Day breaks. An almost clear light reaches Marta’s body, covers her breathing. Little sounds settle over the silence. All of a sudden the dogs begin to bark in the yard. Marta opens her eyes. She realises that she’s woken up. She straightens her body in the chair. She moves her shoulders to rearrange the bones in her aching flesh. She turns towards the window and, not understanding, sees the faces of Maria, Íris and Ana on the other side of the glass. She doesn’t understand that they could be there. Not trusting her eyes, she closes the lids forcefully, wakes up a bit more, opens them again, and again sees the faces of her sister and nieces on the other side of the window. It is only then, not knowing what to think, that she gets up quickly and hurries to open the door for them.
Our daughters had gone out and I’d made them take Francisco with them. They’d gone out to see the streets, the parks. They’d gone out to wander about, to be girls. The clarity of Saturday came through the windowpanes and filled the kitchen with cloudy air, that mingled with the words, that you breathed in, and that maddened you. There was a reason, there was a reason, but now, try as I might, I can’t remember.
I grabbed her by her woollen jumper and lifted her out of the chair, her looking at me defiantly, my fingers disappearing into the wool, my fists clenched and the wool of the jumper in and around my hands, her looking at me defiantly, as though she despised me, in silence, as if she were saying I was nothing, I was nothing, I was worth nothing, and I pulled her by the jumper, turned her around, her body taking steps, turning in front of me, and only her defiant look, not a word, not even the beginnings of her voice, and all the contempt, I could feel the air that came in through my nostrils, it was thicker than air, I felt my lips pursed, merged, I felt I could pull her body, push her body with just one arm, but I let go of her, her wool jumper keeping the same shape it had in my hand, she tried to fix her jumper, to give it the shape it used to have, but it was ruined for ever, it had the holes from my fingers and it was stretched wide, there was nothing that could bring it back to how it was, she sat down and looked away, the contempt, all the contempt, in silence, as if she was saying I was nothing, I was nothing, nothing, I was worth nothing, I held her face with my two hands and forced her to look at me, I felt her neck straining, I saw her eyes not wanting to cry, but the tears, but, but the tears break through her will. I let go.
Simão, a little man, months from losing his sight, had two living eyes and was watching me from the half-open door to the hallway.
It was still day, there was a breeze that came from some cool place and across my dust-covered face, it was peace, conciliation, it was a transparent silence that fell over the last sounds of the afternoon, when I came out of the workshop, left my uncle at the taberna and walked home on my own. The whole city was starting to relax. On that short walk, I knew exactly what I’d find the moment I went up to the front step and opened the door — my wife’s face, flushed, smiling at me — locks of hair falling over her forehead, crossing her gaze, touching her cheeks — my wife’s body standing in the middle of the kitchen — her belly growing bigger every week. I’d approach, we’d embrace sideways on, and I’d place my hand on her belly. I’d mould the round shape of her belly with the palm of my hand.
That afternoon I went up to the front step of my house, opened the door and she was already waiting for me. She wasn’t smiling because she was holding a shoebox with both hands and it seemed to be too serious an object. Before saying a word, she held the box out to me. Only then did she say:
‘Have you seen this?’
My wife had begun to tidy and clean the house even before we’d been married. She left her godmother’s boarding house with a single suitcase, her eyes filled with hurt, believing that she would never see her again. We spent that day in each other’s arms. We slept that night in each other’s arms. When I woke the next morning, she already had a kerchief on her head and was cleaning dust from the shelves that no one had touched since my mother died. For two months it was like this every day. The mesh-door cupboard in the kitchen, where there were pans covered in spiders’ webs, went back to being the colour of wood and the aluminium pans could once again be distinguished from the enamel pans; the heaps of dust that had blackened the corners of all the rooms disappeared; the china of the plates hanging on the walls gleamed again in the Sunday light; at the back of the wardrobe, my mother’s dresses, covered in hairs from the cats who came in through the yard door, reappeared. In the months that followed, she stretched out in the sun, washed and sewed the sheets that were folded in the trunk of the bedroom or in dresser drawers, where there were ancient mouse nests and dry mouse skeletons; she scraped the kitchen floor with a knife to unstick crusts of bread, mackerel bones, entrecôte bones; she swept the ceilings, unblocked the pipes; put the curtains to soak for three days before washing them in the tank; and scrubbed the walls with a thick brush that she dunked in the almost full bucket of water and soap. When her belly began to get too heavy — pains in her kidneys and her back — all that was left was to clean the attic. We had to put up a ladder and go through a hole in the bedroom ceiling. The first time she went up, sure-footed on the ladder, her arms stretched right out because of her belly, she couldn’t put so much as the tip of a toe in the attic. The entire surface, even the wooden beams, even the tiles, was covered with things in piles, broken, useless, buried by dust. Every day, slowly, bit by bit, my wife went up into the attic, and bent under the slope of the roof, sweating, she pulled out chairs missing a leg, cracked tubs, boxes and all kinds of bits of furniture, which she burned in the middle of the yard or organised into piles which on another day she would carry to the dump. It was in the nearly empty attic that my wife found the shoebox that she held out to me.
I put the box on the table. My wife’s face was waiting for a reaction. With the tips of my fingers, I lifted the lid. I put my hand in the box and pulled it out full of medals. They were copper medals, attached to faded, soiled, worn-away ribbons — rags losing their colour. They were medals with images of little men running inside circles made of carefully sculpted laurel leaves. On the reverse there were letters engraved, which read: ‘First place, marathon.’ Later we would find some for second or third place. I had no answers. I lifted my eyes to my wife’s face, and without words I showed her that I didn’t know what those medals were either, nor what they were doing in the attic. That evening, over dinner, and after dinner, and as we fell asleep, we tried to invent explanations for that box full of medals — probably, probably, probably. In moments of silence, I tried to remember something my mother had said, something I’d seen and which would help me to understand. But nothing I remembered and nothing we were able to invent seemed to explain that shoebox filled with marathon victories.
‘There’s got to be a simple explanation.’
In the dark, lying in bed, I decided I’d ask my uncle. He had to know something. He’d have stories to tell. There had to be a simple explanation. I fell asleep, relaxed.
In the morning I walked with the box under my arm. And time passed as I sawed laths on my own, I nailed nails on my own and could think without anyone interrupting me. In the mid-morning my uncle appeared at the entrance to the carpentry shop, and from afar, excited, wanting to speak but saying nothing, he gestured me over. As soon as I’d put down my tools, he disappeared. I hastened after him, and as I came out of the shop I could just see him going into the piano cemetery.
At the open door, Marta is blocking the entrance with her body. Maria puts Íris down on the floor of the yard. In the morning, in the light, it’s already possible to see the invisible spots where the heat will grow. Ana and Íris squeeze in through a chink between Marta and the doorframe. They run into the kitchen — they’re looking for Elisa and Hermes — they look in the hallway, they look in the sewing room, and when they find only silence they return muted, but slowly, to the kitchen. Maria with her face downcast, hurt, walks towards her sister and the two go into the kitchen.