Chronicle of the Murdered House Page 10

  ................................. in the Pavilion in the garden, where we had decided to spend part of the summer, firstly, because we would feel more at ease there, secondly, because we would thus spend most of the time far from your brother. (I repeat, and this is important, Valdo, there was always an element in Demétrio that I never quite understood: he hated me in a way that verged on the abnormal, as if he were constantly accusing me of a crime, but what that crime was I never knew. He hated me with a hatred that veered between exalted enthusiasm and utter repugnance.) When I realized this, I became convinced that you and I could only stay together if we lived apart from the rest of the family. Time proved me right, but in those early days, I still had no way of knowing just how right I was. You were not opposed to my idea, on the contrary, you supported me, certain that we would be happy, despite the Pavilion’s isolated location, away from the main house. And it was there, if you remember, that we spent the happiest days of our married life. There, in that abandoned, ivy-clad Pavilion, with its tall windows—their glass panes mostly intact—which glowed in the afternoon sun and lived in intimate contact with the surrounding greenery; it was there that I learned about love and waited for our son to be born. Ah, Valdo, you only have to close your eyes to recall those summer nights, with the cicadas whirring away among the ancient tree trunks and the scent of jasmine filling the air—the peace of a tranquil, old estate, belonging to an old and very wealthy family, and which was exactly as I had dreamed it would be when I still lived in the city. Long, slow, sleepy nights and days . . . and it was only later in my pregnancy that I began to think it impossible to continue living in that place where I felt so happy, because it was so far from any medical help I might need and because of the lack of comfort, well, the Pavilion was not exactly luxurious. But only then did I fully understand the peace that surrounded me and the sober beauty of those walls. I can honestly say that only then did the Chácara, at whose heart lay that haven, the Pavilion, only then did it take on a different meaning.

  But all was not silence and happiness, one might say that adverse forces, jealous of our quiet lives, were watching and waiting for an opportunity to burst aggressively in upon us. And so it was that Demétrio—who never visited us—one day abandoned his various tasks to come down to the Pavilion and to find kneeling at my feet, as if in a carefully staged act of adultery, the poor lad who looked after the garden. I had often seen the boy before, had even noticed his submissive manner, the strange way he looked at me—but to think that I, especially in my heavily pregnant state, would allow him to be so bold—no, that really is too much. (I can go further in my recollections, because they are still so vivid it seems like only yesterday. The most he had dared to do, and I swear this is true, had been to plant a bed of violets for me—a modest little bed, surrounded by white stones, and which, being not far from the Pavilion, was watered by the nearby stream.) He was indeed kneeling before me, Valdo, but I swear and swear again and will always swear that this was the first time it had happened.

  It was Timóteo who told me everything that night. (I was in my room, lying on the bed, with a damp cloth on my forehead—the only thing that helped relieve the constant waves of nausea. I heard someone scratching at the window pane and sat up, startled, afraid it might be the gardener again. After the scandal of that afternoon, when Demétrio had openly accused me of choosing to live in the Pavilion as a cover for my criminal love affair, I did not want to see the boy ever again, feeling that I lacked the necessary courage, even though he was not in the least to blame and even though I had already decided to leave. When I opened the window, I heard an insistent “psst” and leaned out, trying to see who it could be. If it was the gardener, I would tell him: go away, never cross my path again, you have already disgraced me forever in the eyes of the Meneses. And at the mere thought I began to tremble and burn up with fever. But it wasn’t the gardener, nor would I ever have an opportunity to say those urgent words to him—to my surprise, it was Timóteo. He was still wearing women’s clothes, but had a man’s jacket draped hastily over his shoulders. He whispered: “Open the door, Nina, I have something very important to tell you.” I never did find out how he had managed to cross the whole garden dressed like that—just as I never found out what mysterious reason had made him leave his room that night. True, there was the reason he gave during our conversation, but I sensed, like a tune playing secretly and incessantly in his soul, another reason that he was not telling me, but which was equally important. For some reason, when I saw him, I instantly distrusted him, fearing that he might deceive me—after all, he was a Meneses too—and while he was speaking to me, I tried in vain to guess the real motive for his visit. But that was probably one of those secrets I would die without knowing. When I opened the door, having turned on the light, I saw the sweat running down his face, and he looked utterly exhausted. “You shouldn’t have come here,” I said. He embraced me, then fell into a chair: “Ah, Nina,” he said with a laugh, “imagine my brother’s expression if he were to find me here . . .” He was still breathing hard and it was clear that he was unaccustomed to exercise of any sort. Before he began to speak, and as if he were recovering from his exertions, he looked around him with great interest. “What a good idea coming to live in the Pavilion, far from everyone . . .” And then he sighed and added: “But I miss you. Ever since you moved, everything seems so much darker somehow . . .” I sat down near him: “I couldn’t go on living up at the house, Timóteo.” And, at the same time, very discreetly so as not to frighten him, I observed the change that had come over him since last we met. He was not the same person at all. I had first known him when he was still young, before he had become so fat, before his face had taken on that ravaged look. I wasn’t in the presence of a human being, but a swollen, amorphous mass. I knew he had taken to drink, as if to blot out some terrible memory, and that he gave all his money to the servants (I don’t know if I ever talked to you about that, Valdo, but I always thought it was a mistake to allow him to keep his part of the inheritance in his room) so that they could buy him the drink he needed, but I had no idea his decline had been so rapid nor that the alcohol had had such a devastating effect on him in such a short time. And then, and I say this with no desire to shock, there was the way he used make-up, not as a woman would, but in an excessive, intemperate way, furious and uncontrollable, like someone who has lost all sense of taste or moderation—or worse still, someone bent on debasing himself still further. The sight of that poor, strange, crazed creature moved me to tears. There was always plenty to cry about at the Chácara, Valdo, where happiness was a rare commodity. Timóteo placed his hand on mine: “I think they’ll kill me if they find out I’ve left my room.” And suddenly changing the subject, he added almost brusquely: “Nina, why did you leave me? If you knew how it upset me . . .” I looked at him, bemused: “As I said, Timóteo, it was better for me.” He groaned: “The things that are better for others are always worse for us . . .” I took pity on him and said: “But Timóteo, you could still come and visit me now and then . . .” He stared at me, almost panic-stricken: “No, no, what would be the point? Besides, Nina, I came tonight to talk to you about an extremely serious matter.” I again tried to distract him: “I’m really worried about you, Timóteo.” He gave me a long, tender look, and again I was aware of his breathing, but this time his breathlessness was caused by something other than weariness. “Thank you, Nina, but I didn’t come here to talk about my life . . .” “About what, then?” Again he sighed deeply: “I don’t know if you realize, Nina, but they want to send you away.” His voice sounded calm and not in the least angry. We sat in silence for a while, until I asked: “But why?” He thought for a moment, then said: “Because of a young man, a gardener, whom they found kneeling at your feet.” I turned to face him: “And you . . . do you think that’s true?” His whole being seemed to tremble: “Oh, Nina, why ask me that question? You have no right, you can’t, that is the one thing I refuse to answer.” I asked coldly: “
Why?” And falling to his knees, he said: “Nina, I don’t judge you, I accept you exactly as you are, good or bad. Besides, in my opinion, all the kings of the world should fall at your feet.” I helped him up and made him sit down on a chair again. He was confused and upset. “What else did you find out?” I asked. And he said: “Betty told me everything. I asked her to come and tell you herself, but she said she didn’t have the right, that it was her masters’ secret, but that I . . .” “But what did she tell you?” I demanded impatiently. “That Valdo and Demétrio were talking in the study—that’s where they get together whenever there’s something important to discuss—and that Demétrio was the one who spoke most loudly. He said ‘I always warned you to be careful with that woman. She should have left already, she has no place in this house. Besides, we don’t have the right facilities here for her to give birth. Whether you like it or not, Valdo, she has to leave. I would never tolerate . . .” “Ah!” I exclaimed, “so that’s what he wants. Well, I’ll leave all right. And I won’t come back, not even if the whole Meneses family were to come to me on bended knee!” I was saying these things because I was aflame with anger. I knew he had accused me of choosing to live in the Pavilion to conceal my illicit love affair. Isn’t that what he said, Valdo, isn’t that exactly what he said? Timóteo again took my hands in his: “Don’t leave, Nina. That’s why I came here. Do you remember our pact? We need you with us.” “No, no,” I cried, “if I stayed, I would be constantly humiliated and constantly under suspicion.” We talked for a while longer, but nothing he could say would change my mind: I was convinced I should and would leave, regardless of that business with the gardener. I well remember the rage that overwhelmed me when I thought of all the promises you made me, Valdo . . . I leapt to my feet and, with Timóteo still there, started picking up any object I could find and smashing it to the floor. I had been wrong to give in that first time, and how stupid of me not to have left on the night of the gunshot . . . There I was, utterly humiliated, and I could do nothing about it because no one ever told me anything, all of them too busy plotting against me in the shadows. The sound of things breaking brought Betty running to the Pavilion: “What is it, Senhora, what’s happened?” My eyes must have been blazing, my body shaking, and the sight of me surrounded by broken shards must have been far from reassuring. “Ah, Betty, you know perfectly well what’s happened.” She turned pale and begged me to calm down: no one was going to harm me. When I continued pacing furiously back and forth, not even listening to what she was saying, she turned to Timóteo, who had remained silent all this time, watching me. “Ah, Senhor Timóteo, it’s you . . .” And from his corner, Timóteo said: “Isn’t she superb, Betty? What a woman!” They exchanged a few more words and concluded that I had, indeed, been deeply wronged. (And you know, Valdo, while this was going on, none of us gave a moment’s thought to the gardener as a real being with a real existence: for us, he was merely the catalyst that had set the whole thing in motion, an instrument used by Demétrio. And what did I care if the gardener existed and had, in a moment of madness, thrown himself at my feet? I remember that for one minute, one single, fleeting minute, I had abandoned my hand to the fury of his hungry kisses—what was it, what could it mean the wild, animal sob that rose to his lips in the form of a caress? He wasn’t strong enough to sweep me up in the whirlwind that possessed him. But it must have been then that Demétrio opened the door—and even all this time later, I ask myself how long he had been outside watching and waiting. Did he merely see the gardener kneeling at my feet or did he linger a little longer, in which case he would have seen the energetic way in which I ordered the gardener to get up? In either case, how can he judge me on what he saw during that one moment, how can he base all his anger and feelings of revenge on that one brief lightning flash? He would only just have shut the door when Alberto was on his feet again: I can remember clearly how Alberto ran his hand over his head, as if trying to drive away a bad dream, then said: “I don’t deserve to be forgiven for what I did, but I will be eternally grateful.” I didn’t understand and asked: “Grateful?” And moving away from me, he said: “Yes, for your mere existence, for having been allowed to know you.” Ah, Valdo, it was only later, much later, after many, many sleepless nights, that I really began to think about that boy. In fact, I couldn’t get him out of my mind. It’s terrible the suffering we inflict on others, and in the whole ensuing drama—by which I mean that stupid gesture of mine, throwing the gun into the garden—his was the most tragic of all our fates. I can see him so clearly, still almost a child, standing before me, trembling. Only on the long nights I experienced later did I begin to wish I could meet him again: what would he say, what could he say when he was still so young, what words would he use, would his love be made of some incandescent matter? I began to imagine him not as a lover, but as a son, to whom I could teach things and warn of life’s dangers, saving him from himself and from others. Son, lover, what does it matter—loneliness is full of such traps. My solitude led me to fantasize, to imagine someone who would remain faithful until death, who would have eyes only for me. I’m sorry, I’m quite mad at times, sadness has that effect.)

  Timóteo was still sitting down, with Betty by his side, both of them doubtless waiting for me to do something. Hatred was churning around and around inside me like a perpetually turning wheel. And I was constantly asking myself: “What will they be saying now? What will they be plotting?” And I kept repeating softly what Demétrio had said: “That’s why she chose to live in the Pavilion . . .”

  You know how happy we were in the Pavilion, Valdo, you know what good times we had there, and the strange, sudden way in which everything seemed to be reborn between us. Time slipped by like silk. Amazed at this transformation, I would hold you in my arms and say: “Valdo, we love each other, everything is possible.” It was a simple, inarticulate thought, one that millions of women have expressed before—and yet I felt that, for us, the world really had entered a different orbit. Do you understand, Valdo? I had exactly what I wanted, the absolute, the infinite. It was unimaginable to me then that you would listen to such a lie, that, at the very moment when I considered we were safe, you would be infected by the accumulated venom of your brother’s hatred for me. The proof was there before me in the form of the only two friends I could count on at the Chácara, both sitting there in silence waiting for me to act. And it was then, and only then, that my decision rapidly became an unshakable intention—and throwing my suitcases onto the bed and hauling my clothes out of the wardrobe, I cried: “Betty, let’s get these bags packed so that I can leave—forever. I wouldn’t stay now even if, this time, he really did kill himself . . .” Betty got up, and I saw that Timóteo was doing the same, all the while staring at me wordlessly, probably not daring to stop me, so deeply did he respect my decision, and yet the look in his eyes was so unutterably sad, full of deep, lacerating pain ......................................................................................... ..................................... I can do nothing. This is my destiny, and we cannot escape our destiny. Believe me when I say that I have only a few more days to live. And remember: this is all I am asking of you. Besides, Valdo, this is not a request, but a command: the dead have their rights, and I feel I am in a position to make one last demand. You never answered me, never replied to my letters. Perhaps you never even opened them, and all those complaints and recollections, all that invective, remained dumb and covered in dust on some desk, waiting, who knows, for some generous soul to unseal the envelopes. On other occasions, I made different appeals, I wept, I cried out for help that never came. No matter, although that silence could well be what has gradually destroyed me. I never imagined I would die like this, spurned, and without a friendly eye to accompany me on this difficult journey. But I can still imagine what is mine by rights, and it is now, when I have so little strength left, and when I can already begin to sense the definitive peace awaiting me in the tomb, that I am prepared to reclaim, for good or ill, what
is mine and what was so unjustly taken from me. (Even now, it’s up to me to refresh your memory. When I left the Chácara, I never expected to see the person who came knocking at my door months later. I can see her now, all in black, her face utterly devoid of emotion. Yes, she was the one you sent to fetch our son. And it was to her, all in black, that I gave the only possible answer: “I would never keep a child belonging to the Meneses family. He’s there somewhere, in the hospital where he was born.” But I wasn’t being honest when I said that, and Ana, who had come to Rio for that express purpose, had no right to take my son from me. But that, alas, is what happened . . .) Believe what you like, but I can guarantee that I will never again seek to justify myself or beg you on bended knee to listen to me. No, Valdo, my strength is at an end. Listen carefully, so that you are not taken by surprise later on and cannot tell me off or accuse me of having acted frivolously and hastily: I am ready to return to the Chácara to take up my rightful place, until I die and for as long as I have the strength to do battle with Demétrio and possibly with all the other Meneses too.