Valdo,” I exclaimed, “how can you imagine such a thing? No one was plotting against you. They didn’t even mention you!”
“Ah,” and he gave a rather strained laugh. “So what were they doing then, shut up in his room?”
“Senhor Timóteo asked me to bring him a bottle of champagne.”
“A bottle of champagne!” he cried in horror. “But my wife never drinks. Why today?”
I shrugged:
“I know nothing about that, Senhor Valdo. I merely carry out orders.”
He looked at me again, repeating the word “champagne,” and his thoughts were obviously far away. Then a mischievous glint appeared in his eyes.
“You can get back to your normal duties, Betty, there will be no champagne.”
“Why not?” I asked hesitantly.
He laughed:
“Because I have the key to the cellar.”
I felt I should take a sterner stance:
“But what will they think, Senhor Valdo? I really don’t believe it’s right for a Meneses . . .”
He was already moving away, but at the name “Meneses,” he turned:
“What will they think, what will they say?”
I corrected myself:
“She might think we’re mean. And she would be right, Senhor Valdo. After all . . .”
“After all what, Betty? Why do they need champagne? They want to get drunk, do they?”
“No, not drunk. How can you think such a thing of her . . . of your wife? Senhor Timóteo is simply pleased to have met Dona Nina.”
He shook his head, as if unsure what to do. For a moment, seeing him standing obstinately before me, I thought it was merely a matter of jealousy, one of those spats that seem to be commonplace between newlyweds. But then, when he spoke again, I realized there was something more serious troubling him.
“It isn’t as innocent as it seems, Betty. Timóteo will not rest until he has destroyed us all.”
There was such certainty in his voice that, for a moment, I thought perhaps he was right, that the normally reserved Timóteo really might be plotting some treachery. What was he planning? Why had he told me to fetch champagne? What kind of alliance was he trying to forge with the newcomer? And I thought about that room, its suffocating atmosphere and the way in which Senhor Timóteo had spoken to me.
“Here it is,” said Senhor Valdo, handing me the key to the wine cellar. “Fetch the champagne.”
And then, as if he could no longer contain his innermost feelings, he blurted out:
“Take it to them and tell him he can besmirch the family name for all I care, but if he so much as touches Nina . . .”
He left the sentence hanging and made a threatening gesture. I had never seen him so angry; he, who never lost his composure and never got carried away, was suddenly overwhelmed by rage. And yet, strangely, his fury was merely a display of his own powerlessness. True, the mistress was in his brother’s bedroom, the brother whom everyone considered a reprobate, but if Senhor Valdo had been brave enough, it would not have been so very hard for him to open the door and tell his wife to leave that place of dissolution. Why did he not do that, instead of prowling furiously around outside the room and talking to me, when I had nothing to do with the matter and was in no way responsible for what was happening? He stared at me dumbly, and I could see that there was no peace in his heart: his troubled eyes betrayed the contradictory emotions battling away inside him. When he saw I was about to leave, he went on:
“Yes, tell him . . . You can even say . . .”
He stopped in mid-sentence, as if he had run out of breath, then leaned against the wall, bowing his head.
“Enough is enough,” he said. “It doesn’t matter. She hates us all far too much to accept him as a friend.”
He said this as if it were the last of his confessions, and left as abruptly as he had appeared. I stood watching him, and it seemed to me that he stumbled slightly as he walked. Somewhat apprehensively, I went and fetched the champagne. And despite everything, my hands were trembling, my whole being was trembling, and I didn’t know who I should believe: that strange creature who kissed me and called me “her friend,” or that man who had suddenly revealed to me his intense suffering.
8th – Today, for the second time in two days, the mistress returned to Senhor Timóteo’s room. There was no champagne, but a modest pot of tea, which I prepared. Unable to forget Senhor Valdo’s words, I confess that I was surprised by this second visit so soon after the first. While I was serving tea, I tried to linger longer than usual, in order to gauge the degree of intimacy that had grown up between these two new friends. What could two such different people find to talk about? At first, they chatted about our town, Vila Velha—and she complained about its bad roads, saying that while there had been improvements made in Mercês, Queimados, and Rio Espera, there was no sign of anything similar happening in Vila Velha. Senhor Timóteo agreed, laying the blame on the mayor, who, in his opinion, was a fool and a thief. Gradually, though, I saw that, beneath the apparent superficiality of that conversation, there existed between them a mutual understanding—it was as if they had talked long and hard and reached an agreement on some matter of great importance. Without knowing quite why, my heart contracted. What would he be capable of, that man whom others said was not quite right in the head, and who did indeed behave like someone mentally ill? He might not be dangerously mad, but who knew what he might do? Immersed in these sad thoughts, I pulled a small table into the middle of the room. I also noticed that, at one point, they stopped talking, as if waiting for me to leave—and on purpose and in order to affirm my independence, I began painstakingly polishing the cups, occasionally glancing across at the mistress and at Senhor Timóteo. Then Dona Nina said something I didn’t quite catch, but which must have been very funny, because Senhor Timóteo erupted in a series of muffled laughs, exclamations and yelps. Then, as if they had noticed my determination not to leave, they began another boring, banal conversation about fashion or some other such nonsense. The conversation changed then and became faster, more energetic. They were talking about the Chácara, and Senhor Timóteo launched into a passionate description of what the garden used to look like. Dona Nina grew equally passionate and said that flowers were the thing she loved best in the world. No jewel, no diamond, no turquoise was worth as much to her as a few rosebuds about to open. Senhor Timóteo suggested that this was perhaps because she had been brought up in a city. Dona Nina was not sure what the reason was, but spoke nostalgically about the flowers that a friend, a colonel, used to bring her. She concluded, saying:
“They were so lovely, the roses. But they are not my favorite flower.”
“What’s your favorite, then?” asked Senhor Timóteo, sipping the tea I had poured him.
“Violets,” she said. (And I remember that, suddenly, as if her thoughts had entered some shadowy zone, her eyes grew dark. And her voice, abandoning its earlier frivolous tone, became suddenly more serious.). “Timóteo, will you promise me one thing?”
“Anything, my angel.”
“I’m sure that I
