If I Close My Eyes Now (10 page)

‘But I don’t know his name. I only ever heard him called the dentist.’

‘He’s Dr Henrique something.’

‘There’s an Eriberto – without the “h”.’

‘No. If that dentist isn’t Henrique, it’s Ernesto. Or … Hélio?’

Paulo went on looking, but with no luck. Page after page.

‘I can’t find any Hélio. Or Ernesto. Or Henrique. There’s an Umberto. Umberto Moreira.’

‘No, not Umberto.’

‘Heleno Costa?’

‘No.’

‘Amancio?’

‘Possibly. Who did he marry?’

‘Nanci Andrade.’

‘No. Is there nobody married to an Anita?’

‘Nobody. There’s an Ana Viana who married Waldir Haddad. A Djalma Carvalho who married an Alice Felix. Luis Perrone married someone called Antonina Giuseppe. A Francisco Andrade who married Aparecida dos Santos.
Emanuel Gottschalk who married an Amélia Lobo. Ari Passos, who married Aurea Sanchez. And a Vanderlei Mendes who married someone called Ana Rita Mendonça. There’s—’

‘Wait!’ said Eduardo. ‘What name did you say?’

‘Vanderlei.’

‘Before that! What name did you read before him?’

‘Ari Passos.’

‘No! Before that!’

‘Emanuel Gottschalk? Francisco Andrade? Luis Perrone?’

‘Andrade! That’s the dentist’s name!’

‘The dentist’s surname?’

‘I’m sure of it! Andrade!’

‘His full name here is Francisco Clementino de Andrade Gomes.’

‘Dr Andrade! That’s the dentist.’

‘That’s impossible,’ said Paulo, showing Eduardo the page. ‘Look here: this Dr Andrade didn’t marry an Anita, but an—’

They ran back to the square, where the old man was dozing on a bench near the bandstand. They were in such a rush to tell him their discoveries and not to lose the thread of their reasoning that they stumbled over the words. They were panting for breath.

‘You were right,’ Paulo began. The rope was wrapped round his shoulder.

‘She didn’t have a father.’

‘Or a mother.’

‘It was written there: girl without known parents.’

‘The birth was registered by the nuns at the orphanage.’

‘The girls’ orphanage. There’s another one in the city for boys. Nuns are in charge of them both. But I think they’re from a different order to the ones at your home. They don’t dress the same. The colour of their habits is—’

‘She wasn’t called Anita!’ Paulo burst in.

‘He means, the woman who Dr Andrade—’

‘Doctor Andrade is the dentist’s name. Francisco Clementino de Andrade Gomes.’

‘… married.’

‘Her name was Aparecida dos Santos!’

‘Maria Aparecida dos Santos!’

‘Aparecida is the one registered in 1937 by the nuns at the orphanage as the daughter of unknown parents,’ explained Paulo.

‘And Aparecida is the one who married Francisco Clementino de Andrade Gomes on 6 June 1952. Maria Aparecida dos Santos.’

‘When she was fifteen.’

The old man reached for half a hand-rolled cigarette in his pocket, put it in his mouth. He took a box of matches out of his other pocket. He lit the cigarette, puffed on it. Blew the smoke up into the night air. He didn’t once look at the boys.

‘Fifteen,’ Eduardo repeated. ‘That was how old Aparecida was when she married the dentist. Just like they told you.’

‘The dentist never married anyone called Anita.’

‘He married Aparecida.’

‘Anita doesn’t exist!’

‘We mean: she did exist …’

‘Because that’s what Aparecida came to be called.’

‘They called her Anita.’

‘Dona Anita.’

‘Dr Andrade’s wife.’

Eduardo was becoming worried by the old man’s silence. ‘Do you understand?’

‘Did you hear?’

‘Did you hear what we’re saying?’

‘The murdered woman had another name!’

‘Aparecida!’ Eduardo shouted. ‘Aparecida!’

Another puff on the cigarette. The smoke rising slowly. His eyes pointing nowhere. Eduardo was exasperated.

‘I almost broke a leg going down the rope! I could have broken it! Both of them! I could be crippled!’

‘What about me?’ said Paulo, not wanting to be left out when it came to describing the perils they had faced. ‘I had to face rats, you know. Enormous great rats! Huge ones!’

He fell silent when he realized the old man was muttering something under his breath. Eduardo kept quiet too.

‘In 1952,’ they heard him say in almost a whisper, still not looking in their direction, ‘the dentist must have been in his forties, well into them.’

The lighted tip of the cigarette was close to his fingers. Eduardo was going to warn the old man, when he heard him say, in a slightly louder voice:

‘Anita … or Aparecida, was fifteen …’

He stubbed the cigarette out with his shoe.

‘How old are you two?’

‘Twelve,’ Paulo said quickly.

‘I’m going to be thirteen,’ Eduardo boasted. ‘In ten months’ time.’

‘My birthday’s earlier. In January.’

‘Only a month earlier.’

‘Forty-eight days!’

The old man stared at them. Or perhaps only in their general direction.

‘It doesn’t make sense.’

‘I’m not as tall, but I’m older,’ Paulo insisted. ‘And I’m going to grow. My brother’s almost one metre eighty tall. So is my father.’

‘However mercenary, however venal those nuns were …’ The white-haired old man went on muttering, as though talking to himself. ‘Even so, it doesn’t make sense.’

‘What are you talking about?’ asked Eduardo.

The matchbox came out of the pocket again. The stub of the cigarette was placed inside it, and then the box went back into the jacket pocket.

‘How did the nuns at the orphanage allow a … a girl who was only fifteen to marry a man of almost fifty? I’ve never heard of anything so ridiculous, even in a Mexican melodrama.’

‘Perhaps the dentist was her father?’ Paulo suggested.

‘And he told the nuns the secret!’ Eduardo elaborated on his friend’s fantasy. ‘And they got married so that she could inherit his fortune.’

The old man stood up and walked off towards the bandstand.

‘A man who’s a bachelor until well into his forties,’ he murmured, ‘suddenly marries a girl of fifteen …’

The two boys followed him. They embarked on a whirl of extravagant theories.

‘Dr Andrade was in love with her mother, but she died …’ said Eduardo.

‘… he lived with her for ten years, she betrayed him constantly, but that didn’t bother him …’

‘The dentist killed her mother.’ Now it was Paulo’s turn. ‘No! He killed her father! Then, out of remorse, he married the daughter!’

‘… and he paid no attention to the gossip going all round the city …’

Paulo had a new hypothesis:

‘Her father was a Nazi!’

Eduardo joined in:

‘And her mother died in a concentration camp!’

‘… ignoring the malicious comments whispered by the sanctimonious faithful when they went arm in arm to mass on Sundays …’

‘She was the daughter of a nun and a priest!’ Paulo fantasized.

‘… pretending not to see the lascivious looks when he crossed this square with her, out for their Sunday promenade …’

‘She was his youngest sister!’ suggested Eduardo.

‘… sleeping alone at night in his single bed …’

‘The nuns! It was the nuns who killed her!’ Paulo crowed.

‘… while she was out with other men. Always much older men.’

‘She was the lover of the priest who was the nuns’ lover too!’ said Eduardo.

By now they were inside the bandstand. The boys were walking round in circles with the old man. He came to a halt, and they looked at him expectantly.

‘I don’t know about the priest. But my friends in the bar told me she went with the mayor. And with the textile factory owner. With the estate owners. With all the city’s powerful men. And always, always, with men much older than she was. As if they were passing her from hand to hand. Did you see everything there was in the drawers at the dentist’s house?’

Eduardo wasn’t sure, but he thought they had.

‘Did you go to the maid’s room?’

Paulo said there wasn’t one, and that the couple didn’t have any domestic help.

‘Did you take anything? Any jewellery?’

‘We’re not thieves!’

‘I didn’t find any,’ the old man went on, ignoring Paulo’s protest. ‘Nothing. No rings, bracelets, not even a medallion. I’ve been told she never wore any. Only her wedding ring. How is it that the wife of an important man doesn’t wear jewellery? A necklace, earrings, even a brooch. And they didn’t have a maid?’

‘Perhaps the husband was stingy?’ Eduardo suggested.

‘Tight-fisted!’ Paulo concluded.

‘A miser!’

‘Possibly. Even so …’

The old man did not finish his sentence. His eyes roamed over the empty square. The shadows engulfed the outlines of the ancient trees, framing them like a dark bell-jar, as if the world beyond did not exist. Eventually he asked:

‘Did none of those rich men ever give her anything?’

Neither Paulo nor Eduardo knew what to say. Or even if the old man expected them to reply. Only adults were familiar with the world of degradation and rewards he was talking of. Then another question occurred to Paulo. He asked the white-haired man: what if she didn’t want to own anything?

HE COULD SEE
the outline of young breasts, some of them just starting to bud, nestling in brassieres. A glimpse of backs, a flash of arms. Bare feet pulling on white socks and canvas pumps. Navy-blue uniform skirts being taken off, white gym skirts being put on. The smooth skin of pink or tanned thighs, some of them freckled.

But it was as though he wasn’t really seeing any of this. He didn’t even feel the thrill of transgression. Why not, if he was enjoying a sight the other boys didn’t have? Wasn’t this a pleasure only he and Eduardo shared after discovering this secret place? Weren’t they in the forbidden tower again? Hadn’t they managed to climb on to the school roof without being seen, among all its rat droppings, dust, bits of cloth, electric cables and building debris. Wasn’t the girls’ changing room down below? Weren’t they spying on them through the grating of the ventilation shaft? And yet. And yet. He wasn’t really there. He could see girls. Young girls. But he was thinking about a woman. Her. Anita. Aparecida.

Without saying a word, he turned to his friend, who was staring downwards. He wanted to tell him what was going through his mind, but couldn’t really explain. He remained quiet, until he heard Eduardo whispering to him. Eduardo was still peering at the changing room. Paulo thought he must have been mistaken, and his thoughts returned to Anita. Aparecida. Then again he heard Eduardo asking him something. Paulo wasn’t sure what he had said.

‘If I was what?’

‘Poor.’

‘But I am poor.’

‘No, Paulo, I mean really poor,’ said Eduardo, his eyes still on the activity down below. ‘With no home. No father, no mother, nothing to eat, no—’

‘But I’m going to be rich. I’m going to study, go to university and become a famous scientist. I’ve already told you that.’

‘You told me you were going to be a writer.’

‘And a scientist.’

‘But if you were poor: if you were a really poor girl …’

‘White or black?’

‘What difference does it make? Poor is poor. It’s the same for everyone.’

‘No it isn’t, Eduardo. It’s much worse if the girl is black. A white girl could be adopted, live with a family, go to school and all the rest. A black girl is going to live and die in an orphanage.’

‘But Anita was white, and no one adopted her.’

‘Look down there. Do you see any black girls?’

‘No, but …’

‘How many black friends do you have?’

‘You don’t have any either!’

‘My father doesn’t have any black friends. Does yours? Does your mother have any black customers? None of my brother’s friends are black. There’s only one black girl in our class.’

‘Are you a racist?’

‘Why do you say that?’

‘Because of the way you’re talking …’

The last girls left the changing room. Eduardo and Paulo sneaked down from their hiding place. They soon returned to their discussion.

‘It’s true though, isn’t it, Eduardo? The teachers are white. The inspectors are white. The headmaster is white. The mayor is white, so is the police chief. The priest is white …’

They went down the corridor to the sports yard. They could hear the PE teacher shouting, giving instructions. They headed for the boys’ changing room: Paulo pulled off his tie and lifted his shirt out of his trousers, balancing books and notebooks in his other hand.

‘If you were a woman married to a rich man, wouldn’t you like to have jewels and—’ said Eduardo.

‘The dentist isn’t rich.’

‘He’s not poor either. He’s got that house, he has antique furniture and those statues, he’s got pictures, and his consulting room …’

‘But he doesn’t have a maid.’

‘And isn’t that strange? A man in his position, a dentist, a friend of all the other leading figures in the city? And with that
big house that must have belonged to some rich ancestor, stuffed with all the things we saw? Why no maid? To allow your own wife to cook, wash, iron …’

‘I doubt if she did the washing.’