She carried on walking. She no longer felt that feverish heat which had been provoked by her conversation with Lídia. She was pale and utter exhaustion now left her almost weak, her features more delicate and refined. Once again she waited for an end, an end that never came, to complete her moments. If only something inevitable would descend upon her, she wanted to give way, to surrender. Sometimes her feet took the wrong direction, weighed her down, her legs scarcely able to move. But she forced herself on, saved herself for that fall further ahead. She looked at the ground, the straw-coloured grasses which humbly sprang up again after each trampling.
She raised her eyes and saw him. That same man who often followed her without ever accosting her. She had already seen him many times along these same roads, during her evening stroll. She wasn't surprised. She knew that something would happen somehow. Sharp as a knife, yes, even the night before, lying beside Otávio, not knowing what would happen the following day, she had remembered this man. Sharp as a knife... Almost in a daze, as she tried to catch a glimpse of him from a distance, she saw him multiplied into innumerable faces, trembling and formless as they crammed the road. When her vision cleared, her forehead covered in perspiration, she saw him by contrast as a poor, solitary dot coming towards her, lost on that long, deserted road. She felt sure he would only trail her as on other occasions. But she was tired and came to a halt.
The man's figure drew nearer and nearer, got bigger and bigger, and Joana felt herself sink ever more deeply into the inevitable. She could still withdraw, she could turn tail and go away, thus avoiding him. Nor would she be escaping, for she divined the man's humility. There was nothing to keep her there, immobile, waiting for him to approach. Not even if death were now to approach, not even villainy, hope or suffering once again. She had simply come to a halt. The veins were severed that connected her with living things, assembled into a distant block, exacting a logical sequel, however outdated and spent. Only she herself had survived, still breathing. And before her, a fresh field, the colour of the rising dawn still neutral. She must penetrate its mists in order to be able to make it out. She couldn't retreat, she saw no reason for doing so. If she still hesitated before that stranger who came closer and closer, it's because she feared the life which implacably approached once more.
She tried to cling to that interval, to remain suspended there, in that cold abstract world, without mingling with its blood.
He arrived. He stopped a few paces away from her. They stood there in silence. She with staring eyes, wide and weary. He was shaking, nervous and uncertain. All around the leaves rustled in the breeze, a bird chirped monotonously.
The silence dragged on, waiting for them to recover their speech. But neither of them could discover in the other some opening word. They both merged in that silence. Little by little he stopped shaking, his eyes focused more intently on the woman's body, they gently took possession of it and its weariness. He looked at her, oblivious of himself and his shyness. Joana could sense him penetrating her and offered no resistance.
When he spoke, she imperceptibly straightened up. She felt as if she had been there for ages, but when he uttered his opening words without attempting to start up a conversation she knew that she had truly distanced herself incom-mensurably from the beginning.
— I live in that house, he said.
She waited.
— Would you like to rest?
Joana nodded and he watched in silence the luminous aura traced out by the tousled hairs around her small head. He walked ahead and she followed him.
When he spoke, she imperceptibly straightened up, he lowered the blinds and the shadow extended across the floor as far as the closed door. He pulled up a comfortable, old armchair which she sank into, drawing in her legs. The man himself sat on the edge of the narrow bed which was covered with a crumpled sheet. He remained quite still, his hands joined, watching her.
Joana closed her eyes. She could hear sounds, muffled and remote, pervading the house, an infant's cry of mild surprise. As if from another world, there rang out the vigorous crowing of a distant cockerel.
Behind everything, water flowing gently, the laboured and rhythmic breathing of the trees.
An anticipated movement nearby made her open her eyes. She couldn't see him at first in the semi-darkness of the room. She began to recognize him little by little kneeling by the side of the bed, his hands covering his face as it swayed to and fro. She wanted to call out to him but didn't know how. She was reluctant to touch him. But the man's anguish began to affect her more and more, Joana stirred uneasily in the armchair, waiting for him to look at her.
He lifted his head and Joana was surprised. The man's parted lips were moist and shiny as if a light were illuminating them from within. His eyes were bright, it was impossible to say whether because of sorrow or some strange happiness. His head was thrown back, he could scarcely keep his balance in his efforts to get a grip on himself, to stop shaking.
— What is it? — Joana whispered in fascination. He looked at her.
— I'm afraid, he said finally.
They stared at each other for a second. And she was not afraid, but she felt a deep happiness, more intense than fear, possess her and inundate her whole body.
— I shall return to this house, she said.
He confronted her, suddenly terrified, unable to breathe. For a second she waited for him to shout or invent some mad gesture which she couldn't even begin to explain. The man's lips quivered for a second. And scarcely able to rid himself of Joana's gaze, running from it like someone demented, he buried his face abruptly in his long, thin hands.
Under the Man's Protection
Joana. Joana, the man thought, awaiting her arrival. Joana, a simple name. Saint Joana, so chaste. How innocent and pure she was. He saw her childlike features, her eloquent hands like those of a blind man. She was not pretty, at least never since manhood had he dreamed of that creature, never awaited her. Perhaps that is why he had pursued her so often in the road, without even waiting for her to look, perhaps... He couldn't say, he had always enjoyed seeing her. She was not pretty. Or perhaps she was? How could one tell? It was so hard to decide, as if he had never seen her before or never embraced her so often. There was a threat of transformation in her expression, in her movements, from one moment to the next. Even in repose she was something on the point of raising itself. And what did he now understand and feel so miraculously, as if she had explained it to him? — he asked himself. He closed his eyes, his arms outstretched along the sides of the bed. But only until he heard the sound of Joana's footsteps outside. For he had never dared to relax in her presence. He bent over her, waited upon her every moment, absorbing her. But he never tired and that attitude didn't make him any less spontaneous. It simply threw him into another kind of spontaneity, hitherto unknown. He was now two different persons, but little by little his new state of being grew and overshadowed the past of the other. He pursed his lips. He felt there was some strange logic in having experienced certain tortures, serene indignities, the careless lack of any route where he might receive Joana at long last. Not that he had ever been pushed into the mire against his will, not that he considered himself a martyr. He had never awaited a solution. Even with the women whom he guarded, guarded and abandoned. Even with that woman in whose house he had now idly installed himself, even though he could scarcely tolerate her presence, an exhausting and fragile shadow. He had walked on his own feet, his body conscious, experiencing and suffering without any affection for himself, coldly and ingenuously conceding everything to his own curiosity. He even considered himself happy. And now Joana had come to him, she, Joana who... He wanted to add one more word to this muddled thought, the right word, the difficult one, but once again he was struck by the idea that he no longer needed to think, that he needed nothing, nothing... she would soon be here. But listen: soon... It was like this: Joana had liberated him. Increasingly he needed less in order to live: he thought less, ate less, slept very l
ittle. She always existed. And she would soon be here.
He closed his eyes more tightly, bit his lips, suffering without knowing why. He opened his eyes immediately and in the room — the empty room! — suddenly he could find no sign of Joana having been there. As if her existence were a lie... He straightened up. Come, something ardent and mortal called out inside him. Come, he repeated in a low voice, overcome with fear, looking forlorn. Come...
Footsteps, almost silent, were treading the dry leaves outside. Once more Joana was coming... once more she could hear him from afar.
He remained standing beside the bed, his eyes vacant, a blind man listening to distant music. She was drawing closer ... and closer.. .Joana was coming. Her footsteps became more and more real, the only reality. Joana. With the suddenness of a stab wound, the pain exploded inside her body, illuminated her with happiness and bewilderment.
When the door opened to Joana, he ceased to exist. He had slipped to the very depths of himself, he hovered in the penumbra of his own unsuspected labyrinth. He now moved lightly and his gestures were agile and new. The pupils of his eyes became dark and dilated, suddenly transformed into a slender creature, as nervous as a colt. Meanwhile the atmosphere had become so lucid that he could perceive the slightest movement from any living thing around him. And his body was simply recent memory, where sensations would adapt themselves as if for the first time.
The tiny white ship floated over rough waves, green, brilliant and unruly — he saw her lying there, studying the tiny picture on the wall.
— On the third, Joana continued in a soft, clear voice, with small rounded intervals, on the third, there was a grand parade on behalf of new-born infants. It was amusing to watch people singing and carrying flags full of all the non-colours. Then a man got up as feeble and swift as the breeze that blows when someone is sad and calls from afar: I. No one heard him, but he was almost satisfied. And just then the mighty gale started up that blows from the north-east and trampled over everyone with its great fiery feet. Everyone returned to their homes, wilting and scorched by the heat. They pulled off their shoes, loosened their collars. Their blood ran slowly, trickling through their veins. And the most awful feeling of not-having-anything-to-do crept into their souls. In the meantime, the earth continued to go round. That was when a little boy was born and given a name. The child was beautiful. Enormous eyes that saw, delicate lips that felt, a thin little face that felt, a high forehead that felt. His head large. He walked like someone who really knows the place, slipping effortlessly among the crowd. Anyone following him would arrive. When he was moved, when he was surprised, he shook his head, slowly like this, like someone being offered more than he expected. He was beautiful. And above all, he was alive. And above all, I loved him. I was born, I was born, I was born. Now a verse. The thing I wish for, my darling, is to see you always, my darling. As I saw you today, my darling. Even should you die, my darling. Another verse: I once heard a flower sing and quietly rejoiced: Then drawing near, what wonder did I find, not a singing flower, but a bird hovering there.
Joana's words tailed off as if she were dreaming. Through her half-closed eyes, the ship floated to one side in the picture, the objects in the room were strung out and luminous, one object growing from another. For if we already knew 'that everything was one', why go on seeing and living? The man, his eyes closed, had buried his head on her shoulder and listened to her dreaming without sleeping. From time to time, she heard within the living silence of that summer afternoon, muffled, unhurried movements coming from the creaking floorboards. It was the woman, the woman, that woman.
On those first visits to the big house, Joana had felt like asking the man the following questions: Is she now like a mother to you? Is she no longer your lover? Even though I exist, does she still want you to live with her? But she had always held back. Meanwhile, the presence of the other woman was so powerful in the house, that the three of them formed a couple. And Joana and the man never felt themselves to be entirely alone. Joana had also wanted to ask the woman herself: But this had been an earlier thought. For one day she had caught a glimpse of her, the woman's broad shoulders concentrated into an indissoluble lump of anguish beneath her black lace dress. She had also watched her at other fleeting moments, passing from one of the rooms into the lounge, giving a quick smile, rushing off with a horrible expression on her face. Then Joana had discovered that she was someone alive and black. Big ears, sad and heavy, with a dark orifice like a cave. The simpering, furtive, inviting glance of a whore, without glory. Her lips moist, chapped, large, smothered in lipstick. How she must love the man. Her hair was fine and sparse and reddish from constant dyeing. And the room where the man slept and received Joana, that room with curtains, almost free of dust, had in all certainty been tidied up by her. Like someone sewing her own child's shroud. Joana, that woman and the teacher's wife. What was it that finally united them? The three diabolical graces.
— Almonds… Joana said, turning to the man. The mystery and sweetness of words: almond... listen, pronounced carefully, the voice placed in the throat, resounding deep down in the mouth. It vibrates, leaves me long and stretched and curved like a bow. Almond, bitter, poisonous and pure.
The three graces, bitter, poisonous and pure.
— Remind me of that saying... — the man asked her.
— What saying?
— The one about the sailor. When you love a sailor, you love the whole wide world.
— How awful... — Joana laughed. I know: I myself said that it must be so true that it has always had that jingle. But I can't remember the rest.
— He was spending his Sunday in the square. He was on the pier... — the man helped her.
One day, breaking the silence which he kept up when he was with Joana, he had tried to make conversation:
— I've never been much good.
— Yes, she replied.
But everything that's happened wouldn't make you go away...
— No.
— Even this woman... this house... It's different, can't you see?
— I do.
— I know that I've always been like a beggar. But I've never asked for anything, there was no need and I didn't know. But then you came. I used to think: nothing was bad. But now... For you're always telling me such crazy things, believe me, I can't...
At this point she raised herself on one elbow, suddenly looking serious, her face bent over him: Do you believe in me?
— Yes... — he replied, startled by her violence.
— You know that I don't lie, that I never lie, not even when... not even? Do you hear? Tell me, tell me. Then the rest wouldn't matter, nothing would matter... When I say these things... these crazy things, when I don't want to know about your past, and I don't want to tell you anything about myself, when I invent words... When I lie, do you feel that I'm not lying?
— Of course, of course...
She was stretched out on the bed once more, her eyes closed, weary. It doesn't matter, it doesn't matter if he doesn't believe me afterwards, if he runs from me like the teacher. Meanwhile, lying here beside him, she could think. And meanwhile is also time. She opened her eyes and smiled at him. A little boy, that's what he is. He must have had many women, been much loved, he's attractive, with those long eyelashes, those cold eyes. Before he was harder. I've mellowed him a little. That woman is waiting for me to go away forever one day. For him to return.
— What was he doing on Sunday in the square? The square is wide and deserted, she finally said slowly, trying to remember in order to answer his question: Yes... So much sun, trapped on the ground as if it came from there. The sea, the sea's swell, silent and breathless. The fishes on Sunday, rapidly twirling their tails and tranquilly continuing to force their way through. A stationary ship. Sunday. The sailors strolling along the pier, through the square. A pink dress appearing and disappearing round the corner. The trees crystallized on Sunday — Sunday would remind you of Christmas trees — shining in silence,
holding their breath, like so, like so. A man out walking with a woman in a new dress. The man wishes to be nothing, he walks beside her, almost looking into her face, asking, asking: tell me, bully me, trample me. She making no reply, smiling, pure Sunday. Satisfaction, satisfaction. Pure sadness without any heartache. Sadness that seems to come from behind the woman in pink. The sadness of Sunday on the pier, sailors on loan to terra firma. That gentle sadness is proof of living. And since one doesn't know how to make use of this sudden knowledge, there comes sadness.
— This time the story was different — he complained after a pause.
— That's because I'm simply narrating what I saw, not what I'm seeing. I'm incapable of repeating things, I only know things once — she explained to him.
— It was different, but everything you see is perfect. He wore a chain round his neck with a tiny gold medal.
On one side St Teresa, the Little Flower, and on the other side St Christopher. He revered these two saints:
— But I don't pay much attention to saints. Just occasionally.
She had once told him that as a little girl she could spend a whole afternoon playing with one word. So he would ask her to invent some words. She had never loved him more than at such moments.
— Tell me again what Lalande means — he implored Joana. It's like angel's tears. Do you know what angel's tears are? A kind of daffodil, the slightest breeze bends it backwards. Lalande also means the sea at dawn, before anyone has set eyes on the shore, before the sun has risen. Each time I say: Lalande, you should hear the fresh and salty sea-breeze, you should walk the length of the beach still covered in darkness, slowly, stark naked. In a word, you will feel Lalande... You can trust me, no one knows the sea better than I do.