glimpse of Timóteo when he returned from town with some of his friends. In my room at the end of the hallway I could hear the sound of their laughter and talk wafting up from the garden. (I should say, out of respect for the truth, that Timóteo almost always arrived home completely drunk—he was an utter wastrel, who squandered the money left him by his father, mocked his brothers’ meanness and generally heaped scorn on them.) This behavior infuriated my husband and, once, when he burst in on one of Timóteo’s private parties, he told him a few harsh truths, the kind, I imagine, that should and can be said only once.
Timóteo laughed and said that his brother was nothing but a puffed-up fool; and as for the Meneses, who were, Demétrio felt, sullied by Timóteo’s behavior, they were merely the rotting shoots of a family doubtless of bastard origins. My husband started shouting then, and for some reason, he mentioned the Baron, perhaps because, in our household, regardless of the circumstances, his name is unavoidable. “He’ll never come here,” sneered Timóteo. “Do you really think a nobleman would cross our grubby threshold?” I must confess that I had never before seen Demétrio in such a rage; all the insults Timóteo had come out with up until then were as nothing compared to that. From then on, their shouted exchanges became so wild, so frenetic, that I couldn’t understand what they were saying; feeling frightened, I left my room and heard my husband threatening to take away Timóteo’s inheritance and, if he continued to live as he did then, to have him locked up in a lunatic asylum. In some families, “inheritance” is a sacred word never to be taken in vain. There was a pause, and the tension eased. But I think Timóteo’s strange decision never to leave his room dates from then, fearful lest his brother should carry out his threat. Perhaps, deep down, the Chácara does mean something to him as well—perhaps inheritance is a disease of the blood. Those stones form the inner fabric of the family; the Meneses are made of concrete and whitewash, just as other families pride themselves on the nobility of their blood.
And of course I met Timóteo on other occasions too; I particularly remember walking down the hallway one afternoon and seeing him peer around his bedroom door. He stared at me for some time with a look of complete and utter disdain, then he laughed: “You’re a Meneses too.” And as if suddenly recollecting that I had been a witness to that earlier angry scene, he added: “You can tell my brother that his dream will never come true: the Baron will never set foot in this house.” I didn’t pass on these words, but one day (recently in fact), Demétrio again mentioned the Baron, and I commented, without really thinking about it, that he would never come to the Chácara. He turned on me, eyes blazing: “The only person you can have heard that from is my fool of a brother! He’s doubtless planning to besmirch our name forever, but I won’t let him leave this house as long I’m alive. He’s basically an atheist, a revolutionary, a man who believes in nothing—he would be better off dead than trying to destroy the Meneses name with his dissolute lifestyle . . .” I bowed my head, sorry I had ever spoken.
So you see, Father, that is the lens through which I have always viewed the family of which I am a member. I began this long parenthesis as a way of explaining my own role in everything that happened subsequently and in order to beat my breast, convinced of my own guilt . . .)
It is hard to continue my confession, especially, as I said, because what I am setting down is not so much an indisputable truth as a presentiment. I cannot pinpoint at what precise moment the transformation occurred—but she was here among us, having arrived only shortly before, and was already making her influence felt in the febrile times we lived in then. I had always gotten on well with my husband, even though I did not love him. That, Father, is the first time I have ever said those words, which seem to come stumbling to meet me, strange and rebellious—but if I cannot tell you the secret that has lived inside me all this time, who can I tell? As I say, I did not love him and never have, indeed, sometimes, I almost hated him—that is the sad truth. But ever since I came to this house like a fruit picked when still green, I had remained green and slightly hard, with a few bruises and lacerations here and there, but intact, preserved—and for me, the world was stuck fast in that permanent state of coldness and deceit. Until the moment when, standing in front of my mirror, I suddenly understood my husband’s look and saw in it all the disdain he felt for me. I didn’t feel humiliated exactly, or unhappy, because I didn’t care what he thought about me. But that look, born of such anger, somehow revealed to me the palpable reality surrounding me: I woke up and, for the first time, looked around in astonishment, not quite understanding what was happening. What surprised me most was the silence; I had never known such stillness, a complete absence of rhythms and dissonances; it was icy and fluid, as slippery as the sleep of death—and that was what alerted me to my own mediocrity. There must be a place in hell for the mediocre, and Satan himself, trident aloft and looking down on his inert prey, must ask himself, slightly perplexed: “What am I supposed to do with this thing, when its mere presence makes even suffering dwindle in intensity?”
I looked in the mirror then and was startled by my pale skin, my dark clothes, my inelegance. I repeat, and will do ad infinitum: this was the first time such a thing had happened to me, and I was gazing at my own image as if at a complete stranger. This could have lasted no more than a minute—that was me, that being looking at herself in the mirror, my eyes, my hands, my silently moving lips . . .—and I must confess, Father, it wasn’t fear, anger, or resentment that so abruptly turned me against my husband. After that look, which had woken me up to the real world, he did not leave the room, doubtless waiting to see the effect of his words. He had gone over to the window, and I went after him, grabbed his arm and shook him furiously: “You despise me, don’t you? You despise me!” He pushed me away nervously, impatiently, and as if sensing the approaching storm, asked uneasily: “What’s gotten into you today? I’ve never seen you like this before . . .” Never. I stood there like a pathetic creature abandoned by its creator. I could easily have retorted that I had never felt like that before, either. My whole being was filled by the most disparate, intoxicating feelings. I said: “It’s Nina you adore, isn’t it? I’ve seen the way you look at her . . .” I said this slowly, as if someone were whispering the words to me. He turned pale, looked deep into my eyes, then shouted: “You must be mad! Wherever did you get that idea?” I don’t know what I said in reply, but the effort was too much for me and I collapsed onto a chair, sobbing and laughing at the same time, covering my face with my hands. By the time I had calmed down, he was no longer in the room.
Ever since that moment I have felt like a different woman. Oh, I continued to live like everyone else, as I always had up until then, but a fire burned ceaselessly inside me. Whatever I did, whatever distractions I came up with, I couldn’t take my eyes off my sister-in-law. She was so beautiful, so different from me. Everything about her was bright and animated. She was surrounded by an aura of interest and sympathy, whereas I was an opaque, clumsy being, plumped down in the world, with no gifts of warmth or communication. One day, I found her sitting in the sun, combing her hair, and I went over to her and, on an irresistible impulse, ran my hand over her hair. She started at my touch and spun around; when she saw it was me, she hesitated, then smiled: “Do you think I have pretty hair?” she asked. I rather shamefacedly said that I did, but dared not go any closer. And yet what a whirlwind was in my heart! “I always take very good care of my hair,” she said with an almost voluptuous nonchalance. “Men love pretty hair.” She shook her head, making her beautifully combed, coppery locks ripple and shine in the sunlight. “See?” she said. And she went on mischievously: “They like to stroke hair like mine, to rub their face and lips on it . . .” She looked at me and, seeing my embarrassment, concluded: “But men are terrible creatures, aren’t they!” “Shut up!” I cried, tormented by an unbearable feeling of unease. She got up then and came over to me: “You wish you were like me, don’t you? Come, admit it, what wouldn’t you give to have hair like mine?” I felt my eyes filling with tears. Nina must have realized she had gone too far, because she moved a few steps away in silence, then said: “Forgive me, I sometimes forget who I’m talking to . . .” Her kindness wounded me more than her previous words. For a few days, we avoided speaking to each other or even meeting, but the truth is that I never lost sight of her, I followed her like a shadow, peered through shutters, through half-open doors, through windows, wherever
