Electrico W (18 page)

“I’m going to abandon you, you’ll know why in a minute,” she said, and was just disappearing into a fitting room when Irene appeared.

“You? here? Are you playing the dirty old man in the femme fatale department?”

“I’m with someone. Anyway, you’re here yourself.”

“I saw you … I was over there, in another department.”

She waved vaguely to a place behind her where nothing was going on. A glance toward the fitting rooms betrayed her.

“I didn’t know you liked this sort of thing,” she grimaced, picking up a red leather bustier. “So, would it
turn you on if I wore something like this? With garters too?”

I was saved by Manuela’s tousled, smiling face peeping between the curtains.

“Vincent? Come and tell me if it suits me. Miss, this size is really very generous, would you have the next size down, a size four?”

She talked quickly and Irene didn’t speak Portuguese, but she did understand the mistake.

“I … Tell her I don’t work here,” replied Irene, not so much annoyed as disconcerted.

“Oh, I’m sorry, Mademoiselle,” Manuela said in pretty presentable French. “Well, Vincent, are you coming or not?”

I moved closer. She opened the curtain and pulled me by the collar, almost lovingly.

“You speak French?” I breathed.

“No. I have a smattering.” Then she went on more loudly so she would be heard, “So, do you like it on me? Tell me the truth. I don’t look too much like a hooker?”

I tried to stare at the wall but the corset molded her too wonderfully for my gaze not to linger on the unsettling shadow between her rounded breasts, her buttocks, her very long, slim legs. I stammered some sort of reply and she whispered, “How did you like the bit about the size four? Brilliant, wasn’t it? Okay, you’ve fed your eyes long enough, you great pervert.”

“It’s feasted. Feasted your eyes.”

“Go on, scram. The show’s over.”

I stepped backward and returned to where Irene was. She said nothing for a moment, then couldn’t hold out any longer.

“Is she your Lena, then?”

I could tell from her voice, it was artificial, had too much of a singsong to it: Irene was jealous. Not a lover’s jealousy, which would have been colored with pain, just the disappointment of a woman who loathed no longer being the center of attention. I pretended not to notice.

“Yes, it’s her. I realize you’re seeing her in … the circumstances are …”

Manuela popped out of the fitting room. She had put on her jeans over the corset. And managed not to look ridiculous. She came straight over to us and gave us a twirl like a ballerina.

“It’s a bit expensive. But everything’s too expensive when you don’t need it. I’m keeping it on. I’ll start a fashion.”

Then, finally deigning to look at Irene, she asked, “Do you know each other? Come on, Vincent, aren’t you going to introduce your friend? I’m Manuela …,” she said, not waiting for my reply.

I must have paled, or perhaps Irene showed some sign of surprise, because, with no hint of embarrassment, Manuela added seamlessly, “But people also call me Lena.”

“Irene. But people also call me Irene.”

It was said provocatively, but Manuela laughed and held out her hand; Irene, caught out, had to shake it. Manuela then went off to pay, and Irene watched her, as a fox might watch a hen.

“Have you told her about me? About you and me?”

“No.” And, with as much detachment as I could muster, I added, “Why would I?”

Manuela came back over to us, smiling happily, and took my arm.

“Let’s go back to the Brasileira. Do you know that’s where Vincent held my hand for the first time, oh, how long ago was that now?”

“Two months,” I said quickly.

“Two months? I can’t believe it, it sometimes feels like two hours …”

We sat at the same table. Manuela took her role remarkably seriously and had fun terrifying me by talking the whole time. She certainly had a smattering of French. When Irene proved too inquisitive, she dropped her head on my shoulder, unaffected and complicit, and let me do the lying for her. Then she steered my stories toward the truth. Divorced? It came through “just two days ago, phew!” The banker ex-husband was called Palmer, almost the same as my name? “Let’s change the subject, I’m Miss Freire again now, and things are a lot better like that.” Restoring paintings? She was bored of it now, too many issues with ignorant, tyrannical customers, and then there
were museum conservators who were “so temperamental, I mean
so
temperamental. One time, this is the latest time it happened, it was at the Louvre—with a Titian.” And her own painting wasn’t going very well. Nonfigurative work that doesn’t see itself as conceptual is “over-over-over. I should be doing conceptual figurative stuff. But I’m still painting theater sets. Especially white walls. I love white walls.” As for the accountancy job at the theater, her new financial situation meant she “couldn’t turn it down. Accountancy’s how I met my husband. Ah! Didn’t we say we weren’t going to talk about him anymore?” In fifteen minutes Manuela Freire had succeeded in superseding Lena Palmer.

“How about you, Irene, what brings you to Lisbon?”

But there was a cold gust of wind and Manuela looked at her watch.

“I’m sorry,” she said, standing up. “I have to go. The curse of the wage earner. See you soon, Irene, it’s been a pleasure. Vincent, will you come with me for a minute?”

I obliged, not sure what to do. But Manuela Freire knew. She positioned herself so that Irene wouldn’t be able to see her behind me, then pressed my cheeks between her hands, crushing my face so that it probably looked ridiculous and flabby. Then she came right up close till her nose brushed against mine, and whispered:

“Bet this looks like a real lovers’ kiss, don’t you? I want a detailed report tomorrow with my free cup of coffee.”

She turned on her heel and headed toward the theater. A cool raindrop fell on my hand. I went back to sit next to Irene. The sidewalk in front of us was suddenly covered with little patches of darker gray. They were born as round as coins and, wherever there was a slope, they lengthened into teardrops. All at once there was a flash of lightning, immediately followed by thunder, the stiff breeze made the whole town clink and clatter, and the heavy air took on a cooler color. A clear pattering sound came from the ground, everything darkened suddenly, and the rain started pelting down. It quickly invaded the street, dense and luminous, a shivering translucent jelly reflecting the silver of the sky. It could have been monsoon rain, both violent and gentle, cleansing the earth. But no one in Lisbon displayed the defeated nonchalance of the tropics. Everyone wanted to avoid the deluge, taking refuge under shop awnings and bringing in washing that was hanging on balconies.

Manuela was walking across the square in the shower, not rushing, already soaked, her dark hair clinging to her forehead. She tried to avoid puddles, but water streamed everywhere in wide rippling flows. So she bent down swiftly and, in a spectacularly graceful move, took off her pumps. Then she started to run barefoot toward the theater. I must have smiled inadvertently because Irene shrugged irritably.

The storm didn’t last. When Irene wanted to go back to the hotel, I didn’t offer to go with her. She left alone,
turning around twice, as if wanting to test my indifference. But it wasn’t faked, and I was all the more surprised for that.

“
GALILEO DISCOVERED THE
four largest of Jupiter’s many moons thanks to his telescope: Ganymede (which is larger than Mercury), Callisto, Io, and Europa. Anyone who claimed to have seen them by night prior to this was deemed mad.”

That was how I started my first article about Pinheiro, and faxed it straight from the hotel. Four pages of it. I had indicated that I would write at least three articles: “Jupiter’s Moons,” “The Man in Bronze,” and “The Silent One,” covering every aspect of the investigation and Pinheiro’s personality. Then I had promised myself that, if need be, I could come back to the trial.

The editor called straightaway: “What the hell’s all this junk about Jupiter’s moons? The press hasn’t talked about any of this. A correspondent’s job isn’t to go investigating but to read, conflate, and suggest. Read, conflate, and suggest. And that’s it. Still, we’ll publish the article the day after tomorrow all the same. The others at a rate of one every three days. It’s good. Carry on like that. Say well done to Flores for the pictures.”

And he hung up.

It was dark, the air warm, and Irene decided we should eat outside on a terrace and, most importantly, we “had to have lobster” because the way they cooked it here was “adorable.” Antonio suggested a restaurant in the pedestrian area near the rua São José, where crustaceans in window tanks frolicked gleefully although the most elementary understanding of caution would have required discretion.

We had placed our order and were drinking
vinho verde
while we waited when I noticed a young woman watching us. She was wearing black jeans and an AC-DC T-shirt, her spiky hair was set with gel like the punks in London’s Soho, and her eyes were ringed with heavy eyeliner. Because of the getup it took me several more seconds to realize she was Aurora. Even though I had proof of this from the man by her side, Alyosha Karamazov, the tall, brooding young man who clearly followed her wherever she went, standing there stiffly in his perennial gray three-piece suit. Aurora waved to me, but when Irene kissed Antonio she couldn’t contain a pained smile, and she moved away quickly, almost running, trailing her attentive escort in her wake.

A quarter of an hour passed and our lobsters arrived. Another Aurora appeared at the end of the street, wearing a long, black silk dress and blue ballet shoes, her hair smooth and still damp from her shower. Alyosha, let’s call him that, was still escorting her, taking large
strides while she almost ran. Aurora was holding a violin case in her hand. When she reached us, she noticed a wooden crate abandoned outside the metal shutters of a greengrocer’s, and dragged it over to the restaurant terrace. The wood rasping on the road surface attracted the attention of the whole street. Irene was first to turn toward the sound with a grimace, then Antonio. I saw him freeze, petrified.

Aurora turned the crate over. It must once have contained oranges, it had the word “Jaffa” on it. She tested how firm it was with her foot and leaped onto it in one swift movement, standing with her feet along the edge. She waited for an amazed silence to descend, then laid her violin on her shoulder and wedged a cotton cloth on the chin rest.

“Heinrich Wilhelm Ernst’s Caprice for Violin on Schubert’s ‘Erlkönig’ …”

The chin rest was set very high, and Aurora hardly had to lower her head to secure the instrument, which looked like an alto next to Aurora’s tiny form in that black dress. She touched the strings twice with her bow, made a small adjustment to one peg to tune the E, and launched into the music with childlike energy, her bow fluid and active. The first staccato sequence implied this caprice would be an incredibly complex, virtuoso piece. Aurora mastered it perfectly. She didn’t look at Antonio, she had closed her eyes, concentrating, with a vertical crease down her
forehead. On her temples I spotted an area of powder that the water had not quite cleaned away.

It took a matter of seconds for the violin to eclipse all conversation. A woman being heavy-handed with her fork was treated to an eye-popping stare by her companion, and put down her cutlery. The waiter stopped taking orders and leaned against the window. He stared at Aurora, open-mouthed. The very thrum of the street came to a stop. Antonio couldn’t take his eyes off Aurora. Irene silently plowed on with her half lobster.

Balancing on the wooden crate, Aurora drew a pure yet fragile sound from her instrument, like a soprano at the peak of an aria, but there was not a moment’s fear that she might fail. She allowed herself no leeway, even frowning and going back over a difficult passage where she alone could possibly have known she had gone wrong. I realized that Aurora could not cheat, that it wouldn’t have occurred to her. This deep-seated insistence on truthfulness was her trademark, her nobility, and her strength. It’s a cliché, I know, but the only image that came to me was of a princess on an orange box.

I sneaked a glance at Irene. I loathed wanting her so much, hated the violent appetite that urged me to look over at her Medusa eyes, the indolent back of her neck, her bare legs, her ass—no other word seemed more apt. For my desire was now tempered with contempt, a scheme to have her and humiliate her. If Irene had let me touch
her that day, I wouldn’t so much have made love to her as taken her, avidly and vengefully, with no tenderness or feeling. Perhaps she detected this brutality in me, perhaps the evidence that I wanted her so badly drove her still further from me. I had even imagined every detail of this carnal scene and written the whole sequence in my notebook, so that I could realize it in a dream on paper and get it out of my system, but the words were so crude and violent they only increased my frustration and torment. I haven’t copied out any of that ignominious sequence in which I abased myself even more than her.