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“You might come looking for me… because if I leave, I won’t leave alone!”

“What do you mean?”

“I’ll take my son with me!”

Emílio felt Henrique’s hand grip his arm still harder. He glanced down at him, saw his trembling lips and moist eyes, and was filled with a feeling of intense pity and tenderness. He tried to spare his son this degrading spectacle:

“This is a completely stupid conversation. Haven’t you noticed that your son is here listening?”

¡No me importa! I don’t care! And don’t pretend you don’t know what I mean!”

“That’s enough!”

“Only when I say so!”

“Carmen!”

She looked at him then. Her strong jaw, grown more pronounced with age, seemed to challenge him:

“I’m not afraid of you, not you or anyone!”

No, Carmen clearly wasn’t afraid, but suddenly her voice broke, tears poured down her cheeks and, swept along by uncontrollable emotion, she hurled herself on her son. Kneeling, her voice shaken by sobs, she was murmuring in Spanish, almost moaning:

“Sweetheart, look at me. I’m your mother. I’m your friend. No one loves you as much as I do!”

Henrique was trembling with fear, clinging to his father. Carmen continued her incoherent monologue, ever more aware that her son was slipping away from her and yet incapable of letting him go.

Emílio stood up, tore his son from his wife’s arms, then drew her to her feet and sat her down on a stool. Close to fainting, she let him do as he pleased.

“Carmen!”

She was sitting hunched forward, her head in her hands, weeping. On the other side of the table, Henrique seemed to be in a state of shock. He had his mouth open as if he were gasping for air, his eyes as glazed and fixed as if he were blind. Emílio rushed to his side, spoke soothing words to him and carried him out of the kitchen.

With great difficulty, he managed to calm the child down. When they returned, Carmen was wiping her eyes on her dirty apron. Seeing her there, looking suddenly old and tired, her face strained and red, he felt sorry for her:

“Are you feeling better?”

“Yes. What about the child?”

“He’s all right.”

They sat at the table in silence. In silence they ate. After this stormy scene, the calm of sheer exhaustion imposed that silence on them. Father, mother and son. Three people living under the same roof, in the same light, breathing the same air. A family.

When the meal was over, Emílio went into the dining room, and his son followed. He sat down on an old wicker sofa, as wearily as if he had just been engaged in heavy labor. Henrique came and leaned against his knees.

“How are you feeling?”

“I’m OK, Papa.”

Emílio stroked his son’s soft hair and felt profoundly affected by the child’s small head, almost small enough to fit in his hand. He brushed Henrique’s hair out of his eyes, smoothed his fine eyebrows, then followed the shape of his face as far as his chin. Henrique allowed himself to be stroked as if he were a puppy. He was barely breathing, as though afraid that a mere breath would be enough to stop the stroking. His eyes were fixed on his father. Emílio’s hand continued to stroke his son’s face, unaware now of what it was doing, a mechanical movement in which the conscious mind played no part. Henrique sensed that sudden distancing. He slipped between his father’s knees and rested his head on his chest.

Now that Emílio was free from his son’s gaze, his eyes wandered from one piece of furniture to another, from object to object. Perched on a column was the clay figure of a boy fishing, his feet in an empty aquarium. Underneath the statuette, a doily, falling in folds from the top of the column, provided evidence of Carmen’s domestic talents. A few wine glasses gleamed dully on the sideboard and in the so-called china cupboard, which otherwise contained only a few examples of local ceramics. More doilies were further proof of Carmen’s homemaking skills. Everything had a kind of matte finish to it, as if a layer of dust, impossible to remove, were hiding any gloss or color.

Emílio’s overriding impression was of ugliness, monotony and banality. The ceiling lamp shed light in such a way that its main function seemed to be to distribute shadows. And it was a modern lamp too. It had three chrome arms, each with its corresponding shade, but for the sake of economy, only one bulb worked.

Carmen continued to make her presence felt from the kitchen, sighing loudly as she pondered her misery and washed the dishes.

With his son pressed to him, Emílio saw the prosaic nature of both his present and past lives. As for the future, he was holding that in his arms, except that it wasn’t his future. In a few years’ time, the head now resting happily on his chest would be thinking for itself, but thinking what?

Emílio gently lifted his son from where he lay on his chest and looked at him. Henrique’s thoughts were still slumbering behind his now serene face. All was hidden.

23

Amélia whispered in her sister’s ear:

“The girls have had a falling-out.”

“What?”

“A falling-out.”

They were in the kitchen. They had finished supper shortly before. In the next room, Adriana and Isaura were busy sewing buttonholes in shirts. The light from there poured out through the open door into the dark passageway. Cândida looked at her sister incredulously.

“Don’t you believe me?” asked Amélia.

Cândida shrugged and stuck out her lower lip to indicate her complete ignorance of the situation.

“If you didn’t go around with your eyes closed, you would have noticed.”

“But what’s wrong?”

“That’s what I’d like to know.”

“It’s your imagination…”

“Possibly, but you could count on the fingers of one hand the number of words they’ve said to each other today. And not just today either. Haven’t you noticed?”

“No.”

“See what I mean? You walk around with your eyes closed. Leave me to tidy the kitchen, and go in there and observe.

Taking her usual tiny steps, Cândida walked down the corridor to the room where her daughters were sitting. Absorbed in their work, the two sisters didn’t even look up when their mother came in. Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor was playing softly on the radio; the shrill tones of a soprano were filling the air. More in order to gauge the atmosphere than to make any proper critical comment, Cândida said:

“Goodness, what a voice! She sounds like she’s performing somersaults!”

Her daughters smiled, but their smiles seemed as forced and effortful as the singer’s vocal acrobatics. Cândida felt concerned. Her sister was quite right. There was something odd going on. She had never seen her daughters like this, reserved and distant, as if they were afraid of each other. She tried to come out with some conciliatory phrase, but her throat, grown suddenly dry, could not produce a single word. Isaura and Adriana carried on with their work. The singer’s voice faded out in an ethereal, almost inaudible smorzando. The orchestra played three swift chords, and then the tenor’s voice rose, strong and compelling.

“How well Gigli sings!” exclaimed Cândida, simply in order to say something.

The two sisters glanced at each other and hesitated, each wanting the other to speak. Both felt they should reply, and in the end it was Adriana who said:

“Yes, he does. He sings really well, but he’s getting on a bit now.”

Glad, at least for a few minutes, to be able to resume their usual evening banter, Cândida hotly defended Gigli: