there, by the steps.”
She stopped for a moment. Then, without betraying any of the emotion she must certainly have been feeling, she asked:
“Is it serious his condition? Is it very serious? How is he now? Is there any hope?”
She asked all these questions one after the other, without giving me time to answer her first question. I was still more struck by the fact that she had no doubt whatsoever as to the gravity of what had taken place, despite her apparent calm and even coolness. There may have been one or two tremors in her voice, but I put this down to a certain degree of suppressed irritation at events that had doubtless disrupted her carefully-laid plans. It was easy enough to tell what those plans were: she was on the point of leaving the Chácara, probably hoping to say goodbye to it forever, and that “reckless” incident had prevented her from doing so at the very moment of her departure.
“Please,” she continued, without giving me time to say anything, “I heard that it was nothing, merely carelessness . . . but I have to say that the person who told me that is not to be trusted. When he said it was merely a reckless accident, I immediately thought Valdo might die this very night. Is there such a danger, Doctor?”
This time she sounded almost anxious. When she stopped speaking, I noticed that she was breathing hard as if she had just returned from a long walk. What a strange woman, I thought, and wondered what peculiar feelings stirred in the depths of her soul. I shook my head and, sensing that she was hanging on my every word, said:
“No, there’s absolutely no danger of that. It’s only a superficial wound.”
“Superficial!” she cried. “Do you mean he isn’t fatally wounded, Doctor? Betty told me she had to clean up a large pool of blood from the drawing room floor. When I heard that, I imagined he must already be at death’s door.”
“No, he is very far from that.”
“Oh,” she exclaimed, “so it’s true then. Demétrio was right. It was merely a foolish gesture, an act of . . .”
She stopped and bowed her head. For a few moments, she remained silent, lost in thought. The wind caught a few strands of hair that had escaped from beneath her beret. But when she looked up again, she suddenly gave a laugh that echoed through the shadowy garden. I shuddered, sensing the repressed malice my words had unleashed.
“So,” she said, “that’s how they want to play it. Well, they don’t fool me. They clearly do not know me or what I’m capable of. Tell me, Doctor, now that we’re alone, what did he say, what lies did he invent about me? Did he mention anything about a gardener . . .”
She clapped her hand over her mouth as if wanting to catch those words spoken seemingly involuntarily.
“Who do you mean?” I asked.
“Valdo. Who else?”
I explained that Senhor Valdo was not yet able to speak, due to the shock he had suffered and the large quantity of blood he had lost. She murmured: “So he lost a lot of blood, then,” and continued rather absently to listen to what I was saying, as if the subject no longer interested her very much. As soon as I finished speaking, and seeing that she had not moved, I wasn’t sure whether I should stay or go, and I had just decided it would be best to leave when her apparent indifference abruptly turned into a state of great agitation, stopping me in my tracks. As if suddenly waking up, she hid her face in her hands, crying and laughing at the same time. Then, overcome by emotion, she leaned against a tree letting her arms droop despondently by her sides, and repeated over and over: “Oh, my God! Oh, my God!” I tried to intervene, and went as far as to reach out my arm to comfort her, but nothing seemed capable of drawing her out of that agitated state and so I decided to do nothing, like someone waiting patiently for a tornado to pass. Eventually, she calmed down, resting her head against the trunk. The moonlight fell directly on her face, and I could see the tears streaming down it. I suspected that such distress had no ordinary cause, and realized from her slightly swollen body that she must be pregnant. Ah, how beautiful she was! A hundred thousand times more beautiful than before, more beautiful than all the women I had ever seen.
“I think you would be better . . .” I mumbled.
She gave me a look that seemed to contain all the feelings ravaging her soul:
“Don’t give me any advice, Doctor. I don’t need advice, and I don’t want anyone to concern themselves with my life.”
At the same time, she silently contradicted these words by linking arms with me and drawing me along with her toward the end of the avenue, where the fence separated the garden from the road. The sand crunched beneath our feet, and great pools of moonlight alternated with great pools of darkness. I don’t know why (perhaps I was already under the influence of the restless atmosphere in the Chácara), but I was afraid someone might see me in such close proximity to that woman; for there was no doubt that she was someone who paid little heed to convention. But there was in her beauty (for, from time to time, I was able to cast a furtive glance at her), a hint of tragedy. As we walked, she told me her story, although her words were so garbled, so jumbled by emotion, that I could scarcely grasp their meaning.
After an argument with Valdo, she had that very day decided to leave the Chácara forever. Or rather, she had already decided this some time before, when she found out she was pregnant. However, she had not taken this decision lightly; on the contrary, she had thought about it long and hard, for it would indeed be the end of a period of relative tranquility in her life, “relative” because she was sure she could never be entirely happy living with the Meneses, although she had done her best to cope, by moving away from the house and into the Pavilion. She sensed, however, that her presence was displeasing to Demétrio, and he had been the cause of her last argument with Valdo. Because Demétrio had invented the most fantastical stories about her. Oh, she knew very well that he only wanted to get rid of her: he was afraid of the soon-to-be-born future heir of the Chácara. At least that’s what she thought, since she could find no other reason for her brother-in-law’s peculiar attitude toward her. They had, at times, even argued about whether or not the child should be born at the Chácara. Valdo was opposed to her leaving and implored, even threatened her, but Demétrio, claiming that there were no adequate medical facilities in either Vila Velha or the surrounding area, insisted that she should leave and wait in Rio for the child to be born. She had hesitated because of her husband, but had then suddenly felt so very weary of it all that she had decided to leave. When he saw her mind was made up, Valdo had turned very pale: “Is there no other way, Nina? Are you really leaving?” No, there was no other way; she was leaving. Then he had compounded his brother’s insults with one great, definitive insult of his own: “I don’t know why God punished me by making me fall in love with and choose a prostitute to be the mother of my son. Because that’s what you are, Nina. It’s written all over your face, branded on your forehead: you’re one of those sluts who follow men in the streets . . .” She had sprung angrily to her feet, and it was there and then that she had decided to pack her bags and leave the Pavilion where she had, albeit briefly, been so happy. Now she was determined to put an end to this charade, once and for all. There was no love between them; there was nothing at all. He had met her at a time of great difficulty for her, when her father was ill, and as soon as her father had died, Valdo had showered her with love and attention and convinced her she should accompany him to the Chácara. That was all. Since she’d arrived, however, she had realized that she would not be able to live there for very long. She was from Rio and used to life in a big city. Here, everything displeased her: the silence, the local customs, even the landscape. She missed the restaurants, the hustle and bustle, the cars, the closeness to the sea. Taking advantage of a brief pause—we had almost reached the fence by then—I asked what kind of feeling it was that bound her to Senhor Valdo if it was
