Is it possible that in penetrating the seeds of her existence, I am violating the secrets of the Pharaohs?
Will I be condemned to death for discussing a life that contains, like the lives of all of us, an inviolable secret? I am desperately trying to discover in the girl's existence at least one bright topaz. Perhaps I shall succeed before finishing my story. It's much too early to say, but I am hopeful.
I forgot to mention that sometimes this typist is nauseated by the thought of food. This dates from her childhood when she discovered that she had eaten a fried cat. The thought revolted her for ever more. She lost her appetite and felt the great hunger thereafter. She was convinced that she had committed a crime; that she had eaten a fried angel, its wings snapping between her teeth. She believed in angels, and because she believed in them, they existed. The girl had never eaten lunch or dinner in a restaurant. She ate her food standing at the snack-bar on the street corner. She fancied that a woman who enters a restaurant must be French and on the loose.
There were certain words whose meaning escaped her. One such word was ephemeris. For didn't Senhor Raimundo ask her to copy from his elegant handwriting the word ephemeris or ephemerides? She found the word ephemerides altogether mysterious. When she copied the word out she paused over each letter. Her workmate Glória could do shorthand and, not only did she earn more, but she even seemed unperturbed by those difficult words that the boss was so fond of using. Meanwhile, the girl became enamoured of the word ephemeris.
Another portrait: she had never received gifts from anyone. It didn't worry her for she needed so little. One day, however, she saw something that, for one brief moment, she dearly wanted: it was a book that Senhor Raimundo, who was fond of literature, had left on the table. The book was entitled The Shamed and Oppressed. The girl remained pensive. Perhaps for the very first time she had established her social class. She thought and thought and thought! She decided that no one had ever really oppressed her and that everything that happened to her was inevitable. It was futile trying to struggle. Why struggle? I ask myself: will she one day experience love and its farewell? Will she one day experience love and its deceptions? Will she experience love's rapture in her own modest way? Who can tell? How can one disguise the simple fact that the entire world is somewhat sad and lonely? The girl from the North-east was lost in the crowd. She caught the bus in Maua Square. It was bitterly cold and she had no warm clothing to protect her from the wind. But there were the cargo ships that filled her with yearning for who knows what. This happened only on the rare occasion. Most of the time she walked out of her gloomy office into the fading light, and noted that every day at the same hour, it was exactly the same hour. Nothing could be done about the great clock that marked time within time. Yes, to my exasperation, the same hour. Well, so what? So nothing! Speaking for myself, the author of this human character, I cannot stand repetition: routine divides me from potential novelties within my reach.
Speaking of novelties, one day the girl saw a man in a snack-bar who was so amazingly good-looking that she would have loved to take him home. It would be like— like possessing a large emerald — emerald — emerald displayed in a jewel box. Forbidden to touch. The ring on his finger suggested that he was married. How could one marry — marry — marry a man who was only meant to be seen — seen — seen, she stammered in her mind. She would die of shame were she to eat in his presence, for he was much too good-looking by far.
It occurred to her that she would like to rest her back for just a day. She knew that if she spoke to her boss, he would refuse to believe that her ribs were aching. So she had recourse to a lie that sounded much more convincing than the truth: she informed her boss that she would be unable to turn up for work the following day because she had to have a tooth extracted that might be troublesome. The lie worked. Sometimes only a lie can save you. The following day, therefore, when the four weary Marias set off for work, she could enjoy at long last the greatest privilege of all: solitude. She had the room all to herself. The girl could scarcely believe that all this space was hers to enjoy. It was so quiet you could have heard a pin drop. Overcome with joy at her good fortune, the girl danced with reckless abandon. Her aunt would never have tolerated this behaviour. She danced and waltzed round the room for solitude made her: f-r-e-e! She took full advantage of this well-earned solitude, of the transistor radio which she played at full volume, of the room's spaciousness once vacated by the four Marias. She begged some instant coffee as a special favour from the landlady, then as an additional favour, she also asked for some boiling water. As she drank, licking her lips between each sip, she studied her own enjoyment in the mirror. To confront herself was a pleasure that she had never before experienced. I have never been so happy in my whole life, she thought. She owed nothing to anyone, and no one owed her anything. She even indulged in the luxury of feeling a little weary — a weariness quite unlike the usual weariness.
I am a little suspicious of this sudden ease with which the girl is asking favours. Perhaps she needed special conditions in order to become appealing. Why hadn't she always behaved like this? Even looking at herself in the mirror was no longer quite so alarming: she was contented but how it ached.
— Ah, merry month of May, abandon me no more! (Bang) she exclaimed inwardly the following morning, the seventh of May, she who never exclaimed anything. Probably because she had finally been given something. Given to her by herself, but nevertheless given.
On the morning of the seventh of May, an unforeseen ecstasy gripped her tiny body. The bright, open light from the streets penetrated her opacity. May, the month of bridal veils floating in clouds of white.
What follows is merely an attempt to reproduce three pages which I had already written. My cook, seeing them lying around, threw them into the wastepaper-basket to my utter despair — let the souls in Purgatory assist me to bear the almost unbearable, for the living are not much good to me. This tentative reconstruction is nothing like my original version of the girl's meeting with her future boy friend. Abashed, I shall try to relate the story of the story. But if anyone asks me how it came about, I shall reply: I simply do not know. I've lost the thread of my plot.
May, the month of brides, transformed into butterflies floating in white tulle. Her exclamations could have been a premonition of what was about to occur in the late afternoon of that same day. In a downpour of rain, she met (bang) the first boy-friend of any kind she had ever known, her heart beating furiously as if she had swallowed a little bird that continued to flutter inside her. The boy and the girl stared at each other in the rain and recognized each other as native North-easterners, creatures of the same species with that unmistakable aura. She stared at him, drying her wet face with her hands. The girl only had to see the youth in order to transform him immediately into her guava preserve with cheese.
He. . .
He approached her and spoke with the singsong intonation of the North-easterner that went straight to her heart. He said
— Excuse me, missy, but would you care to come for a walk?
— Yes, she replied in confusion and haste, before he could change his mind.
— If you don't mind my asking, what's your name?
— Macabéa.
— Maca — what?
— Béa, she was forced to repeat.
— Gosh, it sounds like the name of a disease ... a skin disease.
— I agree but it's the name my mother gave me because of a vow she made to Our Lady of Sorrows if I should survive. For the first year of my life, I wasn't called anything because I didn't have a name. I'd have preferred to go on being called nothing instead of having a name that nobody has ever heard of, yet it seems to suit me — she paused for a moment to catch her breath before adding shyly and a little downhearted— for as you can see, I'm still here. . . so that's that.
— Even in the backwoods of Paraíba, fulfilling a vow is a question of honour.
Neither of them knew much about walking out together. T
hey walked under the heavy rain and lingered in front of an ironmongers that boasted a wide selection of metal tubes, containers, nuts and bolts. Macabéa, afraid that the silence between them might be a warning of imminent separation, remarked to her newly-found boy-friend:
— I love nuts and bolts. What about you?
The second time they met, the rain had settled into a steady drizzle and soaked them to the skin. Without even as much as holding hands, they walked under the drizzle, the water streaming like tears down Macabéa's face.
The third time they met - Well now, if it isn't raining? The youth, suddenly dropping that superficial veneer of politeness that his stepfather had inculcated with some effort, snapped at her:
— All you seem to bring is the rain!
— I'm sorry.
She was already so infatuated, however, that she could no longer do without him in her hunger for love.
On one of the occasions they met, she finally plucked up enough courage to ask him his name.
— Olímpico de Jesus Moreira Chaves — he lied, because his real surname was simply Jesus, a clear indication that he was illegitimate. The youth had been brought up by his stepfather, who had taught him how to ingratiate himself with people in order to get his own way and how to pick up girls.
— I don't understand your name — she said.
— Olímpico?
Macabéa pretended to be very inquisitive while concealing the fact that she had never understood anything the first time round. Aggressive as a fighting cock, Olímpico bristled at her foolish questions, to which he could provide no answers. He retorted impatiently:
— I know what it means, but I'm not telling you!
— That's all right, that's all right, that's all right. . . people don't have to understand what names mean. She understood what desire meant — although she didn't know that she understood. That was how it was: she was starving but not for food, it was a numb sort of pain that rose from her lower abdomen, making the nipples of her breast quiver and her empty arms starved of any embrace came out in goose-pimples. She became overwrought and it was painful to live. At such moments, she would shake with nerves and her workmate Glória would rush to get her a glass of water with sugar.
Olímpico de Jesus was a metal-worker and Macabéa failed to notice that he never once referred to himself as a worker but always as a metallurgist. Macabéa was delighted with his professional standing just as she was proud of being a typist even if she did earn less than the minimum salary. She and Olímpico had social status. 'Metallurgist and typist' were categories of some distinction. Olímpico's job had the flavour one tastes when smoking a cigarette the wrong way round. His job was to collect the metal rods as they came off the machine and load them on to a conveyor belt. Macabéa never got round to asking him why the rods were put on a conveyor belt. He didn't have such a bad life and he even managed to save some of his wages: he had free shelter at night in a hut that was due for demolition because of his friendship with the night watchman. Macabéa observed:
— Good manners are the best thing one can inherit.
— As far as I'm concerned, the best inheritance is plenty of money. One day, I'll be a rich man — he rejoined grandly, convinced that he was a demon of power: the strength bleeding in his young limbs.
The one thing he would like to have been was a bullfighter. He had once witnessed a bullfight at the cinema and he had shivered from head to foot when he saw the bullfighter extend his red cape. Olímpico had felt no compassion for the bull. What he liked was to see blood.
In the North-east, he had saved week after week to earn enough money to have a perfectly sound canine replaced with a false tooth in glittering gold. A gold tooth gave him some standing in society. Moreover, to have actually killed someone had made him a MAN in capital letters. Olímpico felt no remorse, he was what people in the North-east would call a 'brazen thug'. Olímpico, however, remained unaware that he was also an artist. In his spare time he carved effigies of saints which were so attractive that he decided not to sell them. He carved in the smallest details and, without being disrespectful, he left nothing of the Child Jesus' anatomy to the imagination. As far as Olímpico was concerned, what exists, exists, and Jesus was not only divine but also a man just like him minus the gold tooth.
Olímpico was also interested in local politics. He loved listening to public debates and speeches. Not that he didn't have his own ideas about such matters. He would squat on the ground, rolling a cigarette and thinking hard. Just as he used to squat on the ground in his native Paraíba, his backside suspended in mid-air, while he meditated. He would speak out in a loud voice even if there was no one listening.
— I'm an intelligent chap and one of these days I'll be in politics myself.
After all, didn't he have a gift for making speeches? He possessed that singsong intonation and those unctuous phrases one associates with the man who makes public speeches defending and upholding human rights. After all, was he not destined to become a politician one day? (An event this story does not cover.) And when that day comes, he will expect to be treated with some respect.
Macabéa was undeniably a primitive creature while Olímpico de Jesus saw himself as a man about town, the type of man for whom all doors open.
I am determined to avoid any sentimentality so I shall eliminate, without further ado, any hint of compassion implicit in this story. I should mention that Macabéa had never received a letter in her life. And any telephone calls in the office were always for the boss or for Glória. Macabéa once asked Olímpico if he wouldn't care to telephone her at the office. He made a crushing reply:
— Who wants to listen to you talking nonsense on the telephone?
When Olímpico insisted that one day he would become a politician in his native state of Paraíba, she was astounded and thought to herself: when we get married does that mean that I shall be a politician as well? She didn't fancy the idea because the word 'politician' sounded quite unpleasant. (As I explained, this is not a story about abstractions. Later, I shall probably return to the unnamed sensations, perhaps even the sensations of God Himself. But Macabéa's story must be told or else I shall explode.)
On the rare occasion when the couple actually held a conversation, they invariably discussed food: flour, salted beef, dried meat, brown sugar and molasses. These commodities symbolized their past and made them forget their unhappy childhood because in retrospect, memories of childhood are always bitter-sweet and even provoke a certain nostalgia. Olímpico and Macabéa could have been mistaken for brother and sister, a factor — I've only now realized — that would appear to rule out any possibility of their marrying. I'm not sure that they were aware of this factor. Will they get married? I still don't know. All I know is that they were both ingenuous and altogether insignificant.
No, I'm mistaken. It's now clear that Olímpico was by no means ingenuous, however much the universal victim. It's now clear to me that he was wicked to the core. He enjoyed taking his revenge. Revenge gave him an enormous satisfaction and the strength to go on living. He had more strength than Macabéa, whose guardian angel had deserted her.
In the end, what had to happen would happen. Meantime nothing whatsoever happened, for neither of them knew how to invent happenings. They sat on something free of charge: a bench in the public park. Sitting there, they were indistinguishable from the rest of nothingness. For the greater glory of God.
He — Well.
She — Well what?
He — I only said well!
She — But well what?
He — Let's change the subject. You'll never understand.
She — Understand what?
He — Mother of God! Macabéa, let's change the subject at once!
She — What shall we talk about then?
He — About you.
She — Me!
He — Why the fuss? Aren't you a human being? Human beings talk about other human beings.
She — Forgive me, but I don't
believe that I am all that human.
He — Everybody's human, dear God!
She — I've never got used to the idea.
He — Never got used to what?
She — I can't explain.
He — So?
She — So what?
He — Look, I'm going. You're a dead loss.
She — I can't help being a dead loss. What do you want me to do about it?
He — You talk a load of rubbish. Try to talk about something . . . anything.
She — I don't know what to talk about.
He — You don't know what?
She — Eh?
He — Look, you're getting on my nerves. Let's just shut up. Agreed?
She — Whatever you say.
He — You're really a hopeless case. As for me, I've been called so many things that I've turned into myself. In the backwoods of Paraíba everybody has heard of Olímpico. And one day the whole world is going to be talking about me.
She — Really?
He — Isn't that what I'm telling you! Don't you believe me?
She — Of course I believe you, I believe you, I believe you. I didn't mean to hurt your feelings.
When she was a little girl, Macabéa had seen a house painted white and pink with a back-yard that boasted a well and water-clock. It was exciting to look down the well. And so this became Macabéa's great ambition: to possess a house one day with its own well. Except that she didn't know how to set about realizing her ambition so she asked Olímpico:
— Can you tell me if anybody can buy a well?
— Look here, hasn't it dawned on you that there aren't any answers to the questions you ask?