house while the neighbour was making the beds. She was a simple, gaunt countrywoman, with troubles of her own. She asked my pardon, and hastened to add: «The orderly brought a box for you, sir. From the young lady».
I opened it; there was the explanation on a little piece of white paper: «I'm sending you these grapes for your tea. I'm sorry it's nothing much. Lia.» And I thought to myself, tenderly even: «It's in the bag! I felt like laughing. I know: it's not pretty, but it's the truth.
«Tell me something,» I asked the woman all of a sudden. «What happened to Juja? Did you know her? Can you tell...»
«One night a suitor came and took her off in his car. Have you heard about it, sir? I beg you not to say anything about it, I don't like intrigues, nor am I trying to stir things up; but it was the way her mother treated her, she's a hard one, that one. She didn't let the girl go out with him, her blood boiled just to see him come to the windows, she'd belt her for the least thing, just like she hits Lia, who is an angel, poor thing, and so she that's what she did, may God forgive her... And now she's working in the theatre, I think she's a dancer. Everybody blamed the mother because she never lifted a finger, everything had to be done by the daughters, like slaves they were. When she's drinking, no one can put up with her. She even locked them up in a dark room. Worse than a devil...
«What?»
«Oh sir, on my soul, it's the truth. She goes around all evening making a great fuss, saying she can't get enough air, that she has a pain in her heart, but it's the cheap brandy that does it. She always gets one of those bottles of the stuff from Chèleiros, the strong stuff. You'll see some things, sir, it's pitiful. And you've hardly got here and I'm telling you this. And isn't she renting us the ground floor and now she wants to take the kitchen away from us?
It was the sad situation of Major Scoto's orphans that gave me pause. I had never thought of marrying. I have always been, once I was aware of these things, a free spirit, practical, it might conventionally be said, perhaps somewhat selfish. The more I live and find things out, the more the vision of the wedding night recedes in space and time. And my future, moreover, is not so grand as I have made it out to be. Now in the second grade of the military I have to work to eat. Once this is over I shall return to Portalegre and ask my mother for a few coins every day for coffee. As usual.
Lia is a good girl. I couldn't help but pity her, so desolate in love, with her anxiety to do the right thing. So often I am torn between the most tumultuous, contradictory feelings. «Perhaps an outrage», says my heart. «Now wouldn't it be an act of charity?» says my reason, discreetly. «On the contrary, a crime,» cries the law. «And it was only a flirtation, in the Portuguese fashion!» says irony, butting in, ruthlessly.
I ended up thinking all this senseless, disturbing, cynical, shameful. In my distraction, though, I saw the orphan's eyes again; and, thinking about them, I started to feel that there was something anguished and tragic in their mysteriousness, something which went beyond a mere promise, so easy, so unsettling. And so I wanted to find some honest solution for her pain. I didn't know what to do. Above all, as the sad afternoon faded way over the distant sea, with its glimmers of red, it was then I, on my way to the poor, lone house, fed up of marching and kitbags, of the captain's sadism and tired, even, of my companions, felt the clamour of a thousand interior contradictions. But by the next day it was raining and I felt alone, flat. On Sunday I would go to Lisbon; I might even meet Juja, have a good time, you never know. Mafra meant the Convent and the Convent was a fortress. Soldiers, soldiers, soldiers. And suitors. What pedantic creatures, without a lover, without anything. The good old days in the king's service. Delicious kisses in the half light of corridors, in the velvety darkness of the underground, in the exciting profanity of the cells. That fortress so heavy, so powerful, now seemed to me to have been raised by a genuinely regal, sexual force. In order to crush it, in order to tame unmistakable force, whether motivated by an acute fear of scandal, or by a rigid adherence to the Faith. In the very same corridors, centuries later (1938) some filthy washerwoman would direct her obscene overtures to the most needy, the boldest tommies. And then she would go and complain to the Company.
That was when Guerreiro, Pinto Basto, Casquilho and Maia, my old comrades, hit upon the idea, on Thursday night in the café, of a raid on Lisbon, on the Alto district; in mufti, as if were making a case for armed pacifism. It was a very curious thing but the further away I tried to get from the idea – it was just so absurd – of going from theatre to theatre looking for Juja, forgetting about my friends and everything else, the less I could bring my self to do it. We had hardly arrived, however, when in the Café Portugal I told them what I wanted to do; they laughed in my face, coughing and ahemming behind their hands; on the way out Guerreiro, trying to dissuade me, was reduce to insulting me. And he had good enough reasons; it really was very silly. I went with them, through that part of town, from place to place, to the sound of fado. We drank; I found the whole evening pointless. I was thinking about Lia, and Juja, too, overwhelmingly, and about my father, growing old in Portalegre. I felt sad, Lisbon far from my thoughts. Pinto Basto's girth, fat and comic, with his face like an outmoded baby Jesus, just seemed ridiculous. But at bottom I was looking forward, too, to getting my own back on Guerreiro for his triumphal, gloating smile. And Maia? An idiot – because of those things he'd written. Casquilho was priceless: he had got into his head that social revolution would be started by little allegorical verses. Crazy! In the end I left them in a bar, quite drunk. The fado meanwhile continued to haunt me out in the street, now to the right, now the left, in the babble of the radios, in the cough of a woman, in the way a drunk was walking, in many other things. I went down in the lift at the Glória, there in the Baixa. I wanted something to amuse me a little; nobody at all among that crowd was looking at me. I felt somebody push me. Someone else... But what sort of sense was there in coming to Lisbon in my khaki drill? I was thinking I would glimpse something in all those women going by, whether honest or not, something of Lia, of the major, of Dona Conceição. One of them might perhaps be Juja. That was a mistake: there at the door of Maxim's I bumped into Georgette. What a damn nuisance. I wanted to hide, but that was out of the question.
«Aren't you the Apollo any more?» I manage to ask her, leading her away from all the confusion.
«I needed a change,» she said frankly, shrugging. «But haven't you fallen out with me?»
There she was, pouting; the kid collar of her coat gave her a delicately ingenuous air. «Listen: maybe you can tell me something. Do you know some girl from Mafra, called Juja, or Maria de Jesus? She might be a chorus girl...»
She looked me up and down: «Is she a petty bourgeoise? Or some girl from the provinces?» she snorted, with ironic interest.
She managed to make me feel small. «Come on, don't be jealous,» I persisted. «I'm asking you if you know her.»
«Jealous, indeed,» she retorted. «I might even be able to help you find her. Is that what you want?»
«Good night!» I flung back at her, stalking off trying to look imposing.
She didn't run after me, or stop me. She didn't care. She had other fish to fry or she had moved. She wasn't hurt; she just laughed at me. Putting my hand on my heart, meanwhile, out on the streets, wandering around hopefully, I touched the narrow seam from which God had made Adam. The idea which obsessed me amounted to no more than wanting to meet Juja and have my way with her, thereby possessing at the same time something of Lia – without the responsibility – and the unknown soul of a lost woman. I was a coward.
All the morning it rained and thundered. I missed the roll-call and had no dispensation for my absence. In the meantime as the shooting practice in the country had made us filthy and I hadn't been to change my uniform before dinner, I didn't go to the café but headed for the house instead, intending to return later. I was surprised then on climbing the steps to find a ray of light in the corridor. I went in; they were already there and had just finished eating. I say «eating» rather than dinning better to convey the impression I received on seeing the table, without a cloth, plates half licked and a cheap bottle of some dark-looking wine. Her face flushed, Dona Conceição got to her feet.
«Guess what Liita fancied today?» she explained in a loud voice. «Potatoes, with salt cod and cabbage».
And she, what would she fancied? A sickening smell of cabbage and potatoes came to me. Lia, her lips greasy, wearing a gown, a yellowed gown made of ticking, added unnecessarily: «Mummy's such a glutton: she never leaves a thing...»
«For me,» she was going to say. Perhaps she was still hungry.
«The doctors, you know,» Dona Conceição cut in, just in time. «I'm not supposed to eat; but I get so hungry... And my heart isn't getting any better. Everything ready, Lia, put the plates away. But your cousin must be soaked – quickly, get him a glass of aquardente; now you must go and change...»
«Very well, excuse me.»
«And I put up with a kilometre of rain; for what?» I say in my room. «It's today.» I am elated. «It's today.» Lia was crying out for me; the loudspeaker began to play. I made haste, so that I could fell her lips touching mine, they were burning, her eyes were more anguished. I had to do something decisive, right now.
«Tonight, come and talk with me in the corridor.» I pressed her, secretly.
«Ah, but I can't,» she replied sadly, glancing suddenly at her mother.
What more could I want? She hadn't asked why, nor seemed offended, like some silly girl. And for the rest I wanted to get her to agree – although, I must admit, something deep down in me would have preferred a refusal.
«Don't be afraid. You can come at any time; I'll be waiting for you.»
«She never sleeps,» she murmured despondently.
Perhaps it was the great lump of a mother, then, whom I should get out of the way. The chronic difficulty she had in breathing meant that she was always close to us, sometimes seated, sometimes standing, like some stupid bell tinkling out the feeblest claptrap. She asked us to stop the music, so that I had to listen to her, so that I would come to the conclusion that in Lia I had the wife who would be perfectly suited to all my plans: «If only you knew how much this poor soul suffered because she wanted to help a girl from Chèleiros to get married...»
«Excuse me, Dona Conceição, but what has this to do with me? It only gets on my nerves, you know. Listen, go to the garden, go and get some air. Leave us alone for two minutes, that's all we need...»
The most extraordinary thing was that Lia was also listening to all this nonsense with transparent enjoyment, her hands on her knees, looking down, in a attitude of modesty and self-denial, saying something here and there, deliberately, as if spelling things out, a habit she had picked up from teaching children.
«No,» added Lia, carefully, «this girl – as it happens an extremely interesting, a very good little thing – went to meet me one evening at the school, where I happened to be making some maps, and she told me, in tears as though someone was about to kill her, that a certain Senhor Rogério already owed her his sacred word of honour.»
So she paused for a moment to see whether I was surprised by this. I smiled. My weariness cried out enough, enough. But it wasn't enough. «What did I do, what did you do?» I asked, making me think: «Do you know what I'm saying, Lia? You are a fool, an idiot. You're not of this world. Good night.»I wanted to tell her this quite openly and send the mother packing. Just like that, that they didn't belong in this world. But me knee was stuck fast to that of the orphan, there on our side of the table.
«In short, Lia, you are a saint,» was what I actually said. And I tried to give the impression that that was it, an edifying conclusion. In vain: it only encouraged them. This Rogério and the peasant girl ended up getting married and I yawned, unable to contain myself. Lia was the godmother.
«And have the godsons turned out well?» I asked, by way of revenge.
Lia was shocked: «So, so...»
«He's already tried to kill her twice,» SAID Dona Conceição.
«Oh, Mummy, don't say that; nobody ever saw him!»
«But what if it had been true?» I asked, deliberately.» Wouldn't you have regretted what you did?»
And I waited, as if I was offering counsel. Lia took her leg away and shifted on the chair.
«Regret, no,» she said. «I would feel pity for her, the poor thing. But she had got her honour back without delay, that's the main thing.»
Was the poor maiden keeping it for later to remind me of the same obligation? I still wanted her, I had no scruples, enraged as I was by the high price being put on her boring, useless virtue. I got up. «Please excuse me. Ladies,» I said, turning the screw. «I have to go to roll-call, and tomorrow I'm off to Lisbon. Should you want anything...»
Lia turned pale. I bade them goodnight and turned to go. As she ran close the stair door she slipped me a note. It read: «I need to talk to you. When Mummy is asleep...»
When Mummy is asleep...
The note, which I carried in my breast from Chèleiros, was a declaration. Before lights out in the barracks Maia snatched it from my hands, ran among the beds reading it out loud while the others held me. The place was in turmoil.
«It's the old, lost romantic spirit which is reborn!» cried Casquilho the poet, getting up and throwing his arms in the air.
They started throwing bolsters around, hitting each other over the head and shouting obscenities. How crass they were! As soon as I had got back the crumpled note I fled.» I loved you before I knew you. And now that I have your word... «Yes, my darling. And I ran out into the wind and rain, towards Lia's arms, for better or for worse.
It was for worse, it hardly needs to be said. Because I had being holding back, only a decisive action – even if that meant abduction – could have saved Lia. Now, this did not appeal to me; nor did I sense the road to the precipice beneath our feet. Then again some things were so unexpectedly revealed that night that I didn't even have the time to realise their import. There was no forewarning, no missed heartbeat, not the slightest thing to tell me that I had Lia's fate in my hands that night. Only the lamp at the front of the house seemed to flicker oddly. But how can the play of light and shadow in the night mean anything in human terms?
When I got there the silence was absolute. So different from that of other nights. I think to myself. On tiptoe I go to my room, my heart pounding. Today there would be no sound of rats gnawing or squeaking, of any spirit moving along the dark corridor, of thieves about to attack during sleep. The virgin is about to be sacrificed; aroundher moves no mysterious darkness. I get into bed, my pyjamas on. I glance at the paper, nervous, expectant. How I want to be able to hear Lia's heart beating, her heart which will soon bring me the sign. In the engraving two girls in London are fighting a duel – it's something from a play. Lia is struggling desperately against her fear of her mother. She's heard my muffled steps. «There goes the love of my love,» she will say, starting to tremble. No. No. She's incapable of that. Why am I deluding myself? There's nothing dividing us except the little room with its old furnishings. So easy to come to me! So far beyond words! «Mother, why aren't you sleeping? There's no need to lie awake, it's late. Close your eyes. Close them for now your child is grown up and wants to leave the cradle, as birds want to leave the nest once their wings have grown.»
An hour went by. Perhaps Lia has fallen asleep, too. What a letdown! I get up a sudden, strong gust of wind bangs a door, whistles through the house; nervous, I turn to go back to bed. No. I get up again. It's now! Th whistling wind will cover the sound of our steps, the sound of our mouths. I shiver and fall again on the bed. If only I knew what to do!
Dona Conceição eyes are closed but her breasts heave, they do not sleep, they are full of menace, the chain which holds Lia. Her virgin's body moves gently with sweet impatience. Her thighs unfold, her form turns around softly. Her right arm falls carelessly. The street-light dances on her bed, throws lines on the wall, reveals Lia's hair hanging loose, her face, her burning mouth. And I, like a wraith, have crossed the room separating us, and like a thief now through the transom I see her sorrowful longing to be set free. Lia hardly dares even half-open her eyes to peep cautiously at her mother. She fears her as if she were some despotic lord. But she has made up her mind: neither fear, nor virtue, not even the memory of her father can stop her. The secret of her self-possession is mine. Lia will come. There she is beside the bed. Her trepidation equals my desire. But if it so why hasn't she come straight away? «What stupidity!» I say, in a rage. Wasn't it utterly thoughtless of Lia to let Dona Conceição rest her cheek on her soft left arm. «That will awaken the tigress...» And my blind passion was such that I wanted that virgin with or without her damned arm. The widow had been sleeping on top of her now for tem years, not from any tender sentiments, it seemed to me, but because she was a tyrant. Meanwhile the struggle began again. Lia had closed her eyes; her resignation seemed infinite, pulling her arm away slowly, gently. She looked so angelic, one might have said! Just then, fatally, Dona Conceição's left hand rose involuntarily, moved and then fell on Lia's neck. It was terrifying. Even in sleep the octopus did not release its prey.
Lia's stillness once again dispirited me. It was useless; everything was working against us.
And then... the unexpected: the fearful hand slipped away. Outside the storm had died down. The lamp had ceased to flicker. Without a sound I opened the door, Lia shuddered and, recognising me, got up like a zombie, and came towards me, deathly pale, not uttering a sound. I took hold of her belt and we took two, three cautions steps into the room. Her mouth immediately sought out mine and she kissed me eagerly, still standing. I leant her against the wall and it occurred to me that I could overpower her momentarily and carry her in a moment to my room. My fingers ran up and down her back, I opened her dressing gown and touched her. I felt her respond instantly. Lia seized me, desperately, violently, her eyes now open, now closed, hastening the consummation.
Despite her convulsions she dragged a promise from me:» You won't ever forget me, will you?»
«No.»
Her directness shocked me. Perhaps Lia's excessive vulnerability might awaken my own conscience. I was afraid, too, that her panting, her short, passionate gasps for breath, would wake the monster, Dona Conceição; suddenly there was a sound in the corridor. We froze, rigid. We could hear the sound of footsteps quite clearly. Lia was about to cry out but I shook her and nodding at her bedroom door, pushed her towards it. «Go on!» Her eyes shone with the light of tragedy, she came towards me, her face disfigured. I heard the sound of the bed – I daren't breath – and Dona Conceição voice: «What's the matter with you, child?»
«Nothing, Mummy.»
And everything relapsed into its former silence.
My terror was overwhelming. I leaned against the first thing that came to hand, stunned. I don't know how long it took for me to be able to think: «It wasn't Dona Conceição who got out of bed – it was him! He had awoken on contact with Lia. It was her father's spirit. It was him; he has come to save her.» And I felt something like a kind of relief within me that I hadn't left the candle burning in my room I could not have set foot in there. I staggered in that direction. But, heavens above, when I got to the door the improbabilities reached their height: there was Georgette, calmly taking off her gloves, putting them on the marble dressing table, just like a lady. My astonishment and then sudden anger are evident, visible. It was she footsteps has stopped us. I feel silent. I saw in her something mysterious, ghostly, something which stopped me throttling her.
She stopped for a moment in front of the mirror. Could this really be me, not dreaming, and Georgette in the flesh? Full of doubts, I approached her and she held out her hand: «Good evening», she stammered.
I don't return her greeting, but I take hold of her fingers as if to determinate whether they are really hers.
«But what nonsense is this? I throw the question at her.» Have you gone crazy, or what? Do you think that this room is just another, like those in Lisbon? Be off or I'll break your head open.»
She wasn't at all cowed. On the contrary: she smiled bitterly, her gaze resting on my state of dress – I was wearing an overcoat on top of my pyjamas, looking somewhat ridiculous. Then, clearly in great sadness, she began to explain.
«You know how it is. I began to ask around about the girl you were interested in. I came to tell what I had discovered; I had no intention of staying». She sat on the bed. «I asked the carriage to wait outside for fifteen minutes.» The usual prattle. «Very well,» I replied, my cynicism coming in handy. «Quite simply I would rather you didn't bother yourself to that extend.» I wanted to see what her real motives were. «But when all's said and done you've come just as the right time. If you wish you may stay here with me tonight.»
She tucked one leg under the other. «It wasn't me you were expecting. Where have you come from in this state?»
«It was Juja, actually,» I said. «Did you speak to her?»
«No, I didn't. But tell me: where have you come from?»
I said nothing. Everything about her was intriguing, even the fact that she wasn't wearing make-up. Her lip, with the fever of another time, curled in unaccustomed bitterness. And each time her sadness seemed even deeper, in her narrow eyes, the carelessness of her gestures, her pallor.
«Juja... died,» she blurted out at last, tenderly.
And she buried her head in the bolster. «So it was her,» it occurred to me in a flash. Is it possible? Was Juja a false name? Was this adventuress the orphan child of some relative of mine? The one I loved and then discarded like a slave.
If it hab been something I had read I wouldn't have believed it. It was all some bad joke, a dream even. Nevertheless, Juja was there before me, unmasked, sobbing over her ruin, her naked soul, torn to shreds. I began to stroke her as though she were my unhappy sister; I kissed her hands, the hands of Juja before she turned to prostitution. And them her brow, her sad, damp eyes. («A petite burgeoise? Some girl from the provinces?«) That Juja was dead. Why look for her in streets or in the theatres? I felt like weeping to myself. We were on the same bed, alongside each other, devoid of all desire.
After a few moments she began to stroke my hair and wanted to know things about Lia, about «Mummy», about how I had come to that place, whether they had enough to eat. And, on the same subject, whether there were still in the garden. Ah, how she missed those figs sometimes!
«I guessed at once that you must be here in this house and that Lia, with her weakness, would be very fond of you. I came more to warm her. Why don't marry her? She's a saint».
«She is indeed», I replied.
(That room was formerly her father's. She thought I was in the other one, hers. The light had attracted her.)
Then the damned horn blared out in the silence of the night and she got up and went to put on her gloves. At that moment I sized her by the shoulders.
«Listen, Juja, listen, darling,» I begged her. «Don't go away. Don't go. Now you know I love you. The one who died, that was Georgette. Don't leave. Can't we forgive each other, my love.»
From the depths of her soul there came but one word: «Impossible. Impossible.»
«I beg you, darling, not to go...»
She turned round to face me; I wanted to hold her with all my strength. «We must not... It would be the death of Lia. No. No.» And she fled to the corridor.
My arms fell limply by my side. From the window I could see her going slowly towards the car, and then turn, once, twice, to Dona Conceição's
room – the one which had been hers, as an adolescent. And there I stayed, empty, wretched, crushed, listening to the noise of the sea.
«Off you go,» I'm saying the following morning after exercises to some soldier. «Ask the widow Scoto to give you my trunk and take it to the Pensão Moderna. Hurry now!»
After much persuading off he went. I was extremely nervous, waiting near the Convent, going from the road to the gardens, from the gardens to the road. Wagons came by, loaded down. I had never before this time wanted so ardently to set off for the unknown, money in may hand, to be spent in whichever port I fetched up. My desolation was like that tennis court, above the gardens, which during the night had filled up with dead leaves and puddles of water. Never-failing autumn! Juja had left an envelope addressed to Lia on the dressing table; there was some money in it. I left another envelope, with a brief note of explanation and a month's rent. I was broke. I ruled out going to Lisbon; among other things, I didn't want to risk meeting Juja again so soon. Above all I needed to rest and think. I was far from thinking that other, even worse, surprises lay in wait for us. When my trunk arrived I settled into my new room, but for a while I had the feeling that something was missing, whatever it was, I didn't really know. My mind wasn't working properly; I was vexed, eaten away inside. This obsession that people have, to rifle through their pockets, once, many times, looking at things, summoning up memories, and... nothing. Propped up on the bed, daydreaming, all sorts of things, I suddenly remember: «The ring! The sapphire! I had it in my dressing room.»
I spring up and run out into the street and dispatch another soldier. Instead of the ring, however, he brings me an off-hand note from Dona Conceição. It is clear enough. If I were to give all the details they would fill a couple of police not but I can sum it up in two lines: from the inquires conducted by Captain Silveira – he questioned the soldier who had brought my case and the lady who lived on the ground floor, while the owners of the house, Dona Conceição and Lia, made a statement – we gained the exact impression that the theft, if it had taken place, could only have been carried out by a third party. The lady had spent the morning washing clothes by the well; the soldier, who had undoubtedly gone into my room, refused to admit what he had done, however, when the sergeant with typical subtlety had gone to the mess and asked who had been to do a favour for a certain cadet, so and so, who wore glasses etc. The ring was worth more than 800 escudos; I had used it in certain emergencies. More than this, it had been in our family since the marriage of my great grandfather. But my unease did not spring from either of these reasons; rather, it sprang from the mysteriousness, in itself, of the disappearance. It was even possible that it had been Juja! In truth, she had admired it many a time in Lisbon. Who knows? I must admit that I don't even remember whether I still had it when I got washed that morning. I would to be patient.
The days passed, and although I had my room in the Pensão I continued to eat in the mess, to save money, and mixed rather more with my colleagues – in the café, in the street, in the corridors of the Convent.
«What is the hardest thing to bear?» asked a certain Paulinho one day. «Do you know what it is? It's not the captain, nor the knapsack, not even the lectures; it's the lack of women. There are more than a thousand fellows in the barracks... And each one left to fend for himself!»
It even got so that one of our great pleasures was when some sergeant's daughter, full of herself, not a child but not quite a woman, took a perverse delight in smiling back at our stares whenever our paths crossed. More: the captain would arrive unobtrusively, solemnly, on his bicycle every weekday morning at half past six. Come rain or shine we would assemble on the parade ground to go, behind him, to the beat of the drum, in squad formation, kitted out, sweating, making for the «theatre of operations», knee deep in the Mata Grande. It was the time of day when two or three elegant ladies would be on their way to tennis, with their bare brown legs and white pumps. The damned attack! «Throw yourselves to the ground in short, rapid intervals... Make the best use of the lie of the land...» The ground was soaking and full of gorse. At the end of the afternoon's instruction what we really wanted was to sleep; the naps we took during lectures were not enough. But it was just at this moment that the «élite» would come sauntering along the road while we remained there with our tongues hanging out. One or other group of three or four little sweeties would stroll up and down, with the ingenious air of someone who had come to gawp at our discomfort. They had their fathers – officers, our superiors. (At another time Lia would have been one of them – and Juja.) They came along that road... They knew well enough that the cadets of this year would leave sorrowfully, like those of previous years, who had promised to return and had not. But was it even worth thinking about? They were there during our brief stay in Mafra with a little bit more hope than the daughters of station masters as the trains passed by.
And anyway, I thought to myself one afternoon, what if any of these doll-like creatures – for whom life has not been so hard, who know how to play tennis, flirt light-heartedly, smile and perhaps embroider, maybe even give caresses, who are learning how to paint their eyes and dye their hair, and have these childish names – Mimi, Mideu, Midá, Bina, Lili, Fifi, Jujú, Lulú – and who are above looking for a «good hard-working boy», what if any of them should pay attention to the misfortunes of two of their old friends, the orphans of Major A. N. Scoto, an old friend of their parents...
«Have you got your invitation to the ball?» one of the group asked me, interrupting my thoughts just then.
«What ball?»
«A ball in your honour, given by us. By the way, where are you going?» asked the blonde one, Binita, whom I already knew. She was darling.
«Don't bring anything else up,» said another one, laughing.
«It's true, isn't it? It was you who had the ring stolen? So, has it turned up?» asked the other two.
«I'm still waiting,» I joked.
«Do you know what they're saying around here?» asked Binita.
«For heavens' sakes, girl, don't say it; it might not even be true,» warned her friends.
«Tell me. I don't mind,» I said.
«They hesitated for a couple of minutes, pretending to have misgivings. «Ah, no, it might be no more than gossip».
But finally they came out with it: «Perhaps the widow Scoto, you know, out of necessity...» And they all four smiled in superior fashion.
I didn't hate them for it. In any case they all had that golden skin I love so much! A little later as we were waiting in line for a dinner a first sergeant cadet, a native of Mafra and therefore in touch with things locally, managed to be much more to the point: «It was the widow Scoto who pawned it. That's what they're saying...»
Gradually my disquiet became unbearable. What was more I had an odd kind of fillip across from my room: a girl in pyjamas – nothing more. At any moment when she sensed that I was around she would open the door onto the verandah, showing off her charms to me, walking around, inspecting herself in the mirror, shaking the duster, stretching out languidly on the sofa, assuming the most provocative postures as she lowered herself onto it. She used to hum. She would appear on the top floor, drawing my attention with her dry little cough, and then to amuse herself, sit by the window, reading.
This girl in the pyjamas was married; she carried on this game deliberately, perversely. She swung like a pendulum between moods, sometimes sentimental, at other times crazy. Sometimes she would laugh out loud at something in the paper; yet another time I saw her crying,
As for what the Pensão had to offer, our chambermaid was fat and ruddy. Even so whenever I put my hand out to touch her she would stand up on tiptoe, flustered, and callout: «I'll call the boss right now. I'll kick up a fuss.» And out it came, her little speech, calling out down the stairs: «Worthless sort!» She would leave the bowl of hot water at the door of my room while I bellowed out from inside for her to come in. «You are not worthy, sir!» she cried, waddling off in haste down the stairs. The landlord, who was still a strong young fellow, began to look at me suspiciously. How could I not, in this situation, think of Lia, Juja and other unattainable women?
It is true that Lia wrote to me, a week after my flight, a sad letter to which I did not reply: «Although my first note did not mean anything to you, since you left it behind when you went,» she wrote, «I am not offended, as you might suppose. I am indeed madly yours and I remain – and will always remain – so.» The truth was she meant trouble. «I hope,» she continued, «that one day God will notice me, as much as He has so far forgotten and put me to the test, and allow us to be united eternally in the same supreme happiness.» There was more: «Our house is always there entirely at your disposal; I hope to have the good fortune to see you again.»
With this appeal ringing in my ears I chose instead to go to Lisbon in search of some little adventure – it was a matter of being honest with myself. Just as Juja had done previously, I frequented the cafés and looked around me; in vain. Before dinner I went up the Rua do Salitre, my mouth burning, where I later found myself at the door of the rich old chap; when the old boy came out he saw me there. «Excuse me, sir,» he explained, quite spontaneously, and not unkindly, «but she doesn't live here now. She's going around with some young officer.»
Perversely, the old man's words cheered me up: I dined well, had something to drink and enjoys a happy little adventure.
When I got back to Mafra that night I was appalled by the pitiful provincialism of the spectacle: a blind girl was singing sad songs and playing a guitar. The tables were full of uniforms, decked out with silver and gold, a few business men, and a great many of my colleagues. The lubricious gaze of all these people was fixed on the poor girl who, with her white, nebulous eyes, had aroused their pity. There was much clapping, muttered phrases: «Good show, encore, encore!»
The eyes that should have been blind – the eyes of all that lot; and the eyes that should have seen – the eyes of that poor singer.
As for Lia, I don't know whether somebody put a curse on her life when she was in the cradle. But the world fell in on me that tragic night, crying out, «Someone help, she was killed and for no reason at all!» – when the only reason was the inevitable notice of execution. Everything had been so well prepared beforehand; it was like a sort of momentum which, as the gradient grew steeper, pitched us irremediably overboard the moment it met the slightest obstacle. I would not be able to explain even to myself what it was that happened between Lia and me that fateful night of the ball. Did I at some point swear I loved her, or make promises in vain? I didn't seduce her. I merely praised her fine hands. How could the poor girl have gone so far as to take acceptance or rejection as a matter of life and death?
I was dancing with Binita, with that pagan beauty of hers. «Will you not choose a bridegroom for yourself from among these three hundred students?»I asked her somewhat indiscreetly just as Lia appeared with her «Mummy». She was wearing a white dress, her face white too, heightening the blackness of her imploring eyes. The music died away and with it the rhythm of the steps. I could only see that anguished look of hers, already so familiar to me, only more charged, more intense. And I was afraid of her and of me. Perhaps I could ask her to go with me to some dark, hidden place... and put an end to it all.
«You're quite wrong,» said Binita, getting into step. «Marriage doesn't concern me for the moment. More than anything I want to live a bit. I'm just an ordinary girl, with no special plans. But should a boy turn up one day who has a future and who likes me...»
«What if you don't meet him?»
(But wasn't Lia's appearance rather odd? She's beginning to haunt me. Dona Conceição, too, though how could that be?)
«What are you saying?» asked Binita again.
«That I agree absolutely,» I replied without the first idea of what I was saying. But then seizing on one I said suddenly: «It's obvious, Binita, that this isn't a declaration, but you know that I have some sort of future and that I could like you, like...» – I glance at Lia again; Binita catches me – «just like... something precious.»
«Just like a sapphire ring, isn't that it?»
I choked. We danced another few steps. In my mind the inaudible dialogue merged: «Why didn't you reply to my letter? Mummy knows everything, that's why she agreed to come here. If you knew how much I have suffered!» «But that's crazy, Lia, I don't even love you; I feel only pity, forgive me!» That's just stupid; what would I gain by being so brutal. I could say: «Please forgive for not coming round; exercises, you know, lectures.»
The foxtrot finished and I went with Binita for a moment; I sought refuge in the smoking room. What if I left? To go to Lia would mean losing Binita, from whom I had drunk of the sun: ripe, golden. Notwithstanding, I go towards the door. Halfway along the corridor there is a verandah, its door open. This bit belongs to the firemen. The cold discourages me. «Idiot! Lia'' passion is making me do things...» I turn round and go back to the buffet where the men were jostling.
«A glass of port? No, sorry, it's anis.»
«Good evening. How are you both?» Cool, diplomatic. «Oh, do sit down,» her mother would say,» over here. «There were thirty girls; I had to leave them, all of them, that young one, that dark one, even Binita. The music had begun again – a tango, if I was not mistaken. «Let's see if Lia's would like to dance.» I peer at her. «No ,» she says to the crowd. Her anxious eyes scan the whole room. Perhaps she had said: «I have a partner,» meaning me. Must I go? It's horrible: the music shakes my whole body. Nearby two older women bend close. «A beautiful dress,» they murmur. «Who knows... the ring...» I return to the smoking room and bury myself in a chair where Guerreiro is surprised to see me.
«Leave me, I'm tired, on edge,» I say as he approaches.
«Have you danced with anyone?»
A lot of the young men were complaining about this ball, «in their honour» and with only half a dozen girls worth a second glance. The air was thick with smoke. Gradually I was able to make out among the other voices that of our teacher of tactics, second lieutenant Alferes: «It will prevent a scandal, Vieira. We're talking about a close friend. It would be a disgrace...»
«There was nothing in it, I promise you,» replied the other. «But how can I resist, damn it? I can't. She's stronger than me. Can't you see the way she looks? Yesterday she sent for me, talked about a camping site, a long way from here. What can I do?»
On every side I sense conflict, a great struggle. Lia's despair reaches me from the ballroom; it seizes me, makes me feel small.
«There was no other way she could see me again so she went to extremes – it was blind passion. In the end, it's another load on my shoulders – that was all needed. But Dona Conceição, how had she got her to change her mind? It seemed incredible. It wasn't just in a moment of vexation: Lia made the dress, she had plenty of time – and with Juja's money, there's an irony! Even they have let themselves be corrupted. And wouldn't the rumours about the ring and the pawnbrokers have reached them now? There are plenty would confirm the story...»
At this moment, though, the speed of our downfall had already brought the three of us to the edge of the precipice. In truth, everything happened so quickly and so directly like a car which crashes and plunges headlong over the edge. It was much later when Pinto Basto was standing next to me. «Some stuck-up bitch,» he said, barely able to speak, «that one there who won't dance with anyone. What the hell is she doing here, can you tell me? We'd be better off, dancing together, just us men, with each other. We're a bunch of Sex-starved...»
«What's this got to do with me? Go and bay the moon...»
«Bay the moon yourself. Have another drink, it might put you in a better mood. You think you're irresistible, don't you? Well, I'd like to see you go up to her now.»
His outburst made me smile. Guerreiro and many others were there so I make up my mind to teach Pinto Basto a lesson in front of them. To begin with I just gave a little push in the belly. All the shadowy thoughts suddenly disappear.
«A bottle of port?» I say, proffering my hand.
«You're on,» he accepted curtly, if you can get the one in the white to dance with you.»
He enlisted a couple of fellows as witness. Guerreiro burst out laughing. I make my way through the room. The room seemed full of all sorts of things happening but I did not know what exactly. Instead of one I would have happily lost a thousand bottles of port to have been at that moment no more than chap who had bet he could persuade the girl in white to dance. A man without a past, a novice, without remorse. Born on a sofa, not long before, just to dance with a ravishing woman, whose name I did not even know – the lady in white. Well then; I was merely part of the bustle of the room. With a couple of sharp taps the orchestra demanded attention. Anxious glances. We're in the sticks. The leader was showing off his stiffly starched shirt front: «We have a request for an English waltz – The Blue Danube!»
Some of the girls came forward. For a few moments I saw the white dress, whirling round at my command, reflected in the still waters glimpsed between the branches of exotic tress. Then the face of Pinto Basto, half-drank, half-reluctant, swaying with the bottle of port: «You were up to it, you bastard. Congratulations.» And I left Lia's body, her soul, in my arms; mute, dying to speak but not daring to, heart-broken, pitiful – her mouth.
«Have you been enjoying yourself?» I ask, blithely. No reply. Whatever it was, it seemed to choke her. I hastened to her aid. «You must have been very hurt, only to have shown up now...»
«I don't think about it any more. From the start you didn't attach any importance to what I wrote.» She stumbled again; her voice was too loud. Everybody seemed to be watching our embarrassment. I felt ashamed: I had callously encouraged Lia open her heart to me.
«And now, another disaster. I've been relied of my job at Chèleiros Mummy smacked some children who were being cheeky to me and just because of that those people were up in arms. They swore statements against me, saying I didn't teach them anything, that the children hadn't taken any exams, all sorts of things, all made up. And what's more, the inspector took against me; he couldn't speak to me without reducing me to tears. I wouldn't be friends with just anyone, you know. It was all because of this. I haven't the energy. They called me stupid, proud... I don't know what's going to become of us.»
The steps of our dance became mechanical; the people around us seemed to melt away. I was responding to the music without thinking. And, callously, without a word of comfort I asked myself why Lia had got dressed up in silk and had launched herself back into society, chasing a man of my disposition.
«But good can come from misfortune,» she managed to say, starting again. «Mummy has agreed to our engagement and has no objection to my being with you.»
«What on earth for?» I say, quite brutally.
Once again her anguish overwhelmed me. (The orchestra still played.) I waited for Lia to compose herself sufficiently to ask, as thought from afar: «Is there any chance that...?»
Clapping. (At last!) The violinist bowed, well pleased. My gaze meets Binita's bluish green eyes. They have stuck up the Danube again. This is unbearable. «No, I shall disabuse her for good. They were clinging to me like castaways in the hope that I could save their lives. The «Mummy» would cease her vigil, squinting out of the corner of her eye, moaning about how she couldn't breathe and her broken heart, she would deliver her up to me provided that she could live and have her daily bread. What an enormity! Perhaps she was even counting on the protection of the law. How could I not believe now that it was Dona Conceição herself who had stolen the ring? Had she really been asleep that final night?»
Lia was that same girl who had been breathing so heavily, lost, panting. I remember now and look at her to see if I can rediscover my desire. But her black curls were scorched, the shrunken yellow of her neck contrasted with her powdered, milky features. Binita, her body full of the sun, radiant and fresh, gave me a quick glance, smiling. Never had poor Lia seemed so abject, so destitute, and Binita so elegant and beautiful.
And then, this terrible thing happened: Lia put her left hand on her breast. And there shone the sapphire.
«What, Lia,» I exclaimed without thinking, «Was it you who stole the ring?» And I set about trying to wrest it from her, like some common thief.
The fates had ordained it: the music had stopped a moment earlier and the words burst like a bomb through the whole room. People came running from all sides, in haste. I realise now that I had blundered, I recognise what, in her heart, Lia's intentions were – «It's a symbol of everlasting love, isn't it, Mummy?» – but it was too late. Green with rage, that monster, Dona Conceição, ran towards her and struck a heavy blow on the nape of her neck. «You shameless hussy! You have disgraced the ashes of your father!»
There was a sudden swirl of movement as Lia dashed off down the corridor like a madwoman. The black, overwhelming shadow of her mother was running after her; so many men, so many people, but nobody thought to stop her. They stood, dumb-founded. At last somebody managed to grab Dona Conceição.
(Meanwhile, all around: «Imagine, just for the sake of a ring, for something so worthless!» «It was inevitable.»)
The verandah was open and so did not stop her abrupt, tragic fall; and there was Lia spread out flat on the ground like a bird with its wings broken. A cry of alarm – so deep, a cry we would never forget – lingered in the night.
That was in the autumn and now the birds are twittering in the eaves. To tell the truth I must add that the nurses managed to save Lia. Having just received her very touching pardon a few days ago and the news that she is restored to health, I am moved to relate to you all these sad, weighty things. The mother, that poor thing, fainted and never recovered consciousness that fateful morning. And there is yet another, graver, question: What will become of Lia when she leaves the hospital, her heart grieving, with nobody to look after her and the only member of her family left, her sister, the chorus girl? Will she head of Lisbon, too? Or for whatever God ordains?
Perhaps the best thing – don't you think? – would be if were to persuade to offer her some sort of light job in our house.
Reprodução com a autorização dos herdeiros de José Marmelo e Silva.