José Saramago - Skylight

And then they went and ate their lunch.

Lídia always took a nap after lunch. She had a tendency to lose weight, and her solution to this was to rest for two hours every afternoon. Lying on the soft, wide bed with her dressing gown undone, her arms by her sides, her eyes fixed on the ceiling, she would release any muscular, nervous tension and surrender herself to time. A kind of vacuum formed inside Lídia’s mind and in the room. Time slipped by with the silky murmur of sand running through an hourglass.

Lídia’s half-closed eyes followed her vague, hesitant thoughts. The thread grew thinner, shadows interposed themselves like clouds, then the thread would reappear with absolute clarity only to become veiled in shadows again and reemerge farther off. It was like a wounded bird dragging itself along, then fluttering into the air, appearing and disappearing, before falling down dead. Unable to keep her thoughts above the dimming clouds, Lídia fell asleep.

She was woken by the loud ringing of the doorbell. Confused, her eyes still heavy with sleep, she sat up on the bed. The bell rang again. Lídia got to her feet, put on her slippers and went out into the corridor. She peered cautiously through the spyhole, scowled, then opened the door:

“Come in, Mother.”

“Hello, Lídia. May I come in?”

“Of course, isn’t that what I just said?”

Her mother went in. Lídia led her into the kitchen.

“You look annoyed.”

“Me? The very idea. Sit down.”

Her mother perched on a stool. She was in her sixties, and her graying hair was covered by a black mantilla, as black as the dress she was wearing. She had a flabby, almost unlined face the color of grubby ivory. Beneath her near-lashless lids, her eyes were dull and fixed, and her sparse, thin eyebrows resembled circumflexes and gave her a look of permanent vacuous amazement.

“I wasn’t expecting you today,” said Lídia.

“No, it’s not my usual day or my usual time,” said her mother. “Are you well?”

“Pretty much. And you?”

“Mustn’t grumble. If it wasn’t for my rheumatism…”

Lídia tried to take an interest in her mother’s rheumatism, but, failing utterly in the attempt, changed the subject:

“I was deep asleep when you rang. You woke me up.”

“Hm, you don’t look well,” commented her mother.

“Really? It’s probably because I’ve been asleep.”

“Could be. They do say that sleeping too much is bad for you.”

Neither of them was taken in by this exchange of banalities. Lídia knew perfectly well that her mother’s visit had nothing to do with whether she was well or not; and for her part, her mother was only holding back before mentioning the real reason for her visit. Then Lídia realized that it was nearly four o’clock and she needed to go out.

“So what brings you here today?”

Her mother began smoothing a crease in her skirt, focusing all her attention on that task as if she had not heard the question. Then, finally, she murmured:

“I need some money.”

Lídia was not surprised. This was what she had been expecting. However, she could not conceal her displeasure:

“Every month you come to me earlier and earlier…”

“You know how difficult things are for me…”

“I know, but you should try to put some money aside.”

“I do, but it gets spent.”

Her mother spoke in the serene voice of someone confident of getting what she wants. Lídia looked at her. Her mother was still sitting, eyes lowered, staring down at her skirt, watching the movement of her own hand. Lídia left the kitchen. Her mother immediately stopped smoothing her skirt and looked up. There was an expression of contentment on her face, that of someone who has sought and found. Hearing her daughter coming back, she resumed her modest pose.

“Here you are,” said Lídia, holding out two one-hundred- escudo notes. “That’s all I can afford right now.”

Her mother took the money and put it in her purse, which she then buried in the depths of her handbag.

“Thank you. Are you going out, then?”

“Yes, I’m going down to the Baixa. I’m sick of being stuck at home. I’ll probably have a cup of tea somewhere and do a bit of window-shopping.”

Her mother’s small, beady eyes, like those of a stuffed animal, remained fixed on her.

“Far be it from me to say,” she said, “but do you think you should go out and about quite so much?”

“I don’t. I just go out when I feel like it.”

“Yes, but Senhor Morais might not like it.”

Lídia’s nostrils flared in anger. In a slow, sarcastic voice, she said:

“You seem to care more about what Senhor Morais might think than I do.”

“It’s for your own good. Now that you’ve got a… position…”

“Thank you for your concern, but I’m old enough not to need your advice. I go out when I want and I do what I want. Whether it’s a good thing or a bad thing is my affair.”

“I’m only saying it because I’m your mother and I want what’s best for you.”

Lídia gave a short, jeering laugh.

“What’s best for me? It’s only in the last few years that you’ve shown the slightest concern for my well-being. Before that, you didn’t much care.”

“That’s not true,” retorted her mother, once more turning her attention to the crease in her skirt. “I’ve always been concerned about you.”

“Possibly, but you’re much more concerned now. Don’t worry. I haven’t the slightest desire to return to my old life, to the days when you didn’t care about me, or if you like, when you cared even less than you do now.”

Her mother stood up. She had gotten what she wanted and the conversation was taking a disagreeable turn: best to leave. Lídia did nothing to stop her. She was furious at the minor exploitation of which she had been the victim, furious at her mother for daring to give her advice. She felt like sitting her down in a corner and keeping her there until she had told her exactly what she thought of her. All those concerns and suspicions, her fear of displeasing Senhor Morais, were nothing to do with love for her daughter; all she cared about was the small monthly allowance Lídia gave her.

Lips still quivering with rage, Lídia went back into the bedroom to get dressed and put on her makeup. She was going for a stroll in the Baixa, just as she had told her mother. What could be more innocent? And yet her mother’s insinuating comments almost made her feel like going back to doing what she had done for years: meeting some man in a furnished room in the city, a room intended for brief assignations, with the inevitable bed, the inevitable screen, the inevitable bits of furniture with empty drawers. While she was applying cream to her face, she remembered what used to happen during those evenings and nights, and the thought depressed her. She didn’t want to go back to that. Not because she loved Paulino Morais; she would have no compunction about deceiving him, and the only reason she didn’t was because she valued her security. She knew men too well to love any of them. Start over again? No! How often had she gone in search of a satisfaction she never received? She did it for the money, of course, and she got that because she deserved it. But how often had she emerged from one of those rooms feeling dissatisfied, offended, deceived! How often had the whole sequence been repeated — room, man, dissatisfaction! Later, it might be a different man, a different room, but the dissatisfaction never disappeared, never diminished.

On the marble top of the dressing table, among the bottles and jars, next to the photo of Paulino Morais, lay the second volume of The Maias. She leafed through it, looking for the passage she had marked with lipstick. She reread it, then slowly put the book down and, with her eyes fixed on her own reflection — where she saw a look of amazement reminiscent of her mother’s — she rapidly reviewed her life: light and dark, farce and tragedy, dissatisfaction and deceit.