without remembering the garden that was once ours. I want you never to wait for anyone else without remembering how you would wait for me on that bench where we used to meet. I want you always to remember the warmth of my body and the things I said when you took me in your arms. I want . . .”
I slowly knelt down. With almost frightening strength, fueled by a kind of yearning, she forced me to lay my head on her breast, to brush her cheek and her lips with my lips. But little by little, the pressure waned and, exhausted, she let her head droop to one side, her eyes closed.
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The last night I saw her . . .
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When I learned that Timóteo, my uncle, had been asked to leave the room and that it was now empty, I went straight there in order to say my final farewell. On the threshold I saw a figure with his back turned to me and realized at once that it was my father. He turned around as soon I approached and he seemed to me to have aged considerably, although he was still very erect and had the same irritatingly smug air of the country gentleman. I don’t understand why I felt so drawn to him just then—given that we didn’t even speak when we passed in the hallway. I think I’m right in saying, though, that only then did I fully grasp that the Meneses as a family no longer existed. I had come to say goodbye to a corpse—and, for a few seconds, it was that man who held my gaze, as if I had suddenly stumbled upon a dead body. A dead stranger, whom I had never seen before and did not know, who, as far as I was concerned, had no name and no identity. I stood rooted to the spot, anxiously asking myself if that feeling of estrangement was not the result of a long, patient process of separation. But, as I say, the odd thing was that I regarded him with an indifference that was there in my flesh, my blood, my nerves—I regarded him as if he were a being from another world whom we struggle to clothe in some kind of humanity. Perhaps drawn by my gaze, he walked toward me, but the coffin lay between us—then, automatically, and almost without being able to take his eyes off me, he approached the dead woman, removed the sheet covering her face and stared down at her. With that gesture, his humanity returned to him—and I felt sure that I was face to face with a complete stranger.
As soon as he moved away, I went straight over to the coffin and stopped short: it had been made by Senhor Juca and was a very simple affair, with metal handles and a plain fabric lining. Wrapped in a sheet, the body lay there without so much as a flower to adorn it. Perhaps she herself had requested that bare, Spartan simplicity.
Unhurriedly, and as timidly as if I were disobeying some secret law, I bent over and lifted one corner of the sheet. That was the first time I had ever seen the face of a corpse, and I had the strangest feeling, as if a distant, delicate music were playing inside my mind. How could a human face change so quickly! Her gentle, perfect features had suffered a violent transformation, from her almost excessively long eyelashes, to her pale, almost too broad forehead and the exaggerated curve of her nostrils, which lent her an unexpectedly semitic appearance. Rigor mortis had placed around that face an impenetrable aura. Death was clearly no joking matter; in death, the original being, roughly shaped out of clay by God’s hands, cast off all disguises to triumphantly reveal its true essence. It was clear, too, that there was nothing more to be said between us. Any unspoken words were useless now, as were any caresses not bestowed and the flowers with which we could still adorn her. Free now, she rested there in a state of ultimate purity. Everything, apart from fury and acceptance, was pointless. No answers, as if we creatures deserved nothing but mourning and injustice; it all ended there. And everything that had existed had been only a dream, a magnificent, fleeting sensory illusion. Nothing could ever remove the heavy weight pressing on my heart, and in that ruin already touched by corruption I found it hard to recognize the person who had once been the object of my love, and no tears came into my eyes, not even tears of pity.
In the same unhurried way in which I had lifted the corner of the sheet, I bent over and kissed the woman’s cheek—as I had done so many, many times before—but this time I felt the kiss was meaningless and that I no longer knew her.
First Letter from Nina to Valdo Meneses
. . . Don’t be alarmed, Valdo, to find this letter among your papers. I know you haven’t expected any news from me in a long time, and that you essentially consider me to be dead. Ah, how things change in this world. With an effort of will that paralyzes the hand I’m writing with, I can even see you sitting with your brother and your sister-in-law on the verandah, as you used to do, and in between two long silences, I can hear you saying: “Poor Nina ended up taking the only path that lay open to her . . .” And Demétrio, who has never taken any interest in other people’s problems, folds up his newspaper and looks out at the garden with a sigh: “I warned you, Valdo, but you wouldn’t listen to the voice of reason.” (Yes, “the voice of reason,” those would be his exact words, with his usual lack of modesty when it comes to talking about himself.) Ana perhaps says nothing, her abstracted gaze fixed on the sky growing gradually dark as night falls. And so it has been for years and years, because the Meneses family is very sparing with its gestures and has rarely ever instigated anything. And suddenly, on the usual dust covering your bedside reading, you will find this letter. It might take you a while to recognize the writing and it might also take you a while to think: “It’s that poor woman Nina again,” while your heart beats a little faster.
For once in your life, Valdo, you will be right. That “poor woman Nina,” even poorer now, is once again standing humbly at your door, having sniffed her way home like a dog abandoned on the road. I should perhaps warn you that women like me are very hard to kill off, and you’ll have to make a few attempts before I actually disappear. But don’t worry, my dear, my objective this time is very simple, and once I’ve gotten what I want, I will return once more to the silence and distance to which the Meneses family relegated me. I don’t intend to return to the Chácara (although I do, sometimes, on a wave of nostalgia, remember the quiet drawing room, the imposing sideboard laden with dusty silverware, and above it, the painting of The Last Supper, which does not quite cover the obvious mark left by the portrait of Maria Sinhá that used to hang there long ago), nor, indeed, do I intend ever again to use the name of which you are so proud, and which for me merely marked the beginning of a series of errors and mistakes. No, I want only to reclaim what I judge to be rightfully mine. You once said to me that people who are always demanding their rights show a lack of love, which might be true in part, because despite all the love that may perhaps still exist between us, time has not changed me, Valdo, and although you may often have misinterpreted both me and my actions, I believe there is still a remnant in your heart of the sentiment that first brought us together—and, given my current situation, I feel it only right that I should demand the things I believe to be my due. You are doubtless looking a little alarmed now, asking yourself what those things could be—and I should, at this point, remind you that we are only separated, that there has been no legal separation, something so repugnant to your brother Demétrio, always so wary of anything that might tarnish the honorable family name. It is, therefore, only logical that I should enjoy the same help I would expect were I still by your side. Now do you see what I’m getting at? In the eyes of the law, I am still your wife, and while, during all this time, I haven’t received a single penny from you and you have proved tight-fisted almost to the point of propelling me into poverty, it is still your duty to watch over me and help me in difficult times.
I can see your furrowed brow, the suspicious expression you always adopt on these occasions, and the false accusations you’re storing up in your mind. I can foresee the suppositions and suspicions you have about the life I lead and my current situation. Don’t worry, Valdo, I’m not coming to you in order to satisfy mere whims or so that I can afford
