Quiet Creature on the Corner Read online

  It was late afternoon, rather dark in the shed, a slew of completely mute children surrounded Amália: she was sitting on the bed, indifferent to a fly on her neck, another on her arm—near the lit candle, her face was awash in deathlike clarity and from her eyes ran tears, many tears. The children contemplated her.

  I remained there only a short while. I’m certain Amália didn’t see me.

  The next day the landless people left the highway; it seemed like they had gone far away.

  That same day Amália disappeared. Otávio said he’d heard she followed the squatters’ caravan.

  Now I was sitting on the toilet, elbows to knees, looking out at what the doorframe let me see of the rest of my hotel room in Rio. Kurt still hadn’t set foot in the room, he never left the hospital he’d checked Gerda into—I’d taken him changes of clothes many times. Whenever I went to the hospital Gerda didn’t look very good lying there in bed, often she was taken out in a wheelchair for new tests, but now I was sitting on the toilet, looking at what the open door showed me of my hotel room, and there, like that, I could only think that once again everything seemed like a figment of my imagination: I, who had never even been on an airplane, had gone first class, Kurt and I on either side of Gerda, our feet resting on cushions, and after getting to Rio, had checked into this hotel near Leme, a room all to myself, for me who had never before stayed in any hotel, not even the lousiest kind—I was now looking at a hotel room where I could stay all day if I liked, watching TV, reading, scratching my balls, sleeping, though I’d rather spend the time walking around Copacabana, Ipanema, I wanted to get to know the city and was eager because later there would be other cities in Germany, Europe—and so I got up, flushed the toilet, and decided to trim the beard that had grown ever since my time at the clinic in São Leopoldo. With the sound of each snip of the scissors I repeated a sort of mantra, a sound that I’d never be able to remember later, but that seemed right then to have been mine since the womb, and I repeated it in front of the mirror, with my face, little by little, stripped of the beard that fell in lockets into the sink, and repeating it brought back my confidence: what was being given to me would be mine forever, it was only a matter of getting used to the silence of my reasons for being there and no longer a squatter in a crummy apartment building, everything would be fine, and for this reason I repeated my mantra and smoothed my face once more in preparation for the rest, which would be even better.

  I ran a hand over my chin, summoned the elevator, the uniformed operator asked me smilingly which floor—everyone was smiling at me in that four-star joint—I remembered I wanted to have a whiskey in the hotel bar, asked for the first floor, the bartender treated me like a prince, yeah, I shaved, I told him, also smiling, a whiskey poured over the stones in my glass, and the bartender was saying he hadn’t recognized me with my face like a baby’s bottom, then turned back to the same chatter as always, recommending where to go later, at night, beaches, bars, women, I barely followed what he was saying, but it pleased me to confirm that someone behind the bar was capable of busying himself with my day’s itinerary just because I had the money to pay for the hotel and leave tips. I was discovering that it pleased me to pay for the world’s courtesies.

  In the middle of the afternoon, I left to walk down Nossa Senhora da Copacabana. I stopped in front of a movie poster—there wasn’t much else to do—I entered, and in the cinema bathroom there were a few men standing around smoking. I started to take a piss—all the urinals were occupied and I could sense the eyes of the men standing there in urinating position were directed at me. I figured out what was happening: nobody was urinating here, they all had their dicks out but were staring at my dick, all of them middle-aged, the smell of urine ferocious, from the cinema came an uproar that must have been a violent car crash, the screech of brakes, and in front of the urinals those eyes wouldn’t stop staring at my dick, and when I looked down again I saw that it wasn’t pissing anymore and, without my having noticed, had gotten completely hard—someone tapped my shoulder, I turned, it was a guy behind me reaching his hand inside a greasy jacket at chest height, he said he was a cop and wanted to see my ID, working papers too—I was getting dragged out from my situation under Kurt’s wing: if I got thrown in jail again he’d never give me another chance and I’d find myself face-to-face with complete shit all over again, this time with two arrests—I put my instantly slackened dick back in my pants as the guy tried to act high and mighty, demanding my working papers again, the faggots all around were dying with laughter. I realized that I’d been ambushed, and as I zipped up I remembered that I had very little money with me and that it wasn’t likely I could strike a deal with the guy who said he was a cop—then a plan for escape suddenly sprang up inside me, I didn’t even have time to think it through before I’d already begun to execute it, my whole body collapsing onto the cold, piss-drenched floor, trembling from an attack that made me drool: dig my fingernails into the air, break out in a sweat, roll back my eyes until I could no longer see anything around me, all stiff, in my vision just dark and muddled shapes that I tried to break open with sweeping arms, like I was swimming breaststroke—I wanted to scream but couldn’t find my voice, flailing in the middle of those dark and muddled shapes, in vain, my strength having failed—a giant drain slowly swallowing me.

  Suddenly my body calmed, normalizing my breathing. I didn’t understand what I was doing there, lying with my head in a puddle of piss, deeply inhaling the sharp smell of piss, as though predicting this would help me recover my memory, and the memory that had knocked me to the floor appeared, little by little, and I became fascinated, as what had begun as a theatrical seizure to get rid of the guy who called himself a cop had become a thing that had really thrown me outside myself.

  And now I was returning, with a tremendous vertigo, incapable of understanding anything further: Who was this man helping me get up, picking me up by the arm and guiding me slowly, as slow as two insects going against the immensity of the others? Who was this man who guided me finally to a mirror, a mirror that didn’t verify my features or those of the atmosphere around me—didn’t permit me to know if I was still in the same place? Who was this man who continued to hold my arm and was asking me to splash my forehead and come with him, that he’d take me wherever I needed to go?…

  Then, on the sidewalk outside the hotel, standing up straight again, touching the man’s shoulder, telling him something for the first time, saying goodbye, thanking him.

  I wrapped myself in a towel and went to the hotel steam room. Kurt was there, seated, his head hanging toward his feet.

  I came close and waved my hand in front of my face, trying to make a clearing in the steam: Kurt had gotten even older, I could see that now. How? I wondered, and shook my head without understanding this strange dose of aging. Hmm…since when?

  He still hadn’t seen me, just a few feet away, wrapped in his mists.

  Suddenly he saw me. I had the urge to retreat, to hide myself amid the steam.

  I’m exhausted, he said. Tonight I’ll sleep at the hotel. I need you to stay at the hospital with Gerda. You should go soon, he concluded, and returned his gaze to the direction of his feet, absorbed in his thoughts.

  I switched on the lamp, and saw Gerda sleeping, her breath blowing a few strands of blue hair near her lip. I swallowed a lump in my throat, not because of Gerda’s condition, but because I abruptly discerned how indefensible my presence there was: What was I doing in a Rio hospital room, beside a sick and practically unknown woman?

  Wouldn’t it be better to leave the room and try to forget about the existence of Kurt and Gerda, and find some less blind situation, one as clear as my hand, which opened like a fan in front of the lampshade, my fingers the succinct verses I’d like to have?

  But there was Gerda, under my care.

  I touched the hand on the white sheet covering her, and she opened her eyes. She closed them again.

  I opened the blinds. On the other side of the street w
as an abandoned lot. I felt a shiver, like something was about to happen, and went to see if Gerda needed anything from me.

  It looked like she had touched up the dye job on her hair with a shade closer to purple. I noticed that she’d aged like Kurt had recently. How much time had passed? I asked myself this question as I watched shadows on the wall, making me drowsy.

  Once more I put my hand on the sheet that covered her. Gerda opened her eyes again. I saw that they were very red, watery. She gazed at the ceiling for a few minutes—it took her a while to notice my presence.

  Suddenly she suffered a shudder of pain, and then she saw me. I half smiled, not exactly because I felt obliged to force an air of consolation in front of a sick person, but because I barely knew Gerda, just as I barely knew anything in my life after the Glória neighborhood back in Porto Alegre, and aside from that, Gerda made me feel an embarrassment beyond what I was used to feeling around Kurt, and her presence seemed to demand a more ceremonious expression, because she was so quiet, distant, mysterious.

  But that night Gerda was different: when she saw me a wide smile broke across her face, and I could see just how white her teeth were, and then she started talking, far more than I would have expected from her.

  She asked me what time it was and how long she’d been there. I told her the time, and then confessed that I didn’t really know how long she’d been in the hospital—I’d think about it—I just knew that Kurt had given me the task of keeping her company that night.

  Ah, Kurt, Gerda said to me, Kurt… She looked at me, without losing her smile, and at that moment I realized that the Gerda lying there wasn’t the one I knew, a decidedly different woman occupied Gerda’s body now, another woman who allowed herself to flourish in front of me for the first time, or maybe not, maybe Gerda was deliriously ill, but I didn’t want to call anyone, not the floor physician, not the nurses—I let her take my hand and sigh, Kurt, ah Kurt, she was speaking with such an enthusiastic tone, perhaps beyond what was appropriate—I knew nothing or next to nothing about the state of Gerda’s health beyond the cancer Amália told me about and the immense scar I saw cutting across her thorax—but at that moment Gerda seemed to come to the surface of whatever ailment was afflicting her, and told me that it was in Hamburg after the war that the two of them met, that they’d both been born and raised in Brazil by German parents, and in Hamburg they danced away the night, they would dance and the most foolish words would come to their lips—Gerda was sweating, her voice breathless, she was sweating a lot and holding my hand between hers, staring at me and repeating pained, choppy sentences with Kurt’s name.

  She remembered how as soon as they met they came back to Brazil—Gerda’s father owned the land where they still lived today, they’d built a house there, married, but children never came, and what she had inside herself began to hurt, like a land that was cultivated in her mind but would remain always and forever unknown.

  No, I said, not an always and forever unknown country, I answered, as a way to prevent Gerda from succumbing to a memory that seemed to be making things worse, since, at the moment she said the words always and forever unknown country, I perceived—right when in the middle of it she had given a long pause and gasped—it was just then that everything started to seem very serious, even though she was able to keep going and continued to hold my hand all by herself, she was even pulling my hand, yes, such that I was being pulled, dragged out of myself, lying on top of her body as I was doing now and devouring her, and when she said my God, a spasm, in a flash her body slackened, wilted, paralyzed, but not mine, mine was still going, and then came to the climax with a heaving gasp, to the point of evanescing over that woman who was no longer reacting, a stone.

  It took me a while to untangle myself from Gerda’s inert arms. I didn’t feel the need to close her eyes, went into the bathroom.

  As I urinated, trying to focus on and destroy a small fleck of filth that seemed to be crusted onto the white porcelain of the toilet, a nurse came into the room and announced that she was going to give Gerda an injection, and that with this dose she’d be in sufficient condition to get on a plane to Germany in a few days.

  I went to the door of the bathroom, still zipping my fly. The nurse gave a few hysterical little laughs with the stuff for the injection in her hand, and started to tell me that Gerda was recovering all her functions nicely: she was going to the bathroom religiously at bedtime, after her dinner had settled, and no longer felt pain during her bowel movements.

  She won’t be having any more bowel movements, I told her. Huh? the nurse probed. Look, I said, pointing to Gerda’s body.

  I lifted Gerda’s hand, raised my index finger to her wrist, and her pulse beat twice, three times. I released her hand somewhat brusquely, stepped away. The nurse explained that this response from a dead body could last for a few hours. I asked her to close Gerda’s eyes, I’d already had enough of that still-warm death.

  The nurse went out, I went to the window. The sun was trying to come out. In the vacant lot out front were five ragamuffin drifters, all of them standing with expectant posture, staring insistently at me. What did they want from me? I wondered, and lowered the blinds.

  I picked up the phone and dialed the number of the hotel. She died, I said to Kurt. He said he’d come over later.

  Nearby, a flock of birds started to sing. I lay down on the sofa, closed my eyes.

  I opened my eyes, guessing the steps in the hallway were Kurt’s. This at least I recognized, Kurt’s gait. Before he opened the door I got up and went over to Gerda’s body. Kurt came close. He said he’d already brought our bags, he’d left them with the hospital doorman.

  Only then did I notice that Gerda was ready, dressed in a gray skirt suit and white blouse, her half-open mouth lipsticked a pale pink, cotton in her nostrils.

  I thought: how long will the funeral last? Through the slits in the blinds, I could see it was a clear day.

  I looked at Kurt, but there was nothing to read on his face but fatigue. I turned my eyes back to the bright slits in the blinds and couldn’t stop thinking about the trip to Germany, certain to be canceled now.

  We’ll take the body to Porto Alegre this morning, Kurt said.

  And a horrible alarm clock began to go off inside the closet. As Kurt opened the closet the alarm shut off.

  A shot in the yard out front. That was the first line of a poem I wrote in its entirety on the spot. I kept the poem in my head all the way to the airport. When we got there, I sat down at a lunch counter and copied it onto a paper napkin. It was the last poem I wrote. After that I never wrote another poem again.

  But for the time being I was still standing there, composing the poem, the words coming in streams, in front of me was Gerda’s body, and just beyond was Kurt, standing to face me. He was staring at me. A shot in the yard out front / A hardened fingernail scraping the tepid earth—that’s how the poem continued, and to remember it I’d kept repeating it in my head line by line while I waited until it was time to escape that foul-smelling hospital room.

  Gerda’s casket was put in a special car, half-chromed—Kurt and I were in front of the hospital waiting for a taxi to take us to the airport. We wouldn’t see the casket again until Porto Alegre.

  When Kurt bent down to get into the taxi, I had an urge to help him but I stopped, as though preferring to closely watch what I was seeing: this man had really aged beyond his years, he was getting into the taxi with such difficulty that it left my mouth agape, thinking about how unprepared I was to track the passage of time.

  It’s that Kurt had practically turned into an old man—and I, if I stopped to take note, would no doubt find myself a man and not the boy that Kurt pulled out of jail.

  A period had passed since the day Kurt brought me to be with him, and now there was no denying it: this period had been longer than I had supposed.

  And I wondered, a wave of goosebumps passing over the flesh of my scalp: Why this lapse in recognizing such a duration?
<
br />   In any case, if I managed somehow to cure this lapse, if my memory ran backward to reconstruct this time, who would be able to evaluate its accuracy?

  Something happened, I said to myself, and the secret seems to have been lost inside me, or maybe there, inside Kurt, a man unshaken by tears or any sort of commotion. And there he was, sitting in the backseat of the taxi, waiting for me to get in and remain beside his infinite dryness until we got to the airport, then from one airport to another, and from there to the manor for who knows how many more years, and from the manor, finally, to the edge of a hole—certainly the same as Gerda’s.

  I sat beside Kurt. Gerda’s casket had already gone on ahead—it would obviously get crammed deep into the entrails of the airplane so that none of the passengers would see it.

  As the taxi drove along Guanabara Bay, Kurt raised his hand in a tremulous gesture, and recalled that, years ago, he had come to Rio on business by himself a few times, in those days he stayed at the Copacabana Palace, he had an old friend who lived in Rio, younger than him, heir to a large fortune, who later died of leukemia—at the mention of the friend’s death I looked over at Kurt, he was taking pains to hold his gaze, looking out over Guanabara Bay—this friend had taken him for nights out on the town in Rio, in his company Kurt had even drank cachaça, until then he’d never tasted it, but it wasn’t pure cachaça, it was mixed with Coke, and this mixture was called samba-in-Berlin, samba-in-Berlin was what we ordered in the good old days, Kurt was saying carefully, without registering any emotion, the strange thing was that he started repeating the story of his trips to Rio: the friend, heir to a solid fortune, the two of them in the arbor at the Copacabana Palace, a world-famous actress whose name he’d now forgotten surrounded by photographers, and the story would stop when he got to that mixture of cachaça and Coke, the samba-in-Berlin, then he started over, repeating what he’d said before—those trips to Rio, the heir friend—always adding a detail or two, the late afternoon on the beach at Urca, the window of his hotel room facing the beach, and of course, topping it all off was the samba-in-Berlin—three, four, five times, as though he were trying to illuminate a point that kept escaping him, making it necessary to start all over again, two, three more times, and so on, until we arrived at Galeão airport and Kurt finally stanched the flow of his memories. His last phrase: