António Antunes - The Splendor of Portugal

my eyes

a speck of mascara got in my eye and it burned

my hands crumpled up the check, found the bouquet of flowers, the dress, and the bracelet, which were slipping off the couch onto the carpet, Rui shook my father’s knee right away

“Clarisse didn’t like any of her presents she’s throwing them out Dad”

my grandmother unwrapped her new martyr, turning it this way and that, distrustful

“Did you already give it to the bishop to bless it at least?”

because until they had been blessed it wasn’t a saint it was a doll and try to get a miracle out of a doll, preposterous, they bought a Christmas tree in Malanje that they kept in the attic with all the decorations still on it and everything, nice and ready for the following December, we’d open the closet door up there and find the Christmas tree drying out, my father held his new shirt up to his chest to try it out

“Don’t you like your new watch Clarisse?”

my first real watch after having toy watches with plastic faces and elastic wristbands, I’d twist the knob on them and the hands would spin around yet always maintain the same angle, quarter after twelve, one twenty, two twenty-five, three thirty, my first watch with independent hour and minute hands, and a second hand longer than the others, thinner, and scarlet, pointing at one little hash mark after another, moving to the side with a slight jolt, I’d put on my watch, walk on my tiptoes, and I’d seem at least five years older, I wouldn’t pay the slightest attention to my brothers, two little kids, Carlos trying to trip me

“You snob”

me still on my tiptoes, jumping over his shoe, with my nose in the air since I didn’t even hear him, the way my mother never heard the men in the pastry shop muttering under their breath

“Something or other something or other”

the two of us, my mom and I, deaf, superior to men, until we headed back toward the plantation in the jeep and the last of the slums evaporated behind us in a cloud of dust

“What did they want Mom?”

phrases that I didn’t understand, gestures with their index fingers, difficult words, fenced-off pastures out the window of the jeep, shirtless children walking aimlessly amid a few scattered huts, mouths hidden behind hands repeating

“Something or other something or other”

if they let me smoke I’d have lit up a cigarette in the jeep

“What did they want Mom?”

a gaggle of wild geese something or other something or other in the sky, my mother who didn’t seem angry the way I got angry at Carlos’s stupid behavior

“You snob”

(the keychain for the jeep was a rabbit’s foot and there was a second rabbit’s foot hanging from the rearview mirror that was almost just a bone)

my mother, who should have offered me a cigarette since with my watch and on my tiptoes I was almost the same age as her, but she didn’t offer me one, if I’d put a ring or two on my fingers and gone to the hairdresser with her they wouldn’t be able to tell the slightest difference

“None at all”

the lights in Estoril motionless in the darkness except for a garland of lilac-colored lamplights that rocked to and fro

a ship?

if I could only embark on a cruise ship with nightly shows and a swimming pool, if only Luís Filipe would invite me on a cruise to Greece, I’ve got tons and tons of clothes that I haven’t worn yet, it’s a shame really, me looking at myself in the windowpanes, unable to find that little girl who was superior to the men

“Something or other something or other”

in the pastry shop, looking at the women I once longed to become and whom I now despise, taking off my shoes and walking around on my tiptoes wearing a toy watch with an elastic wristband, much better than a real one, women destined to become princesses asking me

“Do you have the time Dona Clarisse?”

me with a disdainful look on my face, not even glancing at them

“Ten to one”

them repeating, enchanted

“Ten to one imagine that”

all watches everywhere anxiously trying to hurry up and set their time by my watch, until I start wishing it was a quarter after three, because I hate lunch, winding the knob and bam, it’s a quarter after three all of a sudden in the real world and the world is grateful, free of all those meatballs and soups and scoldings for putting your elbows on the table

“Elbows Clarisse elbows”

Josélia cutting Rui’s meatballs and nobody getting upset about him having his elbows or even his chin on the table, my grandmother placing the sanctified martyr in the section reserved for martyrs murdered with rocks, arrows, crosses, flaming coals, rubble from collapsing temples, communists’ bullets, lions, the martyrs in the middle who suffered the most those poor things

“And now sit up straight before you become a hunchback like cousin Deodata just think how pretty that would be”

me a little hunchback, in black mourning clothes, two wedding rings, one that belonged to me and one that belonged to the deceased, porcelain bears, Chinese boxes, maybe penniless, maybe starving, cousin Deodata as a young lady in a photograph without a trace of a hump on her back, my grandmother putting on her glasses to get a better look at it, her nose pressed against the glass of the frame, a young lady holding an umbrella

(it wasn’t clear why she was holding an umbrella)

leaning against a high-backed armchair, the same one that was still fading in the corner of her living room

“You looked so different Deodata”

cousin Deodata with her forehead almost touching her belly, shuffling along, one slipper after another

“Thank you thank you”

if I’d wanted to all I’d have had to do is wind my watch with the elastic wristband backward and cousin Deodata would once again be leaning against the armchair, back to when my father didn’t drink, back to the beginning of the evening and I’d go see Carlos in Ajuda, I’d buy some aftershave downtown, some perfume for Lena, any perfume at all would do as long as it has some sort of scent because Lena doesn’t know anything about perfume, I’d hop on the trolley, hop on the bus, ring the doorbell

“Hi Carlos”

the hideousness of that ugly street, the mulberry trees, the buildings with their crumbling cement façades, back to when my father didn’t drink, sometimes he’d distract me from the watch that had been bestowed upon me and I’d become a little girl again, my heels back on the ground, and we’d hop across the patio on one foot, the last one there was a rotten egg, Carlos upset

“No fair Dad let you win”

my mother winking at Carlos, telling him to be quiet, which I saw quite clearly

“No he didn’t don’t be silly”

my father hopping on one leg with me in his arms, the two of us against Carlos who still cheated by letting his other foot touch the ground even though my mother, who was the referee, didn’t make him go back to the starting line, my father stopped all of a sudden, Carlos got to the flowerpot before we did and I wanted to punch him, not buy him any aftershave downtown, just hop on the trolley, hop on the bus, ring the doorbell in Ajuda, the hideousness of that ugly street, the mulberry trees, the buildings with their crumbling cement façades, and punch him

“Cheater” and run off through the cotton fields and live in Malanje all by myself, my father grabbed me around the waist as I ran down the trail and gently sat me down on the ground, or call him a

“Cheater”

or ask my father to pick me up again

“Pick me up again”

floating around and around, birds and trees spinning in reverse, me twirling around, a feeling of vertigo, gleeful panic

“I’m going to fall”