Mrs. Harper survived, I found out later. One day I
telephoned their hotel just to find out. They told me that she was recovering.
So, I hadn’t gone anywhere and I was still stuck in my old room, the prisoner
of its four walls.
“It’s for the best, Dona Mariana,” the landlady said, “It
would have been a bother to have to get to know someone new, yes, a real
bother. I even prayed to Santa Teresinha that you wouldn’t go.”
The Englishwoman survived and Dona Gloria was happy. Santa
Teresinha had arranged everything for the best. I was feeling more and more
tired. Tired of living and unable to die. Tired of being. Tired of the ghosts
that hovered around me and continued to haunt me at any time of the day or
night, tired of my surroundings, and everything far away from me too. I was so
thin and looked so bad that Dona Gloria made me go to see the doctor.
“Have you considered that it might be tuberculosis, Dona
Mariana? It’s very serious you know. It’s a contagious disease. I’m not saying
that for my sake. I’ve never been afraid of illness, but, well, Augusta is a
young girl…..”
I went to see the doctor. He took a good look at me and then
sent me for a series of blood tests. “It’s probably not anything, but just in
case…..” I asked him if what he suspected was contagious.
“No, not at all….”
He started to laugh. I didn’t understand what was so funny.
He neither.
One evening I went to the cinema. I don’t know why I went.
How long was it since I had gone to the pictures? I went to the Tivoli. There
were only a few people at the door and I felt enticed into going in. well, why
not? This was living. At one time I used to enjoy going to the cinema, just
being there when the lights went off and there was a dream right there in front
of my eyes. Yes, I always enjoyed going to the pictures. Maybe I would still
enjoy it, who knows? That’s why I went in, I remember now, just to see if I was
still capable of enjoying something.
It was an early show and the theatre was almost empty.
Behind me, two women, sorry, two ladies, were talking. Both of them had the
sort of piercing contralto voices that belonged to well to do ladies.
“She really is so nice, you’re right. She’s so natural.”
“Then it’s not true?”
“Not at all. They were charming. They seemed to me to be
very united as a couple. Nowadays it is so rare. And in a way there’s nothing
worse. Quite rich? No, not with a house like that……..How long have they been
married?”
“Four years I think. They met in Paris. He had to get
divorced. Luckily it had only been a civil wedding……….a real masterstroke.”
“How strange! Estrela indeed struck me as special. Not as a
sculptor, may I say. That ‘Sitting Bather’ which she exhibited in the
salon…………goodness me! No, she is a special person……attractive, pretty, the
complete woman.”
“She’s a fine girl, a fantastic girl. She always sticks up
for António’s first wife. That tells you a lot, no? A crazy woman who only a few months after the
divorce was walking about the Baixa with a swollen belly, if you know what I
mean.”
“I had no idea. She had a lover, did she, when she was still
married? Who was she?”
“Nobody knew her. A lot was said about Estrela’s husband’s
ex-wife but Estrela defended her, always. Of course she agreed that it was the
wrong time to do something so stupid
- it couldn’t have been worse,
but taking into account the circumstances…..yes, Estrela is a fantastic girl, a
good wife, a good mother. When the eldest had swollen lymph glands when he was
two……..”
“I didn’t know they had children.”
“They have two. The eldest, Fernando………….”
The lights had gone out. I got up and trod on the feet of
several people who complained. The usher also said something, but I didn’t
catch what he said, but I remember hearing him. I only caught my breath when I
was in the street, walking mechanically down the Avenue. I remember that at one
point I found myself by the riverbank. At the same moment I saw people looking
at me and some were laughing. Two small boys stopped in front of me and then
fled. I raised my hands to my face and wiped away the tears.
That day, yes, I thought about killing myself. I was still
thinking about it the following morning when Dona Gloria and the maid left the
market. I was alone in the house and I couldn’t allow the opportunity to
escape. I shut the window tight, and the kitchen door. Then I turned on the gas
and sat down and waited. All without thinking, without even wanting to think.
The air was getting heavy, when someone rang the doorbell. I turned off the
gas, slowly opened the kitchen door, then the front door. It was the postman
with a postcard from Luís Gonzaga.
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