José Saramago - Skylight

While maintaining her pose of indifference, she listened out for every word, but without reacting to them, however strange they were. She believed that, bit by bit, she would untangle the whole sorry plot. She began to rummage around in the past for anything that might help her. She tried to remember when “it” had all begun. Her memory had grown weak and vague, but helped by the calendar, she battled on until she found the source. “It” had begun on the night when she’d heard her nieces talking and Isaura crying. Just a bad dream, Adriana had said. So the bad dream must have been Isaura’s. What could they have said to each other? She knew that girls tell each other everything, at least that’s how it was in her day. There were two possibilities: either Isaura was crying about something Adriana had told her, in which case the problem lay with Adriana, or she was crying about something she herself had said, which would explain why Adriana had tried to cover it all up. And if it was Adriana’s problem, how had she managed to stay so cool and collected?

These thoughts caused her to turn her attention back to Adriana, whose cheerfulness had always rung false to her, had seemed merely a brave front. Isaura kept silent, and Adriana disguised her feelings, unless that disguise was intended to act as a cover for Isaura. Trapped in this blind alley, Amélia despaired.

Then it occurred to her that Adriana was gone almost all day, out of sight, but Amélia couldn’t simply drop in at the office as she had at the library. Perhaps the office held the key to the mystery. But if so, why had the problem only arisen after two years of working there? This thought, of course, made no sense: sometimes things do just happen, and the fact that they didn’t happen yesterday doesn’t mean they won’t happen today or tomorrow. She decided then that the “problem” lay with Adriana and had to do with the office. If it turned out she was wrong, then she would try another tack. Provisionally, she put Isaura to one side. Except that she still couldn’t understand Isaura’s tears. Something grave must have happened for her to cry as she had on that night and for her to remain so sad and silent ever since. Something extremely grave… Amélia could not or preferred not to think what it could have been. Adriana was a girl, a young woman, and the only grave thing in a woman’s life, the only one that could make that woman’s sister cry, was… But no, the idea was absurd and she tried to drive it from her mind. Now, however, everything was conspiring to make that idea seem more probable. First: Adriana spent all day away from the apartment; second: she occasionally worked late; third: every night she shut herself up in the bathroom… In a flash of insight Amélia recalled that, since that night, Adriana had stopped doing that. She always used to be the last to bed and always took her time. Now, while she wasn’t always the first, she was rarely the last to use the bathroom, and when she was, thought Amélia, she didn’t spend much time in there. Everyone knew that Adriana kept a diary, a childish whim of no importance, and that she wrote her diary while in the bathroom. Was the explanation for this whole muddle to be found in that diary? And how could she go about getting the key to the drawer in which Adriana kept it?

Each of the four women had a drawer that was for her use alone. All the others were left unlocked. Living as they did, using the same bed linen and the same towels, it would be absurd to lock those drawers, but each of them had her own particular drawer in which to keep her private mementos. For Amelia and Cândida these were old letters, the ribbons from their wedding bouquets, a few yellowing photographs, the odd dried flower, perhaps a lock of hair. When they were alone and the past called to them, those private drawers became a kind of sanctuary where each could go to pay homage to her memories. Amélia and Cândida, knowing what their own mementos were, could each have said, with a fair degree of accuracy, what the other’s drawer contained too, but neither of them had any idea what Adriana and Isaura kept in theirs. Adriana kept her diary in hers, that much was certain, and Amélia was sure she would find the explanation she was looking for in there. Even before she considered how she would gain access to the diary, what weighed on her was the thought of committing such an act of violation. She wondered how she would feel if someone were to discover her own rather pathetic secrets, which were, besides, only the remnants of facts the others all knew about anyway. It would, she thought, be a terrible abuse. On the other hand, having promised to uncover her nieces’ secret and being only a step away from honoring that promise, she could not now draw back. Whatever the consequences might be, she had to know. It would not be easy. Quite apart from Amélia’s deep conviction that their respective secrets should be inviolable and that none of them would dare to open any drawer other than their own, a further problem was that Adriana always had the keys to her drawer with her. When she was at home, she kept them in her purse and it would be impossible to get hold of them, open the drawer and read whatever there was to read without Adriana knowing. And it was highly unlikely that Adriana would forget her keys. Unless Amélia stole them from her and managed to persuade Adriana that she had lost them. That would be the easiest way, but Adriana might get suspicious and try to block the keyhole with something. There was only one solution: to get another key made, but to do that she would have to make a copy, and that would involve taking the key to the locksmith. Was there no other way? A tracing might work, but how to get hold of the key?

Amélia racked her brain. It was a matter of finding the right opportunity, the few minutes necessary for her to make a drawing of the keys. She tried several times, but at the last moment someone always came into the room. All these obstacles only increased her desire to know. The locked drawer made her tremble with impatience. She had lost all scruples now. Regardless of the consequences, she had to know. If Adriana had committed some shameful act, it would be best to find out before it was too late. It was that “too late” that frightened Amélia.

Her persistence soon paid off. The cousins from Campolide came to visit them, a return visit for the one made sometime before by Cândida and Amélia. It was a Sunday. They spent all afternoon there, drinking tea and chatting. The usual memories were trotted out, always the same ones, which they all knew by heart, but to which they listened politely as if hearing them for the first time. Adriana had never been so lively and her sister had never made such an effort to appear to be contented. Cândida, deceived by her daughters’ gaiety, forgot all about the “situation.” Only Amélia did not. At an opportune moment, she got up and went to her nieces’ room. Heart pounding and hands shaking, she opened Adriana’s purse and took out the keys. There were five. She recognized two of them, one for the street door and the other for the door to their apartment. There were two other medium-sized keys and a smaller one. She hesitated. She didn’t know which of them was the key to the drawer, although she felt it must be one of the medium-sized keys. The drawer was only a few steps away. She could try one of the keys in the lock, but was afraid that any noise might attract her nieces’ attention. She decided to make a drawing of all three, which she did, although not without some difficulty. The pencil slithered from her fingers and refused to follow the exact shape of the keys. She had sharpened it to a long, sharp point to make the drawing more faithful, but her hands were shaking so much she almost gave up. From the next room came the sound of Adriana’s giggles: the story about her boss tripping on the carpet, which the cousins had not heard before. They all laughed uproariously and their laughter drowned out the tiny click of the purse closing.