The Hour of the Star (3 page)

The girl had no way of coping. So much so, (bang) that she made no protest when the boss of her firm which distributed pulley equipment bluntly warned her (a blunt-ness she seemed to provoke with that foolish expression on her face as if begging to be slapped) that he was only prepared to keep on her workmate Glória. He told her he was fed up with her typing mistakes and those blots she invariably made on the paper. The girl felt that she ought to say something to show respect for this boss with whom she was secretly infatuated.

— Please forgive all the trouble I've caused. Senhor Raimundo Silveira, who had already turned his back on her, looked round surprised by the girl's politeness, and something in her docile expression forced him to speak less harshly, and grudgingly concede:

— Well, you needn't leave right away. Let's see how things work out.

After receiving this warning, the girl went to the lavatory where she could be alone, for she felt quite shaken. She examined herself mechanically in the mirror above the filthy hand basin that was badly cracked and full of hairs: the image of her own existence. The dark, tarnished mirror scarcely reflected any image. Perhaps her physical existence had vanished? This illusion soon passed and she saw her entire face distorted by the tarnished mirror; her nose had grown as huge as those false noses made of papier maché donned by circus clowns. She studied herself and mused: so young and yet so tarnished.

(There are those who have. And there are those who have not. It's very simple: the girl had not. Hadn't what? Simply this: she had not. If you get my meaning that's fine. If you don't, it's still fine. But why am I bothering about this girl when what I really want is wheat that turns ripe and golden in summer?)

When she was a little girl, her aunt, in order to frighten her, insisted that the vampire — the one that sucks human blood by biting its victims in the flesh of the neck — casts no reflection in the mirror. She reckoned that it might not be such a bad thing being a vampire, for the blood would add a touch of pink to her sallow complexion. For she gave the impression of having no blood unless a day might come when she would have to spill it.

The girl had drooping shoulders like those of a darning-woman. She had learned to darn as a child, and she might have made more of her life had she devoted herself to the delicate task of mending, perhaps even with silken threads. Or even more luxurious: shiny satin, a kiss of souls. The darning-needle turned mosquito. A granule of sugar carried on an ant's back. She was as light-headed as an idiot, only she was no idiot. She wasn't even aware that she was unhappy. The one thing she had was faith. In what? In you? It isn't necessary to have faith in anyone or in anything — it is enough to have faith. This often endowed her with a state of grace. For she had never lost faith.

(The girl worries me so much that I feel drained. She has drained me empty. And the less she demands, the more she worries me. I feel frustrated and annoyed. A raging desire to smash dishes and break windows. How can I avenge myself? Or rather, how can I get satisfaction? I've found the answer: by loving my dog that consumes more food than she does. Why does she not fight back? Has she no pluck? No, she is sweet and docile.)

Her eyes were enormous, round, bulging and inquisitive — she had the expression of someone with a broken wing— some deficiency of the thyroid gland — questioning eyes. Whom was she questioning? God? She did not think about God, nor did God think about her. God belongs to those who succeed in pinning Him down. God appears in a moment of distraction. She asked no questions. She divined that there were no answers. Was she foolish enough to ask? Only to get a blunt no in reply? Perhaps she thought about this futile question so that no one could ever accuse her one day of never having asked. Not knowing who to turn to, she appeared to have answered her own question: it is so because it is so. Could there be some other answer? If anyone knows of a better one, let him speak up for I have been waiting for years.

Meanwhile, the clouds are white and the sky is blue. Why is there so much God? At the expense of men.

She had been born with a legacy of misfortune, a creature from nowhere with the expression of someone who apologizes for occupying too much space. Lost in thought, she examined the blotches on her face in the mirror. In Alagoas they had a special name for this condition — it was commonly believed to be caused by the liver. The girl concealed her blotches with a thick layer of white powder which gave the impression that she had been whitewashed but it was preferable to looking sallow. Her general appearance was grimy for she rarely washed. During the day she wore a blouse and skirt, at night she slept in her underwear. Her room-mates didn't have the courage to tell her about her stale body odour. And since she herself seemed to be oblivious of the fact, they were afraid of hurting her feelings. There was nothing irridescent about her, although the parts of her skin unaffected by the blotches had the subtle glow of opals. Not that it mattered. No one paid any attention to her on the street, for she was as appetizing as cold coffee.

And so her days passed. The girl blew her nose on the hem of her petticoat. She lacked that elusive quality known as charm. I am the only person who finds her charming. As the author, I alone love her. I suffer on her account. And I alone may say to her: 'What do you ask of me weeping, that I would not give you singing?' The girl did not know that she existed, just as a dog doesn't know that it's a dog. Therefore she wasn't aware of her own unhappiness. The only thing she desired was to live. She could not explain, for she didn't probe her situation. Perhaps she felt there was some glory in living. She thought that a person was obliged to be happy. So she was happy. Before being born was she an idea? Before being born was she dead? And after being born was she about to die? What a thin slice of water melon.

There are few facts to relate and I am still not sure how this story will develop.

Now (bang) with a few rapid strokes I shall delineate the girl's previous history up to the moment when she stood before the mirror in the lavatory.

She was hopelessly rachitic at birth, the inheritance of the backwoods — the legacy of misfortune I mentioned earlier.

When she was two years old, her parents died of typhoid fever in the backwoods of Alagoas, in that region where the devil is said to have lost his boots. Much later she went to live in Maceió with her maiden aunt, a sanctimonious spinster, and the girl's only surviving relative in the whole wide world. On occasion the girl would recall some incident from her time there. For instance, her aunt rapping her on the head because the old woman believed that the crown of the head was the vital part of one's body. Her aunt would use her knuckles to rap that head of skin and bones which suffered from a calcium deficiency. She would thrash the girl not only because she derived some sensuous pleasure from thrashing her — the old girl found the idea of sexual intercourse so disgusting that she had never married — but also because she considered it her duty to see that the girl did not finish up like many another girl in Maceió standing on street corners with a lit cigarette waiting to pick up a man. So far the girl had shown no signs of becoming a prostitute one day. Even puberty seemed alien to her destiny. Puberty was slow in coming but even among weeds there exists a need for sunlight. The girl soon forgot those thrashings. If you wait patiently, the pain soon passes. But what pained her more was to be denied her favourite dessert: guava preserve with cheese, the only real passion in her life. Her sly old aunt enjoyed punishing her in this way. The girl didn't dare ask why she was always being punished. One doesn't have to know everything and not knowing became an important factor in her life.

Not knowing sounds awful, but it was not so awful for the girl knew lots of things just as a dog knows how to wag its tail or a beggar how to feel hungry: things happen and you suddenly know. No one would teach her how to die one day: yet one day she would surely die as if she had already learned by heart how to play the starring role. For at the hour of death you become a celebrated film star, it is a moment of glory for everyone, when the choral music scales the top notes.

When she was tiny, the girl dearly longed to possess a pet animal. Her aunt, however, decided that an animal in the house would simply mean one more mouth to feed. The girl resigned herself, convinced that she was only fit for breeding fleas and that she didn't deserve a dog's affection. Her aunt's constant reproaches had taught her to keep her head lowered. The old girl's sanctimonious ways, however, had failed to influence her. Once her aunt was dead, the girl never again set foot inside a church. She had no religious feeling and the divinities made no impression.

Life is like that: you press a button and life lights up. Except that the girl didn't know which button to press. She wasn't even aware that she lived in a technological society where she was a mere cog in the machine. One thing, however, did worry her: she no longer knew if she had ever had a father or mother. She had forgotten her origins. If she had thought hard, she might have concluded that she had sprouted from the soil of Alagoas inside a mushroom that soon rotted. She could speak, of course, but had little to say. No sooner do I succeed in persuading her to speak, than she slips through my fingers.

Notwithstanding her aunt's death, the girl was certain that for her things would be different. She would never die. (It's my obsession to become the other man. In this case, the other woman. Pale and feeling weak, I tremble just like her.)

The definable is making me a little weary. I prefer truths that carry no prophecies. When I eventually rid myself of this story, I shall withdraw to the more arbitrary realm of vague prophecies. I did not invent this girl. She forced her being upon me. She was by no means mentally retarded: she was as helpless and trusting as any fool. At least the girl didn't have to beg for food. (There were others who were even more abandoned and starving.) I alone love her.

Then — who knows for what reason — she arrived in Rio, the incredible Rio de Janeiro, where her aunt had found her a job. Then her aunt had died, and the girl was on her own, lodging in a bedsitter with four other girls who worked as shop-assistants at a well-known department store.

The bedsitter was in an old, colonial-style tenement in Acre Street, a red-light district near the docks inhabited by women who picked up seamen in the streets between the depots of charcoal and cement. Those polluted docks made the girl yearn for some future. (What's happening? It's as if I were listening to a lively tune being played on the piano — a sign perhaps that the girl will have a brilliant future? I am consoled by this possibility and will do everything in my power to make it come to pass.)

Acre Street. What a slum. The plump rats of Acre Street. I keep well away from the place. To be frank, I am terrified of that dark hole and its depraved inhabitants.

From time to time, the girl was lucky enough to hear a cockerel welcome the dawn. Then she would remember the backwoods of Alagoas with nostalgia. Where could there be room for a cockerel to crow in that warren of warehouses storing goods for export and import? (If the reader is financially secure and enjoys the comforts of life, he must step out of himself and see how others live. If he is poor, he will not be reading this story because what I have to say is superfluous for anyone who often feels the pangs of hunger. Here I am acting as a safety-valve for you and the tedious bourgeoisie. I know that it is very frightening to step out of oneself, but then everything which is unfamiliar can be frightening. The anonymous girl of this story is so ancient that she could be described as biblical. She was subterranean and had never really flowered. I am telling a lie: she was wild grass.)

Throughout the torrid summers, the oppressive heat of Acre Street made her sweat, a sweat that gave off an appalling stench. A sweat, I couldn't help feeling, that stemmed from sinister origins. Difficult to say if the girl was tubercular. I rather think not. In the night shadows a man was whistling; there were heavy footsteps and the howling of an abandoned mongrel. There were silent constellations, and that space known as time which has nothing to do with her or with us. And so the days passed. The cockerel's crowing in the blood-red dawn gave a new meaning to her withered existence. As day broke, a flock of birds chirped noisily in Acre Street: life sprouted from the ground, jubilant between the paving stones.

Acre Street for living, Lavradio Street for working, the docks for excursions on Sundays. Now and then the lingering sound of a cargo ship's signal that strangely made the heart beat faster, and in between each signal, the consoling though somewhat melancholy cries of the cockerel.

The cockerel belonged to the never-never land. Its cries came from the infinite right up to her bedside, filling her with gratitude. She slept lightly. For the past twelve months she had been suffering from a persistent cold. In the early hours each morning, she was seized by a fit of hoarse coughing, which she tried to smother with her limp pillow. Her room-mates — Maria da Penha, Maria Aparecida, Maria José and plain Maria — paid no attention. They were too exhausted to complain, worn out by an occupation that was no less taxing simply because it was anonymous. One of the girls sold Coty face powder. What a curious occupation! They turned on to their other sides and went back to sleep. The girl's coughing actually lulled them into an even deeper sleep. Is the sky above or below? The girl from the North-east was wondering. As she lay there, she couldn't decide. Sometimes before falling asleep she felt the pangs of hunger and became quite giddy as she visualized a side of beef. The solution was to chew paper into pulp and swallow it. Honestly! I'm getting used to her but I still feel uneasy. Dear God! I feel happier with animals than with people. When I watch my horse cantering freely across the fields— I am tempted to put my head against his soft, vigorous neck and narrate the story of my life. When I stroke my dog on the head — I know that he doesn't expect me to make sense or explain myself.