António Antunes - The Splendor of Portugal

for some patently absurd reason

pretend that we consider them equals, the same sounds of screams, arguments, furniture getting knocked over or dragged across the floor, a different receptionist

“Just a moment”

covering the receiver with the palm of her hand and getting exasperated with Mr. Teodoro

“Quiet down immediately Mr. Teodoro”

Mr. Teodoro who had retained a remarkable vitality for a person dying of cancer, more things being dragged along the floor, more arguments, complaints of someone who’d been stabbed

“So help me God”

me imagining Mr. Teodoro determined to slaughter his fellow residents with nothing more than a bread knife and his enthusiasm and in the midst of all the howling the persevering voice of Rui in my ear

“Yes?”

and then I realized that it was Clarisse who was paying the mustachioed actor, that ravishing stage presence with his fingers tucked in between the buttons of his vest

“Sir, if you don’t pay what you owe I’ll have no choice but to give the bed to someone else”

since the pittance that Lena got paid immediately turned into payments on the car or the dishwasher, two gadgets that had the common characteristic of generating a hellish noise and an enormous amount of smoke without moving an inch, Clarisse who settled things

settled things what a miracle

with the actor using the money she received from some married executive, three times her age, which he gave her for personal services and incidental expenses, one married executive or a group of them, each of whom were in charge of a piece of my sister, which is what happens as a rule with joint owners of condominium buildings, Clarisse, if my father were alive he would shut himself up in the cupboard full of liquor bottles right away, the bottleneck clinking against the rim of his glass twenty-four hours a day seven days a week and the grandfather clock, out of pity, covering up everyone else’s murmuring with its merciful clangs just as my mother shielded him from the curiosity of their friends, locking him away in the bedroom upstairs with a liter of whiskey and a couple of sleeping pills, she came down the stairs with a hesitant smile that ruined her makeup while the visitors winked at each other behind her back

“Amadeu says that he’s very sorry but he’s come down with a terrible migraine the poor thing”

in the middle of dinner while people were discussing one thing or another a clatter on the stairs, a bottle falling down them landing on the floor coming to a halt at the foot of the table, a second bottle sliding underneath the full-length mirror, a metal rod from the stair runner bouncing to a stop against a curtain, where the wind that blew the sunflowers issued in its serene secrecy, Damião running around with a tray in his hand, Fernando gathering up the bottles, my father in his pajamas, framed by the doorway, held up his hand to greet the guests with an uncertain gesture, lost his balance trying to pull his napkin out of its ring, asking Damião to serve him wine

“Good evening everyone”

the sound of the generator out behind the house grating against the silence, slowing down every so often, dimming the lights, the wife of the governor’s secretary looking at my father, appalled, the guests with their spoons suspended halfway between their plates and their mouths, my mother quick to hold back her tears, their friends uncomfortable in their chairs, fidgeting with their neckties, my father slamming his hand down on the table as hard as he could

“I said good evening everyone damn it”

the same way that I’m sitting at the table in Ajuda, the linen tablecloth on it, the fruitcake, the dishes of almonds and the corn cakes and raisins and pine nuts, the sparkling wine going flat in the metal bucket where the ice cubes are slowly melting, the tie and the bottle of perfume adorned with ribbons, which, thank God, make them look more expensive, the ridiculous pine tree stuck in the stand decorated with a silvery star on top, like a sad fifty-year-old woman wearing a tiara, the silver of candy wrappers and pathetic little decorative bells, the same way I’m here waiting, alert to every taxi, every truck, every vehicle on the avenue in hopes of hearing the doorbell ring and the voices of my brother and sister in the street, in hopes that Lena will soon finish watching that movie on TV, close her magazine, put out her cigarette

(even after so many years of marriage she still couldn’t put out a cigarette properly, there was always a lingering line of smoke that took centuries to disappear)

and bring out the caldo verde soup and codfish from the kitchen, Lena in her blouse and pearl necklace, which I like better than those mulatto-style slum-dweller rags she used to wear, Lena, Clarisse, Rui, and I fifteen years later as if we were still in Africa, as if we were listening to the breathing of the cotton in the darkness, as if we were inhaling the smell of the earth, as if Josélia and Maria da Boa Morte

Maria da Boa Morte

were by our side, working right next to us, me dejected about the mute, empty chairs

“Good evening everyone”

raising his arm to greet the guests with an unsure gesture, trying to pull the napkin out of its ring, slamming his hand down on the table as hard as he could

“I said good evening everyone damn it”

but I couldn’t get them to hear me since I was covered in snowflakes on the reindeer-pulled sleigh inside the glass ball, protected by my wool suit and red cap, disappearing in a whirl of white specks that hide me from the world.

When I sit down at my dressing table at night to take off my makeup, I ask myself if it’s me or the mirror in the bedroom that has grown old. It must be the mirror: these eyes don’t belong to me anymore, this face isn’t mine, are these wrinkles and blemishes on my skin the traces of old age or just spots where the acid from the tin has corroded the mirror? In the past, back in my father’s day, I never paid attention to the mango trees, the stand of trees in the distance, between the house and the workers’ huts where the hill starts to slope down to the river, where there’s a grave of an unnamed colonist whose cross was pushed out of the ground by the roots of the mango trees, which stuck out of the ground like arms, waving around in terror at nothing at all, not even any birds because birds, my father assured me, are afraid of the dead and only owls dare to drink their blood

blood

and the oil from the oil lamps. Or maybe not a dead person but the ghost of a dead person since on the day the priests from the mission decided to transfer the body to the cemetery at the monastery and brought with them shovels and Latin hymns they didn’t find anything except a pile of chalk-white bones held together by the uniform of an ancient explorer and a rifle, dark with rust, that looked like the gramophone’s bell-shaped speaker, from which opéras mélancoliques used to emerge mournfully in the evenings during the rainy season. I’m positive it’s the mirror that’s grown old: if I lean toward it I can’t even see my hands in the frame, the paintings on the wall and the furniture in the room disappear into some kind of fog, the lace on my nightgown floats into the air with the wild abandon of tapestries in deserted rooms, the priests carry me from the hill to the interior of the monastery, loosening their sandals by the dried leaves in the doorway, what you notice in the mirror is a tremor of absence, an echo of nothingness, a well where the face of a drowning victim, which isn’t mine, is withdrawing from the scene with a cotton ball and an eyeliner pencil that aren’t mine looking for each other amid the traces of old age and the acid from the tin that’s corroded the mirror. It’s the mirror that has grown old: it was just now that we returned from dinner at the Belgians’ house, my husband and I, the lights were lit from our gate to the front door, illuminating the hydrangeas, the statue in the little pond with its elbows upraised in a joyful balletic movement, the little ones asleep upstairs with Maria da Boa Morte without us even telling her to do it, lying in the hallway to watch over them