Skylight (3 page)

At all times and in all circumstances, Amélia was the very soul of politeness, but that politeness could easily turn to ice. Her tiny pupils would fix on the face they were looking at, arousing irrepressible feelings of unease and embarrassment in the other person.

The neighbor had been getting on fine with Cândida and had almost finished what she had come to say. Now there appeared before her a far less timid face and a far more direct gaze. She said:

“Good morning, Dona Amélia. I've come about my husband. As you know, he works nights at the newspaper, and so can only sleep in the morning. If he's woken up, he gets really angry and I'm the one who has to bear the brunt. If you could perhaps make a little less noise with the sewing machine, I'd be very grateful . . .”

“Yes, I understand, but my niece needs to work.”

“Of course, and if it was up to me, I wouldn't mind, but you know what men are like . . .”

“Yes, I do, and I also know that your husband shows very little consideration for
his
neighbors' sleep when he comes home in the early hours.”

“But what am I supposed to do about that? I've given up trying to persuade him to make less noise on the stairs.”

Justina's long, gaunt face grew lively. A faint, malicious gleam appeared in her eyes. Amélia brought the conversation to a close.

“All right, we'll wait a while longer. You needn't worry.”

“Thank you very much, Dona Amélia.”

Amélia muttered a brusque “Now, if you'll excuse me” and shut the door. Justina went down the stairs. Dressed in heavy mourning, her dark hair parted in the middle, she cut a tall, funereal figure; she resembled a gangling doll, too large to be a woman and without the slightest hint of feminine grace. Only her dark, hollow eyes, the eyes of a diabetic, were, paradoxically, rather beautiful, but so grave and serious that they lacked all charm.

When she reached the landing, she stopped outside the door opposite hers and pressed her ear to it. Nothing. She pulled a sneering face and moved away. Then, just as she was about to enter her own apartment, she heard voices and the sound of a door opening on the landing above. She busied herself straightening the doormat so as to have an excuse not to go in.

From upstairs came the following lively dialogue:

“The only trouble with her is that she doesn't want to go to work!” said a female voice in harsh, angry tones.

“That may well be, but we have to treat her with care. She's at a dangerous age,” said a man's voice. “You can never be sure how these things might develop.”

“What do you mean ‘a dangerous age'? You never change, do you? Is nineteen a dangerous age? If so, you're the only one who thinks so.”

Justina thought it best to announce her presence by giving the doormat a good shake. The conversation upstairs stopped abruptly. The man started coming down the stairs, saying as he did so:

“Don't make her go to work. And if there's any change, call me at the office. See you later.”

“Yes, see you later, Anselmo.”

Justina greeted her neighbor with a cool smile. Anselmo walked past her on the stairs, solemnly tipped his hat and, in his warm, mellow voice, uttered a ceremonious “Good morning.” There was, however, a great deal of venom in the way the street door slammed shut behind him. Justina called up the stairs:

“Good morning, Dona Rosália.”

“Good morning, Dona Justina.”

“What's wrong with Claudinha? Is she ill?”

“How did you know?”

“I was just shaking out the doormat here and I thought I heard your husband say . . .”

“Oh, she's putting it on as usual, but she only has to whimper and my Anselmo's convinced she's dying. She's the apple of his eye. She says she has a headache, but what she's really got is a bad case of lazyitis. Her headache's so bad she's gone straight back to sleep!”

“You can't be too sure, Dona Rosália. Remember, that's how I lost my little girl, God rest her soul. It was nothing, they told us, and then meningitis carried her off.” She took out a handkerchief and blew her nose loudly before going on: “Poor little thing. And only eight years old. How could I forget . . . It's been two years, you know, Dona Rosália.”

Rosália did know and wiped away a polite tear. Encouraged by her neighbor's apparent sympathy, Justina was about to recall more all-too-familiar details when a hoarse voice interrupted her:

“Justina!”

Justina's pale face turned to stone. She continued talking to Rosália until the hoarse voice grew still louder and more violent:

“Justina!!”

“What is it?” she asked.

“Come inside, will you? I don't want you standing out there on the landing, talking. If you worked as hard as I do, you wouldn't have the energy to gossip!”

Justina shrugged indifferently and went on with the conversation, but Rosália, finding the scene embarrassing, said it was time she went in. After Justina had gone back into her apartment, Rosália crept down a few stairs and listened hard. Through the door she heard a few angry exclamations, then silence.

It was always the same. You would hear the husband tearing into his wife, then the wife would utter some almost inaudible words and he would immediately shut up. Rosália found this very odd. Justina's husband had a reputation as a bit of a brute, with his big, bloated body and his crude manners. He wasn't quite forty and yet his flaccid face, puffy eyes and moist, drooping lower lip made him seem older. No one could understand why two such different people had ever married, and it was true that they had never been seen out in the street together. And, again, no one could understand how two such unpretty people (Justina's eyes were beautiful, not pretty) could have produced a delightful daughter like Matilde. It was as if Nature had made a mistake and, realizing its mistake later on, had corrected it by having the child disappear.

The fact is that, after he had made just two or three aggressive comments, all it took to silence violent, rude Caetano Cunha—that obese, arrogant, ill-mannered Linotype operator on a daily newspaper—was a murmured comment from his wife, the diabetic Justina, so frail she could be blown away in a high wind.

It was a mystery Rosália could not unravel. She waited a little longer, but absolute silence continued to reign. She withdrew into her own apartment, carefully closing the door so as not to wake her sleeping daughter, always assuming she was asleep rather than merely pretending.

Rosália peered around the door. She thought she saw her daughter's eyelids flutter. She opened the door properly and advanced on the bed. Maria Cláudia had her eyes closed so tightly that tiny lines marked the spot where crow's-feet would one day appear. Her full lips still bore traces of yesterday's lipstick. Her short brown hair gave her the look of a young ruffian, which only made her beauty more piquant and provoking, almost equivocal.

Rosália glanced at her daughter, not quite trusting that deep but strangely unconvincing sleep. She gave a little sigh. Then, with a maternal gesture, she drew the bedclothes up around her daughter's neck. The reaction was immediate. Maria Cláudia opened her eyes and chuckled. She tried to suppress her laughter, but it was too late.

“You tickled me!”

Furious because she had been tricked and, even more, because she had been caught showing her daughter some motherly affection, Rosália said irritably:

“So you were sleeping, were you? The headache's gone, has it? Your trouble is you don't want to work, you lazy so-and-so!”

As if to prove her mother right, the girl stretched slowly and luxuriously, and, as she did so, her lace-trimmed nightdress gaped open to reveal two small, round breasts. Although Rosália did not know why that careless gesture offended her, she could not conceal her displeasure and muttered:

“Cover yourself up, will you? Young women nowadays aren't even embarrassed in the presence of their own mothers!”

Maria Cláudia opened her eyes wide. She had blue eyes, a very brilliant blue, but cold, like the distant stars whose light we see only because they are far, far away.

“What does it matter? Anyway, I'm decent now!”

“If I'd shown myself to my mother like that when I was your age, I'd have gotten a slap in the face.”

“That seems a bit extreme.”

“You think so, do you? Well, I reckon
you
could do with a good slap too.”

Maria Cláudia raised her arms again, pretending to stretch. Then she yawned.

“Times have changed.”

Rosália opened the window and said:

“They have indeed, and for the worse.” Then she went back over to the bed. “So, are you going to work or not?”

“What time is it?”

“Nearly ten o'clock.”

“It's too late now.”

“It wasn't a little while ago.”

“I had a headache then.”

This short, sharp exchange indicated irritation on both sides. Rosália was seething with suppressed anger, and Maria Cláudia was annoyed by her mother's moralizing.

“A headache indeed! You're a malingerer, that's what you are!”

“Is it my fault I have a headache?”

Rosália exploded:

“Don't you talk to me like that, young lady. I'm your mother, remember.”

The girl was unimpressed. She merely shrugged, as if to say that this last point was hardly worth discussing, then she jumped out of bed and stood there, barefoot, her silk nightdress draped about her soft, shapely body. Her daughter's youthful beauty cooled Rosália's irritation, which vanished like water into dry sand. Rosália felt proud of Maria Cláudia and her lovely body. Indeed, what she said next was tantamount to a surrender:

“You'd better tell the office.”

Maria Cláudia, apparently oblivious to that subtle change of tone, replied dully:

“I'll ask Dona Lídia if I can use her phone.”

Rosália grew irritated again, perhaps because her daughter had put on a housecoat, and her more discreetly clothed body had lost its power to enchant.

“You know I don't like you going to see Dona Lídia.”

Maria Cláudia's eyes were even more innocent than usual.

“Why ever not?”

If the conversation was to continue, Rosália would have to say things she would prefer not to. She knew that her daughter understood perfectly well what she meant, but she nonetheless felt that there were subjects best not touched on in the presence of a young woman. She had been brought up with the idea that parents and children should respect each other, and she still clung to that. She therefore pretended not to have heard her daughter's question and left the room.

Once she was alone again, Maria Cláudia smiled. Standing in front of the mirror, she unbuttoned her housecoat and her nightdress and looked at her breasts. A shiver ran through her and she flushed slightly. Then she smiled again, feeling vaguely nervous, but pleased too, something like a frisson of pleasure tinged with guilt. Then she buttoned up her housecoat, took one last glance at herself in the mirror and left the room.

In the kitchen, she went over to her mother, who was making some toast, and kissed her on the cheek. Rosália could not deny that the kiss pleased her, and while she did not reciprocate, her heart beat faster with contentment.

“Go and have a wash, dear, the toast is nearly ready.”

Maria Cláudia shut herself in the bathroom. She returned looking fresh and cool, her skin glossy and clean, her now unpainted lips slightly stiff from the cold water. Her mother's eyes shone when she saw her. Cláudia sat down at the table and began eagerly devouring the toast.

“It is nice to stay home sometimes, isn't it?” Rosália said.

The girl giggled:

“You see, I was right, wasn't I?”

Rosália felt she had gone too far and tried to backtrack a little:

“Yes, up to a point, but you mustn't make a habit of it.”

“The people at work won't mind.”

“They might, and you need to keep that job. Your father doesn't earn very much, you know.”

“Don't worry, I can handle it.”

Rosália would like to have asked her what she meant by this, but chose not to. They finished their breakfast in silence, then Maria Cláudia got up and said:

“I'm going to ask Dona Lídia if I can use her phone.”

Her mother opened her mouth to object, but said nothing. Her daughter had already disappeared down the corridor.

“There's no need to close the door if you're not going to be gone very long.”

Rosália heard the front door close, but preferred not to think that her daughter had done this on purpose in order to go against her wishes. She filled the sink and started washing the breakfast things.

Maria Cláudia did not share her mother's scruples about their downstairs neighbor; on the contrary, she really liked Dona Lídia. Before ringing the doorbell, she straightened the collar of her housecoat and smoothed her hair. She regretted not having applied a touch of color to her lips.

The bell rang out stridently and echoed down the stairwell. Maria Cláudia felt a slight noise behind her and was sure that Justina was peering through the spyhole in the door opposite. She was just about to turn and look when Dona Lídia's door opened.

“Good morning, Dona Lídia.”

“Good morning, Claudinha. What brings you here? Won't you come in?”

“If I may . . .”

In the dark corridor, Maria Cláudia felt the warm, perfumed air wrap about her.

“So what can I do for you?”

“I'm sorry to bother you again, Dona Lídia.”

“You're not bothering me at all. You know how much I enjoy your visits.”

“Thank you. I wondered if I could phone the office to tell them I won't be coming in today.”

“Of course, feel free, Claudinha.”

She gently ushered her toward the bedroom, a room that Maria Cláudia could not enter without feeling slightly troubled, for the atmosphere made her positively dizzy. She had never seen such lovely furnishings; there were mirrors and curtains, a red sofa and a soft rug on the floor, bottles of perfume on the dressing table, the smell of expensive cigarettes, but none of those things alone could explain her disorderly feelings. Perhaps it was the whole situation, the presence of Lídia herself, something as vague and imponderable as a burning, corrosive gas that slips unnoticed through every filter. In that room, she always felt as if she somehow lost all self-control. She became as tipsy as if she had drunk champagne and felt an irresistible desire to do something silly.