The Complete Stories (38 page)

The First Kiss

(“O primeiro beijo”)

The two murmured more than talked: they had just started dating and were giddy, it was love. Love and what comes with it: jealousy.

“Okay, I’ll believe I’m your first girlfriend, I’m happy about that. But tell me the truth, the whole truth: have you ever kissed a woman before me?”

He answered simply:

“Yes, I’ve kissed a woman before.”

“Who was she?” she asked, hurt.

He tried to tell her haltingly, didn’t know how to explain.

The field-trip bus was slowly climbing into the mountains. He, one of the boys among a boisterous bunch of girls, let the cool breeze hit his face and run its long, thin fingers through his hair with a mother’s light touch. To sit still once in a while, almost without thinking, and just feel—was so good. Staying focused on feeling was hard with all the commotion from his buddies.

And in any case thirst had hit: joking with his classmates, talking really loud, louder than the noise from the motor, laughing, shouting, thinking, feeling, oh man! did it leave his throat dry.

And not the slightest hint of water. The thing to do was pool your saliva, and that’s what he did. After gathering it in his burning mouth he swallowed it slowly, over and over. It was warm, though, his saliva, and failed to quench his thirst. An enormous thirst, bigger than he was, that now seized his whole body.

The delicate breeze, so pleasant before, had now in the midday sun become hot and arid, and going in through his nose further dried what little saliva he was patiently gathering.

And what if he shut his nostrils and breathed a bit less of that desert wind? He tried for a few seconds but immediately started suffocating. You just had to wait, wait. Maybe just a few minutes, maybe hours, whereas his thirst had been going on for years.

He didn’t know how and why but he was now feeling closer to water, he had a premonition that it was getting close, and his eyes leaped through the window searching the highway, penetrating the underbrush, scanning, sniffing.

The animal instinct inside him hadn’t been wrong: around the unexpected curve in the highway, amid the underbrush, was . . . the fountain from which sprang a rivulet of the dreamed-of water.

The bus stopped, everyone was thirsty but he managed to reach the stone fountain first, before everyone else.

Eyes closed, he parted his lips and put them fiercely to the orifice from which the water was streaming. The first cool sip of water went down, sliding through his chest down to his belly.

It was life coming back, and it completely soaked his sandy insides until they were quenched. Now he could open his eyes.

He opened them and saw right near his face the two eyes of a statue staring at him and saw it was the statue of a woman and that the water was flowing from the woman’s mouth. He recalled that at the first sip his lips had actually felt an ice-cold touch, colder than the water.

And he realized then that he had put his mouth on the mouth of the stone statue of the woman. Life had streamed from that mouth, from one mouth to another.

Intuitively, confused in his innocence, he felt intrigued: but the life-giving liquid, the liquid seed of life doesn’t come from a woman . . . He gazed at the naked statue.

He’d kissed her.

He was racked by a shudder not visible on the outside and that originated from deep within and seized his whole body, bursting onto his face in flames.

He took a step back or forward, he no longer knew what he was doing. Disconcerted, stunned, he noticed that one part of his body, always relaxed before, was now aggressively tense, and this had never happened to him.

He stood, sweetly aggressive, alone among the others, his heart beating deeply, at intervals, feeling the world transform. Life was brand new, something else, discovered with a shock. Bewildered, in a fragile balance.

Until, coming from the depth of his being, streaming from a hidden source inside him came the truth. Which filled him immediately with alarm and also immediately with a pride he had never felt before: he . . .

He had become a man.

WHERE WERE YOU AT NIGHT

(
“Onde estivestes de noite”
)

In Search of a Dignity

(“A procura de uma dignidade”)

Senhora Jorge B. Xavier simply couldn’t say how she had come in. It hadn’t been through a main gate. It seemed to her in a vaguely dreamy way that she had come in through some kind of narrow opening amid the rubble of a construction site, as if she’d slipped sideways through a hole made just for her. The fact is, by the time she noticed she was already inside.

And by the time she noticed, she realized that she was deep, deep inside. She was walking interminably through the underground tunnels of Maracanã Stadium or at least they seemed to her narrow caves that ended in closed rooms and when the rooms were opened they had just a single window facing the stadium. Which, at that scorchingly deserted hour, was shimmering in the extreme glare of an uncommon heat that was descending on that midwinter day.

Then the old woman went down a shadowy passage. It led her like the others to an even darker one. The tunnel ceilings seemed low to her.

And then that passage led to another that led in turn to another.

She went down the deserted passage. And then bumped into another corner. That led her to another passage that opened onto another corner.

So she kept automatically heading down passages that kept ending in other passages. Where could the classroom for the first session be? Because that’s where she would find the people she’d planned to meet. The lecture might have already started. She was going to miss it, she who made every effort not to miss anything
cultural
because that’s how she stayed young inside, though even from the outside no one ever guessed she was almost 70 years old, everyone assumed she was around 57.

But now, lost in the dark, inner twists and turns of Maracanã, the woman was now dragging the heavy feet of an old lady.

That’s when suddenly in a passage she came upon a man who popped up out of nowhere and asked him about the lecture which the man said he knew nothing about. But that man asked a second man who had also popped suddenly from around the bend in the passage.

Then this second man told them he had seen, near the right-hand bleachers, out there in the stadium, “two ladies and a gentleman, one of the ladies in red.” Senhora Xavier doubted these people were the group she was supposed to meet before the lecture, and in fact had already lost track of the reason she was walking around with no end in sight. In any case she followed the man out to the stadium, where she stopped, dazzled in the hollow space filled with broad daylight and open muteness, the naked stadium disemboweled, with neither ball nor match. Above all with no crowd. There was a crowd that existed through the void of its absolute absence.

Had the two ladies and gentleman already vanished down some passage?

Then the man declared with exaggerated defiance: “Well I’m going to search for you, ma’am, and I’ll find those people no matter what, they can’t have vanished into thin air.”

And in fact from faraway they both spotted them. But a second later they disappeared again. It was like a child’s game in which muffled peals of laughter were mocking Senhora Jorge B. Xavier.

Then she accompanied the man down further passages. Then this man too vanished around a corner.

The woman had already given up on the lecture which deep down didn’t really matter to her. As long as she made it out of that tangle of endless paths. Wasn’t there an exit? Then she felt like she was in an elevator stuck between floors. Wasn’t there an exit?

And that’s when she suddenly recalled the wording of her friend’s directions on the phone: “it’s more or less near Maracanã Stadium.” In light of this memory she understood her mistake, made by a scatterbrained and distracted person who only heard half of things, the other half remaining submerged. Senhora Xavier was very inattentive. So, then, the meeting wasn’t at Maracanã after all, it was just nearby. Yet that little destiny of hers had wanted her to be lost in the labyrinth.

All right, then the struggle started up again even worse: she was determined to get out and didn’t know how or where. And again that man showed up in the passage who was searching for those people and who again assured her that he’d find them because they couldn’t have vanished into thin air. That’s exactly what he said:

“Those people can’t have vanished into thin air!”

The woman informed him:

“You don’t have to take the trouble to look for them, all right? Thank you very much, all right? Because the place I’m supposed to meet those people isn’t in Maracanã.”

The man halted immediately to look at her in bewilderment:

“So what exactly are you doing here, ma’am?”

She wanted to explain that her life was just like that, but since she didn’t even know what she meant by “just like that” or even by “her life,” she said nothing in reply. The man pressed the question, somewhere between suspicious and cautious: what exactly was she doing there? Nothing, the woman replied only in her mind, by that point about to collapse from exhaustion. But she didn’t reply, she let him think she was crazy. Besides, she never explained herself. She knew the man decided she was crazy—and who ever said she wasn’t? because didn’t she feel that thing she called “that” out of shame? Even if she knew her so-called mental health was every bit as sound as her physical health. Physical health now failing because she’d been dragging her feet for years and years walking through that labyrinth. Her via crucis. She was dressed in very heavy wool and was stifled sweating in the unexpected heat that belonged to the peak of summer, that summer day that was a freak occurrence in winter. Her legs were aching, aching under the weight of that old cross. She’d already resigned herself in a way to never making it out of Maracanã and dying there from a heart bled dry.

Then, and as always, it was only after she had given up on the things she desired that they happened. What occurred to her suddenly was an idea: “oh I’m such a crazy old bat.” Why, instead of continuing to ask about the people who weren’t there, didn’t she find the man and ask him how to get out of those passages? Because all she wanted was to get out and not run into anybody.

She finally found the man, while rounding a corner. And she spoke to him in a voice slightly tremulous and hoarse from exhaustion and fear of hoping in vain. The wary man agreed in a flash that the best thing for her to do really was go home and told her cautiously: “Ma’am, you don’t seem to be thinking straight, maybe it’s this strange heat.”

Having said this, the man then simply accompanied her down the next passage and at the corner they spotted the two broad gates standing open. Simple as that? easy as that?

Simple as that.

Then the woman thought without coming to any conclusions that it was just for her that the exit had become impossible to find. Senhora Xavier was only slightly taken aback and at the same time used to it. Surely everyone had a path to follow interminably, this being part of destiny, though she didn’t know whether she believed in that or not.

And there was the taxi passing. She hailed it and said to him controlling her voice that was becoming increasingly old and tired:

“Young man, I don’t know the exact address, I’ve forgotten. But what I do know is that the house is on a street—I-don’t-remember-which-anymore but something with ‘Gusmão’ and the cross street if I’m not mistaken is Colonel-so-and-so.”

The driver was patient as with a child: “All right now don’t you get upset, let’s calmly look for a street with ‘Gusmão’ in the middle and ‘Colonel’ at the end,” he said turning around with a smile and then winked at her with a conspiratorial look that seemed indecent. They took off with a jerk that rattled her insides.

Then suddenly she recognized the people she was looking for and who were to be found on the sidewalk in front of a big house. Yet it was as if the goal had been to get there and not to listen to the lecture that by then was completely forgotten, since Senhora Xavier had lost track of her objective. And she didn’t know in the name of what she had walked so far. Then she realized she’d worn herself out beyond her own strength and wanted to leave, the lecture was a nightmare. So she asked a distinguished lady she was semi-acquainted with and who had a car with a driver to take her home because she wasn’t feeling well in that strange heat. The chauffeur would only arrive in an hour. So Senhora Xavier sat in a chair they’d placed in the hallway for her, she sat bolt upright in her tight girdle, outside the culture being dissected across the way in the closed room. From which not a sound could be heard. She didn’t really care about culture. And there she was in those labyrinths of 60 seconds and 60 minutes that would lead her to an hour.

Then the distinguished lady came and said: that there was a car for her out front but she was letting her know that, since her driver had said he was going to take a while, considering that you, ma’am, aren’t feeling well, she had hailed the first taxi she saw. Why hadn’t Senhora Xavier herself thought to call a taxi, instead of readily subjecting herself to the twists and turns of time spent waiting? Then Senhora Jorge B. Xavier thanked her with the utmost refinement. The woman had always been very refined and polite. She got into the taxi and said:

“Leblon, if you please.”

Her brain was hollow, it seemed like her head was fasting.

After a while she noticed they were driving around and around but that they kept ending up back at the same square. Why weren’t they getting out of there? Was there once again no way out? The driver ended up admitting that he wasn’t familiar with the Zona Sul, that he only worked in the Zona Norte. And she didn’t know how to give him directions. The cross of the years weighed ever more heavily on her and yet another lack of an exit merely revived the black magic of the passages of Maracanã. There was no way for them to be freed from the square! Then the driver told her to take another taxi, and he even flagged down one that was passing by. She thanked him stiffly, she was formal with people, even those she knew. Moreover she was very kind. In the new taxi she said fearfully:

“If it’s not too much trouble, sir, let’s go to Leblon.”

And they simply left the square at once and took different streets.

While unlocking the door to her apartment she had the urge, just in her head and fantasizing, to sob very loudly. But she wasn’t the sort to sob or complain. In passing she told the maid she wouldn’t be taking any phone calls. She went straight to her bedroom, took off all her clothes, swallowed a pill without water and then waited for it to take effect.

Meanwhile, she smoked. She remembered it was August and they say August brings bad luck. But September would arrive one day like an exit. And September was for some reason the month of May: a lighter and more transparent month. She vaguely pondered this until drowsiness finally set in and she fell asleep.

When she awoke hours later she saw then that a very fine, cool rain was coming down, it was cold as a knife blade. Naked in bed she was freezing. Then she thought that a naked old lady was a very curious thing. She remembered that she’d been planning to buy a wool scarf. She looked at the clock: the shops would still be open. She took a taxi and said:

“Ipanema, if you please.”

The man said:

“Sorry? Jardim Botânico?”

“Ipanema, please,” the woman repeated, quite surprised. It was the absurdity of total miscommunication: for, what did the words “Ipanema” and “Jardim Botânico”
have in common? But once again she vaguely thought how “her life was just like that.”

She quickly made her purchase and found herself on the already dark street with nothing to do. Because Senhor Jorge B. Xavier had traveled to São Paulo the day before and wouldn’t be back until the next day.

Then, back home again, between taking another sleeping pill or doing something else, she opted for the second scenario, since she remembered she could now go back to looking for that misplaced bill of exchange. From what little she understood, that piece of paper represented money. Two days before she had exhaustively searched for it all over the house, even in the kitchen, but in vain. Now it occurred to her: and why not under the bed? Maybe. So she knelt on the floor. But she quickly got tired from putting all her weight on her knees and leaned on her two hands as well.

Then she realized she was on all fours.

She stayed that way awhile, perhaps meditative, perhaps not. Who knows, maybe Senhora Xavier was tired of being a human. She was being a bitch on all fours. Without the slightest nobility. Having shed her last bit of pride. On all fours, a little thoughtful perhaps. But all there was under the bed was dust.

She stood with concerted effort from her discombobulated joints and saw there was nothing else to do except realistically consider—and it was with a painstaking effort that she saw reality—realistically consider that the bill was lost for good and that keeping up the search would be never making it out of Maracanã.

And as always, since she’d given up the search, upon opening a little drawer of handkerchiefs to take one out—there was the bill of exchange.

Then the woman, tired from the effort of being on all fours, sat on the bed and completely out of nowhere started crying softly. It sounded more like some Arabic gibberish. She hadn’t cried in 30 years, but now she was so tired. If crying was what that was. It wasn’t. It was something. Finally she blew her nose. Then she had the following thought: that she would force the hand of “destiny” and have a greater destiny. With willpower you can accomplish everything, she thought without the least conviction. And all this about being bound to a destiny had occurred to her because she had already started, without meaning to, thinking about “that.”

But then it so happened that the woman also had the following thought: it was too late to have a destiny. She thought she would readily trade places with another being. That’s when it occurred to her that there wasn’t anyone to trade places with: no matter what she was, she was she and couldn’t be transformed into another unique individual. Everyone was unique. So was Senhora Jorge B. Xavier.

But everything that had happened to her was still preferable to feeling “that.” And that came with its long passages without an exit. “That,” now with no shame at all, was the gnawing hunger in her guts, hunger to be possessed by that unattainable television idol. She never missed a single show of his. So, since she hadn’t been able to keep from thinking about him, the thing to do was let herself think and recall the ladylike girl face of Roberto Carlos, my love.