car arrived. When I went over to her, she gave me a look more of sadness than surprise, and that impenetrable sadness, which seemed to have its origins in some unending inner agony, never failed to touch me. ‘I don’t know who you are,’ she said simply and in a formal tone that somehow in no way suggested rejection. I shrugged as if to say ‘what does it matter?’ while the girl glanced down the street, no doubt imagining that her soldier would appear at any moment. But that day, to my good fortune, he must have been delayed. ‘I need to talk to you,’ I insisted. She looked at me again, slowly this time, from head to toe, as if trying to determine exactly who I was. I surmised from her look that she had judged me rightly. Oh that wicked thing, female intuition! I must also confess that I had no intention of hiding anything from her. Standing there, already somewhat distracted, she was trying to contain the only emotion holding her back: a mixture of anxiety and irritation at the imminent arrival of the man whom I presumed to be her lover. At last, she reached a decision and, taking me by the arm, said: ‘Let’s go, before he arrives.’ She said this quickly and with evident relief, and we walked down to the beach so briskly that in no time at all we found ourselves some distance from the lamppost where they had arranged to meet. As we walked we exchanged not a single word, for we felt that no explanation was necessary; the impulse that had begun our friendship was explanation enough.
“That same night, tucked away in the corner of a bar in Copacabana, she told me everything: the soldier, an army colonel, was a friend of her father’s. Or rather, his only friend. Her father had also been a soldier, and had served in a garrison in Deodoro until a terrible disaster had befallen him—a grenade going off unexpectedly. He had then retired from the army and, being of an irascible, even violent temper, he had lost all his friends and acquaintances, driven away by his angry outbursts. His injuries made matters even worse, for he was still a young man, imprisoned in his wheelchair and seething with anger. His one remaining friend was Colonel Gonçalves, Amadeu Gonçalves, who endured his old comrade’s virulent mood swings not out of friendship exactly, but . . .
“Every night they played interminable games of cards. They had started with simple games like escopa, rouba-monte, and ronda. But gradually they moved on to playing more seriously, for money, which, as the night wore on, left them flushed and excited. When the money ran out—for now they always played for money—they played for whatever was at hand: books, tables, chairs. They did this without a flicker of shame, and she allowed it to happen, because it was the only way for her father to forget his sorrows. ‘I’ll bet you this watch,’ her father would say, apoplectic with rage after a long-drawn-out defeat. The Colonel, who had more valuable items at his disposal, always kept his cool, hid his cards from prying eyes, and always won. The daughter, who was a witness to these daily spectacles, thought it would be better for her father to refrain from such unprofitable games, but she held her tongue, aware that he saw no one during the day, and that it was the Colonel who formed the only bridge between him and the outside world and kept him up-to-date on military matters with a meticulous detail that would be the envy of the very best gazettes. A judicious observer could not fail to notice a certain touch of sadism on the part of the Colonel. For example, when the subject matter was particularly thrilling, as was often the case, for the Colonel showed a truly histrionic talent—he was a man who reveled in farcical incidents, piquant details, unexpected discoveries—he would often stop suddenly and fall into a deathly silence. ‘What is it?’ her father would cry out anxiously. And slowly, rubbing his chin with his hand, the Colonel would say: ‘You know, I can’t quite remember what happened next.’ Her father would reach his hand across the table and touch his companion’s arm: ‘For the love of God, man, don’t stop now, not before you’ve told me the rest. Don’t just leave me in suspense!’ The Colonel would shake his head: ‘No, I don’t remember. It was a lance corporal who gave me that particular piece of information. I need to go and find him again.’ The father, distraught, tried to jog his memory: ‘Which lance corporal? Was it Mamede from Pernambuco?’ The Colonel smugly shook his head again. The old man spluttered: ‘In my day . . .’ And the Colonel interrupted: ‘In your day, Colonel, but these days it’s all very different. It wasn’t Mamede from Pernambuco, indeed, I’m almost certain it was Libânio from Paraná.’ ‘Ah!’ exclaimed the invalid, greatly relieved. And he would repeat, as if it were the most delightful thing in the world: ‘Libânio from Paraná!’ But the other man wouldn’t give in so easily and would once again shake his head: ‘No, no, I’m wrong, it wasn’t Libânio. Libânio was in the Third Division, and if I’m not mistaken, this story took place in São Paulo. Oh dear, this memory of mine.’ Then the father, bereft, his forehead dripping with sweat—the world, movement, the sensation of life itself were all disappearing before his eyes—would scan the almost bare room: ‘I’ll bet you that photo album over there—do you see it? It’s a family heirloom. Look carefully. It has silver clasps!’”—(At this point in his story, Senhor Valdo paused briefly. The silence was so great that we could hear the leaves rustling outside. Then he started speaking again, in a different, more emotional tone: “I well remember the last time I saw that room. It was after her father had died of a heart attack, shortly before the wedding. There was nothing left at all, and his corpse, far too thin for the uniform they’d forced his body into, lay stretched out on a mattress on the floorboards. You might say that after living so long in that cramped room, he had drained it of everything; he had gone and left nothing behind. And here’s a curious fact: it never occurred to Nina, who wept bitter tears, that she could not carry on living there after his death. She still hadn’t given me a definite ‘yes,’ and her life, seen from outside, resembled a strange, disturbing adventure. I should have mentioned that the window looked onto a stretch of the Glória seafront: through it wafted a gentle sea breeze and you caught glimpses of the unexpectedly blue water, the one luxury left to adorn that humble death.”)—Senhor Valdo went on: “On hearing the old man’s proposal, the Colonel deliberately played for time: ‘What would I do with an album with silver clasps? It’s the sort of thing that could only be of interest to your family.’ The father began to grovel and beg: ‘I’ll bet you that chair over there, then. It’s the last one, you know. Or that Panama hat you like. Or I’ll bet . . .’ (and his gaze ran desperately around the room, then returned to the table, stopping at his own hands). ‘I’ll bet my wedding ring!’ Sometimes, in the silence broken only by the ticking of the clock, the Colonel would give in and tell him the rest of the story. Then it was as if a river of light flowed invisibly through the room. At other times, though, hard, immovable and as silent as the grave, he would simply leave. On those occasions the father would sleep badly, tossing and turning, waking up shouting in the middle of the night: ‘What is it? Where’s the Minister? Who took the message?’ When he returned to his senses, he would apologize to his daughter, sip a glass of water and wash his face. ‘Colonel Amadeu didn’t tell me everything. Lord, what suffering. It’s like being condemned to death,’ he would say.
“Now, it was in the midst of one of these stories that the most incredible bet of all took place. Colonel Amadeu had stopped telling one of his tales at a key moment, just as he was about to reveal some great political intrigue in which government ministers and generals were implicated. An ex-Minister of War, plotting against the new government, had been secretly transporting arms to a far-flung region of Mato Grosso, where he was training a bunch of badly-paid half-castes and Indians to form a small rebel army who would trigger the revolt, in conjunction with key underground cells established at various locations across the country. It had all been carefully planned by many fine army men, Colonel Amadeu assured him, nodding his head mysteriously. In this intrigue, somewhat improbably, the father himself had figured, for according to the Colonel, ‘they needed him to provide certain reports, and to carry out certain checks that should properly be exercised outside the purview of the Ministry.’ The father was thrilled by this sudden possibility that he might be needed—him, a cripple!—and that he might, even at a distance, play a small part in events which proved, even after his long years as a retiree and an invalid, that he still existed and that in the world of his former comrades, where all that was meaningful in his life had occurred, they still remembered him and valued his contribution. Daydreaming and with his eyes half-shut, he could almost hear them: ‘General, it’s that colonel who had the accident—don’t you remember? The one who served for many years at the district headquarters. A splendid
