Skylight (28 page)

She felt neither scorn nor indifference now, only hatred. She hated her husband and she hated herself. She knew that she had given herself to him with the same uninhibited frenzy with which he had possessed her. She took a few indecisive steps about the kitchen, as if lost in a labyrinth. Wherever she turned she met with closed doors and dead ends. Had she been able to remain indifferent, she could have seen herself as the victim of brute force. She knew that, as a married woman, she had no right to refuse, but pure passivity would have been a way of refusing. She could have allowed herself to be possessed without surrendering herself, but she had surrendered herself, and her husband had seen that she had; he would consider this a victory and would behave like a victor. He would impose what laws he liked and laugh in her face when she tried to rebel. A moment's madness, and the work of years had been destroyed. A moment's blindness, and strength had become weakness.

She must think about what she should do, and think quickly before he woke up. Think before it was too late. Think while her hatred was still raw and bleeding. She had given in once and did not want to give in again. However, the memory of what she had felt that night began to trouble her. Until then, she had never scaled the highest peak of pleasure. Even when she used to have normal sexual relations with her husband, she had never experienced the kind of intensity of sensation that makes one both fear and desire madness. She had never been thrown, as then, into the maelstrom of pleasure, with all ties broken, all frontiers crossed. What for other women was an ascent into the heavens was, for her, a fall.

The sound of the doorbell interrupted her thoughts. She ran on tiptoe to the door. She paid the milkman and returned to the kitchen. Her husband had still not woken up.

The situation was clear to her now. It was a choice between pleasure and power. If she kept silent, she would be accepting defeat in exchange for other such moments, always assuming her husband was prepared to grant them to her. If she spoke, she ran the risk of having him throw her impassioned response back in her face. It was easy enough to set out those two alternatives, but rather harder to choose between them. Shortly before, she had felt nausea and disgust, but now those moments of sexual ecstasy roared inside her like the sea inside a shell. Speaking out would mean that last night's experience would never be repeated. Saying nothing would mean subjecting herself to whatever conditions her husband chose to impose on her. Justina moved between those two poles—newly awoken desire and the desire to be in control. One excluded the other. Which to choose? And what scope did she have to make such a choice? If she chose control, how could she resist desire now that she had experienced it? If she chose submission, how could she bear submitting to a man she despised?

The Sunday-morning sun flooded in through the window like a river of light. From where she was sitting, Justina could see the small, raggedy white clouds chasing across the blue sky. Good weather. Bright skies. Spring.

From the bedroom came a mumbling sound. The bed creaked. Justina shuddered and felt her face flush scarlet. The line of thought she had been carefully drawing snapped. She sat paralyzed, waiting. The creaking continued. She went to the bedroom and peered around the door: her husband was sitting there, eyes open. He saw her. There was no going back. She entered in silence. Caetano looked at her in silence. Justina didn't know what to say. All her powers of reasoning had abandoned her. Her husband smiled. She did not have time to find out what that smile meant. Almost without realizing she was speaking, she said:

“Just pretend that nothing happened last night, and I'll do the same.”

The smile vanished from Caetano's lips. A deep frown line appeared between his eyebrows.

“Perhaps that won't be possible,” he answered.

“You know plenty of other women. You can amuse yourself with them.”

“And what if I demand my conjugal rights?”

“I couldn't refuse you, but you'd soon grow weary of that.”

“I see—at least I think I do. How do you explain your behavior last night, then?”

“If you had an ounce of dignity, you wouldn't ask such a question! Have you forgotten that I spat in your face?”

The expression on Caetano's face hardened. His hands, resting on the mattress, clenched. He seemed about to stand up, but stayed where he was. In a slow, sarcastic voice, he said:

“Ah, yes, I'd forgotten about that. I remember now, though, but I also remember that you only spat in my face
once
. . .”

Justina saw what he was driving at and said nothing.

“Come on, answer!”

“No, I feel ashamed for you and for me.”

“What about me? I've had to suffer years of being despised by you.”

“You deserve it.”

“Who are you to despise me?”

“No one, but I do.”

“Why?”

“I began to despise you as soon as I knew you, and I only really knew you once we were married. You're depraved, you are.”

Caetano shrugged impatiently:

“You're just jealous.”

“Jealous? Me? Don't make me laugh! You can only feel jealous of someone you love, and I don't love you. I may have once, but it didn't last. When my daughter was ill, did you care? You spent all your time with your fancy women!”

“Now you're talking nonsense!”

“If that's what you think, fine. I just want you to know that what happened last night won't happen again.”

“We'll see about that.”

“What do you mean?”

“You called me depraved. Maybe I am, but what if, for some reason, I should start taking an interest in you again?”

“Don't bother. Besides, it's been years since you thought of me as a woman.”

“You sound almost sorry.”

Justina did not respond. Her husband was eyeing her malevolently:

“Are you sorry?”

“No! If I was, I'd be sinking as low as all those other women you know!”

“Going with them, of course, is less convenient. With you, I just have to reach out and grab you. I am your husband after all.”

“Unfortunately for me.”

“Now you're being nasty. Just because I didn't react when you spat at me doesn't mean I'm prepared to put up with all your back talk.”

“You don't frighten me. You threatened to beat me to a pulp once, and I didn't so much as turn a hair.”

“Don't provoke me.”

“Like I said, you don't frighten me!”

“Justina!”

She had moved closer as she spoke. She was standing by the bed, looking down at her husband. He reached out his right arm and caught her by the wrist. He didn't pull her toward him, but held her firm. Justina felt a tremor run through her whole body. Her knees were shaking as if they were about to buckle beneath her. Caetano said in a hoarse voice:

“You're right . . . I am depraved. I know you don't love me, but ever since I saw you naked the other night, I've been mad for you, do you hear, mad. If I hadn't come home last night, I would have died!”

It wasn't so much his words as the tone in which he said them that troubled Justina. Feeling her husband drawing her toward him, she desperately tried to free herself from his grip:

“Let me go!”

What little strength she had was ebbing away. She could feel herself being drawn downward, feel her own pulse pounding in her ears. Then her eyes fell on the photograph of her daughter and her stubbornly sweet smile. She pushed hard against the edge of the bed, resisting his efforts to pull her down, and when she saw that he was about to grab her with his other hand, she squirmed around and bit the fingers gripping her. Caetano let out a scream and released his grip.

She ran into the kitchen. She understood now, understood why he had acted as he did. If she hadn't given in to that impulse to reveal herself naked to her husband, none of this would have happened. The Justina she was today would be the same Justina she had been yesterday. She had spoken out, but what had she gained? Only the certain knowledge that everything had changed. It was pure chance that she hadn't given in this time. The photo of her daughter would have been of little help if the conversation with her husband earlier hadn't given her the strength to resist; that, of course, and what had happened only a few hours before . . . “Which means that if, instead of trying to have sex with me so soon afterward, he'd allowed a day or two to pass and then tried again, I probably wouldn't have resisted . . .”

Justina was busy making lunch, her thoughts elsewhere. And what she was thinking was this: “He's depraved, a lecher, which is why I've always despised him. He's still depraved, which is why I still despise him. And yet, even though I despise him, I gave in to him, and I know that, given the opportunity, I'd do the same again. Is that a marriage? Must I conclude, then, that after all these years I am just as depraved as he? If I loved him, I wouldn't use a word like ‘depraved.' I would find it all perfectly natural and would always give myself to him as I did last night. But is it possible not to love a man and still feel what I felt? I don't love him and yet he drove me mad with pleasure. Is it the same for other people? Do they feel nothing but loathing and pleasure? And what about love? Can pure animal lust give you the kind of pleasure you should only get from love? Or is love just lust in disguise?”

“Justina! I'm getting up. Where are my pajamas?”

Getting up? Already? Was he planning to spend all morning with her? Perhaps he was going out . . . She went into the bedroom, opened the wardrobe and handed him his pajamas. He took them from her without a word. Justina didn't even look at him. Deep down, she still despised him, despised him more and more, but she lacked the courage to look him in the face. She was trembling when she returned to the kitchen. “I'm afraid, afraid of
him!
Me! If someone had told me yesterday that one day I would feel afraid of him, I would have laughed.”

Hands in his pockets, slippers flapping, Caetano slouched through the kitchen on his way to the bathroom. His wife breathed again: she had feared he might speak to her and she was not prepared for that.

In the bathroom, Caetano was whistling a tuneful
fado.
He stood in front of the mirror and interrupted his whistling in order to run his hand over his rough beard. Then, while he was preparing his razor, he began again. He lathered up his face and again stopped whistling to concentrate on his shaving. He had nearly finished when he heard his wife's voice outside the closed door:

“Your coffee's ready.”

“All right, coming.”

Caetano didn't care two hoots about the conversation he'd had with his wife. He knew he had won. A bit of resistance on her part would just make things all the more interesting. Dona Justina was going to have to pay, however reluctantly, for the shabby way she'd treated him. He had caught her out. Why had it never occurred to him before that sex would be the best way to humiliate her? Her scorn and pride lay shattered and broken! And the slut had enjoyed it too! True, she'd spat in his face, but he'd make her pay for that as well. He'd do the same to her one day, possibly more than once. Yes, next time she began moaning and writhing around, he'd give her a taste of her own medicine—take that! How would she react, he wondered. She might get angry . . . but only afterward.

Caetano felt very pleased with himself. Even the pimples on his neck didn't burst when he ran the razor over them. He was feeling calmer now. She may have had him under her thumb before, but now he had her in the palm of his hand. Even if his old feelings of repugnance returned, as they were bound to, he would not deny her his services as a husband.

The word “services” made him smile: “Services, eh? What a joke!”

He washed, using a lavish amount of soap and water. While he was combing his hair, he was thinking: “What a fool I've been. Anyone could have seen that the anonymous letter wasn't going to work . . .”

He stopped, slowly opened the window and peered out. It came as no surprise to him to see Lídia; in fact, that's why he'd stopped what he was doing. Lídia was looking down at something and smiling. Caetano followed her gaze, and in the yard belonging to the ground-floor apartment where the cobbler and his wife lived, he saw their lodger chasing after a chicken while Silvestre, leaning against the wall with a cigarette in his mouth, was slapping his thighs and laughing:

“If you don't catch her, Abel, it means no soup for lunch!”

Lídia laughed too. Abel looked up and smiled:

“Oh, sorry, I didn't see you there. Would you like to give me a hand?”

“No, I'd only make matters worse.”

“Well, it's not very kind of you to laugh at my misfortunes!”

“I'm not laughing at you. I'm laughing at the chicken—” She broke off to greet both men. “Good morning, Senhor Silvestre! Good morning, Senhor . . .”

“Abel,” said the young man. “No need to bother with surnames, you're too far away for formal introductions.”

Safe in a corner, the chicken was ruffling its feathers and clucking.

“She's making fun of you,” said Silvestre.

“Really? Well, I'm going to make her give that lady up there another good laugh.”

Caetano preferred not to hear any more. He closed the window. The chicken resumed its agitated clucking. Smiling, Caetano sat down on the toilet seat while he put his thoughts in order: “That first letter may not have worked, but this one will . . .” He wagged his finger at the window in Lídia's direction and murmured:

“I'm going to have my revenge on you too, or my name's not Caetano.”

All of Amélia's endeavors bumped up against her nieces' obstinate defenses. She tried to make the girls confess outright, reminding them of the harmony and perfect understanding that had once reigned in the family. Isaura and Adriana responded with laughter. They tried to demonstrate, in every way possible, that they were not angry with each other, that it was only because Amélia was used to seeing them constantly happy that she had now started imagining things that simply did not exist.