If I Close My Eyes Now (31 page)

‘I understand.’

‘He was my best friend at a time when I didn’t have anyone. He lent me my first Tarzan book. He also lent me the first Charles Dickens book I ever read.
David Copperfield
.’

‘I remember my father reading and re-reading that book many times. It was an old edition. I think it had a blue cover.’

‘No, it was yellow. Yellow with black letters, and the title in red.’

‘That’s right. That’s how it was.’

‘Do you still have it?’

‘Paulo took it. It was one of the few possessions of my
father’s that he took to the States. That and some photos, some old records and, if I’m not mistaken, my grandfather’s social security card. He worked on the Brazilian Central Railway.’

‘I know. His name was Rodolfo.’

‘That’s right. You remembered.’

‘And your grandmother was called Rosangela.’

‘She still is. She lives in Rio with a sister-in-law who’s also a widow. They live in Tijuca. They’re getting on in years now. She was hit very hard by my father’s death. We all were. Paulo most of all. Perhaps it was because he didn’t live with him much, and spent less time with him. The two of them used to talk a lot. They could spend the whole night talking. Paulo was the only person my father wasn’t reserved with.’

A fresh silence fell between them.

There was a knock on the hotel door, a voice saying that the taxi had arrived, and asking if there was any luggage to take down.

‘Just a minute!’ he shouted. Then he said to Fábio: ‘I’ll be right back.’

He opened the door, pointed to the biggest case, gave the bellboy a tip and thanked him. The youngster left, dragging the case behind him.

Paulo sat down again on the bed. He hesitated. He didn’t want to say goodbye. He knew this meant the end of the link with the warmest memories he had of his past. But he picked up the phone, raised it to his ear and said, his eyes again moist with tears:

‘I have to go. A big hug for you, and for your brother and
sister. If you talk to your grandmother, tell her I called, looking for Eduardo. Perhaps she’ll remember me.’

‘Who shall I say called?’

‘I’m sorry, I forgot to introduce myself. My name is Paulo.’

‘Paulo and what else?’

‘Paulo Roberto. The same as your brother.’

‘Paulo Roberto what?’

‘Antunes.’

‘Paulo Roberto Antunes?’

‘Yes. Thanks, and goodbye.’

‘Wait!’ he heard Eduardo’s son gasp, just as he was putting the phone down.

‘Your name is Paulo Roberto Antunes?’

‘Yes.’

‘Wait a moment, will you please?’

‘My taxi’s waiting. I have to go.’

‘Just a second! Don’t put the phone down!’

The sound of the telephone being laid rapidly on a hard surface. Muffled noises in the distance. Car horns, even further off. The wail of an ambulance siren. One minute. A minute and a half. Two minutes. Two minutes ten seconds. Fifteen. Twenty seconds. Two and a half minutes. He couldn’t wait any longer. Two minutes forty-five seconds. Two minutes fifty. Two minutes and …

‘Sorry!’ he heard Fábio say on the other end of the line. ‘I went to look for this envelope. I wanted to be sure.’

‘Sure of what?’

‘Your name is …’

‘Paulo Antunes.’

‘Paulo Roberto Antunes?’

‘Yes, Paulo Roberto Antunes.’

‘Then I need your address.’

‘Why’s that?’

‘To send you this envelope.’

‘What envelope?’

‘The one we found among my father’s things.’

‘And why do you want to send it to me?’

‘Because on the envelope it’s written, at the top,
For Paulo Roberto Antunes
, and underneath,
From Eduardo José Massaranni
. It’s a brown A4-size envelope.’

‘What’s in it?’

‘A lot of typed sheets. The envelope was sealed when my mother found it. You’ll have to forgive us for opening it, but we had never heard anything about you, and we had to do the inventory of Papa’s possessions. There might have been an important document inside. There’s also a letter, attached by a paper clip.’

‘Have you read it?’

‘I’ll post everything to you.’

‘Send it by express mail. Please, write down my address.’

‘I’ve got paper and a pencil ready. Go ahead.’

THE LETTER WAS
not dated. It was handwritten in blue ink, on a sheet of lined paper. It was in the same neat, careful handwriting that Paulo knew so well. The paper clip holding the letter to the typed pages had gone rusty and left its mark. It looked like the outline of a labyrinth.

Dear Paulo

My son was twelve yesterday. My eldest son. From my first marriage. He doesn’t look anything like me. He’s dark like his mother. Almost as dark-skinned as you. I named him after you.

The two of us were twelve when we last saw each other. Perhaps that’s why I remembered you. Even more than I always do. Because I remember a lot. Not always for good reason. It’s often when she astounds me. She still does so today. It was twenty-four years ago that we found her by the lake, and she still astounds me. It’s twenty-four years since I last saw you. Since we saw each other.

I sometimes dream of her. I wake up exhausted. Does that happen to you too? Do you remember her? Does she astound you
the way she does me? Do you remember those days in April?

I read somewhere that you were a political prisoner during the military dictatorship. That you fled to Chile, or possibly to Mexico. Or that you had gone to Sweden. I lost the newspaper clipping in one of my many moves. I don’t like moving, but my job makes it necessary. I’m a civil engineer. I work for a state company. I wonder where you work? What profession did you choose? I never learned anything more about you. I would have liked you to be Paulo Roberto’s godfather, but I couldn’t discover your whereabouts. Letters were censored. People in our embassies were linked to the dictatorship’s security services.

Following the amnesty, I thought you would return to Brazil. Many other exiles came back. But it appears you stayed where you are. Wherever that may be.

I would have liked to talk to you about her. About the nightmares I have. I thought I could free myself from them by writing about her. About what happened to her. What happened to us because of her. To me, you, Ubiratan.

But there are lots of things I don’t remember properly. And others I never knew about at first hand. There are situations I imagined in one way or another. Perhaps I imagined them as they really were, perhaps not. I’m not sure of anything. I wrote down what I thought had happened and what I could remember, as more and more came back to me. I tried to make a whole out of the fragments. But there are a lot of gaps in my memory. Perhaps you can recall things more clearly. Perhaps you can complete what’s missing. Fill in the gaps. I’d like you to do that.

I’ll keep these sheets until I find out where you are and can send
them to you. Possibly we’ll meet, and I can give them to you? Then we can write it together.

Feel free to correct, eliminate or add whatever you like. My address and phone number are given below.

A fraternal hug from your friend

Eduardo

Paulo kept the letter in his hands for a long time. He re-read it. He did the calculation: Eduardo must have written it in 1985. The year when Tancredo Neves was elected the first civilian president of Brazil after twenty-one years of military dictatorship. The year of the death of Tancredo Neves, only three months later, which destroyed all hopes of radical change in the country. The same year that Mikhail Gorbachev was elected secretary-general of the Communist party in the Soviet Union. The beginning of the break-up of the Soviet Union and of the utopias it had represented. History lessons. Ubiratan would have been pleased he had learned them.

He put the letter on his cluttered desk, on top of the scanner next to his computer. The envelope from Brazil that he had torn open lay between the printer and a pile of documents that never seemed to grow any smaller.

He took out the typed sheets. They were numbered 1 to 76.

They were carbon copies on thin paper, typed in a small font. The type had faded, and several parts had been written over with thick black pen. There were lots of notes in the margin, written in pencil or ball-point pen, some of them erased.

On the last page, on a sheet of plain white paper, was just
one sentence, typed in a different font. Underneath was a handwritten note in brackets:

‘The dead don’t stay where we bury them.’

(Find out where I read that)

Paulo went over to the armchair beside the window, sat down, and began to read.

PAULO WAS STILL
angry, and stayed angry through all his classes. He had been angry when they were set free by the bouncer, a long time after Ubiratan had left, and he had been uselessly kicking at the door of the tiny storeroom. He came out cursing. The prostitutes laughed. The Polish madam laughed. The bouncer laughed. Eduardo flushed. Paulo cursed even more. Still swearing, he walked back in the teeming rain to his house, not bothered about what time it was, or how his father would react when he saw him arriving so late and soaked to the skin.

But there was no reaction. His father was sitting at the dining-room table talking to Antonio. They looked up at him, then resumed their conversation.

Paulo was annoyed when he fell asleep, annoyed when he woke up. His brother’s bed had not been slept in, and his father had not made any coffee: they had spent the night at the Hotel Wizorek. They must have found out he had been
there with Eduardo and the old man. Let them find out. What did it matter? If they asked what he and the others had been doing in the brothel, he wouldn’t say a thing. Let them ask.

The old man: that was how he thought of Ubiratan now. The old man. Shameless. A traitor.

When he reached school, he hardly exchanged a word with Eduardo, who was as gloomy and silent as he was. Paulo didn’t want to talk to anyone. He felt betrayed and humiliated. And that made him angrier still. If any teacher dared ask him a question, he wouldn’t reply, even if he knew the answer. If the teacher scolded him, he would swear at him. In front of the entire class. Then if he was sent to the headmaster, he would tell him to expel him there and then.

At the end of classes, he stormed out of school, but did not head for home. He had no idea where he was going. He simply wanted to get away from there, from everywhere.

Eduardo ran to catch him up.

‘Where are you going in such a hurry?’

‘To shit!’

‘Calm down, Paulo!’

‘I’m going to shit because I am shit. Everybody laughs at me! Everybody mocks me! Nobody respects me! My father doesn’t respect me, none of the teachers respect me, none of my classmates respect me, nobody at school does. Nobody. Anywhere. Not even the old man respects me!’

‘Calm down, Paulo, calm down!’

‘The old man left us locked up in that brothel! He went off who knows where and left us behind! Locked up with the whores. Did you see how they laughed at us? I bet they don’t
laugh at Antonio like that. Or at my father. I’m nothing but shit. And I don’t like it! I don’t want to be a shit in life.’

‘You’re not. And I respect you. I’m your friend.’

‘What does that get me?’

‘Lots of things.’

‘What things?’

‘Things a friend can give you.’

‘What things? What, eh? What things, Eduardo?’

‘Things. Like now.’

‘Now what?’

‘Now I can tell you you’re not shit.’

‘What?’

‘You’re not shit.’

‘Why not?’

‘Because you’re my friend.’

‘So what?’

‘If I had a brother, I’d want him to be you.’

Paulo said nothing. He dropped his head, and felt ashamed. He wanted to apologize and to hug Eduardo, but didn’t do either.

‘I’d also want …’ he said, but couldn’t finish the sentence.

They both lapsed into an awkward silence.

‘Are you hungry?’ Eduardo asked finally. ‘I’ve got two cruzeiros, I can buy two pasties.’

‘No,’ lied Paulo. ‘I’m not hungry.’

‘Well then …’

‘What?’

‘Well then …’ Eduardo searched for a neutral topic they could talk about freely. ‘My bike.’

‘Your bike. The old man didn’t give it back.’

‘No.’

‘Does your father know? Does your mother know you have no bike?’

‘I told them I lent it to you.’

‘Do you want to go to the old people’s home to look for it?’

‘Let’s go. The old man has to explain why he did what he did.’

Ubiratan was not sitting at the table under the tree that spread over the walls. Nor anywhere else in the courtyard. Nor in the refectory. He wasn’t in the bathroom, or in the dormitory. Nor in the corridor or in the garden at the back of the property. Nor in the kitchen, the chapel, nor in the visitors’ room. They scoured the home from end to end, but there was no sign of him. Or of the bike. The other inmates – those who could still understand what they were talking about – knew nothing of Ubiratan. They hadn’t seen him since the day before. They were certain he hadn’t slept there. Paulo didn’t believe any of it. He suspected that the old man was trying to avoid a face-to-face argument because he was ashamed of his lack of loyalty. Before the boys left, they tried in vain to get some information from the nuns.