If I Close My Eyes Now (17 page)

He swivelled the chair again: left, right, left. Came to a halt. Leaned forward over his desk. Propped his head in his hands. A slight smile. His preacher’s voice became a little more insistent.

‘Do you realize what sacrifices your parents are making for you to get on in life? So that you can have a better future? A better life than them? Hmm? Well?’

‘Yes, I think so, yes, headmaster,’ Eduardo agreed, sincerely.

‘Teacher, call me teacher. Don’t you agree, Paulo Roberto?’

‘Yes.’

‘You are two young boys … young men … of talent. Who knows, one day you may become … What would you like to be, Eduardo?’

‘An engineer.’

‘And you, Paulo Roberto?’

‘A scientist.’

Again, the slight smile. His voice announced the opening of the gates to the Garden of Eden.

‘1961! We’re in the second half of an extraordinary century! We’ve been through two great wars! And democracy triumphed in both of them! Humanist values prevailed! Science is advancing the whole time! Our country is in a frenzy of development and freedom! The second half of this century is turning out to be the best period for humanity in all history! We are enjoying an era of peace, progress and social mobility! What a marvellous time you two are living in! Fabulous! Truly fabulous. Good, good. So, a scientist and an engineer. Very good. A future Oswaldo Cruz and a future Paulo de Frontin! Wonderful. Excellent.’

He spread his arms wide.

‘What an opportunity you have! One that was unthinkable even a short time ago. Impossible if it were not for a secondary school like this one, open to the children of butchers, railway workers, seamstresses, factory workers, barbers, domestic employees, children … from every social class, don’t you agree?’

He stood up, straightened his coat and walked over to the window. He stood there stiffly, his back to the two boys.

‘It would be a shame if all that were to go to waste.’

There was a long pause before he uttered the next few words.

‘It would be a shame if you were expelled from this school.’

‘Expelled … !’

‘Expelled from school?’ echoed a voice in which lower tones were already replacing higher, childish ones.

‘Expelled? What for?’

The headmaster was silent for a few moments, before he repeated gravely:

‘A shame.’

He waited for the boys’ muttering to finish.

‘You two were at Dr Geraldo Bastos’s estate yesterday, weren’t you?’

No reply. Perhaps they hadn’t heard.

‘The estate that used to belong to our founder. You made an unauthorized visit to the estate once belonging to Senator Marques Torres.’

‘But …’

‘We didn’t skip any classes to go there!’

‘It was Sunday!’

‘You were with an old black woman, weren’t you? By the name of Madalena.’

‘Yes, but … expel us because we went to Dona Madalena’s place?’

‘It was Sunday!’ repeated Paulo. ‘We didn’t miss classes or anything!’

‘That woman died in the night.’

Even though he could not see their faces, he knew the impact this had. He could hear their sharp intake of breath.

‘
Abundans cautela non nocet
. St Augustine. “No precautions are ever too much.” You may return to your class.’

He moved away from the window and sat down again. Perplexed, Paulo and Eduardo headed for the door.

‘Ah! One more thing.’

The boys turned towards him.

‘Be careful of the company you keep. Do you know the word “paedophile”? Look it up in the dictionary. It’s dangerous to go around with an old cook, on police files as a Communist, who dressed up as a priest to visit the girls’ orphanage. You may go.’

The nun walked slowly across the courtyard of the old people’s home, oblivious to the fact that the hem of her brown habit was getting wet in the puddles from the previous night’s rain. She was looking for someone.

The air was cold. Several of the old men had brought blankets to wrap themselves in. Others had their heads covered: they would have preferred to be inside the home, but at this time of day it was compulsory to sit out in the sun.

She found the person she was looking for over to one side of the yard, sitting with eyes closed and face turned up to the sun. He hadn’t shaved. His unkempt white hair fell over his
face. On the table in front of him was a chessboard. He seemed to be asleep.

She stood in front of him, her shadow falling across his face. There was no reaction. She cleared her throat. He didn’t move.

‘So you play chess!’ she said out loud.

The old man opened his eyes at once. He peered up at her, bewildered as to what she was doing there.

‘Chess,’ she pointed. ‘I always wanted to learn how to play.’

Embarrassed, he straightened in his chair. He did up the top button of his pyjamas.

‘You’re … ?’ he stammered, as he recognized the director of the Santa Rita de Cássia orphanage.

‘May I?’ she asked, taking a chair and sitting opposite him. She looked at him levelly. ‘Do you play a lot? Do you have good opponents here?’

‘No one here plays,’ he managed to reply after a few seconds. ‘And they don’t want to learn.’

‘What a shame. So you don’t play?’

‘I play. That is, I play on my own. But it’s a bit crap and … I’m sorry for the expression,’ he apologized. ‘It slipped out.’

‘Don’t worry, not many people today are offended by that word. What were you saying?’

‘It’s rather boring. Always playing alone can be quite boring. I end up, as you can see, fast asleep with the board in front of me.’

‘Yet you carry on bringing it out into the yard.’

‘I do. Force of habit.’

‘Did you have people to play with, where you used to live?’

‘Sometimes.’

‘Was that a home, too?’

‘A school.’

‘Were you a teacher there?’

He didn’t reply.

‘Games need a partner, don’t they? Like so many things in life.’

The old man felt for cigarettes, but they weren’t in his pyjama pocket. He remembered that the walk in the rain had ruined them, and that he hadn’t set foot outside the home on Sunday.

‘But partners have to be able to trust one another. Or at least to feel that the other person understands.’

‘Sister, when I went to the orphanage, I didn’t mean to …’

‘There are lots of similarities between orphanages and homes like this. There are differences too, apart from the obvious one of the inmates’ ages. But the basic principle is the same in both cases, don’t you think?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘To isolate those whom society cannot absorb. Or find a use for any more. Or is unable to use yet.’

They both fell silent. The nun was sitting bolt upright in her chair. Then they said, almost in unison:

‘You—’

‘Sister—’

‘Yes?’

‘When I was in your orphanage, I—’

‘Why don’t you live with your family?’

Her curiosity was as open as a child’s. He replied without thinking, as if he were talking to one:

‘I don’t have any.’

‘No children?’

‘None. Helena died before we could have any.’

‘So you’re a widower?’

‘We were never married.’

‘You’re not from the same social class as the others in here.’

‘You’re mistaken.’

‘Your way of speaking, your manners, your vocabulary, your education …’

‘Sister, my name isn’t—’

‘Basilio, obviously. I’ve never read Eça de Queiroz. Of course, I know who he is. But I’ve never even seen a copy of any of his books. The parents and cousins in his novels are frowned on by the Holy Mother Church. The anti-clerical irony of your choice completely passed me by.’

‘No irony was intended, believe me. Nor any contempt. That Basilio—’

‘Am I to believe then that the name was chosen at random?’

‘The cassock really did belong to a Father Basilio that the boys—’

‘What part of the north-east are you from?’

‘I was born in Sergipe.’

‘I’ve never been there.’

‘I moved to Recife when I was very young.’

‘I don’t know that city either. I’ve travelled very little. You must have travelled a lot, and seen many things. And many parts of Brazil. The north-east, for example: I’ve never been
there. I may never get to visit it. I’m not likely to leave here. If I do, it will only be to see the inside of other walls, somewhere else. You seem out of sorts today.’

She was staring at him with such intensity that he lowered his head, flustered.

‘You’ve got shadows under your eyes, you haven’t shaved, you haven’t … I was surprised to find you here in your pyjamas with the others. I thought you were more … how can I put it … ?’

‘Normally I don’t … normally I make sure I get dressed every morning. As I have done all my life. It’s not because I’m in here that … that I no longer … distinguish night from morning, morning from afternoon, or afternoon from night. I’m not worried by the passage of time. It’s nothing special. It’s not something that worries me. I don’t need any hope like that. I’ve nothing more to lose. It’s just that today … I feel very … tired. Forgive me for being dressed like this in public.’

‘Has something happened since you came to the orphanage?’

He avoided her gaze once more.

‘I didn’t mean to insult you. It was a ridiculous disguise, but there was no intention to … All I wanted was … I wanted some information … that … I … I’m sorry, but …’

‘You really are out of sorts today, aren’t you? And my questions bother you.’

‘No. Yes. A little. No, it’s not that. It’s just that …’

‘I haven’t come here to report you, if that’s what—’

‘That never even occurred to me. That’s not what’s bothering me.’

‘What is it then?’

‘I find myself thinking … things … about myself.’

‘Things?’

‘Things I’ve done.’

‘Things you’ve done?’

‘In my past. Things the same as … other people have done. Other men. So many men. Memories. Not just hurtful ones, the kind that bring pain that never goes away. A memory of things I’ve done in my past. Things that made me ashamed of myself. That still do. Even today. Of how brutally I behaved. So often. And in such a cowardly way. And there’s nothing I can do to change that. Because I was the one who did them, it was me who did those things. I didn’t mean to. But I did. Isn’t that what all criminals say?’

She replied so hastily that he was sure of something: remorse was nothing new to her.

‘I believe we should only think of the past if it helps improve the present. If not, it’s pure nostalgia.’

‘It’s not nostalgia that I feel. It’s shame. I spent my life thinking I was … that I was, as we used to say, a tireless fighter for the causes of liberty. Of the proletariat, the wretched, the starving, women, the illiterate … of the oppressed. All the oppressed. But I wasn’t. I played the role: even to myself. Especially to myself. But I wasn’t that fighter. Ever. There’s no true freedom without the recognition of the freedom and will of the other. I don’t know what a woman’s will is. Not even Helena’s. I never respected it. It never crossed my mind that such a thing existed: a woman’s will. I used them … Forgive me for speaking like this to you, sister, so … crudely, but that’s
what I always did. I used them. Their bodies. How and when I liked. Like so many men did with … with that girl who … Anita. Aparecida. Used by so many men, and who ended up dead and mutilated without … without causing any … any … protests. Any indignation. Until I saw what those men had done to Anita, to Aparecida, I thought I was … I didn’t realize that I too had been … I didn’t think I’d also been a … It’s depressing to discover we’ve spent our whole lives playing out a farce. Yesterday I discovered that. At my age. I discovered I wasn’t very different from those monsters I’d always despised and fought against.’

He lowered his head again. He peered down at his feet, and saw he was wearing a pair of slippers. The same ones he had worn that morning.

‘What piece is this?’ asked the nun, pointing to the chessboard.

‘A pawn.’

‘And that one?’

‘The queen.’

‘And over there?’

‘A bishop.’

‘How interesting. Bishop, queen, pawn … how many plots there can be in a game of chess.’

‘I wouldn’t call them plots.’

‘It was simply an association of ideas. I’ve always wanted to learn chess. Perhaps you could teach me.’

‘No doubt.’

‘But not now. Not here. Perhaps you could come to the orphanage this evening?’

‘This evening?’

‘Yes. That will give us time to learn and talk. About a visitor I had, for example. Who mentioned you.’

‘A visitor who mentioned me?’

‘You are allowed out in the evening, aren’t you?’

‘Yes, but at nine o’clock the nuns lock the gate.’

‘That gives us more than enough time,’ said the orphanage director, rising to her feet.

He also got up.

‘You spoke of a visitor you had …’

‘We’ll come back to that, don’t worry. So, until this evening … Basilio.’

‘Until then.’

The nun was walking away through the other old men when he called out to her.

‘Sister!’

She turned back towards him.