“Are they ready?” asked Maria.
“Yes,” said Laura caught by surprise.
She looked at them, so mute in her hand. Impersonal in their extreme beauty. In their extreme, perfect rose tranquility. That last resort: the flower. That final perfection: luminous tranquility.
Like an addict, she looked with faint greed at the roses’ tantalizing perfection, with her mouth slightly dry she looked at them.
Until, slow, austere, she wrapped the stems and thorns in the tissue paper. She had been so absorbed that only when she held out the finished bouquet did she realize that Maria was no longer in the room—and she was left alone with her heroic sacrifice. Vaguely afflicted, she looked at them, remote at the end of her outstretched arm—and her mouth grew still more parched, that envy, that desire. But they’re mine, she said with enormous timidity.
When Maria returned and took the bouquet, in a fleeting instant of greed Laura pulled her hand away keeping the roses one second longer—they’re lovely and they’re mine, it’s the first thing that’s lovely and mine! plus it was that man who insisted, it wasn’t me who went looking for them! fate wanted it this way! oh just this once! just this once and I swear never again! (She could at least take one rose for herself, no more than that: one rose for herself. And only she would know, and then never again oh, she promised herself that never again would she let herself be tempted by perfection, never again!)
And the next second, without any transition at all, without any obstacle at all—the roses were in the maid’s hand, they were no longer hers, like a letter already slipped into the mailbox! no more chances to take it back or cross anything out! it was no use crying: that’s not what I meant! She was left empty-handed but her obstinate and resentful heart was still saying: “you can catch Maria on the stairs, you know perfectly well you can, and snatch the roses from her hand and steal them.” Because taking them now would be stealing. Stealing something that was hers? Since that’s what someone who felt no pity for others would do: steal something that was rightfully hers! Oh, have mercy, dear God. You can take it all back, she insisted furiously. And then the front door slammed.
Then the front door slammed.
Then slowly she sat calmly on the sofa. Without leaning back. Just to rest. No, she wasn’t angry, oh not at all. But that offended speck in the depths of her eyes had grown larger and more pensive. She looked at the vase. “Where are my roses,” she then said very calmly.
And she missed the roses. They had left a bright space inside her. Remove an object from a clean table and from the even cleaner mark it leaves you can see that dust had been surrounding it. The roses had left a dustless, sleepless space inside her. In her heart, that rose she could at least have taken for herself without hurting anyone in the world, was missing. Like some greater lack.
In fact, like the lack. An absence that was entering her like a brightness. And the dust was also disappearing from around the mark the roses left. The center of her fatigue was opening in an expanding circle. As if she hadn’t ironed a single one of Armando’s shirts. And in the clear space the roses were missed. “Where are my roses,” she wailed without pain while smoothing the pleats in her skirt.
Like when you squeeze lemon into black tea and the black tea starts brightening all over. Her fatigue was gradually brightening. Without any fatigue whatsoever, incidentally. The way a firefly lights up. Since she was no longer tired, she’d get up and get dressed. It was time to start.
But, her lips dry, she tried for a second to imitate the roses inside herself. It wasn’t even hard.
It was all the better that she wasn’t tired. That way she’d go to dinner even more refreshed. Why not pin that cameo onto her little real-lace collar? that the major had brought back from the war in Italy. It would set off her neckline so nicely. When she was ready she’d hear the sound of Armando’s key in the door. She needed to get dressed. But it was still early. He’d be caught in traffic. It was still afternoon. A very pretty afternoon.
Incidentally it was no longer afternoon.
It was night. From the street rose the first sounds of the darkness and the first lights.
Incidentally the key familiarly penetrated the keyhole.
Armando would open the door. He’d switch the light on. And suddenly in the doorframe the expectant face that he constantly tried to mask but couldn’t suppress would be bared. Then his bated breath would finally transform into a smile of great unburdening. That embarrassed smile of relief that he’d never suspected she noticed. That relief they had probably, with a pat on the back, advised her poor husband to conceal. But which, for his wife’s guilt-ridden heart, had been daily reward for at last having given back to that man the possibility of joy and peace, sanctified by the hand of an austere priest who only allowed beings a humble joy and not the imitation of Christ.
The key turned in the lock, the shadowy and hurried figure entered, light violently flooded the room.
And right in the doorway he froze with that panting and suddenly paralyzed look as if he’d run for miles so as not to get home too late. She was going to smile. So he could at last wipe that anxious suspense off his face, which always came mingled with the childish triumph of getting home in time to find her there boring, nice and diligent, and his wife. She was going to smile so he’d once again know that there would never again be any danger of his getting home too late. She was going to smile to teach him sweetly to believe in her. It was no use advising them never to mention the subject: they didn’t talk about it but had worked out a language of facial expressions in which fear and trust were conveyed, and question and answer were mutely telegraphed. She was going to smile. It was taking a while but she was going to smile.
Calm and gentle, she said:
“It’s back, Armando. It’s back.”
As if he would never understand, his face twisted into a dubious smile. His primary task at the moment was trying to catch his breath after sprinting up the stairs, since he’d triumphantly avoided getting home late, since there she was smiling at him. As if he’d never understand.
“What’s back,” he finally asked in a blank tone of voice.
But, as he was trying never to understand, the man’s progressively stiffening face had already understood, though not a single feature had altered. His primary task was to stall for time and concentrate on catching his breath. Which suddenly was no longer hard to do. For unexpectedly he realized in horror that both the living room and his wife were calm and unhurried. With even further misgiving, like someone who bursts into laughter after getting the joke, he nonetheless insisted on keeping his face contorted, from which he watched her warily, almost her enemy. And from which he was starting to no longer help noticing how she was sitting with her hands crossed on her lap, with the serenity of a lit-up firefly.
In her brown-eyed and innocent gaze the proud embarrassment of not having been able to resist.
“What’s back,” he said suddenly harsh.
“I couldn’t help it,” she said, and her final compassion for the man was in her voice, that final plea for forgiveness already mingled with the haughtiness of a solitude almost perfect now. I couldn’t help it, she repeated surrendering to him in relief the compassion she had struggled to hold onto until he got home. “It was because of the roses,” she said modestly.
As if holding still for a snapshot of that instant, he kept that same detached face, as if the photographer had wanted only his face and not his soul. He opened his mouth and for an instant his face involuntarily took on that expression of comic indifference he’d used to hide his mortification when asking his boss for a raise. The next second, he averted his eyes in shame at the indecency of his wife who, blossoming and serene, was sitting there.
But suddenly the tension fell away. His shoulders sagged, his features gave way and a great heaviness relaxed him. He looked at her older now, curious.
She
was sitting there in her little housedress. He knew she’d done what she could to avoid becoming luminous and unattainable. Timidly and with respect, he was looking at her. He’d grown older, weary, curious. But he didn’t have a single word to say. From the open doorway he saw his wife on the sofa without leaning back, once again alert and tranquil, as if on a train. That had already departed.
Happy Birthday
(“Feliz aniversário”)
The family began arriving in waves. The ones from Olaria were all dressed up because the visit also meant an outing in Copacabana. The daughter-in-law from Olaria showed up in navy blue, glittering with “pailletés” and draping that camouflaged her ungirdled belly. Her husband didn’t come for obvious reasons: he didn’t want to see his siblings. But he’d sent his wife so as not to sever all ties—and she came in her best dress to show that she didn’t need any of them, along with her three children: two girls with already budding breasts, infantilized in pink ruffles and starched petticoats, and the boy sheepish in his new suit and tie.
Since Zilda—the daughter with whom the birthday girl lived—had placed chairs side-by-side along the walls, as at a party where there’s going to be dancing, the daughter-in-law from Olaria, after greeting the members of the household with a stony expression, plunked herself down in one of the chairs and fell silent, lips pursed, maintaining her offended stance. “I came to avoid not coming,” she’d said to Zilda, and then had sat feeling offended. The two little misses in pink and the boy, sallow and with their hair neatly combed, didn’t really know how to behave and stood beside their mother, impressed by her navy blue dress and the “pailletés.”
Then the daughter-in-law from Ipanema came with two grandsons and the nanny. Her husband would come later. And since Zilda—the only girl among six brothers and the only one who, it had been decided years ago, had the space and time to take in the birthday girl—and since Zilda was in the kitchen with the maid putting the finishing touches on the croquettes and sandwiches, that left: the stuck-up daughter-in-law from Olaria with her anxious-hearted children by her side; the daughter-in-law from Ipanema in the opposite row of chairs pretending to deal with the baby to avoid facing her sister-in-law from Olaria; the idle, uniformed nanny, her mouth hanging open.
And at the head of the large table the birthday girl who was turning eighty-nine today.
Zilda, the lady of the house, had set the table early, covered it with colorful paper napkins and birthday-themed paper cups, scattered balloons drifting along the ceiling on some of which was written “Happy Birthday!”, on others “Feliz Aniversário!”. At the center she’d placed the enormous frosted cake. To move things along, she’d decorated the table right after lunch, pushed the chairs against the wall, sent the boys out to play at the neighbor’s so they wouldn’t mess up the table.
And, to move things along, she’d dressed the birthday girl right after lunch. Since then she’d fastened that pendant around her neck and pinned on her brooch, sprayed her with a little perfume to cover that musty smell of hers—seated her at the table. And since two o’clock the birthday girl had been sitting at the head of the long empty table, rigid in the silent room.
Occasionally aware of the colorful napkins. Looking curiously when a passing car made the odd balloon tremble. And occasionally that mute anguish: whenever she watched, fascinated and powerless, the buzzing of a fly around the cake.
Until four o’clock when the daughter-in-law from Olaria arrived followed by the one from Ipanema.
Just when the daughter-in-law from Ipanema thought she couldn’t bear another second of being seated directly across from her sister-in-law from Olaria—who brimming with past offenses saw no reason to stop glaring defiantly at the daughter-in-law from Ipanema—at last José and his family arrived. And as soon as they all kissed the room started filling with people greeting each other loudly as if they’d all been waiting down below for the right moment to, in the rush of being late, stride up the three flights of stairs, talking, dragging along startled children, crowding into the room—and kicking off the party.
The birthday girl’s facial muscles no longer expressed her, so no one could tell whether she was in a good mood. Placed at the head was what she was. She amounted to a large, thin, powerless and dark-haired old woman. She looked hollow.
“Eighty-nine years old, yes sir!” said José, the eldest now that Jonga had died. “Eighty-nine years old, yes ma’am!” he said rubbing his hands in public admiration and as an imperceptible signal to everyone.
Everyone broke off attentively and looked over at the birthday girl in a more official manner. Some shook their heads in awe as if she’d set a record. Each year conquered by the birthday girl was a vague step forward for the whole family. “Yes sir!” a few said smiling shyly.
“Eighty-nine years old!” echoed Manoel, who was José’s business partner. “Just a little bean sprout!” he said joking and nervous, and everyone laughed except his wife.
The old woman showed no expression.
Some hadn’t brought her a present. Others brought a soap dish, a cotton slip, a costume jewelry brooch, a little potted cactus—nothing, nothing that the lady of the house could use for herself or her children, nothing that the birthday girl herself could really use and thereby save money for the lady of the house: she put away the presents, bitter, sarcastic.
“Eighty-nine years old!” repeated Manoel nervously, looking at his wife.
The old woman showed no expression.
And so, as if everyone had received the final proof that there was no point making any effort, with a shrug as if they were with a deaf woman, they kept the party going by themselves, eating the first ham sandwiches more as a show of enthusiasm than out of hunger, making as if they were all starving to death. The punch was served, Zilda was sweating, not a single sister-in-law was really helping, the hot grease from the croquettes gave off the smell of a picnic; and with their backs turned to the birthday girl, who couldn’t eat fried food, they laughed nervously. And Cordélia? Cordélia, the youngest daughter-in-law, seated, smiling.
“No sir!” José replied with mock severity, “no shop talk today!”
“Right, right!” Manoel quickly backed down, darting a look at his wife whose ears pricked up from a distance.
“No shop talk,” José boomed, “today is for Mother!”
At the head of the already messy table, the cups dirtied, only the cake intact—she was the mother. The birthday girl blinked.
And by the time the table was filthy, the mothers irritated at the racket their children were making, while the grandmothers were leaning back complacently in their chairs, that was when they turned off the useless hallway light so as to light the candle on the cake, a big candle with a small piece of paper stuck to it on which was written “89.” But no one praised Zilda’s idea, and she wondered anxiously if they thought she was trying to save candles—nobody recalling that nobody had contributed so much as a box of matches for the party food that she, Zilda, was serving like a slave, her feet exhausted and her heart in revolt. Then they lit the candle. And then José, the leader, sang with great gusto, galvanizing the most hesitant or surprised ones with an authoritarian stare, “come on! all together now!”—and they all suddenly joined in singing loud as soldiers. Roused by the voices, Cordélia looked on breathlessly. Since they hadn’t coordinated ahead of time, some sang in Portuguese and others in English. Then they tried to correct it: and the ones who’d been singing in English switched to Portuguese, and the ones who’d been singing in Portuguese switched to singing very softly in English.
While they were singing, the birthday girl, in the glow of the lit candle, meditated as though by the fireside.
They picked the youngest great-grandchild who, propped in his encouraging mother’s lap, blew out the candle in a single breath full of saliva! For an instant they applauded the unexpected power of the boy who, astonished and exultan
t, looked around at everyone in rapture. The lady of the house was waiting with her finger poised on the hallway switch—and turned on the light.
“Long live Mama!”
“Long live Grandma!”
“Long live Dona Anita,” said the neighbor who had shown up.
“Happy Birthday!” shouted the grandchildren who studied English at the Bennett School.
A few hands were still clapping.
The birthday girl was staring at the large, dry, extinguished cake.
“Cut the cake, Grandma!” said the mother of four, “she should be the one to cut it!” she asserted uncertainly to everyone, in an intimate and scheming manner. And, since they all approved happily and curiously, she suddenly became impetuous: “cut the cake, Grandma!”
And suddenly the old woman grabbed the knife. And without hesitation, as if in hesitating for a moment she might fall over, she cut the first slice with a murderer’s thrust.
“So strong,” the daughter-in-law from Ipanema murmured, and it wasn’t clear whether she was shocked or pleasantly surprised. She was a little horrified.
“A year ago she could still climb these stairs better than me,” said Zilda bitterly.
With the first slice cut, as though the first shovelful of dirt had been dug, they all closed in with their plates in hand, elbowing each other in feigned excitement, each going after his own little shovelful.
Soon enough the slices were divided among the little plates, in a silence full of commotion. The younger children, their mouths hidden by the table and their eyes at its level, watched the distribution with mute intensity. Raisins rolled out of the cake amid dry crumbs. The anguished children saw the raisins being wasted, intently watching them drop.