António Antunes - The Splendor of Portugal

“As soon as I feel better we’ll buy you that bicycle Clarisse”

when what I really wanted to tell my daughter is that it’s so simple, I think I like you, I should like you but my affection for you has become so distant that I don’t know, I should like you but I don’t care if you end up alone, I’m not worried about you, just as I’m not worried about me, Peneda Soajo Gerês Larouco Falperra, any one of those will do, faces that I recognize or don’t recognize, and even if I once recognized them I no longer do, faces of people who are able to stand up on their own, able to move around freely, how odd, Who wants to see the beautiful boat today put out to sea, as soon as I feel better we’ll buy you that bicycle Clarisse, but what bicycle, I don’t want anyone to touch me, to talk to me, to take an interest in me, to ask me

“Well?”

“Feel better?”

to whisper to me

“It’s me Dad lie still don’t move around don’t overexert yourself”

I am still, I’m not moving around, I’m not overexerting myself, what exertions

“The firewood needs to be cut Amadeu”

lungs either breathe or they don’t breathe, it has nothing to do with me, what really does have to do with me are my hollow arms, two weightless prosthetics, like leaves and branches carried off by the flowing water, a babbling brook that once had meaning for me but that I no longer understand

just before he died he motioned for me to come to his bedside with his finger, I put my ear to his lips, a short breath, the tendons in his neck were flexed tight, his tongue tried to separate the words, line them up in a row, pronounce them in order, one syllable after another

“Clarisse”

and I woke up to the morning in Estoril on the couch in the living room, scared of my own name, not yet morning because the lights outside were still on, the windows not showing the palm trees or the sea, they reflected my seated body, my hands, which straightened out my blouse, fixed my hair, rubbed my eyes, crumpled up the check, found the bouquet of flowers, the dress, and the bracelet, which were slipping off the couch onto the carpet, the indefatigable cat chasing around the annoying little chick with enormous eyelashes and a tiny, childish voice until I too felt the urge to strangle it, shut it up once and for all by clamping down on its little throat, not yet morning, still night, the seagulls in the eaves of the church or on boat-cabin roofs, sometimes you can tell that it’s morning not by the sun but by the birds on the beach, dozens and dozens of birds walking along the sand, the generator rattling in Angola, I’d wake up to find Josélia snoring on the doormat in front of Rui’s bedroom instead of keeping watch in case he had an attack, Josélia fell asleep Mom, my mom looking for a switch to whip her with

“Josélia”

Josélia not objecting, not saying

“But he won’t fall asleep young lady he won’t fall asleep ma’am”

finding the switch before my mother does, handing it to her, pulling her skirt up to her back, I remember those extremely dark marks on her back, the sound, my mother

“Are you trying to kill my son are you trying to kill us all, you all will never rest until you’ve finished us off”

Carlos slamming doors down the hall, furious with my mother, furious with me, muttering under his breath

“Something or other something or other”

like the men in the pastry shop in Malanje, all those things that men know how to say, all those things that men have always said to me, even Luís Filipe and all the ones before Luís Filipe, maybe even my father as well

“Something or other something or other”

in a hut near Cotonang muttering things to the cafeteria worker with whom he had Carlos, I don’t know if I like my father, I don’t know if I like anyone at all, I don’t know if I like myself, my father, just a man

“Something or other something or other”

who at the end of the day is just the same as other men, just as coarse as they are, Carlos slamming doors down the hallway, my mother holding off with the switch

“Carlos”

pulling him by the arm, raising the switch to him without even waiting for him to pull up his nightshirt, again the extremely dark marks, the sound

“So you’re defending your friends are you little nigger?”

the only time I ever heard her call him a nigger, the only time I truly understood that she hated him, that she treated him better than us precisely because she hated him so much, just as my grandmother hated him

“I should put you to work out in the cotton fields I should hand you over to the foreman he’ll put you in your place”

the house suddenly felt strange, my mother going out on the balcony that looked down on the flower beds, my father to us

“It’s nothing it’s nothing”

my father to my mother

“Isilda”

Carlos and Josélia looking at us with the same expressionless expression on their faces, the same calm indifference, and what was there behind that calm indifference, I ask myself, there was nothing behind that calm indifference, I respond, not resignation, not panic, not respect, nothing, if you could only understand their motives for killing us, for running us through on pikes like animals, the sound of my father’s boots on the balcony, my mother’s voice

“Don’t you ever think about touching me again for the rest of your life”

hovering over Carlos the next morning, ironing his shirts, insisting that he drink another glass of milk, serving him his food before the rest of us, leaving chocolates on his pillow, introducing him to a broker from Luanda

“My oldest son”

impulsively promising him a motorcycle for Easter and forgetting all about it a week later, yet still, I’d bet everything I own on it, my nearly genuine jewelry my nearly genuine French gowns my nearly antique made-in-Singapore porcelain dogs, yet still hating him, still hiding him from everyone, still tormenting him out of a mixture of rage and remorse, we never again raced across the patio hopping on one leg

“Faster faster”

we never again quarreled about it

“Cheater”

if I were to turn the hands of the toy watch back to the beginning of the night I would certainly find him waiting for me in the apartment in Ajuda surrounded by those horrific masks, those orange porcelain jars that Lena just adores, the codfish, the greens, the cruet set, two glass ducks that pour oil and vinegar from their open beaks, a Christmas tree decorated like a country bride, a tree that’s, let’s be honest, downright ugly, some stupid gift for me, some stupid gift for Rui, both of them bought on the cheap at a shop in Alcântara, Carlos keeping an eye out for us on the balcony, looking down at the avenue in that neighborhood full of mulberry trees and poor people, perfumed every night by the smell of broom shrubs wafting down from the Monsanto forest, if Luís Filipe knew I had a mulatto brother he’d faint the poor thing, his pacemaker ticktock, ticktock, slowly giving out beneath his undershirt, I’m not feeling very well sweetie, I swear I’m not feeling very well bring me some of those pills I put under my tongue they’re in my jacket pocket, Luís Filipe’s eyes rolling back in his head and me thinking that I’m done for, the door opening before I even ring the doorbell, Carlos in the doorway straightening his tie, nervous, unsure whether he should kiss me or stick out his hand, the type of hand that seems like it’s always dirty and makes us want to wash our own hands after we touch it, not with soap but with a pumice stone and a stiff-bristled brush, Lena behind Carlos, sticking her head up over his shoulder to see, like a cuckoo bird popping out of a clock on an invisible spring, opening and shutting its painted wooden beak