If I Close My Eyes Now (14 page)

‘So your mother was brought up without a father?’

‘It must be that house there,’ said Paulo, pointing to a dot in the distance surrounded by uncultivated land.

They cycled more quickly. It took them longer than they had expected to reach the adobe hut. A black boy, younger than them, was poking a bamboo stick at a line of ants in the red earth.

‘Is this where Dona Madalena lives?’ asked Paulo.

The boy nodded.

‘Is she here? We want to talk to her.’

The boy left the ants and, still clasping the stick, went to the door of the hut and waved for them to go in.

It was a single, tiny, dark room. The walls were grimy with soot. No chair or table. Or wardrobe. A clay pot stood on a wood stove that had gone out. What could be in it, what could these people eat, what did they have to eat, wondered Eduardo, who had never been in such a poor place.

The fading evening light streamed in through the only window,
half blocked by the end of a crate. They could just make out a skinny woman lying on a canvas camp bed in one corner of the room.

‘Dona Madalena?’

When she heard Paulo’s voice, she opened her eyes. It took her a few moments to focus on the two boys. Even so, it was as if she didn’t see them. She made no sound, and lay there motionless. They were quiet too. The silence lasted only for a few seconds, but it made Eduardo feel uncomfortable. Without knowing why, he wanted to leave at once. Then he recalled a similar silence and someone staring at him in the same way, many years earlier: his grandfather, the
nonno
, on his hospital deathbed.

‘Dona Madalena?’ Paulo repeated, going across and squatting down beside her.

Eduardo followed him, but didn’t bend down. He felt increasingly awkward.

‘Dona Madalena …’ said Paulo, in a gentle voice that Eduardo had never heard before. ‘Your grandson told us to come and look for you.’

The boy playing with the ants stole out of the hut.

Paulo waited. Nothing happened. He said:

‘Renato.’

‘Your grandson Renato,’ Eduardo explained.

Was she really looking at them? Did she see them? Did she understand what they were saying?

‘Renato,’ Paulo repeated. ‘Your daughter Elza’s son.’

The old woman moved her head feebly. Paulo took it as a confirmation.

‘Renato said you might know.’

Eduardo was growing impatient. He wanted Paulo to ask the questions the old man had told them to put to her. He wanted to get out of there as quickly as possible. He butted in:

‘Your daughter Elza had a daughter before she had Renato, didn’t she? Five years before, wasn’t it? Ask her, Paulo!’

Paulo took a deep breath.

‘Your grandson. Renato. He told us to come and look for you,’ Paulo began again, trying to find the right words. ‘Your daughter Elza had a little girl before she had Renato.’

‘In 1937,’ added Eduardo.

‘Do you remember, Dona Madalena? A little girl. Light-skinned. Very light-skinned.’

‘On 15 May 1937. She was registered as Aparecida. Dos Santos. Tell her, Paulo!’

‘Aparecida dos Santos. Do you remember?’

Eduardo thought he saw the old woman shake her head. He insisted:

‘Aparecida. The daughter of your daughter.’

‘The girl’s mother … your daughter Elza … was twelve years old. Aparecida’s mother. She was twelve years old when …’

Madalena’s expression was indecipherable.

‘Your granddaughter was born, and taken to the orphanage,’ Eduardo insisted.

‘Your granddaughter, Aparecida.’

‘Do you remember?’

Paulo leaned over Madalena’s face. He was whispering into her ear.

‘Your daughter, Elza. She was twelve years old when … When she had … a little girl. She was taken away. Your granddaughter. Aparecida. They took Aparecida away to the orphanage. Your grandson … Elza’s other child … your grandson Renato said you’re the only one who knows. You’re the only one who can tell the story. Who knows. Who knows what happened to Aparecida. What they did to Elza’s daughter. Only you can tell us all about Aparecida. Everything. Everything that … that …’

Eduardo found Madalena’s silence unbearable. He burst out:

‘Was Aparecida’s father the estate owner? Was her father the senator Marques Torres?’

Paulo shot him a reproving glance. Madalena had still not moved. The boy who’d been playing with the ants brought a lit oil lamp from outside, set it on the stove, and went out again.

‘She’s not going to remember, Paulo. We’re not getting anywhere. Let’s go.’

Paulo said nothing. He leaned closer over Madalena, and put his arm round her head. In the gloom, Eduardo could not make out his face next to the old woman’s. No, alongside it. This gesture surprised him as much as the gentleness with which Paulo spoke to her. Then he realized: the old woman stretched out in front of him, without covers, her bones sticking through her clothes, could have been Paulo’s grandmother, if she hadn’t fled life in the country and found a place at a loom in the city. And he, this boy leaning over an old black woman dying in poverty in a hovel in the middle of
nowhere, could perhaps, who knows, have been Madalena’s grandson, if one day in the past she had had the courage, the audacity or the good fortune to change her life.

Paulo was talking so quietly that even in this tiny room Eduardo found it hard to hear him. He didn’t sound like the boy he knew so well. He seemed like … almost another person. Almost … an adult. Do you remember, Dona Madalena, he was asking, do you remember, do you? I know you do, he was saying. I don’t know why you don’t want to talk, but I’m sure you remember, he was saying, as if he had known her for many years. He said to her: they took Aparecida, your granddaughter, they took her away, and you had to let them do it. She was very light-skinned, too light, as light-skinned as her father, Eduardo thought he could hear Paulo whisper. You had to let them take her. She couldn’t stay here. The little girl. They wouldn’t allow it. They took her away, he said. When your daughter Elza was twelve. The same age as me. Later, Elza had another baby. A boy. Renato. Do you remember, he asked, do you remember? A boy. Darker-skinned than Aparecida. They took him away too. So then your daughter Elza, their mother, said Paulo, hesitating more and more, she left as well. Did Elza want to leave, Dona Madalena? Or did they send her away too? Did she run away? Did she disappear? Did you have no more news of her? What did they do to her, Dona Madalena? Do you know? Do you, Dona Madalena? What they did to Elza? Do you remember? Do you?

Eduardo saw a gleam in Madalena’s eyes. It looked like a tear. But he couldn’t be certain. The darkness swallowed
everything. The lamp’s wavering light made their shadows flicker round the walls.

Madalena struggled to raise her hand. She brought it close to Paulo’s face, as if to stroke it. But she didn’t touch him. Her trembling hand hung in mid-air for a moment. Then dropped again. She turned her face to the wall.

Paulo stood up, his back to Eduardo. As he passed by him, head down, on his way to the door, he said:

‘Let’s go.’

For a moment the sounds of the thunderclap and the factory siren mingled. In the distance, above the mountains, a lightning flash lit up the night sky, illuminating the heavy rainclouds sweeping towards the city. The thunder rolled closer and closer, while the factory whistle continued announcing the end of the shift for the workers in the Union & Progress textile factory. A wind that seemed to be coming from every direction at once started raising dust in the streets, sending the leaves it tore from the trees whirling, and shaking the
Founded in 1890
sign in the mouth of the painted cement eagle on the factory front. Beneath it, the double iron gates opened.

A man in dark-grey overalls and clogs was the first out, pushing a bicycle. When he reached the street he got on and rode off. Waves of men and women followed, all dressed in the same overalls and clogs, all with the same weary faces. They could have spent Sunday at home, but preferred to give up
their weekend rest for more money, overtime, more hours at work to produce more, to produce more of the kilometres of denim needed for the uniforms worn by the millions of Brazilians leaving the countryside or the drought-stricken areas of the north-east for the industries springing up in the south-east of the country.

None of the workers with bicycles rode them out of the gates. Following the owners’ instructions, they got on only when they reached the paved street, beyond their workplace. They all seemed in a hurry to pedal off, and each peal of thunder made them hasten still more. By the time the siren died away, few of them were still in sight.

The old man continued to wait.

By now the street was deserted. The wind grew colder, blowing in squally gusts. Some pieces of paper spiralled in front of him in the midst of a whirlwind of dust, and were carried away along with other rubbish, bits of twigs, dry leaves. The lowering clouds swept nearer and nearer.

Then the gates swung open again. The old man was momentarily blinded by the glare of headlights. He heard the roar of an engine. Still dazzled by the circles of light, he made out a black, sleek limousine emerging from the factory. It turned into the street.

The old man hurried across. He stumbled. The headlights blinded him once more, and a squeal of brakes told him the car was coming to a sudden halt. Even shielding his eyes with his hands he couldn’t see clearly. Feeling for the mudguards, he approached the man behind the steering wheel.

‘Dr Geraldo?’

He could only make out a vague shape in the driver’s seat.

‘Dr Geraldo Bastos?’

The shape, which now seemed to him huge, nodded in agreement.

‘I’m Basilio Gomes. A lawyer. Can I talk to you for a minute?’

A big man. With glasses. Jacket and tie.

‘I didn’t want to disturb you in the factory.’

A white starched jacket, with initials embroidered on the pocket, over a white shirt also with a starched collar, and a tie held in place by a round gold clip from some club originally started in the United States: now he could see him clearly.

‘I thought it might be inconvenient to talk about the matter in front of your employees.’

The car engine whined: the man inside was pressing his foot on and off the accelerator, but without moving off.

‘It’s about Anita.’

Behind the oval, metal-framed glasses, the blue eyes flicked towards the already closed factory gates, then to the empty street, and finally came to rest on the old man.

‘I’m on my way home,’ he snapped. ‘It’s late. My family’s expecting me for dinner.’

‘We could talk in the car. Then I’ll walk back.’

‘I live some distance away. We could talk on some other occasion.’

‘If you prefer,’ said the old man, as neutrally as possible, ‘I could go to your house tomorrow and wait for you there.’

Geraldo Bastos hesitated. He glanced over in the direction
of the factory once more. He picked up the briefcase on the seat beside him, and dropped it in the back. Without looking at the white-haired man, he leaned over and opened the right-hand door. The old man walked round the car, got in and sat down. The Willys Aero pulled away.

Bastos drove slowly, staring straight ahead. They went round Tenente Valladares Square. A bony mongrel was trotting towards the bandstand. The wind and the threat of rain had emptied almost all the streets.

Inside the car, the old man admired the modern dashboard and found himself enjoying the smell of fresh leather.

‘A nice car,’ he said, meaning it.

‘Willys Aero. A Brazilian car,’ replied a disgruntled Bastos.

‘The reason I was waiting for you outside the factory was—’

‘A jalopy. No power, awkward to drive, poor finish.’

‘Dr Geraldo, as the lawyer for the family of—’

‘Uncomfortable. Like all cars made in Brazil.’

‘I’ve never had a car. But as I was saying—’

‘Old-fashioned.’

‘I wanted to see you about—’

‘I’ve got an Oldsmobile and a Mercury in the garage. Ever since that demagogue Juscelino Kubitschek banned the import of foreign cars in 1958, it’s been impossible to find any spare parts.’

‘The ban was intended to promote national industry. But the reason I came to see you is—’

‘I was forced to buy this heap of junk. Who gains with this protectionism?’

‘Manufacturing cars in Brazil has created thousands of jobs. Dr Geraldo, I want to talk to you about—’

‘Could anyone seriously claim that the Renault, Volkswagen, Alfa Romeo, Mercedes-Benz or Ford factories are really Brazilian?’

‘What about all the people fleeing poverty in the north-east? They found—’

‘Work? Living even more wretchedly on the outskirts of our big cities? Building and crowding into shanty towns? And what for? To make models here that are already out of date abroad. They’ve swapped the import of good cars for the import of antiquated technology.’

‘But protectionism also helps our textile industry.’

‘It makes no difference. We don’t need it.’

‘Every industry in poor countries needs it. Otherwise we won’t be able to prevent the dumping of goods made in the capitalist world …’