Red: A Love Story Page 8

  Marisa turned the key in the lock a fraction of an inch at a time, gently pushed the door and stepped inside. She tiptoed, but halfway into the kitchen she could already hear the TV blabbering. Marisa surrendered. When she entered the living room, the Louis XIV-style décor unfolded its prairies of Savonnerie rugs abloom. The place held more paintings than walls, and the excesses were disorienting like a stereogram. The question was which unexpected image would emerge from that entanglement of sideboards covered in embroidered mats and china, cabinets pregnant with relics, and small tables eclipsed by a constellation of Czech crystal miniatures.

  Perhaps a monster with two Sèvres cups for eyes.

  In the bookcase, a collection of framed pictures competed for real estate with the TV. Opposite the bookcase was the blue sofa, and on the blue sofa was the mother. Stiff as a rock, she watched a romantic comedy on the cable channel. Her hair bun, so tight it almost called for self-punishment, compensated for the folds of the beige robe that lately had become too loose. Her eyes resembled her daughter’s, their light-brown hue highlighted by thick eyelashes. The difference resided in the irises, which darkened visibly along with her mood.

  At that very moment, the mother fixed on Marisa a pair of very dark eyes.

  “You are late.”

  “I had to stay a little longer at Valentina’s to review math equations. You know I have a hard time with trigonometry.”

  The mother didn’t tolerate well points of view diverging from her own. And, in her view, the equation at hand had nothing to do with trigonometry. She didn’t even need to open her mouth to announce the bad weather coming. But naturally she opened it.

  As the star couple reconciled amid tears on TV, her voice rose above the saccharine soundtrack: “This is becoming unbearable. You’re hardly home these days and never answer my calls. Do you think I was born yesterday? I know you and that weirdo are up to something.”

  “Will you stop calling my friend like that?” Marisa forgot about her intent to smooth things over. She could barely restrain her exasperation. “We’ve had this conversation a million times. Is it so hard to understand I need to study if I ever want to get to college? I’d love to spend the whole day watching TV like you do.”

  “Show me some respect, girl. If your father were alive—”

  Onscreen, the movie couple now exchanged a passionate look and declared: I love you.

  “I know, I know.” Marisa rolled her eyes and assumed a sarcastic tone. “But Dad is not alive, is he? And you didn’t even allow me to attend the funeral. How could you do that to me? Do you know what your problem is? You just don’t get me.”

  At those words, the mother’s eyes sparked and her nostrils quivered. She punched a cushion.

  “I’ve had it up to here with your taunts, do you hear me? After all I’ve done for you… Well, let me tell you: if you can’t, or won’t understand what happened, just pack up and leave. I wash my hands of this.”

  “Yeah, wash your hands of everything, as usual!”

  The music soared to a climax of violins, and the TV couple walked hand in hand on a beautiful Tuscany plain.

  Marisa bolted to the bedroom. It was her temple, all white, with the view of a lavender trumpet tree from the window. Next to the Jim Morrison poster above the bed lingered the inscription Marisa had recently made after watching a Werner Herzog film. The big letters, scribbled with a thick black marker, leaped out from the wall.

  Every man for himself and God against them all.

  Her face burned. Her eyes burned. Trembling, Marisa grabbed the cell phone from her purse and called Marco. As soon as he answered, she emptied her heart. When her dad was alive, he acted as a point of balance in the family with his easygoing smile. If Marisa and the mother quarreled, he soon made them laugh with a joke or took the two out for ice cream, which could cure any hurt. He possessed the serenity of a man who didn’t need to prove anything to anyone. For years Marisa’s relationship with her mother oscillated between harmony and friction, but now her mom was like a stranger. Even worse, she seemed hostile. What kind of mother told her own daughter to pack and leave?

  “Your mom didn’t mean it, Mari,” said Marco. “She must be feeling lonely and insecure. She wishes you well and worries about you, but doesn’t know how to communicate that. If you step into her shoes, it’s easier to understand. She’s very unhappy. And when people are like that, they dry out because they feel deprived: they can’t even be generous toward themselves, let alone toward others. Your mom will eventually get over her grief and this will pass.”

  “Do you really think so? I wonder… when I see Valentina’s mom, always so affectionate…”

  “I’m sure. For the first time, both of you are learning to live with each other without your father. Look at the situation as an opportunity to get closer to your mom. Everything is going to be fine, and one day you won’t even remember this. But now you need to calm down. Want to go for a walk?”

  Marisa agreed with relief. While changing to go out, she turned the MP3 player on and chose a selection by the band Air. Once Upon a Time began playing. She raised the volume until drowning the sound of the TV in the living room.

  Marco took her to the distant Park of Carmo, which sheltered centennial trees and native Atlantic Forest. They went around the lake and sat under a palm tree, watching the herons, swans and teals in the water. Marco pointed to a grove on a hill in the distance and explained it was cherry trees. They blossomed for two weeks in the beginning of springtime. So Marco and Marisa planned a picnic there for next year, under the blooming cherry trees. They dreamt of a poem with rosy branches on the blue page of the sky, of wine and fruit, artisan breads and chocolate… and got hungry. They decided to have lunch at a Japanese restaurant he knew.

  “Thanks, Marco,” said Marisa when they reached the parking lot at the Carmo entrance. “I’m feeling better already.”

  “Family quarrels are normal. In the end, you and your mom will be okay, believe me.”

  “I don’t know. After her fit she kept a long face and wouldn’t even ask where I was going.” She sighed. “Maybe she was calmer.”

  The restaurant occupied a house surrounded by residences and other establishments in the Liberdade Asian district, which bordered Downtown. A white sign with black ideograms identified the place for those who knew Japanese. Marisa proceeded first, walking along a stone path in the garden with a fountain. The murmur of water merged with clients’ low voices when she stepped into a compact room. A golden fish aquarium shone near the entrance, and dim lights trickled across the sushi counter and a dozen tables. Following Marco’s instructions, Marisa climbed the stairs in the back and chose a private room on the upper floor. She left her shoes outside, as required by custom, sitting down on the tatami to wait for Marco.

  He showed up minutes later. They ordered a sushi special, then watered it with cold sake. The alcohol turned Marisa’s heart into a merry song and her hands into butter. In the competition that ensued between Marisa and the chopsticks, three were the rounds. In the first the chopsticks, agile gymnasts forged in Eastern soil, executed an acrobatic turn and flew from her hands. Chopsticks scored one point. In the second, she tried using them again and gave a demonstration of clumsiness. Chopsticks scored another point. In the third round, a sauce stain the size of Australia covered Marisa’s white dress. Chopsticks won with flying colors, clap, clap, clap, clap.

  She headed for the restroom to clean herself. It took her a while... and another while. Marisa returned with her dress white again and her face flushed with excitement, two shades above sake-pink.

  “Marco, guess who’s in the room next door.”

  “Who?”

  “The Siamutt. And here comes the best part…” She made a dramatic pause. “He’s got company.”

  A Siamutt would be the cross between a Siamese and a stray cat. That’s how the school director, Bre
no Belvedere, carried himself with his expensive suits and aristocratic pretension. He bore watery blue eyes, a stature that remained indecisive between tall and short, and thinning brown hair. The difference between a Siamutt and Belvedere was that the Siamutt looked cute.

  Marco didn’t seem too impressed with the news.

  “Let me guess. You saw Belvedere with the new librarian, right? Pale, black hair, old-fashioned clothes and thick glasses?”

  “That’s right. Celeste. How did you know?” Marisa sounded disappointed with his lukewarm reaction.

  “I’m not blind.”

  Marco had once caught Belvedere morphing into the leading man from a bad soap opera as he discreetly performed a romantic scene in the library.

  “He should get a lesson,” said Marco. “Such a hypocrite. Posing as a saint to the shrew he has for a wife. Preaching the virtue at school and intervening even in the female students’ clothes. Who does he thinks he is? The Pope? Christian Dior?”

  Marisa laughed and almost spilled more soy sauce on her clothes. Then her face clouded over: they’d better leave. She feared being recognized in spite of the wig. The check was requested, settled and returned to a Brazilian lady in a geisha disguise, owner of smooth hands and swift feet.

  When they were about to exit, however, Marco retained Marisa. He put one index finger to his mouth, asking for silence, and whispered: “Let’s give him a fright.”

  “What?”

  “Let’s hide his shoes,” said Marco, and pointed to a pair of black moccasins lying in the hallway.

  They exchanged a look of complicity, then smiled. Marisa returned to their private room. Marco glided over the floor with the stealth of a ninja and snatched the shoes. They split their prize. Marisa searched for a place to hide the left shoe assigned to her. She slid it under a pile of cushions in the corner, but the pile tipped over like a ridiculous Leaning Tower of Pisa and denounced the shoe.

  Marisa retrieved the moccasin and turned back as Marco flung his load out of the window. A muffled noise signaled when the trajectory of the footwear was interrupted by an awning. Marisa’s jaw dropped. Marco snatched the other shoe from her hands and, before she had a chance to close her mouth, threw it over the neighbor’s roof. Another thud, sharp this time, consummated the crime.

  The two of them tiptoed across the hallway, accelerated down the stairs and said goodbye to the geisha in the reception without pausing. They darted onto the street and only came to a halt on the corner, panting and laughing. Then they exchanged a cinematographic kiss.

  The school director, on the other hand, found himself in a very tight corner while trying to explain to his wife where he had lost his shoes.

  11. Close Encounter of the Third Kind

  It is said the prohibited is exciting. In their case it wasn’t. At school, Marco and Marisa barely spoke to each other, for they feared their intimacy would transpire in their eyes and in their voices. In certain moments, though, when no one was watching, they sent caresses at a distance. And text messages.

  Marco: You look gorgeous in turquoise. I like your top.

  Marisa: It’s new. I bought it thinking of you.

  Marco: Drop your pen on the floor.

  Marisa: What for?

  Marco: I want to admire your cleavage.

  She smiled, raising her eyes. Around her, the other students filled out a form about Clarice Lispector’s works. With her head slightly lowered and her eyes fixated on Marco, Marisa brushed the pen off with her forearm until it rolled to the floor. Then she leaned forward, allowing one of the top straps to slide off her shoulder. She retrieved the pen, straightened up in no hurry and pretended to concentrate on the form.

  At his desk in the front of the room, Marco concealed his cell phone behind an open book (Coldness and Cruelty, a study by Gilles Deleuze on the works of Sacher-Masoch, purchased the day before). He directed a silky gaze to Marisa before typing.

  Marco: Would your top be up for an evening out tonight?

  Marisa: It needs to finish some writing when it gets home. But that shouldn’t take too long.

  Marco: Great. I’d like to invite it to dinner at a bistro out of town. A place with antique décor and candlelight. Do you think your top would be up to that?

  Marisa: Absolutely. Btw, do you know it made you that dessert you like and bought you a gift? My top found something on ebay that you were dying to get.

  Marco: Don’t tell me it’s that rare album by… oh, no, it can’t be… and lemon cheesecake…?

  Marisa: Sorry, honey, now its lips are sealed.

  She raised her eyes to find Marco’s twinkling with enthusiasm and curiosity. He was very, very curious. Marisa always played that game. She liked to watch his reaction. It had been long since Marco had a relationship, and he welcomed her attention with almost exaggerated contentment. She loved it.

  That evening was an exception—the two of them under the sky speckled with stars, driving along the deserted road to Embu das Artes, a town eighteen miles away known for its arts and crafts. The tiny bistro Saint Pierre held half a dozen tables and lay by a quaint set of steps linking two streets on a hill. There, Marco and Marisa tasted vintage wine, shared chocolate soufflé for dessert and forgot all worries of being seen together: it was Tuesday, an improbable day for romantic dinners out of town. Before returning, they took a stroll near the town square, along alamedas of purple and white lasiandra trees.

  As a rule, when Marisa could steal a few hours in the evening, the two of them would go to bars, eat at Arabic delis or spend time at the movies: they watched hand in hand Woody Allen’s Whatever Works and Midnight in Paris, as well as a special session of Hitchcock’s Psycho. The pair usually remained in the Downtown vicinity, for the crowd from school seldom visited the area at night. The heart of the richest metropolis in Brazil pulsed there, beating madly at daytime and hibernating after working hours.

  In its origins, the city founded by Jesuits in 1554 was no more than a grain of dust that any fiercer wind would sweep off the map. By sheer luck a tiny coffee seed—descendant of another brought clandestinely to the country—fell on the state’s purple soil. With the explosion of the “black gold”, the capital entered the 20th century like a wealthy lady with Old World flair. Its motto became Non ducor, duco: “I am not led, I lead.” From the downtown area, São Paulo kept stretching. It stretched so much there wasn’t enough time to include in the map all new streets mushrooming month after month. A number of vintage mansions were demolished to make room for high-rises and, twelve million inhabitants later, the city kept shape-shifting.

  In Downtown, however, the past persevered. Marco and Marisa liked a bar called Ambrosia from the late forties with art deco columns, checkered flooring and pastel-yellow walls fitted with wooden panels. The décor displayed antique furniture, crystal chandeliers and mirrors that stretched in a long, narrow space. A hardwood counter flanked by leather stools followed most of its length, featuring golden draft beer taps and the inevitable espresso machine. Above it, a curved mezzanine with a piano bar levitated in half-light.

  One warm Friday evening, as usual, Marco and Marisa were having a beer on the mezzanine. He wore light pants and a white T-shirt, she wore a little flowery dress with her wig tied up in a ponytail. They had come on his black Ducati: summer was right around the corner with all of its delights.

  “Tell me that poem,” Marisa asked him.

  “Which poem?” Marco inquired, reaching for her hand over the table.

  “The one I like. About truth. By Carlos Drummond de Andrade.”

  The Divided Truth. He thought for a moment, eyes wandering across the mezzanine to glance at the piano with its quiet player and at the walls lined with old sepia photographs of the city, many of which portrayed places that no longer existed. Then he turned his gaze back to Marisa and declaimed: The door of truth cracked open but only gave way to half a p
erson at a time. So the half-persons went in and each brought out their profile of half-truth. People compared the profiles, and they did not match. Distressed, people broke down the door and found out the truth bore two different halves, neither entirely beautiful. A debate ensued to elect the best half. No verdict was reached.

  “So each person chose according to their own whim, their illusions, their myopia,” Marco concluded.

  “I love it even more when you recite it.” Marisa sighed, leaning over the guardrail.

  She recoiled with a nervous gesture.

  A couple sat downstairs at a table opposite the bar, and Marisa recognized them straight away.

  “Don’t look now.” She lowered her voice. “The school principal is here. Apparently with his mistress.”

  “Oh please, give me a break. Can’t he go somewhere else with that librarian?” Annoyed, Marco pressed his lips together.

  “Here’s the thing. He’s not with the librarian. He’s having a drink with his secretary.”

  “Jane?”

  “Yep.”

  Marco cast a glimpse downstairs. Yep. The school principal, in his corniest performance, held the hand of a young blonde in a pink dress. She wore red-framed glasses. Maybe it was no coincidence he’d found another mistress with high-prescription glasses. There you had well illustrated the old saying that love was blind.

  Marisa wanted to leave quickly. That posed a technical problem, however. On their way to exit they would pass by Belvedere and his rosy princess. Marisa considered waiting until the couple left, but Marco rejected the idea. Belvedere and Jane could be there for hours.

  “I’ll tell you what. I go first, and you exit ten minutes later. I’ll wait for you on the corner,” Marco instructed.

  She instinctively brought her hands up to the wig, making sure it was in place. “What if they recognize me?”