Near to the Wild Heart (19 page)

The Viper

It's as if I were gently penetrating something...

Otávio read while the clock ticked away the seconds and broke the night's silence with eleven strokes.

It's as if I were gently penetrating something...

There's the impression. This lightness comes from who knows where. Curtains droop languidly over their own cords. But there is also the black march, at a standstill, two eyes staring, unable to say anything. God perched on a tree and twittering, and straight lines running, unfinished, horizontal and cold. That's the impression... Mature moments go on dripping and no sooner does one fall than another surfaces, softly, its face pallid and minute. Suddenly the moments too come to an end. The without-time runs down my walls, tortuous and blind. Little by little, it accumulates in a dark and tranquil lake and I call out: I have lived!

Night silenced the things outside, some toad or other croaked intermittently. Each shrub was an unmoving, recoiling face.

In the distance, there glimmered and flickered tiny reddish lights, sleepless eyes. In the darkness like that of water. The tall, slender sunflowers lit up the garden by stages.

What was one to think at that moment? She was so pure and free that she could choose and didn't know. She could see something, but she couldn't express it, not even mentally, for the image had become tenuous in the darkness of her body. She simply sensed it and looked expectantly through the window as if she were seeing her own face in the night. Would this be the most she could hope to achieve?

To approach herself, to approach herself, to almost touch, only to feel the ebbing wave behind her, firmly and gently sucking her in, engulfing her then leaving her with the startling and intangible memory of a hallucination... Even at that moment, perceiving the night and her own vague thoughts, she was still detached from them, forever that small impenetrable mass, looking on, looking on. That tiny light gleaming in silence, remote, solitary, unconquered. She never surrendered.

She looked around her, the room slowly panting, poorly lit as in a spell of vertigo. She raised her head a little, examined the space and became aware of the rest of the house which was lost in darkness, the objects, grave and indistinct, floating around the corners. She would have to grope her way the moment she went through the door. Especially if she were a child, in her aunt's house, waking up at night, her mouth dry, going to look for some water. Knowing that people were isolated, every one of them locked inside this secret, impenetrable sleep. Especially if she were that child and as on that night or those nights, upon crossing the pantry she should discover the moonlight settled in the yard as in a cemetery, that wind free and uncertain... especially if she were that frightened child she would bump into objects she couldn't make out in the dark which when touched would suddenly contract into chairs and tables, into barriers, with open, unfeeling, relentless eyes. So they too were imprisoned. After that knock, the pain, the moonlight stripping the terrace of cement, thirst rising up through her body like some memory. Deep silence in the house, the neighbouring rooftops motionless and livid...

Once more, Joana tried to go back into the room, into the presence of Otávio. She was rid of things, of her own things, created by her and alive. Were they to abandon her in the desert, amidst the solitary glaciers, in any spot on Earth, she would preserve the same white, limp hands, the same, almost serene aloofness. She would take a bundle of clothes and slowly go away. Not to escape, but to go away.

Just like that, so comforting. Not to escape, but to go away ... Or to shout aloud, aloud, straight and infinite, with her eyes closed and tranquil. To walk until she encountered those tiny red lights. Flickering as if going out or coming on. Was she also about to die or be born? No, not to go: to remain trapped by the moment just as a pensive look clings to the void, quiet, suspended in mid-air...

The vibration of a distant tram pervaded her as if she were a tunnel. A night train passing through a tunnel. Goodbye. No, anyone travelling at night simply looks through the window and doesn't wave goodbye. No one knows where the hovels are, the unwashed bodies are murky and require no light.

— Otávio — she said, for she was lost.

Joana's voice, expressionless, light and direct, blotted out the room. He raised his eyes:

— What is it? — he enquired. And his voice was full of flesh and blood, it assembled the room inside the room, it labelled and defined things. A gust of air reviving the flames. The crowd had invaded the empty square.

She struggled for a moment, shuddered, woke up. Everything was shining under the lamp, tranquil and happy as round the hearth. Within the shadows of her body, the futility of waiting pervaded her somnambulism like a bird winging through the night.

— Otávio — she repeated.

He was waiting. Then once more conscious of the room, of the man and of herself, her own flames gathered strength, she knew that she should proceed logically, that the man expected her to go on. She looked for a signal, a plea, some definite word:

— I have the impression that you only came to give me a child, she said, and only now have I had the opportunity to fulfil the promise I made to Lídia. Even to go on wanting the child would mean tying herself to the future.

Otávio stared at her for a second in amazement, drained of any affection.

— But — he murmured after some time, his voice faltering, timid and hoarse — but can't you see that everything is almost finished between us?

— And has been almost from the start... he ventured.

— It will only finish when I've had a child — she replied, vague and obstinate.

Otávio opened his eyes in her direction, his face pale and suddenly weary beneath the table-lamp, where his book lay open.

— Isn't that a little far-fetched? — he asked ironically. She ignored the remark:

— What existed between us is not enough. I still haven't given you everything, you may come looking for me one day or I might miss you. Although after the child is born, there will be nothing left for us except to separate.

— And what about the child? — he enquired. — Where does the child come into this clever arrangement?

— Oh, he'll survive — she replied.

— Is that all you have to say? — he rejoined with sarcasm.

— What else can one do? — she launched the question into the air, casually, without expecting any answer.

Otávio, thinking she was waiting, despite his nervousness and rage at having to obey her, concluded uncertainly:

— Be happy, for example.

Joana raised her eyes and watched him from afar with surprise and a certain happiness — Why? — Otávio asked himself in alarm. He became flustered as if he had cracked some silly joke. She saw that he was angry, curled up in his chair, hurt and dejected as if someone had spat in his face. Without stirring, she leaned towards him, full of pity and more than pity — she pursed her lips, embarrassed — a love full of tears. She closed her eyes for a moment, trying not to see him, not to love him any more. At heart she could still unite herself with Otávio, he scarcely knew just how much. Perhaps it was enough to tell him about her own fears, for example, summarizing in words those feelings of shame and uneasiness when she summoned the waiter in a loud voice and everyone heard her except the waiter who wasn't listening. She laughed. Otávio would like to know about this. She could also unite herself with him by summing up for him her urge to escape whenever she found herself among smiling men and women and she found it difficult to relate to them or experience her own body. Or perhaps she was mistaken and these confidences did not bring them closer together. Just as when she was a little girl and she used to imagine that, if she could tell someone about the 'mystery of the dictionary', she would link herself forever to that someone... Like this: after the
l
it was useless looking for the
i
... Even for the
l
, the letters were companions, scattered like beans over the kitchen table. But after the
l
, they scattered solemn and compact and you could never find, for example, an easy letter like
a
among them. She smiled, opened her eyes little by little and now relaxed, subdued, she could confront him with disdain.

— You know perfectly well that's not the point. Oh, Otávio, Otávio... she murmured after an instant, the flames suddenly revived — what's happening to us when all is said and done, what's happening to us?

Otávio's voice was gruff and sharp when he replied:

— You always left me on my own.

— No... — she said nervously. — It's just that everything I have cannot be given. Nor taken. I myself am capable of dying of thirst in my own presence. Solitude is mingled with my essence...

— No — he repeated stubbornly, his eyes wild. — You always left me on my own because that's what you wanted, because that's what you wanted.

— I'm not to blame -Joana cried out — believe me... It's engraved in me that solitude comes because each body inevitably has its own end, it's engraved in me that love ceases with death... My presence has always been branded like this...

— When I got to know you — he said sardonically — I thought you were going to teach me something more than this. I needed — he went on in a lower tone — what I perceived in you, yet you always denied me.

— No, no... — she protested in a weak voice — Believe me, Otávio, the things I really knew penetrated my skin, came upon me almost by stealth... Everything I know I never learned, nor could I ever teach it to others.

They fell silent for a second. In a fleeting moment Joana saw herself seated beside her father, a ribbon in her hair, in a waiting-room. Her father with his hair unkempt, rather grubby, perspiring, his mood jovial. She could feel the ribbon more than anything else. She had been playing in her bare feet and had pulled on her shoes in haste without washing them and now they were creaking noisily inside the leather. How could her father be so cheerful, how could he fail to see that the two of them were the most miserable of people, and that no one was as much as looking at them? But she wished to prove to everyone that she would go on as she was, that he was her father, that she would protect him, that she would never wash her feet. She saw herself seated beside her father and she didn't know what had occurred immediately before dinner and immediately afterwards. Nothing but a shadow and she took refuge in it, listening to the music of confusion murmuring in her depths, intangible, blind.

— Nevertheless — Otávio went on — you yourself said: there is a certain moment in the joy of being able to do something which exceeds the fear itself of death. Two persons who live together — he continued in a whisper — try perhaps to attain that moment. You didn't want to.

She said nothing. When she didn't reply, he became uneasy, he went back to the days of his childhood, people angry with him, obliging him to promise, to please them, full of apologies. He recalled some offence or other he had once committed regarding Joana and tried to rid himself of it immediately so that it might nevermore weigh on his conscience. And even though aware that he was about to say something irrelevant, he could not restrain himself: You're right Joana: everything that comes to us is brute matter, but there is nothing in existence that escapes transfiguration — he began and his expression immediately became one of utter embarrassment when confronted by Joana's eyebrows. He forced himself to continue — Don't you remember telling me one day: 'Today's sorrow will be tomorrow's happiness; there is nothing in existence that escapes transfiguration.' Don't you remember? Perhaps it wasn't exactly with those words...

— I remember.

Well... At that moment I couldn't really grasp what you were trying to say. I even got annoyed I suppose...

— I know —Joana said. — You told me that if you had a stomach upset, I should come to lay the same absurd extravagance at your feet.

— Yes, yes, you're quite right — Otávio said impatiently. I seem to remember that you weren't even intimidated. But ... listen, I don't think I ever told you: I realized afterwards that there was no exaggeration in what you'd said... I don't think I ever confessed this to you, or am I wrong? Look, I'm even inclined to believe that there might be some truth in those words. There is nothing in existence that escapes transfiguration.. .He blushed. — Perhaps that's the secret, perhaps that's what I perceived in you... There are certain presences which allow transfiguration.

Since she remained silent, he insisted further.

— You promise too much... All the possibilities you offer people, within themselves, with a look... I'm at a loss to explain it.

And just as she hadn't shown herself to be proud or diminished when he had first spoken ironically about her absurd extravagance, she didn't now gloat over Otávio's humility. He looked at her. Once again he had not known how to attach himself to that woman. Once more she defeated him.

There was silence in the room and the light and emptiness settled on the white keys of the open piano. Something had died, slowly and truly died. It would be useless to reunite the happiness of living with that moment.

— What comes next? — Otávio murmured, and this time he had succumbed to the essence of things, he had been drawn to Joana's truth.

— I don't know — she said.

Otávio studied her. What was on her mind, she seemed so remote? She appeared to be hovering in the centre of something mobile, her body floating, unsupported, almost non-existent. Just as when she started to relate things from the past and he could see that she was lying. Then Joana's head would slowly wander, she would gently incline her forehead, raise it again, begin to stammer. There was a calculated and solid nucleus to begin with but then everything became fluent and innocuous. And Otávio would look at her, oblivious of himself. He would end up in a state of anguish, for if he wanted to touch her he couldn't, there was an intangible circle around that creature, which was impenetrable and kept her apart. Bitterness then possessed him because he could not perceive her as a woman and his quality as a man became futile, and he was incapable of being anything other than a man. In cousin Isabel's garden white roses grew all those years ago. He had often admired them, perplexed, not knowing how to possess them, because in the presence of those roses his only power, that of a human being, was useless. He put them to his face, to his lips, he inhaled their perfume. They went on quivering, delicate and luxuriant. If only they had thick petals — he used to think — if only they were hard... if only their petals would give a dry sound when they dropped and hit the ground... Feeling the heightening beauty of those flowers penetrate him, like that of Joana, like that of Joana when she lied, he was seized by an impotent fury: he would crush them, chew them, destroy them.