Ana decided to begin with the group photograph. With luck it would create an atmosphere in the room that would make it easier for her afterwards to say everything it was necessary for her to say.
‘We’re going to take a photograph,’ she said, clapping her hands. ‘Everybody’s going to be on it, including Zé and the security guards. And not least Carlos, of course.’
There was immediately an air of excitement as they all moved into the places where they were directed by Picard. The women giggled and tittered, exchanged combs and little mirrors, adjusted one another’s clothes (which weren’t covering all that much of their bodies anyway). Eventually everybody was ready, with Ana in the middle, sitting in an armchair. Carlos had jumped up on to a pedestal which normally held a potted plant.
‘I want a serious picture,’ said Ana. ‘I want nobody to laugh, nobody to smile. Look serious, straight at the camera.’
Picard made the final adjustments, moving somebody a bit closer, somebody else a bit further away. Then he prepared the flash by scattering some magnesium powder on to a metal tray. He ducked underneath the black cloth with a burning matchstick in his hand. The magnesium flared up and the picture was taken.
He prepared another flash, ducked under the cloth again and took a second picture.
Afterwards, when Picard had left and gone back to his studio to develop the photographs and choose the one from which he needed to make fourteen copies, Ana assembled the women under the jacaranda tree. Zé had returned to the piano where he was examining the keys before beginning to polish them. Carlos was sitting on one of the red sofas, smacking his lips noisily as he ate an orange.
It seemed to Ana at that moment as if everything surrounding her was a sort of artificial idyll.
A treacherous paradise.
72
Just as Ana was about to speak, Zé raised his hands and began playing. For the first time he had stopped merely tuning the strings. It took a few moments for what had happened to sink in. She watched Zé’s hands in astonishment and listened to his playing. It was like a bolt from the blue in the brothel. After spending all that time tinkering with his piano, Zé now seemed to have reached the point when it was sufficiently in tune for him to play it. Everybody listened in silence. Ana felt the tears in her eyes. Zé knew exactly where each finger should be, and his wrists were moving smoothly despite the frayed cuffs of his shirt.
When he had finished the piece, he placed his hands on his knees and sat there in silence. Nobody spoke, nobody applauded. In the end Ana went up to him and put her hand on his shoulder.
‘That was lovely,’ she said. ‘I didn’t know you could play like that.’
‘It’s an old piano,’ said Zé. ‘It’s hard to tune it.’
‘How long have you spent tuning it?’
‘Six years. And now I’ll have to start all over again.’
‘I’ll buy you a new piano,’ said Ana. ‘A good piano. You won’t need to keep tuning it in order to play.’
Zé shook his head.
‘This the only piano I can play,’ he said quietly. ‘I’d get no pleasure out of a new instrument.’
Ana nodded. She thought she understood, even though she had just witnessed something that could well have been a miracle.
‘What was the piece you played?’ she asked.
‘It was written by a Polish man. His name is Frédéric.’
‘It was beautiful,’ said Ana.
Then she turned to face the others and started them off clapping. Zé stood up hesitantly and bowed, closed the lid, locked the piano, picked up his hat and left.
‘Where does he go to?’ Ana asked.
‘Nobody knows,’ said Felicia. ‘But he always comes back. The last time he played for us was on New Year’s Eve, 1899. As the century came to a close.’
Ana could see that everybody was looking at her. She told them the facts: she was about to leave them. The new owner, Nunez, had promised not to change anything for as long as the women now working in the brothel stayed on.
‘I came here by chance,’ she said in conclusion. ‘I was ill, and I thought in my innocence that this place was a hotel. And I was very well looked after. I might have been dead by now if it hadn’t been for the care you gave me. But now it’s time for me to move on. I shall leave here and go to Beira where I shall look for Isabel’s parents and tell them that Isabel is dead. I don’t know what will happen after that. All I do know is that I shan’t be coming back here.’
Ana then took the bundles of banknotes out of her handbag. Each of the women received the equivalent of five years’ earnings. But to her great surprise, none of the women displayed the slightest sign of gratitude, despite the fact that they had never seen anywhere near as much money as that in their lives before.
‘You don’t need to stay on here now,’ she said. ‘Evening after evening, night after night. You can start living with your families again.’
Ana had been standing up while she spoke. Now she sat down on the deep red plush chair they had placed for her under the jacaranda tree. Nobody spoke. Ana was used to this silence, and knew that in the end she would no doubt be forced to break it herself. She took one of the bundles of banknotes and tried to give it to Felicia — but Felicia declined to accept it and started talking again instead. She had obviously rehearsed her speech, as if everybody knew already what Ana was going to say.
‘We shall go with you, Senhora,’ said Felicia. ‘No matter where you decide to open a new brothel, we shall go with you.’
‘But I have no intention ever again to run a brothel, not for as long as I live! I want to give you all money so that you can lead quite a different life. Besides, what would you do with your families if you were to accompany me?’
‘We’ll take them with us. We’ll go with you, no matter where you end up. As long as it’s not a country where there aren’t any men.’
‘That’s impossible. Don’t you understand what I’m telling you?’
Nobody spoke. Ana realized that Felicia hadn’t just been talking for herself: yet again she had been speaking on behalf of all the women assembled round the tree. The women really did believe that she was leaving in order to open up a new brothel somewhere else. And they wanted to go with her. She didn’t know whether to be touched or angry at what seemed to be their incredible naivety.
She thought: they want me to lead a general exodus to an unknown destination. No matter where it is, they see me as what Forsman was for Elin — a guarantee of the possibility of a better life.
A Magrinha had suddenly stood up and left the garden: now she returned, carrying a large lizard. Ana knew that it was called a halakavuma.
‘This lizard is very wise,’ said Felicia. ‘When people find a lizard like this one, they catch it and take it to their tribal chief. A halakavuma can always give the chieftain valuable advice. Senhora Ana has been listening for far too long to advice from unreliable people. That’s why we have tracked down this lizard, so that it can advise Senhora Ana about what is best for her to do. This lizard is like a wise old lady.’
The big, crocodile-like lizard was placed on Ana’s knee. Sticky slime was dripping from its mouth, its cold skin was wet, its eyes staring, its tongue darting in and out of its mouth. Carlos had jumped up on to the piano, and was staring at the lizard in disgust.
I’m living in a crazy world, Ana thought. Am I really expected to listen to a lizard in order to find out what I ought to do with my life?
She put the lizard down on the ground. It disappeared slowly behind the tree, swaying from side to side on apparently unsteady legs.