never, the night when that thing happened that we’ll never be able to forget. I was ten years old, and I knew it wouldn’t be long before I’d start accompanying my father in the mornings when it was time for him to go off to the workshop. It was a November which had rain every day. There was no difference between Mondays and Tuesdays. Wednesdays, Thursdays and Fridays were all the same. I was sitting at the end of the kitchen table. I had a pencil in my hand, my exercise book in front of me and I was finishing an exercise of casting out nines. When I made a mistake I didn’t have a rubber so I’d rub out with little pieces of bread. My mother would say, ‘The bread’s not for ruining.’ My sisters, when they walked by, would lean over the exercise book and scorn the dirty pages — grey charcoal clouds. It was getting dark early, and when Simão arrived I could imagine the opaque night in the yard, over the branches and thick leaves of the lemon tree. Simão smiled at our sisters and our mother. Simão liked talking to me. When we were alone he’d spend hours telling me all the words his head could think of, but with our mother and our sisters he could manage no more than a little voice of embarrassment. That was his way of adoring them, of looking at them from a distance, of being happy at their happiness, of hiding an absolute feeling behind his face, as though hiding a well, a mineshaft. And with our father, not even a smile, not even a meaning that was only imagined. Only silence. Deep and opaque like the night. Life went on in the kitchen, with my mother and sisters, organised, getting the dinner finished — their steps around the table. After washing his arms and face, Simão sat down, his palms turned up towards the fire. The wick of the oil lamp and the fire undid the shadows that fell against the walls, cleaned the shadows in the most hidden corners. Maria began to lay the table. No one found it odd that Simão had sat down. His place was at one end of the table. I finished up my schoolwork and sat down at my place. When there was nothing left but to set down the tureen in the middle of the table, my sisters sat down at their places. As though the gaze from each of us were a ribbon reaching out from our bodies, we followed our mother’s path with the tureen until she reached the table. Marta served us all. My mother went to fetch the bread, a knife, and went to do other things, because there were, after all, still things to be done. Marta, Maria, Simão and I had already started eating when we heard the front door bang clumsily, not closing, banging again, staying closed. We all knew then that
Kilometre eighteen
our father had just arrived. When he opened the kitchen door and came in, bumping into the doorpost, no one looked at him. He had been at the taberna. When he spoke, we recognised the voice he spoke with. It was a wet, rounded voice, sometimes slurred. It was a voice that hesitated on random syllables, as though falling asleep in the middle of a word, as though it wasn’t going to finish it. It was a voice that alternated between serious and seriouser. Words pressed themselves against one another in this voice. Our mother didn’t reply to him. Marta, Maria, Simão and I kept eating. Our father’s sweater was rough, it prickled. I recognised its touch. It was brown, stained, with little holes in the knitting, elbows worn, with dust, sawdust, wood shavings. Our father. We recognised the voice that he used to speak to our mother, and to nobody, a voice with which he complained that we hadn’t waited for him to start our dinner. Underneath his dragging, badly articulated, repeated words, silence. After a moment, our mother pulled out his chair, and as though speaking to a child, told him to sit. Our father ran his fingers through his hair — dust, sawdust, wood shavings — muttered some incomprehensible grumblings, turned his head one way — his voice muffled — turned his head the other way and sat. Our mother filled his plate with soup and continued on towards the things she had to do. He was serious, his expression frozen. And suddenly he woke up. He looked for his spoon. Grumbling, he waved his spoon in the air, eventually bringing it down into the soup. He lifted the spoon again, and again brought it down into the soup. He lifted the spoon again, opened his mouth, but once again brought it down into the soup. My brother and sisters and I kept eating. Our father asked our mother why we hadn’t waited for him. She didn’t reply. Our father lifted his full spoon, waited and threw it back down into the plate. And he asked why we hadn’t waited for him. Our mother didn’t reply. Getting angrier and angrier, his eyes changing, he asked again why we hadn’t waited for him. Our mother didn’t reply. He stood up suddenly, and the chair fell on to its back. He took two steps towards our mother and grabbed her by the arm, squeezed her arm. He turned her towards him. There was a wall of hell in his eyes. Again he asked her the same question. She didn’t seem very scared. Again he asked her the same question. A moment of stillness — breathing. And he gave her a shove in the back. Our mother fell to her knees on the kitchen floor. Simão got up from his place. Our father turned to face him. He touched him with his rage. And he turned to face our mother. He came closer to her. Again he asked her the same question. She again didn’t reply. Our father raised his hand to strike her, letting the blows fall wherever they might. Maybe her face, maybe her back. He had his arm in the air, when he felt a hand holding his wrist. It was Simão. His lips were pursed and his eyes were also burning. As though unable to believe it, in his hate, our father turned towards him. Without anyone noticing, our mother got up and leaned against a wall. My father’s gaze and Simão’s, meeting one another, were a single iron bar. But our father wasn’t afraid of anything. His strength was invincible. He tugged his arm free. My brother continued to look at him with all the strength of his left eye, challenging him. Simão was a man of sixteen. He wasn’t afraid of anything. For a moment, our father understood whole sentences in that gaze, and wanted to shut them up, and wanted to silence them for ever from out of that blind gaze. The thick palm of his hand came through the air. A quick movement by my brother held his arm. Our father didn’t want to believe it. Our father’s strength against Simão’s strength. Blood flowing in their veins. Our father. Fury, rage, unable to do anything. With both hands my brother pushed him. Our father was down where he’d fallen, humiliated, incredulous. He got up, ran to Simão and was pushed again, and fell again. He got up, wary, his voice blocked by something he wasn’t able to say, and he shouted, ‘Out!’ He pointed at the door, his arm shaking, and called him names, every kind of name, and shouted: ‘Out!’ My brother, over his voice, shouted, ‘You’ll never see me again!’ The words stabbed into our chests, tore our skin, through our ribs, stabbing like knives one after another into our hearts. Our mother’s face, begging. Our sisters’ faces, frightened, hurt. My face invisible. And the voices of Simão and our father the voices of men. Simão shouting: ‘I’m never setting foot in this wretched house again!’ And our father who didn’t stop shouting, ‘Out!’ Not stopping: ‘Out!’ And Simão, taking nothing with him, not even a jacket, went out — the night — and slammed the door. Our mother, in silence, took two steps as though to follow him and stopped at the thundering of the door. We were still, under the cloak of wretchedness that covered us. Our father lost all his strength and was transformed into his own shadow. After that night Simão never came into the house again, and he never again saw our father.