The Girl in the Photograph (7 page)

“Quick Max, I want a drink,” she asked clenching her hands into fists.

“Where’s your glass? Hanh? But what’s this, you don’t need to cry, why are you crying?
Don’t, love, or I’ll start to cry too.”

She wiped her face on the sheet. Twined together they rolled as one body among the
covers. The glass rolled and fell almost soundlessly onto the rug.

“This depression,” she said disentangling herself. She propped herself up on her elbows
to drink. “And that Dr. Hachibe? The ass.”

It wasn’t yenom he wanted, it was really money. Bastard. Group analysis. Just imagine,
how could I be open with those lousy pricks? she thought rolling her hair around her
finger. Either they complain about their sex life all the time or hash over their
doubts, shall I become a queer? Shan’t I? What the hell, who cares?

She rolled herself up, closed her hands and hid them against her breasts. Very easy
to attribute everything to one’s childhood, he had wide shoulders this one here. How
shitty, that Dr. Batista went on a trip and that crazy doctor had to take his place,
he’s worse off than I am. What was he called that fetus? He looked like a fetus. A
long name but short legs. Legs and all the rest. A sorry excuse for a man. Shit I
got worse with him. A crazy.

“He didn’t charge but then how could he?” she asked massaging the back of her neck.
“After him I started treatment with an old man, so old he was falling apart and the
whole time he talked about his wife who had terminal cancer and was going to die.
What did I have to do with that? I went there to relax a little and I had to listen
to the old man in love with his wife who was dying of cancer. I felt sorry but at
the same time I got mad as hell because even for that he charged. Childhood. In reality
everything becomes simpler when you discover way back there some aunt that wanted
to poke her fingers in your eyes. With me they wanted to poke other things in other
places but didn’t I get out all by myself? So. They all stayed there in the cellar.
Only me.”

She stretched out on her stomach. She was taking things, right. But who could stand
anything without some trips and a shrink to talk to?

“Who?” she asked staring fixedly at the pillow. “Even those
flowers with the broken stems. Didn’t even they need wire? So. Life is hard to put
up with. Bending under from problems. But next year, my sweetie, a new life. Do you
hear me love? A new life.”

Married to money she wouldn’t need any more help, shit, analysis. No more problems
in sight. Free. She would go back and open her canceled registration, she would be
a brilliant student. The books she would read. The discoveries about herself. About
others.

“Even those things that we … I grew rich from the experience, didn’t I? A bourgeoise
intellectual. Very chic. And that terrorist, still so underdeveloped. Worthless talk,
my sweetie. Freedom is security. If I feel secure, I am free.”

She drank from Max’s glass. He was sleeping with an affable expression, his hand raised
in the gesture of one who invites some visitor to come closer. With a bag of gold,
you could be cured easily. Or could you? Even if she went through one or two crises,
what would it matter if they took place inside a Jaguar? The hard thing was to fall
apart in a public bus. And Lorena saying that it was some minor French authoress who
wrote that. Why minor? Not at all. Shit, you can’t be minor if you discover something
like that. I agree, it’s not very original. But it’s like the story of the egg that
nobody could make stand on end, very easy very easy, but nobody thought of it until
after Galileo. Wasn’t it Galileo?

She shook her friend.

“Max, answer me, isn’t it better to trip out in a fancy car than in a bus on its way
to the outskirts? The hoods pistol-whipping us to death inside?”

So. In December I’ll get myself sewed up and in January. Waldo will make the dress.
I want white. Medieval style, pearls, a string of white pearls. Enormous ones.

“Max, what time is it? Your watch, where’s your watch?”

“I bought a Swiss one that has a little movie theater, I press one button and get
my horoscope, press another one and get my bank balance and the day I’m going to be
betrayed, neat, hanh? What a watch! The trips, Bunny! The red button is for a five
hour dose, the blue one gives you a day-long trip with transfers included, I get off
the train and onto another one. And the black button, eeeh, what a button. What fear!
The crazy woman in white comes with a black armband, she comes in mourning, the old
bag.”

“Who did you sell it to, answer me, Max!”

“To my grandpa.”

I pound his chest but he bites my neck. Not my neck! I try to say but I’m laughing
so much I can’t talk all I can do is clap my hand over his mouth, and then he bites
my hand. My hand is OK, but you can’t bite my neck because the scaly one will see
it right away what’s that mark? He asks about everything, wants to know everything
while he keeps eating the crust of the bread, sickening peeled that way. “I’ll have
dinner at Nona’s house and then we can go out to Zuza’s afterward.” As if I would
get really excited about the idea. Taking his fiancée to a joint like that. Why didn’t
he invite me to have dinner at Nona’s house, why? Bastard. Always flaunting his family
in my face.

“I don’t have any family,” I said. “They all died in an airplane crash. An international
flight. They were coming back from Scotland where they had gone to spend Christmas
with my uncles.” Ah, your uncles live in Scotland? They used to. They all died when
one night that lake monster rose up and swallowed my uncles and cousins and their
house and all. A Scottish monster, Lorena knows its name, she knows all about these
monsters. Rotten chic, to be swallowed by a monster in a Scottish lake. “There was
no one left no one, no one, no one,” I repeat and drink out of the glass Max hands
me. I drink it all down. To the bitter end, wasn’t that a movie? Where did I run across
that title?

“I want to buy an island, Bunny. You know it isn’t hard to buy an island? There’s
gobs of islands around.”

And he has enough family to fill up a ship. The hell with them. The hell with them
because the corset is melting there was a bitch of a corset closing off my lungs.
Now I can breathe, live. Shit it’s good to live. Who said that. I’m beautiful brilliant
I’m going to be on ten magazine covers. Super-important magazines. Success. Leave
the lousy others behind howling with envy. Miss nha-nha is right one needs to breathe
deeply all the time and then you feel fine. He could have invited me the bastard.
That Nona with her little leather house slippers. All the grandchildren dying to show
off how rich they are and her. She could have invited me. Aren’t I his fiancée? It
doesn’t matter next year stop. It’s close.

“Dragon-fly wings in green sauce, hanh? Fabulous that restaurant. Lightning-bug sauce
blinking off and on, flick, flick! Hanh?”

I turn into a Roman matron. Respect I want respect. That’s what Mother Alix doesn’t
understand. A saint. I’ll do everything you say my saint. A sainted grandmother. Lots
of milk very good lots of milk and that medicine and I beat my breast never again,
never again! We’ll see about it tomorrow. If you love me.

“The saints are transparent just like water. There used to be lots of tubes of water,
all different colors. At that chemical lab where I worked. I used to clean and the
little old Jew who liked me would come up and give me an apron to put on and let me
play with the tubes. He would explain to me about the colors blue red green. The water
would change colors. The smell. I still remember the smell but this was a smell I
liked because it had nothing to do with people. The little glass tubes changing color
just like us. Look, love, I drink them and I turn into a rainbow, blue, yellow, ay!
Don’t touch me or I’ll spill. I used to know a song, how did it go?”

“She taught me to dance. Madame Lamas. Mama wanted us to learn to dance because of
this or because of that, Madame Lamas, that’s it, my little sister and I learned everything.
Fun, hanh? All day long there were little parties, a crowd of little girls and parties.
We used to dance like crazy, Madame Lamas taught me, La Madame Lamas. Good manners,
oh, what a nice boy, you should have seen it.”

“I love you, love.” I can howl with pleasure but no. Never mind.

“
I saw in a crystal window … upon a proud pedestal …
how does that go? I have a passion for that song, I get hysterical, here, come on,
sing,
in a crystal window, a charming doll
…”

She doesn’t understand because she is a saint. In reality I grow clean here with him.
Cleansed from all those things, cleansed. Don’t you see how happy I am? Not even when
I had analysis with that Turkish guy, what was his name? It doesn’t matter. I lied
about everything. Good for me. Good night and we’ll tell the truth. We don’t at all.
Dirty stories about rotten teeth I don’t want I don’t want.

“You’re handsome, love. The handsomest man I ever saw.”

“I am beautiful,” he said hanging onto the bureau. He hesitated: “That music, do you
hear? An angel playing. I can’t listen to it because I start to cry like a fool, my
eyes are already watering…”

“You’re just like Michelangelo’s
David
.”

“Where did you see Michelangelo’s
David
, where?” he asked, laughing. He grabbed the bottle from the floor. “Where, where?”

“My friend, you dummy. Loreninha has a huge poster of him. She’s been all over Europe,
you’re not the only one, see? Dummy. She’s very rich. You used to be. You’re not any
more, but never mind. It doesn’t matter. I think it was Milan. Her brother, the diplomat.
I think it was there.”

He swirled the glass of whiskey with ice. He took a large gulp and dried his sparse
beard with his hand.

“We’re going to travel, hanh? Oh, Bunny, we’re going to get all kinds of money, okay?
Mama used to love to travel, so many ships. Even in hotels we used to read those books,
you know the ones with maps? Hanh? Lots of maps. My little sister was there in that
school so we used to travel all the time, the visiting bit.” He sat down on the bed
and smiled. “I used to collect postcards.”

“Lorena collects bells. Ding-a-ling-a-ling. Little bells.”

“But my wee-wee is bigger than his.”

“Than whose? Bigger than whose wee-wee?”

“David’s isn’t that the statue you were? Hanh?”

Next year my love. You were rich, you’ve seen everything. And me. That’s just the
thing. Shit, I’ll become a virgin. I’ll marry the scaly one, open my registration
and do my course. Brilliant. At vacation time I’ll travel to buy things, he said once
he adores traveling. Ah what a coincidence so do I. The operation is easy Lorena will
lend it to me. She’s generous Lena. So. She always gets me out of the tight spots.
And if I am. It would be an absolute disaster
eeeh
I said the word Lena says if you say things backwards it’s good luck. Wait calm down.
There’s the r. Then the e. What’s the next letter? The next one. Oh never mind that,
enough. I am not pregnant. What I am is sober scratch scratch. My head rotten sober.

“I drink and nothing happens. Nothing. That music is crummy.”

He stretched his hand toward the pile of records which leaned dangerously sideways,
some of them sliding gently to the floor.

“A string quartet. True angels, hanh? You want this one, Bunny? I’m going to put it
on, fabulous,
A Certain Sympathy for the Devil,
hanh?”

Miserable howling. God, aggressive music. I’m sick of aggression I’ve seen more of
it than I want. Now I want presents, favors. Someday I’ll buy a whole truckload of
presents all silly things throw money around on silly stuff I want to be silly. She’s
crazy that one with her demands. And she even—. She must think I’m a whore. So what.
I’ll bury myself in money take my courses buy a laboratory just like that one. The
colored water dripping and me green yellow blue ah I’ll dye myself in an ocean. An
ocean, love. I’m floating off and the green tongues of the fish are licking my feet.
I laugh because the green tongues are licking me my legs no! I cry covering myself
because the biggest tongue licks my abdomen and penetrates me so warm ah love. I love
you. As happy as.

“We could go live someplace stupid like Ireland. Why Ireland? I don’t know either,
just Ireland. Hanh? There’s money coming.”

She opened her eyes and focused them gradually on the young man. He was smoking and
smiling vaguely.

“What time is it? What time is it, Max?”

“We didn’t come here to get up-tight. Throw everything to the wind, fabulous. An island.”

She grabbed the cigarette from his mouth and smoked.

The shorter coat would look great with velvet slacks. She could pay for it in five
installments. Ten. Bastard. Queer. He couldn’t forgive her because she was beautiful
and had breasts. “Flatten down that chest, flatten it!” he yelled at the showing and
everybody laughed. Hatred, he was hateful because he wished he had breasts and didn’t.
It doesn’t matter. The scaly one will give me a shipload of coats. Three factories.
He’ll want a virgin. So what? I’ll stuff myself full of baby oil and he’ll find one
when we go to bed. I could model for Marcil too and he’d give me the little black
suit or—. Brando will go crazy but I’ll tell him give me the coat then.

“Quick, Bunny! Give me your mouth!”

I give him my mouth give him everything. But tense scratch scratch. And if I am. Lena
will pay for plastic surgery but she doesn’t have a bag of gold does she? I need yenom
yenom Mother Alix said she’d pay. Take money from a saint and give it to the Turk,
group analysis for godssake. Stupidity. Next year I start over. And I can pay for
individual treatment thank you sir. Thinking I wanted to go to bed. Pretentious Turk.
“I’m married,
very happily married. My wife is a geisha.” Geisha geisha. I’ll bet she puts horns
on him twenty-four hours a day. Well done. It wouldn’t be any good anyway because
one loses respect for them, look what happened with that dumbass. Crazier than me
that one there. Psychiatrist, shit. How could he help me? Even a baby. You’ll see,
I am again. That’s just it, not to feel any pleasure and on top of it all, What day
is today? The twenty-sixth? Twenty-six, twenty-seven, twenty-eight, twenty-nine …
does this month have thirty-one days?