love you too much, almost too much, I love you too much, almost too much
sisters. Marta never spoke to Maria about that afternoon in the piano cemetery. There was a single Sunday lunch at our parents’ house when Marta, angry and hurt, ignored Maria. Then straight away they went back to being as they had always been. Marta knew how to forgive, and she made herself forget. When Maria arrived to see Elisa, who was still small, Marta smiled at her and they were just sisters, ever sisters. It happened sometimes while Elisa was taking her nap, or when she was spending the evening alone, that the memory of that afternoon came to her. For a moment the image of her husband’s face, between pianos, behind pianos, and her sister’s back. For a moment, again, the image of her husband’s head sinking into the neck of her sister. Marta, alone, grimaced and fled from this image, ate a whole pan of boiled potatoes, roasted a pork sausage. With no one else there she would walk through the house’s enormous afternoons. Her husband would come in, and go out. Maria would follow him with her eyes, go after him, try to talk to him in a sweet voice, but he wouldn’t stop, wouldn’t wait for her, didn’t see her, didn’t hear her. In the morning, when her husband had already gone out, when Elisa was still asleep, Marta would stand in front of the mirror. With the tips of her fingers she would move aside the straps and let her nightdress drop to her feet. And she would look at her body — the thick skin enveloping shapes of stone that grew in extravagant ways. In a few months her body was deformed. When I arrived, I was able to make her laugh. Between our conversations, between the little games with Elisa, I witnessed the changes to her body. My mother would arrive to see her granddaughter and witnessed the changes to her body. Simão, when he turned up to see her, witnessed the changes to her body. My father, Maria, all of us witnessed the changes to her body, but we said nothing. On Sundays, when Marta arrived bringing Elisa by the hand, when her husband arrived a few minutes later and we all sat down at the table for lunch, no one commented on the way Marta held blocks of pork and gnawed at them, quickly, one after another with her lips greasy and her eyes getting smaller and smaller, sunk in her round face.
Kilometre twenty-five
the springs of the cart. Simão and I and three men from the taberna unloaded the piano. Earlier, at the man’s house, standing at the piano, when he named his price, my brother came up to my ear and whispered, ‘Take it.’ I remained silent, as if thinking. I looked at the piano, I looked at the man, I looked at the piano, I looked at the man and said half the sum he’d asked for. He accepted at once. As we crossed the entrance hall of the workshop with the piano — a weight crushing us against the floor — I could see that the men couldn’t cope. We stopped. We had a breather, and started again. We put it down in the carpentry shop. We went to the taberna and drank two glasses of wine. As we came out, it was January. In the carpentry shop, the upright piano, varnished, with secret scratches. Simão was talking, telling stories, making up futures. I walked round and round the piano, I concentrated. Then, at a given moment, I stopped and put my index finger on a key — a lame note. With that note began a whole week of me and Simão spending all our mornings and all our afternoons around the piano. Hours followed one another slowly, I thought about her, my brother would go to the piano cemetery to look for parts and would come back satisfied with pressure bars, hammers, rods. I felt a tenderness towards Simão’s blind, smiling face, my brother, my brother. Then I’d leave him at the taberna and go to train. I ran in a time that was constant combustion, a flame blowing inside me. Like blood I ran through the veins of Lisbon, touched its heart, penetrated its heart, and then, more slowly, extracted myself, undid myself and came out. A secret from myself. I’d arrive home and find a place held in suspension. My wife under the oil lamp, her belly, our child forming, slowly growing, waiting for a moment. Like now
a given moment in time. Now. Now is a stake, driven into the surface of time, just as it might be stuck into the earth. All the cords of time are supported by this stake and they can hold up a tent as huge as the sky. The gardens around the entrance to the stadium have been left behind a long time or short time or long or short time ago. With each step, a different now. I run, carrying time. I take a step, now, another step, another now, and on I go — now, now, now. I’m not scared any more. I’m alight with my certainties. I can accept naturally that, now, my father has just died; just as, now, my sister Maria has fallen off the bicycle at the Monsanto picnic; just as, now, my niece Elisa has just been born; just as, now, I am here, frozen in this moment, at this step, replaced by the next, replaced by the next. Wherever my wife is, that moment exists. It’s so different and it’s just the same, the same moment. Wherever my mother is, there’s this moment which for her lasts much longer or much less time. Where I am. Here, on this road. Here, where I could be if I closed my eyes. All time, the years and decades I’ve lived, that I’ve not lived, that I will live and that I won’t live, it all exists in this moment. I fall — my cheek to the floor, the sun pushing my shoulders and not letting me get up, now, time, my knees burning, the palms of my hands on the ground, an incandescent sheet, red-hot, the heavy boiling air that fills me up
don’t leave me
and I get up. Slowly. Slowly. The weight of my body — a mountain — on my arms. My knees — the trunks of the plane-trees in the garden — bend. I go on
together. We looked at the piano proudly. Once again we were aware of being capable and of being endlessly brothers. We were made of the same impossible, unpronounceable words. Simão left me to go and fetch the man with the cart. When the sound of his steps had disappeared, I put a stool down in front of the piano, sat down, and played a piece with notes spaced out, that I made up, and that I felt. Time. Afternoon. My brother came back, already with a few men from the taberna. I was seated facing the silence. I sat down next to the cart man. He held on to the bridle, I had my hands resting in my lap. People were frozen on the pavements to watch the piano, tied up, solemn. Behind us, my brother went with the men from the taberna, on foot, chatting about nothing, their phrases left unfinished. The lady stood amazed when she opened the door. The lady stood amazed as she followed us with her gaze. In the corridor we huddled so as not to knock off any pictures, so as not to scratch any furniture. When we came to corners we’d manoeuvre backwards, forwards, backwards, forwards. In the hall, the place of the grand piano was empty and clean. The burned part of the rug was covered by another rug, like a patch. The walls around the piano were clean, but worn down from having been scrubbed. We put the piano up against the wall next to the window. The lady’s eyes shone. She stood there, arms down by her sides. The men left, led out by Simão. The lady looked at me for another moment, and went out. She came in. Her hair was still long and smooth, her lips perfect, her skin white. Inside I was slowly trembling. I was about to tell her I still wanted her, I still felt the same way, but my will was stopped in its tracks