And her union with the earth was so deep and her certainty so firm — about what? what? — that she could now lie without surrendering. All this left her thinking at times: Dear God, perhaps I am making more of this than of love?
She gradually became accustomed to her new state, she became accustomed to breathing, to living. Little by little, she started becoming older in herself, she opened her eyes and once more she was a statue, no longer plastic, yet defined. From afar, disquiet was reawakening. At night, between the sheets, the slightest movement or unexpected thought awakened her to herself. Mildly surprised, she opened her eyes wide, perceived her own body plunged into reassuring contentment. She wasn't suffering, but where was she?
— Joana... Joana... she softly called to herself. And her body scarcely responded, quietly echoing: Joana.
The days sped by and she wished to confront herself more closely. She now summoned herself in a loud voice, and it was not enough that she should be breathing. Happiness was effacing her, effacing her... She now wanted to know herself again, even with sorrow. But she became increasingly submerged. Tomorrow she put it off, tomorrow I shall confront myself. But the new day skimmed over her surface, light as a summer evening, barely unsettling her nerves.
The only thing she had not got used to was sleeping. Each night, sleep became an adventure, to fall from the effortless clarity in which she lived into mystery itself, sombre and fresh, to cross darkness. To die and to be reborn.
So I shall never have any mandate, she thought to herself after she had been married for several months. I slip from one truth to another, always forgetting the first one, always dissatisfied. Her life consisted of tiny, complete lives, of perfect circles, that became isolated from each other. Except that at the end of each of them, instead of dying and beginning life on another plane, inorganic or organically deficient, Joana recommenced on the human plane itself. Only the fundamental notes were different. Or was it only the supplementary ones that were different while the basic ones were eternally the same?
It was ever futile to have been happy or unhappy. And even to have loved. No happiness or unhappiness had been so intense that it could have transformed the elements of her matter, giving her a unique path — as one's true path ought to be. I perpetually go on inaugurating myself, opening and closing circles of life, throwing them aside, withered, impregnated with the past. Why are they so independent, why don't they merge into one solid mass and provide me with ballast? The fact is that they were far too integral. Moments so intense, red, condensed within themselves that they needed neither past nor future in order to exist. They brought an awareness that did not serve as experience, a direct awareness, closer to feeling than perception. The truth then revealed was so true that it couldn't endure save in its recipient, in the very fact which had provoked it. So true, so fatal, that it only existed in function of its origin. Once the moment of life is over the corresponding truth is also exhausted. I cannot mould it, make it inspire other such moments. Consequently nothing compromises me.
Meanwhile, the justification of her short-lived glory perhaps had no value other than that of affording her a certain pleasure in reasoning things out, such as: if a stone falls, that stone exists, that stone fell from somewhere, that stone... She was often so mistaken.
Part Two
The Marriage
Joana suddenly remembered, without any forewarning, herself standing at the top of the stairs. She did not know if she had once been looking down from the top of a staircase, crammed with lots of people, dressed in satin, with large fans. Most likely she had never actually experienced this. The fans, for example, had no material consistency in her memory. If she tried to think of them, she didn't really see fans, but shiny blotches swimming back and forth amidst words in French, whispered carefully through pursed lips, pouting like this as if a kiss were being blown from afar. The fan began as a fan and ended with words in French. Ridiculous. So it was a lie.
Yet despite everything, the impression persisted as if the most important thing lay beyond the staircase and the fans. She stopped moving for a moment and only her eyes blinked rapidly, in pursuit of some sensation. Ah, yes. She descended the marble staircase, feeling in the soles of her feet that cold fear of slipping, her hands hot and perspiring, the ribbon tightening round her waist, pulling her up like a hoist. Then the smell of new clothes, the bright inquisitive glance of a man eyeing her up and down and leaving her, as if a button had been pressed in the dark, lighting up her body. She was pervaded by long, integral muscles. Any thought descended through those smooth tendons only to tremble there in her ankles whose flesh was as tender as that of young fowl.
She paused on the bottom step, securely and without danger, she placed the palm of her hand gently on the cold, smooth banister. And without knowing why, she felt a sudden happiness, almost painful, a weakness in her heart, as if it were soft pulp and someone was poking fingers into it, kneading it gently. Why? She raised her hand weakly in a gesture of refusal. She did not wish to know. But now the question had surfaced and in absurd reply came the shining banister impulsively tossed from on high like a glossy streamer during carnival time. But it was not carnival time, for there was silence in the room, a silence through which everything could be seen. The humid reflections of the lamps over the mirrors, the ladies' brooches and the buckles on the gentlemen's belts communicating from time to time with the chandelier, through subtle rays of light.
She began to perceive the ambience. Between the men and women there were no hard spaces, everything blended softly. Vapour, humid and exciting, rose from some invisible heater. Once again, she felt a slight pain in her heart, and she smiled, her nose wrinkled, her breathing faint.
She paused for a moment's rest. She began recovering slowly, regaining some sense of reality, despite her efforts to the contrary, her body once more insensible, opaque and strong, like something that has been alive for some considerable time. She could make out the room, the curtains waving ironically, the bed obstinately still and useless. She anxiously tried to take herself to the top of the staircase and to descend once more. She could feel herself walking, but no longer felt her legs shaking, or her hands perspiring. Then she saw that her memory had drained.
She waited near the bookcase, where she had gone to look for... what? She frowned, not really interested. What? She tried to derive some amusement from the impression that in the middle of her forehead there was now a gaping hole where they had extracted the notion of whatever she had gone to look for.
She turned towards the door and asked in a low voice, eyes closed:
— What was it you wanted, Otávio?
— The one about Civil Law, he said, and before getting back to his notebook, he gave her a quick look of surprise.
She brought him the book, distracted, her movements slow. He waited for it with outstretched hand, without lifting his head. She lingered for a moment, holding the book out in his direction, keeping it at a distance. But Otávio didn't notice the delay and with a tiny shrug she put the book into his hand.
She sat down uncomfortably in a nearby chair, as if about to depart at any moment. Gradually, since nothing was happening, she leaned back submissively, her eyes vacant, thinking of nothing.
Otávio continued reading about Civil Law, pausing over some line and then impatiently biting his nail and quickly turning several pages at a time. Until he stopped once more, absorbed, passing his tongue over the edge of his teeth, one hand gently pulling the hairs of his eyebrows. Some word or other immobilized him, his hand in mid-air, his mouth open like that of a dead fish. Suddenly he threw the book down with a thud. His eyes bright and eager, he wrote hastily in his notebook, stopping for a moment to take a deep breath, and, with a gesture which startled her, began tapping on his teeth with his knuckles.
What an animal, she thought. He interrupted what he was writing and looked at her in terror, as if she had thrown something at him. She went on staring at him unintentionally and Otávio stirred in
his chair, simply reflecting that he was not alone. He smiled, diffident and annoyed, and held out his hand to her across the table. She leaned forward in her chair and offered him in turn the tips of her fingers. Otávio squeezed them rapidly, smiling, and then suddenly, before she even had time to withdraw her arm, he returned abruptly to his notebook, almost burying his face in it and writing furiously.
He was the one who was feeling now, Joana thought. And suddenly, perhaps out of envy, without any thought, she hated him with such brute force that her hands were gripping the arms of the chair and her teeth were clenched. She panted for a few seconds, reinvigorated. Fearing that her husband might sense those seconds, force her to disguise her hatred and so diminish the strength of her feelings. He was to blame, she thought coldly, looking out for a fresh wave of anger. He was to blame, he was to blame. His presence and more than his presence: the knowledge that he existed robbed her of any freedom. Only on rare occasions now, in some fleeting escapade, was she able to feel anything. That's right. He was to blame. How had she not discovered it before? — she asked herself in triumph. He was robbing her of everything, everything. And as if the phrase were still weak, she thought with intensity, her eyes closed, everything! She felt better, she could think more clearly.
Before he appeared she had always had her hands outstretched and how much, oh how much she received to her surprise! To her overwhelming surprise, like a ray of sweet surprise, like a shower of tiny lights... Now all her time was devoted to him and she felt that any minutes she could call her own had been conceded, broken into little ice-cubes which she must swallow quickly before they melted. And whipping herself into a gallop: look, that time is freedom! Look, think quickly, look, pull yourself together quickly, look, it's gone! Now — only much later, the tray of ice-cubes once more and yourself looking at it in fascination, watching the drops of water already trickling.
Then he came. And she rested at last, with a heavy sigh. — But she didn't want to rest! — Her blood ran more slowly, its rhythm domesticated, like an animal that has trained itself to fit into a cage.
She remembered that she had gone to look for something — what? Ah, Civil Law — in the bookcase at the top of the stairs, such a gratuitous memory, so free, even if imagined ... How young she was then. Clear water running within and without. She missed that sensation, felt the need to experience it once more. She looked anxiously up and down, searching for something. But everything was as it had always been. Old. I'll leave him, was her first thought, without any premonition. She opened her eyes, watching out for herself. She knew that that thought might bring consequences. As happened in the past, when her resolutions didn't require great facts, merely some trifling idea, some meaningless vision, in order to be formed. I'll leave him, she repeated, and this time tiny fibres broke away from her thought, attaching it to herself. From now on the thought was inside her and the filaments thickened until they formed roots.
How often would she reach this decision before actually leaving him? She wore herself out in anticipation of the little struggles she would still endure, rebelling and giving in at once, right to the end. She experienced a rapid and impatient inner movement which manifested itself simply with the imperceptible raising of a hand. Otávio glanced at her for a second and carried on writing like someone in a trance. How sensitive he is, she thought during a pause. She went on following her own thoughts: why hold off? Yes, why hold off? — she asked herself. And her question was concrete, it called for a serious reply. She sat comfortably in the chair, adopted a formal pose, as if to hear what he had to say.
Then Otávio gave a loud sigh, closed the book and his notebook with a slam, threw them down with unwarranted force, his long legs stretched way out in front of him. She looked at him alarmed and outraged. Well then... — she began ironically. But she didn't know how to go on and waited, watching him.
He said, with an expression of mock severity:
— Very well. Now do me the favour of coming over here and putting your hand on this manly chest, for that's what I need right now.
She laughed just to please him. But in the midst of her laughter she was already finding some amusement. She remained sitting, trying to go on: then he... and she moved her lips in a gesture of contempt and triumph, like someone receiving the awaited proof. Then, he... Was it like this? She was waiting for Otávio to notice her attitude, to become aware of her determination not to move from her chair. He, in the meantime, as always, was aware of nothing and just at those moments when he should be looking, he was absorbed in something or other. Now, at this very moment, he had remembered to retrieve the book and notebook which he had thrown down on the table. He wasn't even looking at Joana, was he certain that she would come to him? She smiled with malice, thinking how he had deceived himself and how many thoughts she had enjoyed without him even suspecting. Yes, why hold off?
He raised his eyes, somewhat surprised at the delay. And as she remained seated, they went on there looking at each other from a distance. He was intrigued.
— Well? — he said disgruntled: — My manly...
Joana interrupted him with a gesture, for she could not bear the compassion that had suddenly invaded her and the sense of absurdity conveyed by that phrase, when she herself was so lucid and determined to speak. He was not intimidated by her gesture and she had to swallow carefully in order to suppress the foolish urge to weep which slowly surfaced in her breast.
Now his pity embraced her too, and she saw the two of them together, forlorn and childish. Both of them were going to die, this same man who had tapped his fingers on his teeth with such gusto. She herself, along with the top of the staircase and all her capacity to want to feel. The essential things struck her at such moments also during the empty ones, filling them with meaning. How often she had given a waiter an enormous tip simply because she had remembered that he was going to die and didn't know.
She looked at him mysteriously, her expression grave and tender. And now she tried to excite some emotion by thinking of their future corpses.
She rested her head on his chest and there a heart was beating. She thought: but even so, despite death, I shall leave him one day. She was fully aware of the thought that might come to her, giving her strength if she should yield to emotion before leaving him: 'I've taken everything I could. I neither hate nor despise him. Why look for him even though I love him? I'm not so fond of myself as to like the things I like. I'm more in love with what I want than with myself.' Oh, she also knew that the truth might be contrary to what she had thought. She let her head droop, pressed to her brow against Otávio's white shirt. Little by little, very slowly the idea of death began to fade and she no longer found anything to laugh at. Her heart was softly moulded. Her hearing told her that the other one, indifferent to everything, was pursuing its fatal path with regular heartbeats. .. The sea.
— Hold off, simply hold off, Joana thought before she stopped thinking. Because the last of the ice-cubes had melted, and now she was sadly a happy woman.
Under the Teacher's Protection
Joana remembered it well: days before getting married she had gone to see her teacher.
She had suddenly felt the need to meet him, to listen to him, unyielding and cold, before going away. For in a sense, she had the impression of betraying her entire past by marrying. She wanted to see her teacher again, to feel his support. And when the idea occurred to her of paying a visit, she had calmed down, feeling relieved.
He would have to give her the right word. What word? Nothing, she replied to herself mysteriously, wishing with sudden faith and expectation, to wait and listen to him, completely inexperienced, without having any idea of what she was about to gain. This had happened to her once before: when she had prepared herself for a visit to the circus as a little girl. The best moments had been spent getting ready. And when she approached the broad field where the huge, round tent loomed white, like one of those silver domes that conceal until a certain moment the best dish on the tab
le, when she approached holding the maid's hand, she felt fear and anguish and a disquieting happiness in her heart, she wanted to go back, to escape. When the maid told her: your father has given us money to buy popcorn, then Joana looked at things in wonderment, under that sunny evening sky, as if they were hallucinating.
She knew that the teacher had become ill, that his wife had abandoned him. But although he had aged, she found him stouter and bright-eyed. She had also been afraid, to begin with, that their last dinner together, when she had fled in alarm towards puberty, might make the visit awkward, leave them feeling uneasy, in that same strange, creepy room where the dust had overcome the polish.
The teacher had received her with a serene, distracted air. With those dark circles under his eyes he reminded her of an old-fashioned portrait. He questioned Joana but the moment she tried to answer he stopped listening, as if no longer under any obligation. She interrupted herself a number of times, her attention directed at the clock and the small table with the medicines. She looked all around her and the semi-darkness was humid and stifling. The teacher was like a great tom-cat reigning supreme in a cellar.
— Now you can open the windows, he said. You know what I mean, a little darkness and then plenty of fresh air; your whole body benefits, receives a new lease of life. Just like a neglected child. When it receives everything, it suddenly reacts, blooms again, sometimes even more than the other children.
Joana had flung the windows and doors wide open and the cold air entered with a triumphant blast. A little sunshine came through the door behind him. The teacher had unbuttoned the collar of his pyjama jacket, exposing his chest to the wind.