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
