Luisa knows that Henrique doesn’t like that she decided about the Indian girl and the child on her own, which is why since yesterday he hasn’t addressed a word to her beyond the essential. It isn’t just a tantrum, that’s not what he’s like, she knows that; he’s like this because he feels his authority was undermined in front of the rest of the team. The equipment had already been all set up when she appeared saying that there wouldn’t be any interviews. Perhaps he’d been wrong when he said it would be a project for them to undertake together, a test of how much ‘professional affinity’ there is between them. She wants to be with him, basically, that’s the only thing she is sure of. She runs her hand through his hair while he is driving. It is the truce that he must agree to. She puts her hand on his knee, strokes it, she kisses his cheek. They are leaving the Botucaraí mountains, they will go through the Centro de Soledade, because Henrique needs to copy on a photocopier all the documents and maps he got hold of from a Kaingang leader, they’re from the end of the nineteenth century, things that were obtained in some fight or were left over from some usurpation (not forgetting that there were Indians who settled there in the eighteenth century, fleeing the attacks on the Jesuit Missions). They entered the city. Without warning, Henrique stops outside a chemist, asks Maína to come in with him. He buys jars of baby food and disposable nappies for the child. They return to the camper van, they drive on as far as a stationer’s offering ‘Copying Service’. Luisa gets ready to make the copies, she asks Maína to come in with her and learn something that she might have to do herself one of these days, takes the child from her lap, hands him to Henrique, who holds him with the vulnerability of someone who is infertile. Luisa will not have his children, the children they always talked about until they discovered that there was nothing to be done about his condition. Luisa looks at him before going into the stationer’s and is glad to see that the man she so loves might have in his arms an even better reason for spending the next few days driving around for kilometres and kilometres on the highways of Rio Grande do Sul.
all the colours of what is the least important
End of the third week. São Francisco de Paulo is one of the chilliest places in the state, particularly at night. Maína had quickly become friends with the interns. They went out to eat at the snack bar that the locals have told them is the most popular in town, to try the burger dubbed by the owner the ‘Aro Fenemê’ (after the brand of lorry wheels), a pressed sandwich (as is the custom in the region) with three kinds of sausage and five kinds of cheese served without lettuce or onion, just with one large slice of southern tomato and a lot of mayonnaise. Luisa and Henrique have stayed at the hotel with Donato. Henrique is completely attached to the boy. Luisa gets up from the bed, takes a sparkling water from the minibar. Donato is playing on the single bed that is beside the double. Henrique is watching the news. The national news is showing footage of bundles and more bundles of cruzeiro banknotes being packed up on conveyor belts on their way to the incinerator in the Central Bank, while an analyst is remarking that Brazil is the country with the third highest inflation in the world, after Zaire and Russia. Luisa asks him to turn the television off, she can’t bear it any more with this headache she’s got. In the last few days nothing has been able to lessen her migraine. Henrique says she needs to find a specialist and stop self-medicating. She changes the subject, saying how surprised she is at the Indian girl’s liveliness and that she’s thinking of a way to help her, perhaps taking her to Rio for the first term of her doctoral studies next year. Luisa knows Henrique is planning to stay in São Paulo for a bit, but vehemently rejects the idea of living in the Paulista capital herself. This has been the cause of the slight friction between the two of them. Henrique barely hears her, just lowers the volume of the set slightly so he can still catch a young, smiling economist announcing that a leading firm in the calculator sector has over the last year been investing in the production of fourteen-digit calculators where the normal would be ten, that they have been doing this purely as a response to Brazil’s current reality. Luisa sits on the bed where Donato is playing, she says that tomorrow she will do a filming session with Maína alone and, gently squeezing the boy’s toes, she tells Henrique, without making him take his eyes off the television for a single second, that the Indian girl had suggested being filmed naked when they first met.
Nine in the morning. Maína is reluctant to be filmed, says that things have changed too much these past weeks, she is no longer keen on the idea of exposing herself. Luisa suggests recording just a few minutes with Donato on her lap. Maína says that if it’s going to be with her son then she absolutely definitely won’t. Luisa says she doesn’t understand her and, laughing, turns off the camera. At noon as Maína is tidying papers and folders, Luisa films her from a distance. When she realises what is going on, Maína folds her arms, yells in Guarani, but seeing that Luisa is not going to give up, says in Portuguese (her Portuguese that is getting better and better) that it’s ok; she sets aside what she is doing and gets up and moves, half-inclined to run, to imagine something from the cinema (or what she remembers from the cinema), or possibly even to dance.
nobody reads the unexpected (second part)
The morning shower is the most dangerous moment in his day, the water beating down on his head, the relaxation in those bright surrounds of the cubicle, the waterproof white paint, the acrylic of the sliding door, positive thoughts gathering, what the doctors call a flight of ideas. Paulo is not on any medication, nor will he take any. Psychiatric treatment requires a link to the city’s health system and to the city itself that he has never wanted to establish, there is no one to take responsibility for him, a more pessimistic diagnosis might see him caught in a trap from which he might never escape. The cocker spaniel follows him around the rooms in the house. Sometimes the lady shows up and makes a comment on what he might do in order to better fulfil his role as head employee in that cheap seven-room hotel on Fitzroy Street, a two-star establishment less than a hundred and fifty metres from Euston Road and three hundred from Tottenham Court Road. He only leaves the hotel to deposit his salary in the bank, to buy toiletries; if it were up to him he would absolutely never set foot on the pavement. His job is to receive the guests who have been sent by the booking service that goes directly through the owner, an Italian who turns up there once a week; to set the tables for breakfast, served between seven-thirty and ten; and to supervise the cleaning service. Three floors and a basement, where the office and the pantry are to be found. He still cannot look directly at the sky, he can’t imagine getting into a car, going into Warren Street station, the feelings of vertigo are unbearable. In the hotel, he spends most of his time in his bedroom listening to the cassettes that the other employee, a Welsh guy, copies from the CDs he buys and passes on to him, he translates the lyrics to the songs, he gradually becomes able to read some comic books (English comics are very violent) that his colleague lends him. Sometimes Fabio, who is now manager at Café Pelican, shows up for a visit, and the effort that Paulo makes to demonstrate that he is leading a normal life is enormous. He has told no one what is going on. Sometimes his discomfort is visible, especially when Fabio, trying to cheer him up, tells him his jokes and stories of his escapades with women, where laughter is the compulsory response. The debt to the Lebanese men has been settled, Paulo never cried in front of them, never showed weakness. (Paulo does not take any medication.) One novelty is this compulsion he has to write whatever comes into his head. He thought it could be the disturbance known as hypergraphia, but he has asked the medical student who has taken up residence for a fortnight in room eleven about it, and it’s unlikely, people with that particular kind of mania can’t stop writing, he can. Writing is merely comforting. It’s not like drafting pamphlets inspired by the increase in monthly wages, student demands, the end of censorship or in favour of some trade union demand. No. It is a way of putting the day into some kind of order, of having something to do when his jobs are all done, when he cannot imagine what to do without getting anxious. He lines up his duties as though they were a chain, a row of boxes on which he places his hand on each number in sequence, he thinks about what to do, carries that out, then thinks about the next task, carries that out, in this way assuring the tranquillity of his days and saving money to return, defeated, to Brazil.