So Many People, Mariana - Tanta Gente Mariana - Maria Judite de Carvalho - Part 5

The next morning, when the alcohol had worn off I thought of committing suicide. I don’t mean to say that I had resolved to do it. Far from it. There are very few suicides and such people rarely talk about it, but sooner or later, suddenly they do it. The others, those who spend their lives talking about it are nothing but swindlers of death. I’m going to kill myself because you are the lover of that woman or that man. If you leave me I’m going to kill myself. In general such threats work because human credulity (especially masculine credulity when personal vanity is in play) is without limits.

I only thought of suicide so as to suffer more. It was a sort of a game of chess that I played with an opponent   -  António  -  who wasn’t there and who didn’t know about it. And even when I went into that chemists shop in Boulevard Saint-Michel, it wasn’t because I wanted to kill myself, but because I wanted to sleep, and I couldn’t sleep without a sedative.

Much later, yes, there was a day I wanted to die, the day Estrela came back, just to take from me what little that remained  -  the memory of the son that I never had.

Even today I am surprised at how certain I was about what was going to happen between António and Estrela. Something  –  I knew, knew it right away   -  had to give, and no one would do a thing, however small, to avoid the inevitable. Not Estrela, nor him, nor me. It was a certainty, but full of doubts I said to myself, each day with increasing effort, that maybe I was mistaken and it had been no more than a momentary interest. Inside of me, however, the certainty had roots I could not see. My doubts were contrived. Even as I made them up I did not believe in them. I was only moderately afraid. My fear was mixed with a bitter contentment, as if there were another part of me saying; ‘you see, didn’t I tell you?’ You see, I was right all along.’

One afternoon António joined in the game. Without looking at me, while he was looking in the drawer of the desk for that thing he never could find, he said to me,

“Estrela Vale arrived yesterday. I bumped into just now down town. She’s come back for good.”

“It’s just that I don’t understand why he spoke to you about her” my friend Lúcia would tell me much later. Lúcia had always been my friend (and always would be I thought). Lúcia only knew António superficially. To her, he was a man, to me he was António. This was the difference. He was in love with Estrela. This I had seen straightaway that night in Paris. He wanted her just for himself, and he wanted to be just for her. That was how António was. Never, even when single, did he go with a woman he didn’t like. For him, that would be impossible.

At that time we were living on the first floor of a building on the Avenida de Berne, in a flat that António’s father had had furnished with exquisite bad taste in our absence. He hadn’t as yet moved in, but his room was there waiting for him at the bottom of the long corridor, still empty, but with a large photograph of his wife hanging on the wall.

I invited Estrela to dinner and right there and then that very evening all the illusions built up by myself melted in front of the evidence. António was unable to hide his feelings, and maybe, who knows, he did not want to. Estrela ensconced herself in an armchair, stretched out, invertebrate, her head always erect, her lips half-open even when she was listening. She had many stories to tell us, the sort of stories that at one time would have unsettled António, but now seemed to delight him. Did we know that Costa was now going out with Jandira? She was going to Brazil, of course. Her father was very rich, had factories of some sort. Estrela had never thought Costa would be seduced by money.

“I mean, Jandira………..!”

“Yes, Jandira! A crazy girl, a feather head! Between you and me, Costa isn’t the brightest spark.”

António laughed. He was Costa’s friend but still he laughed at Estrela’s words. Really, Costa! He wanted more news about such things. And Simone? What had become of Simone? She had taken some pills again one night after a good booze up, but now she was hanging out with the doctor who had treated her, Jean-Claude. As for Garibaldi…………

António drank in her words.

She came again a number of times. I needed to see them. I felt the need for the presence of both of them. I watched them, and what was strange, I felt extremely calm.

Lúcia, who turned up almost every day didn’t beat about the bush.

“Mariana, your husband is deceiving you.”

“Deceiving me!”  What a horrible expression! António never wanted to deceive me. He still hasn’t explained how things stand, because it’s me who flees from any disagreeable explanation. That’s the only reason.”

“And you’re determined to continue hiding from this explanation?”

“I suppose so. I’ll wait for António to tell me.”

“You could wait forever.”

“That would suit me fine. But I’m pretty sure that it’ll come some time.”

Lúcia frowned, not understanding.

“And you still invite that wh……. (but she stopped short, as she always did, before saying a rude word) you still invite her so she can throw herself at YOUR HUSBAND IN YOUR HOUSE.”

When she was indignant she spoke in capital letters. Lúcia had a sense of propriety that was far too developed, almost medieval in its scope. She had a great uncle who was a ruined earl, maybe that was why. I had often tried to show her just how exaggerated her attitudes were, but Lúcia either could not or would not understand. I think she could not. Right from infancy she had received from her mother certain unquestionable opinions, which she would have to bequeath to her children, all of them hopefully enriched by her husband’s possessions.

How is Lúcia now, I wonder? In those days she promised much. For her ‘MY’ husband was a man who belonged to me body and soul and ‘MY’ house was a sort of unbreachable fortress from which I could throw boulders or boiling water over any assailants. Poor Lúcia never noticed that the possessive, in the majority of cases, is purely ornamental.

We went to Gouveia to spend a week with António’s  father who was feeling ill. In the end it was nothing serious. We found him already up and about, working as always, worried that the olive trees had so few flowers. It was a nice day and we went for a walk. For some reason, maybe only so as not to have to talk, to fill some time that needed to be filled, António decided to take some photographs. I remember leaning against a tree and putting my arms around its trunk. The camera clicked and I shuddered.

“That’s it, finished,” I said letting go of the tree.

“What’s finished?” he asked in a weak, insecure voice.

“I don’t know. Something. I was looking at you and I felt good about myself. In spite of everything I felt good. Then the camera clicked and you and I somehow changed position. Nobody obliged us to change position.”

“What strange ideas you have! It has to be. We have to change. We can’t stay in the same position our whole lives.”

I said that no, we couldn’t. António came up to me.

“Listen, Mariana…………For a long time now I’ve wanted to tell you…….I’ve wanted to explain. But it’s difficult Mariana. I never thought it would be so difficult. I look at you at you and I can’t……..Maybe it’s better that it’s like that. Yes, it’s better, for sure.”

“I know what’s going on.”

It was my voice that spoke and it wasn’t trembling. Perhaps it was a little dry, a little high, but I couldn’t make it any different. António was silent for a moment. Then he said, “I thought that you must have known, that it was impossible not to know.”

“It’s natural, isn’t it?”

“Yes, of course.”

It was difficult. He had never thought that it would be so difficult. I had to help him for the sake of my own state of mind. I had been so tense lately. At least there would be some kind of cut off.

“You know, António, I agree to whatever you want.”