“A word to the wise—”
“Even the wise make mistakes sometimes!”
“Cândida!”
“You’re surprised, aren’t you? But I’ve had enough of your stupid suspicions. Let’s not argue anymore. It’s dreadful that we should quarrel over something like this.”
Without waiting for her sister to answer, Cândida left the room, covering her eyes with her hands. Amélia stayed where she was, not moving, grasping the back of the chair, and her eyes, too, were wet with tears. She again felt an impulse to admit to her sister that she knew nothing, but again pride stopped her.
Yes, pride and the return of her two nieces. They were smiling, but her sharp eyes could see that their smiles were false, that they had applied them to their lips before they came in, like masks. She thought: “They’re determined to keep us in the dark.” This only made her all the more determined to discover what lay behind those fake smiles.
24
Caetano was pondering how to get his revenge for what Justina had said to him. He cursed himself over and over for his cowardice. He should, as threatened, have beaten her to a pulp. He should have punched her with his big, hairy fists, made her run through the apartment in fear of his anger. He had, however, been quite incapable of doing that; he had lacked the necessary courage, and now he wanted his revenge. He wanted a perfect revenge, though, not just a beating. Something more refined and subtle, not that this need necessarily exclude some physical violence.
Whenever he thought of that humiliating scene, he trembled with rage. He tried to keep himself in that frame of mind, but as soon as he opened the door to the apartment, he felt powerless. He tried to convince himself that it was his wife’s frail appearance that held him back, he tried to disguise his own weakness as pity, then flagellated himself mentally because he knew it was nothing but weakness. He thought up ways of heaping more scorn on his wife, but she would merely reciprocate with still more of her own. He tried giving her less money for the housekeeping, then gave up when he was the only one who suffered, because Justina would give him less food. For two whole days (he even dreamed about it) he considered hiding or removing from the apartment their daughter’s photo and all reminders of her existence. He knew that this would be the harshest blow he could deal his wife.
Fear stopped him. Not fear of his wife, but of the possible consequences. It seemed to him that such an action bordered on sacrilege. Such a gesture would bring about the worst of misfortunes: tuberculosis, for example, for despite his ninety kilos of flesh and bone and his ridiculously robust health, he feared TB as the worst of all diseases, and just the sight of someone with TB gave him the horrors. The mere mention of the word sent a shudder through him. Even when he was at his Linotype machine, typing in the journalists’ copy (a job that involved no brainpower, at least not as regards understanding the text), and the horrible word appeared, he could not help recoiling slightly. This happened so often that he became convinced that the office boss, who knew about this weakness of his, assigned to him every article that the newspaper published on tuberculosis. He was always sent the reports on medical conferences where the illness was discussed. The mysterious words filling such reports — complicated words that sounded terrifyingly like Greek, and that seemed to have been invented for the sole purpose of frightening sensitive people — fixed themselves in his brain like suckers and did not leave him for hours.
Apart from that one impracticable project, any other ideas dreamed up by his anemic imagination would work only if he was on friendlier terms with his wife. He had taken so many things from her — love, friendship, peace of mind and everything else that can make married life bearable and even desirable — that there was nothing left. He almost regretted having, so early on, gotten out of the habit of kissing her hello and goodbye, simply because he could not now abandon that habit too.
Despite all these failures of imagination, he did not give up. He was obsessed with the idea of avenging himself in a way that would force his wife to fall on her knees before him, desperate and begging forgiveness.
One day he thought he had found the way. When he considered his plan properly, he realized it was absurd, but perhaps its very absurdity seduced him. He intended playing a new role in his relations with his wife, that of the jealous husband. Poor, ugly, almost skeletal Justina would not have aroused the jealousy of the fiercest of Othellos. Nevertheless, Caetano’s imagination could come up with nothing better.
While he was setting the scene for this plan, he was almost nice to his wife. He went so far as to stroke the cat, much to the cat’s surprise. He bought a new frame for their daughter’s photograph and said he was thinking of having an enlargement made. All this touched Justina deeply, and she thanked him for the frame and spoke warmly of the idea of having the photograph enlarged. However, she knew her husband well enough to suspect that he had some ulterior motive. She therefore waited, expecting the worst.
Having made his preparations, Caetano struck. One night he went straight home after work. He had in his pocket a letter he had written to himself, disguising his handwriting. He had used different ink from the sort he normally used and an old pen that made his writing more angular and blotted the smaller letters. It was a masterpiece of dissimulation. Not even an expert would spot that it was a fake.
When he put his key in the lock, his heart was pounding. He was at last about to satisfy his desire for revenge and see his wife on her knees, protesting her innocence. He entered the apartment slowly and cautiously. He wanted to take her by surprise. He would rouse her from sleep and place before her the evidence of her guilt. He was smiling to himself as he tiptoed down the corridor, sliding his hand along the wall until he reached the doorframe. With his other hand he groped the empty darkness. The warm air from the bedroom brushed his face. With his left hand, he felt for the switch. He was ready. He affected an angry look and turned on the light.
Justina was not asleep. Caetano had not foreseen this possibility. His anger vanished, all expression drained from his face. His wife looked at him, surprised, but said nothing. Caetano sensed that his whole stratagem would collapse if he did not speak at once. He recovered his composure, frowned angrily and said:
“Hm, lucky you’re not asleep. That saves me the trouble of having to wake you up. Read this!”
He threw the letter at her. Justina slowly picked up the envelope. As she did so, she thought it must contain the explanation for her husband’s sudden change in behavior. She removed the letter from the envelope and tried to read it; however, the abrupt shift from darkness to light, combined with the bad handwriting, meant that she failed at the first attempt. She changed position, rubbed her eyes and raised herself on one elbow. Caetano found these delays exasperating: nothing was going according to plan.
Justina was now reading the letter. Her husband anxiously followed her every change of expression. The absurd thought came into his head: “What if it were true?” He did not have time to follow this idea through, because Justina fell back on the pillow, roaring with laughter.
“Oh, you’re laughing, are you?” bellowed Caetano, but in fact he felt utterly confused.
She could not reply. She was laughing like mad, a sarcastic laugh; she was laughing at her husband and at herself, but more at herself than at him. She was convulsed with laughter, her body heaving; she was laughing as if she were, at the same time, crying. Her eyes were quite dry, though, and out of her gaping mouth poured forth a hysterical, uninterrupted stream of guffaws.
“Shut up! This is disgraceful!” exclaimed Caetano, walking over to her. Given that it had all begun so badly, he wasn’t sure whether or not to continue the performance. His wife’s reaction was sabotaging his carefully laid plans.