Face [2 ed.] 9781609401283, 9780930324902

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THE CRITICS ON CECILE PINEDA Cecile Pineda is a writer of the utmost artistic integrity.

– J. M. Coetzee

An author of powerful imagination and intellect, Cecile Pineda has already been compared to Cortazar, Borges, Marquez, Camus, Lagerquvist and Kafka. She has become one of the most discussed up-and-coming American novelists around.

– San Antonio Light

Critical Praise for Face:

The author reveals the immense power of human will and obsession . . . an original, complex portrait of survival.

– New York Times Book Review

A poetic, hallucinatory work, finely and sparely written, the debut of a very talented writer indeed. May we see more?

– Newsday

Written with sparse prose, stark drama and pointed symbolism, the novel is an intensely moving tale of catastrophe and redemption, of the fall and unyielding will of the human spirit. The prose of this novel cuts like a surgeon’s scalpel; not a word is wasted or out of place.

– Nashville Banner

There is an immediacy to her narrative, combined with images that startle our senses, that leave us haunted.

– San Francisco Chronicle

Speaks in the spare voice of man’s spirit at its final reach.

– The Tribune (San Diego)

Pineda’s haunted story, with its bold symbolism, will remind readers of Camus and Kafka.

– People

Critical praise for Frieze: Elegant form and vigorous detail give Frieze its mesmerizing power.

– Josephine Humphreys in The Nation

A Singular, absorbing book.

– The New Yorker

As delicately phrased as a prose poem. . . . A parable that opposes the pride and power of the state to the slow resistance of human life.

– Richard Eder in The Los Angeles Times Book Review

Critical Praise for The Love Queen of the Amazon: The passionate backdrop of South America has produced some of modern literature’s most remarkable female characters. . . . In her third novel, The Love Queen of the Amazon, Cecile Pineda enhances this roster with a brilliantly drawn portrait of a Peruvian bawd, Ana Magdalena Figueroa. She is one of the few great Latin heroines not created by the male imagination, and Ana Magdalena’s amorous history provides a unique vehicle for the U.S.-born Pineda to look with a satirically feminine eye at the manners, mores, and literature of all the Americas, to which Love Queen is a noteworthy addition.

– Richard Martins in The Chicago Tribune

Ana Magdalena Arzate de Figueroa stars in Cecile Pineda’s terrific new novel, The Love Queen of the Amazon. . . . Her story has a soft, erotic feel, with a cast of characters who persist in making theatrical fools of themselves and others throughout. . . .

– Tom Miller in The New York Times Book Review

Critical Praise for Fishlight: A Dream of Childhood: Fishlight is a gentle, beautiful book, a rare and poetic song from an exquisitely melancholy childhood, written with heartbreaking innocence and a great love of life. It is original, poignant, profoundly simple and unforgettable. Cecile Pineda creates wonderful magic.

– John Nichols, author of The Milagro Beanfield War

Fishlight is a long-awaited treat . . . full of pulsing, beautiful language from a gifted storyteller . . . writing at the peak of her craft.

– Virgil Suarez, editor of Iguana Dreams

Other novels by Cecile Pineda Face Frieze The Love Queen of the Amazon Fishlight: A Dream of Childhood Bardo99: A Mononovel Redoubt: A Mononovel

FACE Cecile Pineda with a Foreword by J. M. Coetzee and new introductions by Cecile Pineda and Juan Bruce-Novoa

San Antonio, Texas 2003

Face © 1985, Revised edition © 2003 by Cecile Pineda Cover illustration, “The Living Move: JBN” © 2000 by Kathy Vargas Face was first published by Viking Penguin in hardcover (1985) and paperback (1986). Wings Press paperback was published in 2003. Revised Edition, First Printing ISBN: 0-930324-90-0 (paperback) E-book (eBook) Publication, 2011 ePub: 978-1-60940-126-9 Kindle: 978-1-60940-127-6 Library PDF: 978-1-60940-128-3

Wings Press 627 E. Guenther San Antonio, Texas 78210 Phone/fax: (210) 271-7805 On-line catalogue and ordering: www.wingspress.com Cataloging In Publication: Pineda, Cecile. Face / Cecile Pineda. Revised edition. Originally published: New York, 1985. New introduction, foreword, and author’s note. XXXX p. ; 14 cm. ISBN 0-930324-90-0 (pbk.) 1.Twentieth century—Fiction. 2. Cara, Helio (Fictitious character)—Fiction. 3. Surgery—Fiction. 4. Brazil—Fistion. I. Title. PS 3566.I5214 F3 2003 813´.54—

Contents

Foreword, by J. M. Coetzee

xi

The Birth, Life, and Rebirth of Face by Cecile Pineda

xii



Introduction, by Juan Bruce-Novoa

xvi

Face

Prologue

2



I. Capital

3



II. Hinterland

95



About the Cover Artist About the Author

152 153

for my sons, Michael and David



Like a novel, the face is a web of living meanings, an inter-human event, in which the thing and its expression are inextricably joined.



– M. Merleau-Ponty Phénomènologie de la Perception

The meaning of extinction is . . . to be sought first not in what each person’s own life means to him but in what the world and the people in it mean to him. . . . When that community is all mankind, the loss of the human context is total, and no one is left to respond. In facing this . . . we will either respond to it before it is done . . . or . . . pass into oblivion.



– Jonathan Schell The Fate of the Earth

Foreword When I read Face in 1985, it struck me as an extraordinary achievement, all the more extraordinary for being a first novel. Rereading it has not changed my estimate. With exemplary freshness it asks of us: What is this thing, this structure of skin and bone and gristle and muscle, that we are condemned to carry around with us wherever we go? Where does it begin, where does it end? And why does everyone see it rather than seeing me? Or – turning the questions on their head: Who is this I that dares to think of itself as concealed behind its face, other than its face, so that its face is not it? Helio Cara is a man who loses his face and learns what it is to live without a face in a society that is neither particularly cruel nor particularly kind, just has no philosophy of the face, has given no thought to the face, and therefore reacts to facelessness with bewilderment and anger. But Helio Cara is not just a victim doomed to suffer the consequences of a horrible accident: with exemplary resolution, foresight, and courage, in the second half of the book, he builds a new face for himself and thus, in the deepest as well as the most superficial of senses, becomes the author of his own life.

– J.M. Coetzee

• xi •

The Birth, Life, and Rebirth of FACE as witnessed by the author Face started out as a filler story in the back pages of a 1977 newspaper. The story I read there gripped me in ways I could not begin to understand. Without doubt, I said to myself, such a remarkable story will appeal to some novelist who will discern meanings in it so powerful that the story will act as a catalyst for a memorable work of fiction. It never occurred to me that I myself might take up the cudgels; after all, in those days I had an experimental theater company to absorb all my energy; nonetheless, I filed the clip away. One year passed. There were no discerning novelists that year, none that took note of the story, at any rate. A second year passed, and a third, and, despite my study’s disorder, I remembered – I always remembered – where the clip was filed. I remembered because the story had come to fester like an unhealed wound. I began writing something that I tentatively called Face. I took a survival job in an office with a memory typewriter (it was then 1980, still a low-tech age) because I could come in early before the official day began to work on the manuscript. Over time, people were generous. I met a colleague, the late Carolyn Doty, who encouraged me. Thanks to her introduction, I was able to sell Face within 30 days of my presenting it to thenViking-Penguin editor, Amanda Vaill. It was her assistant, Stacy Schiff (who became a remarkable writer in her own right, having authored two outstanding biographies of St. Exupéry and of Vera Nabokov) who first read Face one weekend, and phoned Amanda in her out-of-town retreat to tell her that “I think we have something here.” My Achilles heel as a writer probably has to do with a near obsession for getting it right – which for a writer may be as good a trait as any. Accordingly I took Face back because I knew it • xii •

wasn’t quite finished. Very probably the folks at Viking thought I had lost my mind, but when I returned the finished manuscript six months later, my editor admitted that the changes were for the better. One last sticking point remained. Stacy kept trying to persuade me to satisfy the reader’s craving to know what happened to Lula. But from the very beginning, the idea of indeterminacy appealed to me. As in life there are no easy endings, not even when the fat lady trills her terminal encore. Ultimately I allowed myself to be convinced. I offered the section which now appears at the conclusion of Face. After all, why not allow the reader a little satisfaction, however slippery? I was committed as well to removing plot as a convenient crutch for reader, as well as for the writer. We start with the climax: you know off the bat that this man has toppled from a cliff, that he has smashed his face. And lastly, I was committed to the idea that the reader would feel impelled to turn the pages nonetheless. For that I adopted a pattern of damped oscillations: Cara experiences flashbacks, but these, like waves in a pond, diminish over time in ever gentler eddies. So Face was born. Some of the questions I found myself asking helped shape the work. For example: what of the body can be lost or destroyed before a person loses all claim to inclusion in the human race? That is, what is the minimal bodily requirement that constitutes a human being? What determines the identity of an individual? Is it a factor of human will, of human drive and determination, of what current parlance likes to call self-image? Or is identity conferred by community recognition? Or both? Is one possible without the other? How do people change? What allows them to heal? Does one have to return to one’s deepest roots to re-contact one’s identity, to re-discover where one came from, and where one is headed? How can the writer emblemize the slow, minute increments that accompany cellular change? Is there a correlative measured in terms of daily existence? What emotional stages accompany a person’s encounter with horror? At what point can an individual contemplate relinquishing his • xiii •

attachment to victimhood? What is the meaning of catastrophe? Where and how does a transformative moment come about? The story of how Face survived is perhaps of some interest. Final manuscript in hand, I boarded the New York subway for my agent’s office. It suddenly occurred to me that my life hung by a thread. What if my trip were to be interrupted? What if someone were to push me off a platform (a childhood phobia)? But the delivery was uneventful. Mother and child were to do reasonably well. Face was to receive several prizes, including the Gold Medal of the Commonwealth Club of California (which until then had always awarded silver medals to first novels), and the Sue Kaufman Prize from the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters. After its initial print run, Face was reprinted as a Contemporary American Fiction paperback but Viking-Penguin had no plans for keeping it print, and despite a letter-writing campaign from scholars, professors, some prominent critics and from one of Viking’s most distinguished novelists, the copyright was to revert to me. Over the next six years I parcel posted cartons of xerox reprints to scholars, academics, and bookstores all over the country, from Massachusetts to Wisconsin, from Connecticut to Texas, and all over California for teachers who, despite its having gone out of print, still hoped to include it in their syllabi. Finally Wings Press and its editor Bryce Milligan took up the cause: Face has come home at last, the cornerstone of the uniform Wings edition of my works. The good news is that, despite its curious history, Face has survived. I take great pleasure from giving readings; in a way, they satisfy a chronic nostalgia for the lost world of the theater, but what pleases me most is the question period when people offer their own interpretations of what reading Face means to them. I have received comments from people who are severely handicapped who credit Face with having changed their lives. Once a woman raised a timid hand (in rebuke, nonetheless): “Why did you choose a man as your protagonist?” “What makes you think • xiv •

I have?” was my reply. I want to invite each reader to look beyond surfaces, and look again. And again. Because a worthwhile reading, for that matter, reading anything of worth, is always a process of negotiation. It is a meeting between the author and the reader, between me and you with all your life experience, all the knowledge of living that you bring to the text. That is what makes the act of reading beautiful, that meeting between two, in the rich ferment of the space between. For me, perhaps the most satisfying reaction to Face came from a struggling third-world student: “This is our book,” he said. “This is about us. It’s about being invisible.” And perhaps that is why, beyond any critical acclaim, and the prizes it has won, Face has managed to survive. Cecile Pineda Oakland, California

• xv •

Face to Face: An Introduction As for the novel, although its plot can be summarized and the ‘thought’ of the writer lends itself to abstract expression, this conceptual significance is extracted from a wider one, as the description of a person is extracted from the actual appearance of his face. The novelist’s task is not to expound ideas or even analyse characters, but to depict an interhuman event, ripening and bursting upon us with no ideological commentary. – Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Phenomenology of Perception

Novels open spaces of illusion constructed to convince readers that, just like in the real world, everything is there, no need to scrutinize each particular element. Most of life hovers at the periphery, its mass filling the surface of perception to assure against distracting gaps in the smooth, unobtrusive envelope of existence. Would the mind not block most of the stimuli constantly bombarding it, sensory overload could inhibit all action. A novel’s filter weaves an even tighter grid. It need not fill the surface. Counting on the reader’s complicity, a novelist can leave the superfluous, the peripheral to the unconscious assumption of contextual scenery and concentrate on essentials. Cecile Pineda has mastered the techniques of filtering out – editing down – to bare essentials. Her writing evokes a ground zero where few characters appear, then she seems to spread the circle only as far as absolutely necessary to give them just the range of movement necessary to achieve their purpose . . . evoke, appear, seem – key words in Pineda’s world of persuasive illusions, her world of seductive novels. Face seems to be a tightly focused, even simple, novel about appearance. A man suddenly slips off his life-path, losing his identity, and must struggle against great odds and menacing forces to reinvent himself before being allowed to return. Nothing new in that: few tales more ancient, more archetypal • xvi •

than this allegory of liminal initiation. Since pre-history, humans have been fascinated by stories of people torn from the habitual pattern of their past, subjected to grueling trials of their endurance and resourcefulness, and forced to remake themselves to win the right to a future. Surface details vary over the steady, foundational paradigm. Like a face, a novel is the arrangement of distinct parts into a whole with its own identity. But the parts are standard, thus difference profiles against a field of similarity. The final product, though individual in each case, sometimes even unique, follows a few classic patterns within the limited field of human diversity. However, it is hardly ever given to any of us to invent ourselves from scratch, as writers seem to invent a novel. And what would we do if given the chance or forced into the need, as Pineda’s protagonist must with his own face? Again, to seem appears to hover large. As Mary Shelly knew, invention is not to make something from nothing, but to rearrange the given. Novelists rearrange from a set of preexisting elements, even when they seem to start from nothing. Pineda and her protagonist both invent from the givens of culture and history – personal and public – and the discards of social consumption. Both appropriate formulae and procedures of elite public models, then in the intimacy of their private workshop, strip then down to apparently simple forms and apply them to fashion the most efficient, most appropriate reformulation with which they return to public circulation. In the protagonist’s case, it secures him his desire: an unremarkable countenance that permits him to return to work and safely negotiate society, unencumbered by extreme difference, felicitously anonymous. For Pineda, it merits the opposite: public notoriety that cancels her anonymity and any possibility of her going unnoticed again. Evocation? Lest we forget, at the heart of the protagonist’s and author’s contiguous projects lies the third of our terms: evocation. Both search memory for a source of inspiration. Both searches lead to that ancient wellspring of all myth: • xvii •

the mother. She is evoked almost from the start, at first in the sympathetic figure of the abandoned, ailing mother calling for her child’s return. But this mother’s call destroys her son’s life, obliterating his hard-won, adult identity, literally reducing him to a pre-natal-like state of featurelessness. How are we to comprehend this apparent perversion of the motherly role? Pairing Mother and Nature comes so easy to us that they seem intrinsically bound. Nature as the source of life and nurturing environment, yes, but also jealous of prerogatives as well as faithful to the deep rhythms and cycles of custom and tradition. Cross her and her wrath will know no limit. Yet she is also forgiving, quick to return to nurturing out of one of those same deeply ingrained instincts: the preservation of her offspring. So she strikes out of offended sensibilities, then comforts and cures out of love and responsibility. The protagonist of Face offends by losing his way. The faces he admires are artificial; his models, created by media. He wanders off down the wrong path. That his mother was also complicit in guiding him, even driving him to it, makes little difference. Mothers are also lovers, someone else’s lover, and choices must be made that do not always please their loving children. The mother strikes to remind the child of something left behind. The child discovers another possibility of himself, a different model hidden in forgetfulness or trauma, then turns down a road not taken and sets out again. Everywhere the myth can be found. Can we risk speaking of universals in this age of the rule of local difference? Yes, certainly, because Face is a tale of universals. Through what door can we approach the universal, Joseph Campell would ask? One must pass through some local door to enter the labyrinth of myth. Which culture, whose history? In a text so pruned of excess, much depends on the reader’s predilections. I follow my own, although readers are welcome to follow theirs. For me, though Pineda locates her story in Brazil, my Mexican heritage leads me to associate the underlying myth with the familiar figure of La Llorona: the forsaken • xviii •

mother whose lament calls wandering children to their death. Thus contextualized, the pervasive presence of water as the backdrop for the initial scenes assumes more profound resonance: la Llorona’s favorite haunts are rivers, lakes, streams, or any avatar of watery pools for drowning. And once this version of the mother figure is evoked, could her Mexican cohort la Malinche lag far behind? Pineda’s protagonist ventures from urban metropolis into the hinterland to take refuge in his deceased mother’s house. The trip into the womb of his personal history leads to the rediscovery of the understandably suppressed traumas of his origins: the deadly play of a mother’s shifting allegiance. While laboriously engendering his reincarnation – carving and suturing something new yet according to sufficiently familiar outlines as to go unnoticed – he, too, evokes the elements of myth, now in a reprise of the communal psychodrama of conquest, assassination, betrayal, colonization and mestizaje. Brazil and Mexico fuse in those dark, subterranean communicating vessels of art. By stripping away the superficial, national trappings of the story, Pineda offers readers one of the most fascinating, most refreshed versions of the Lllorona/ Malinche tale in any literature. This accomplishment alone bespeaks her consummate power of evocation. Novels, however, are not primarily conveyers of messages, but spaces of experience. True, Face offers an exquisite allegory of the human condition. Yet it succeeds first as a seductive text that ensnares the reader though the measured flow of its language, suggestively lyrical imagery, rhythmically developed play of leitmotifs, purposeful suspension of expectations, and fascinating development of its protagonist. In short, it works as a narrative. That it also provides multiple levels of moral and philosophical meaning for readers who demand more profound encounters from their readings is a welcome extra one finds so seldom in this age of postmodern skepticism and the vogue of chatty novelettes embarrassingly stretched into five hundred page ephemeron. No, if anything Face avers the power of the word to create meaning despite current opinion to the contrary; • xix •

power to evoke the appearance, the experience, of a seemly a real world of incredibly intense experience. Readers may well be surprised to find Face a most welcome reminder that some authors still write novels. – Juan Bruce-Novoa Mainz, Germany

• xx •

FACE

PROLOGUE

“On March 21, 19 – , as he raced down a path in the outlying hills of the Whale Back, a man lost his footing. His fall from the footholds cut into the rock high above the bay left him unconscious and terribly mutilated. “He was taken, still unconscious, to a charity hospital where he lay for some time wrapped in bandages. His wounds eventually healed, but because he could not afford even meager social security payments on his barber’s salary, public assistance refused him funds for surgical reconstruction. “In the Whale Back, the slum district where he had a shack, no one wanted to deal with him anymore. His face was no longer recognizable, even to his friends. He came and went mostly at night. He scavenged for food in the garbage cans of luxury districts. He survived by begging. He became known to his neighbors as a bruxo. He was feared, despised, but not ignored: they stoned his shack, and later set it on fire. “By September 21, he had disappeared. He was to board a bus at the Rodoviaria depot for Rio das Pedras and was not seen again in the Capital. “You may ask what this man was doing all this time he was in hiding...” –––––– From an address by T.G., doctor of plastic and reconstructive surgery, Twenty-fifth Annual Meeting of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, June 1975.

• 2 •

I CAPITAL

I

n the sky a cloud is forming. The head, the shoulders appear. It is May. There is a leaden grey outline lifting the white of the clouds in relief. The blue of the sky is cold, wintery. There is a greenish cast to the light. The sun is absent. A wind forms across the bay. The expanse of water marks its restlessness in the apparently static crests and troughs. From this distance, the waves appear not to move – curls arrested on a tightly coifed head. They do not move at all. Looking, then looking away, then rapidly looking again, one can only seem to catch a movement, more imperceptible than breath itself. Or perhaps the waves are the same, the same crests as before. Or perhaps they have only moved one trough closer to the shore, shifting slightly, as if in a viewfinder. In the sky, the cloud has changed now. The head is lowered, or perhaps it has turned around, or the shoulders have risen to ward off a blow. No more. The giant is gone. Other shapes are forming. One stair, at the top, is etched with a crack now. The concrete in the vein has crumbled. Little pebbles, aggregates of dust perhaps, have settled in the interstices. A child worrying the crack could dislodge them with a grubby finger. A child gazing out to sea (past the hook of land), letting his vacant eyes roam the shapes of giants left by the wind, by the clouds as they move, vacant eyes puzzling the stillness of waves that move only when the gaze is averted. The man stands there, not thinking of anything, fighting the stiff wind with each intake of air – the breath fought for, briefly denied, then won. Each time. Even with this wind, even at this height, the waves seem to hold their very breath. Still moving, they barely move at all. This is the sky he can see every morning. This is the bay which on calm days seems barely to breathe from this height. The man stands to the left, a little behind the child, watching him idly. The child squats on the landing, worrying the crack. Perhaps some small dirt clod is wedged between his nail and finger cap. He studies it for a moment. The moment stretches, • 4 •

then snaps as, once again, he bends to his examination. An insect, perhaps an ant, traces its path in the vein, now emerging from the crack, now disappearing. The man stands watching. A handkerchief covers his face; it is white cotton (not linen). The corner, which hangs below his chin, flutters in the wind. The man stands there as if his hands are in his pockets. He does not move. This is the only pavement, this and the steps which stretch down the cliff face, switching back below, disappearing from sight long before reaching the water. The man can see far down, to the point where the stairs are lost to view behind a jutting outcrop. Even the thin strands of grass there have difficulty holding their purchase. There are no trees, only the slate rock, the dead grasses assaulted by the wind. The surf is hidden altogether by the rock. People have always lived here, before remembering, building their shacks high above the city from its discards: cardboard, corrugated tin, sheets of green plastic, potato and rice sacks, tar paper. Even the earth is greasy from its steady human traffic. Rain, when it falls, forms globules before dissolving beneath the dusty surface of water left to gather in the oil drums. Along the gutters, open sewers run. It is grey now. The wind brings with it the chill of June, the smell of wood burning, the snap of wet bedclothes strung like sails against the wind. The boy stirs. Out of the corner of his eye, his glance has caught the open shoes, the dusty feet. He turns quickly to see the man standing there, hands in his pockets, face hidden behind the white handkerchief. The man watches as the boy, still running, appears on the ledge below, smaller, still running, disappearing, now reappearing on a terrace far below, smaller still, still running, again disappearing. “Mamae, Mamae.” His cry is lost far below. A solitary bird spreads its wings to the wind. The man shades his eyes against the glare.

• 5 •

I

n the street he wears the white handkerchief. He has worn it for – how long? A month? Since the first stone seemed to fly through his window of its own accord one morning. It was not to be the last. He sits on the step overlooking the bay. From here he can see the stairs. Was it raining then? He still has trouble remembering. There was a wind. Of that he is certain. From the top he could see the bay, grey then, grey sky, water color of lead. He remembers the feeling he had of being pressed. Was there a letter, perhaps? Or a telegram? At first he only vaguely remembers. Later it seems to him as though someone had died. Why was he unable to remember clearly? Had he been thinking at all in the first days as he lay in his cocoon of bandages? Or were his thoughts of a different kind? Was he perhaps without consciousness for a very long time? Or only sleeping? Was it the pain that allowed him to wake only for brief moments at a time? And where were the days that were lost to him, the ones that occupied his memory only by their absence? Had he perhaps died a little? He could imagine taking his life – the old one, before – taking it off like a coat and leaving it, on this step perhaps, high overlooking the bay, and quite calmly walking away, leaving it there, still warm. Would someone find it, try it on perhaps, enter it seamlessly, wear it like a sleeve – Lula, the barber shop – without thinking about it? Perhaps even now there was someone inhabiting his old life, someone other than he, before this had happened to him; someone with a face, not even necessarily much like his had been before, but a face that could be worn, even in daylight – at noon perhaps – in the street. What if it had been that way? No pain. Removing it, peeling it from him like a layer of being, leaving it sprawled on a bench. And what was left of his old life before the fall? The barber shop, the boss, Mario, they had all vanished. They were carrying on without him, had been now for nearly a season. And the boss must be cleaning up. With the apprentice there was even less to pay. And his mother? Had he ever known her to live any• 6 •

where else? Yet now, in the high village of the Interior, her wooden shack gaped empty, the shell of her passing. And somewhere in the Capital, sprawling there far below him, probably without giving him a passing thought, Lula... The sky turns wet. Cold seeps through his shirtsleeves. The clouds still melt.

• 7 •

T

here is barely time, barely time before the post office closes. He pushes the transmittal slip deep into his pocket. He begins to run. The bay reflects the play of lightning across its face. He can feel the first drops, icy, against his face and arms, and the smell, curious, acrid, the kind of sulphurous toying in the nostrils of rain long overdue. He is running – past the washlines stripped only moments ago by women even now making for the dry of their shacks. He is running now, seeing without seeing the stairs, stained now with the first drops of rain, He is running, running down stairs only moments ago filled with people sprinting to bring their wash in from the downpour. He runs, now down one flight, now down another. He sees without seeing the wet of the slope, the fury of wind-lashed clouds stampeding the sky. He sees without seeing the small boy squatting on the landing, with his stick tracing a crack in the rock. Water soaks his shoes. A cold membrane of slime sends his soles skating over the leather. He is heading for the post office, the transmittal slip crumpled and probably already wet in his pocket. He remembers the instant in which his running gives way, the instant of running when the stairs take on a running of their own. He remembers that moment when the ground fails before sending him arcing over the abyss. Mother! Had it come from him? Was it his own black cry? Mother of God! It seemed to him then it was his mother’s voice. He can hear her scream above the roaring of the waters. He is plummeting, spinning, caught in a gigantic saucer, spinning sky, water, its black mouth yawning upward. Mother! His body catapults over the water, whipped by gale. The stairs curl upward, surging like waves, smashing up through him, splintering – shards of light inside his head. The small boy sends his stick spinning over the edge. Mamae! Mamae! He is running toward the row of shacks • 8 •

fronting the steps. Mamae! A door opens. A hand reaches out to pull him clear of the storm into the comforting darkness. “Someone fell down there. A man. Down there by the rocks.” He pulls her hand. They stumble together through the downpour. They come to where the man lies crumpled. They stand shivering, uncertain. Already her thin dress is soaked and clinging. “Is he dead?” The woman leans closer, studying him. From under the man’s head, blood seeps.The boy stares in the dreamy way of children. He follows the sharp red tendrils as they blur into rain.

• 9 •

H

e is awake. Around him there are muffled sounds. A pillow is smothering him. He tries to fight off sleep. His hands, his arms will not obey. It occurs to him to call out. But when he tries to open his mouth, no sound comes. He can hear his own breathing. It is then he becomes aware that he is in some kind of sack. Again he tries to move his hand. There is a sound, footfalls perhaps. He feels someone restraining him. “Don’t move!” He hears the command distinctly. He remembers, he thinks he remembers as if through a long sleep leaping from step to step, picking his way between the stones. Perhaps the wind distracted him, or the gathering storm. He remembers, he thinks he remembers (was it raining?) having the impulse to run. He remembers feeling nothing. For a long time. Nothing. Only the dark, the footfalls. Inside the sack, he thinks he knows daylight from night. Hands touch his wrist, take his pulse. He moves his index. “Don’t talk. Don’t try to talk.” In the darkness of his tomb, he thinks he remembers the wind, the water color of lead, the sky spilling its clouds of dead horses. The impulse to run. It must have been a telegram. Someone was dying. He thinks he remembers. He remembers her asking, “Is it raining already?”

• 10 •

H

e remembers her asking, “Is it raining already?” For a moment they lie in the dim light, listening. Through the canyons, in the very high hills, the storm gathers momentum, where the wind races unhampered by the very tall buildings and the street canyons of the Capital. They can hear it through the shack door bolted tight against the fury of the storm. He catches her look, challenging, appraising. She laughs softly, prodding him. He slides over her. “Tart, sweet little tart.” He threads his fingers in the thick dark hair of her nape. “Sweet little tart.” His tongue finds her mouth. She stirs under him. They rock and moan together, their breath sighing, a boat breasting the waves. Was it a knock? At first he is not sure. He raises himself on his elbows. Now he is sure of it. Someone is pounding at the door to be heard. He fumbles for his trousers. In the dim light of the open door, his neighbor stands braced against the wind, his shirtsleeves flapping, billowing in the gale. “There’s a telegram for you.” His look is impatient. “Here.” He jabs the transmittal slip at him. His words are almost lost through the door pulled tight: “Better get there before it starts coming down.” He stands squinting in the almost dark. “What is it?” “From Rio das Pedras. It’s the old woman.” “Can’t you go tomorrow?” She nestles impatiently deep inside the covers. “She must be dying.”

• 11 •

H

e was scraping the bowl’s edges clean. His bare feet were cold where the chair rungs trapped his heels at the spur. His mother sat hunched by the kerosene lamp with the book open in the half-light. With her every finger prod, each word sprang to whispering life. “The heavens opened and I heard the angel sound a great trumpet. . . .” His spoon rang hollow. There was nothing left in the bowl. Through the pillow he can hear muffled sounds. “Good morning.” A man’s voice, a doctor perhaps. He moves his index, his entire hand to acknowledge the voice. “We’ll take a look at you today.” Today. How long has he been like this, here in this sack? He has lost count. Only throbbing marks the passing of days he remembers better as absence. Today. He feels a pang of what? Dread? Regret? Regret, perhaps. Scissors gnaw at the darkness. He can hear them distinctly, and the rasp of adhesive tearing. He can feel the gauze unwinding. No pain, or very little as the layers fall open like swaddling. He remembers the light stabbing at his eyes. He sees the man in his white jacket through an aura at first, and the two women, and as he grows accustomed to the light, their starched head caps. One grasps a clipboard. It was a telegram. He remembers now. His mother was dying. One woman removes the tray with its soiled bandages and snarls of adhesive. The other soaks a gauze sponge. He can see her distinctly. She dabs at his skin with alcohol. There is no smell. At first he only vaguely wonders at it. No smell at all. He can see something in their eyes. What, he is not sure. He remembers thinking is it so bad as that? He moves as if to get up. Quickly the woman displaces the water glass to the right of the nightstand. She slides the clipboard onto the cleared surface. She folds the sheet back. His legs seem thinner. He tries to move them. They do not obey. They bend over him. One moves his legs toward the edge of the bed. The other takes his knees and folds • 12 •

them over her forearm. She slips paper slippers over his feet before placing them on the ground. They do not look at him. The man has him by the armpits. They pull him to his feet. How long has he lain there? He tries to walk. He moves toward the nightstand. He falters at first. He gropes for the curtain. He is looking past the divider for a mirror. There is none. The wall is bare. Later, he remembers noticing the area above the nightstand, so free of grime it is a different color altogether. He lurches toward the toilet. They stop him now. “Enough effort for today.”

• 13 •

F

rom a vendor by the lake he buys her a green, red, and orange ice on a stick. He is rowing. She sits facing him. Sunday rowers crowd the water. She watches impassively, her eyes never leaving him, rhythmically licking, first the orange, then the red, and the green at the bottom. She holds the napkin under her right hand. Her dress is pink. It is ruffled at the hem. He watches her: one lick for every one of his oar strokes. They say nothing. Only the blinking of their eyes from time to time reveals their secret: one lick, one stroke; one lick, one stroke. Later they sit at the table in the open restaurant. The green paint on the table has been flaking in the sun. Someone has carved some initials on the exposed wood. “ You’ll have your own shop when we’re married, won’t you? Won’t you?”

• 14 •

H

e tries to get up. It is night now. A cold fluorescent light pulses in the corridor. In the obscurity of the room, he can make out the nightstand and the darkened entrance to the toilet. His legs are made of lead. He slides them over the cool of the bedsheets till his feet hang over the edge. He lowers his weight onto them carefully. Supporting himself, first on the guard rail, then the dresser’s edge, he propels himself forward into the darkness. The door jamb is within his grasp. He shifts his weight, regains his balance. He runs his free hand over the cold tile of the wall, fumbling for the light switch. In the sudden light, someone stands weaving before him on unsteady legs, something without nose or mouth, eyes dark purple splotches, sealed almost shut, particles tattooed onto the skin. His groin goes hot. Not me! Not me! His voice gargles in his throat. No sound comes, no sound at all. He is running, the soles of his shoes pound into the dirt, stained now with the first drops of rain. Of a sudden, the ground under him comes loose. It curls upward like waves. Grasses snap sharp against his shins. Flung free, he rockets out over the abyss. The rocks are dark, glistening with wet. Fists of slate pummel his arms, his legs. Not me. Not me. He would remember distinctly switching on the light. He would remember sensing that something had changed. He would remember searching the mirror on the wall opposite. He would distinctly remember not finding a face there. He would remember the sound of the light switch. He would remember seeing a mirror in the sudden light. He would remember the first instant of seeing something. He would remember feeling nothing, nothing at all. He would remember them lifting him from the tiled floor where he must have fallen. Being unaware of any lapse at all. It was that absence which frightened him the most. • 15 •

O

f late he has been thinking. He sits high, overlooking the bay, long before sunup, when the night wind speaks in his ear of a stranger, letting it speak to him. He remembers the time, after the telegram (his mother was dying), long after the telegram, the tear of the adhesive plaster, the wet of the dressings, the sound of darkness. He lies there again, hearing once more the sound of the daily round: the sweepers before dawn, the heavy buckets wincing down the cold stone corridors, the slap of the mops, the slop of water in the wringers, the clatter of bails falling against the rims, the rattle of dishes piled on the breakfast wagon. Nothing by mouth, nothing yet by mouth, the unnatural loudness in his ear. And through the bandages: Bom dia, Senhor. The voice of the Big Irma turning him over, flipping him onto the cold bedpan. Ai, Senhor, God never made the rain so pretty! The Big Irma, flipping his body like ninepins, and the new sheets of the morning cool to the touch. Later, he would see her gold teeth announcing the day like a sunrise. Why don’t you smile, Senhor? And her raucous cackle when he points to his jaws wired shut. In his eye, he saw her, the massive shelf of black breasts dancing dementedly, head thrown back, her teeth his own private sunrise. Peals of laughter: if God made a sound for the dawn, a sign, it would be this – if God had thought of it first, before the Big Irma. And later, the voice of the public address. Would Dr. — come to the . . . Would a gurney be brought . . . Would an orderly report . . . Always the same. Always the “would” – the tone impersonal, demanding. The world become an order, loud, precise, something well-bred, the well-bred of churches, funeral parlors, railroad stations. Always the “would,” repeated like a litany, rising in pitch, a crescendoing chorus, the voice, always the same, calling, demanding, insisting, a litany of directions orchestrating the day. Always the “would.” Would medications be delivered? • 16 •

Would the patient be wheeled. . . ? Music for a traffic cop – waving, cuing, pointing, snapping to attention, pirouetting, polished shoe tip pointing, heels clicking, commanding, exhorting, lamenting, despairing. And the approaching march of the medical students, their footfalls along the terrazzo corridors, their muted remarks, the commanding tone of the chief surgeon bringing them to attention, issuing reports, mapping his strategies. Now here we have. . . Always the same words. (The heavens opened and I heard the angel sound a great trumpet.) Now here we have. . . And the students come to inspect the exhibits, exclaiming or muttering in hushed voices, sometimes the sharp intake of breath. And the footsteps tramping the corridors. And here we have. . . Always closer. Not yet his turn. And here we have. . . The voice issues to the side of him, tangential to where he lies. It is not yet his turn. Now away from him: And here we see. . . And to the right we find. . . In the next bed we have. . . And the sound of the Big Irma, laughing her blessing of the dawn, her hands touching the places not mummified in swathings, swabbing, and swaddling, lifting his body, rolling him about the bed, the cold of the bedpan. And the Big Irma crowing her satisfaction. Ai, the rooster has squeezed out a tiny egg, ai, Senhor! And the great heaving laugh, the massive black body shuddering, releasing its laughter like a dawn of birds in flight. And the retreating footfalls. (It is not yet his turn.) And here we have the knee (becoming fainter), the arm . . . the abdomen . . . (and still fainter) the scrotum. He could picture them piled, fully fleshed and rosy, in a charnel house: the hand, the knee, the eardrum, ephemeral like the marine animals one sometimes sees thrown up on the shore, • 17 •

the bowel, the rib cage, the testicles. And the face. Is it his turn at last? He can hear them breathing expectantly, feel them crowding against the bed. And here we have the face, Gentlemen. He can almost hear their pencils poised expectantly, waiting to write. The linen of their jackets has ceased its restless whispering. They must be standing stock still. “The patient (ah, the patient, yes), the patient is a thirty-sixyear-old man of mixed birth (ah, mixed, yes), a barber by trade (ah, by trade, yes), who happened to descend the harbor stairs once too often (ah yes, the relieving joke)! Once too often. Never, never has the trauma service seen such an injury. A surgical nightmare. The face not simply (ah, yes, ‘simply’) unrecognizable, Gentlemen....” He hears the nervous sighing, the rustle of their puerile white. “The entire cranium crushed, with partial avulsion of the scalp. The mandibles a jumble of fragmented teeth, macerated gum tissue, the eyes swollen shut, the nose battered, its shape compromised in the mass of barely differentiated tissue. A distressing sight, Gentlemen. But unfortunately it’s too early to see it today (the immense sigh of relief ). Too early to remove the bandages. The teeth are still wired shut, the time they need to set in the shattered mandibular structure. All feeding is intravenous. . . . “How much time, you ask? Oh, perhaps six weeks, two months, it depends on the healing (and parting), we expect a major address by the trauma team, next month perhaps.” They give his feet a friendly tap as they move off. He can hear the herd of footfalls retreating, the friction of their linen becoming fainter.

• 18 •

T

he hall is empty now. From the street, he can still make out the hum of the electric fans. Paper stars revolve lazily in the warm air currents, gold paper chains whisper in the night breeze. In the far corner, the players pack up their marimbas. He stands in the open doorway, studying the night. At first he fails to see her behind the street lamp. Someone bends over her. He steps down onto the paving stones. She is once more alone as he catches up with her. “Who were you talking to?” he wants to know. “ You’re hurting my arm. “Lula, tell me. Who was it?”

• 19 •

A

nd Lula. Every day, after the afternoon lull, after the clatter of food trays piled on the supper wagons, after the arrivals and departures, after the final crescendo of the public address, Lula. He can hear her breathing close to him, his head still swathed in bandages, his jaws wired shut. Lula murmuring, amor, meu amor, murmuring, comforting, imploring. Do you want . . . ? Would you like . . .? Should I bring . . .? The questions dangle unanswered like paper stars suspended in a ballroom firmament, always unanswered. (Would you like. . .? Shall I get. . .? Do you mind. . . ?) Always the paper stars, yellow, suspended, their paper crackling, suspended in the night hum of the electric fans. And after the night preparations, after “lights out” (would the stations please extinguish...?), the sound of darkness in the corridors, the muffled sound of footfalls, the midnight errands, the clamor of metal doors closing the day on those condemned (himself among them). The whispering, the drone of words, the drone of silences, of sighs, of murmurings in the night, the cries of dreamers, the sounds of sleep, the breathing. He has come to know them, those like himself, docile in their sleep, oblivion breathing on them like fog. The night. He catches sight of Lula passing in the street. He can see her in his mirror, through the window, he is lathering his first client of the day. She carries a milk can. She walks straight, pretending not to see him. He sees her disappearing in his mirror, through the window, he watches her and strops the razor. “What’ll it be today?” “A shave.” “Nothing else?” He lets the question float suspended. “Nothing.”

• 20 •

And the cycle repeated. The metal of the mop shafts assaulting the wringers, the galvanized clatter of the pail handles, the voice of the Big Irma greeting the day. “Good morning, Senhor. A little rain on the morning for my herbs and my grasses. A little dew, faça o favor?” And her laughter of a sunrise, the Big Irma.

• 21 •

L

ately he has been thinking. He sits overlooking the harbor, before first light, before even the slum alley roosters greet the day in their dusty ghetto splendor. He is recalling the advance and retreat of the nurses, the doctors, the surgeons, the medical students. And here we have the knee, the arm, the eardrum. . . Always scaling new heights. And the loudspeaker imploring, directing, choreographing the skirmishes, the engagements. And the day coming when he is prepared. The Big Irma is washing him. “Now, Senhor, the most delicate part. What? it won’t come by itself? Then we’ll have to help it.” And the raucous laughter. He can see her gold teeth like a corn-row sunrise, her great shuddering breasts. “Today you get your mug shot, Senhor. No more bank heists for you!” And the wheezing for breath, the heaving of her great bosom. They have arranged the dressing to yield on cue, like an important unveiling. “And here, Gentlemen, after almost two months. . .” (he holds his breath) “. . . and here after almost two months . . .” The bandage lifts, the sunlight of morning stabs his eyes. And here we have the face . . . To him, their intake of breath is like a roar. When has he heard this sound? at his birth? at his death? I saw the angel in the heavens and the sound of the great trumpet came to me. When? “We have the face of Senhor Helio Cara!” Who is he? Who has become, with his name of a stranger? “Yes, Cara. The irony is not lost on you, I see.” But already he has held his breath too long. He feels the hot tears. And hears the voice: “Never has this service seen such an injury. Mr. Cara . . .” and the swallowed giggles of the medical students, standing at white starched attention, suppressing the whispering of their linen, “. . . such an injury.”

• 22 •

“S

uch an injury.” Of late he has been thinking. How was he to know? How was he to know it was nothing? Not compared to what was to come, nothing compared to what was to come. And Lula. The first time seeing her. . . Ah, but that, even that, is like nothing. He remembers her eyes, the look. What? Horror? Pity? Numbness? All of these? Does he imagine hurt? Or is it simply the stare of the bereft? “Helio,” she whispers, “Helio.” It is all she can blurt before tears choke her words. From deep inside the bed he produces “her” handkerchief. Surprised, he sees his hand offering it to her. He recognizes it. It is his hand, the handkerchief grey as always. And yet, for the first time, this hand. From where does it come?

• 23 •

T

hey are rowing in a boat on the lake. The green paint of the boat has been flaking and peeling for a long time, probably almost from the moment it was first painted. The oars groan in the oarlocks. It is unbearably humid and hot. Rain has been threatening all afternoon, a promise of welcome cool. She is sitting opposite him. She watches him impassively. Her eyes never leave him. She is dressed in her pink dress, the one with ruffles at the hem. In her new sandals she seems very young, younger than her years. Her black hair, normally worn long, is gathered this Sunday, a losing defense against the heat. He watches the moisture collect in drops between her breasts. He has bought her a Sunday Special, a cherry, orange, and lime ice. The heat has sent it melting into the napkin she carefully holds above her lap to protect her dress. The sky looks ready to part. He rows steadily. It is far to the other side. He can feel the sweat on his back, the shirt sticking to it, pulling on his skin as he bends to his task. The band of the Panama is unable to hold back the drops of sweat forming under his hat. He ships the oars to mop his brow. He works his handkerchief back in his pocket, leaning on one hip. He watches her licking her ice stick for a moment before he resumes his rowing. A drop of lime ice has spotted her dress. The moisture spreads. He pauses again to reach for his handkerchief. Taking it from him, she works at the spot. “ You’ll have your own shop, after, won’t you?” He feels the first drops begin to fall, he feels the cool on his forearms. He begins to row faster. “Won’t you?”

• 24 •

A

t first he does not see her. He is aware only of the pulsing fluorescence of the corridor. She is standing there breathing quietly, watching him “Senhor, Senhor.” It is the Big Irma, calling him. He can make out the shining contours of her face in the dark. Her whispering must have awakened him from a drugged sleep. He sits up with a start. The suddenness of his movement makes his face throb. “Come,” she prods him. “Can you walk? Get up.” “Where to?” “You’ll see. Come on.” She flips aside the cover. She helps him slide his feet off the bed. In the dark, he gropes for the paper slippers. “No,” she says. “You don’t need them. They make too much noise.” She puts a finger to her lips. “Come,” she urges. He struggles unsteadily to his feet. She watches the uncertainty of his swaying. She threads his arm through the crook of her elbow. Silently he pads beside her across the ward and into the hallway. They tread the length of the corridor without making a sound. At the corner, just before they reach the desk, she slides open a door. They step down into a utility closet, past sink and wringers; the floor is gritty under his bare feet. They are in a narrow runway paralleling the interior wall. It is entirely dark but for the faint glow coming from the opposite end. The opening gives way to a vast interior stairwell. Capping it is a deeply ribbed dome. A marble staircase corkscrews downward. At the bottom, some eight storeys below them, a circle of beeswax candles flickers, fixed to the marble floor. A sound of sighing wafts faintly upward toward them. “They’re waiting for us.” He is unbelieving. “What, here? In the hospital?” “Why not?” She laughs softly. “Hurry.” She moves down the several flights with surprising grace. The stairs continue down past the main entrance now boarded shut. At the bottom is a shallow circular room, its periphery hidden under the curving of the stairs. Crouching along the circum• 25 •

ference of the wall, people sit nodding. Others appear to be dreaming through half-closed lids. At the center, in the ring of candles, dishes of rice, food, and flowers have been placed. Curls of incense smoke swirl upward through the sweltering air. She leads him to a place left vacant under the stairs. They sit, squatting against the wall. Through the pain, he eyes the people around him. Who are they, he wonders, all these in white? Are they patients like himself? Are they housekeepers or janitors from the hospital? With the exception of the Big Irma, he has never seen any of them before. He searches the faces all around. They are shining in the candlelight. The air is stifling. Beads of sweat form on his skin and on the faces of the worshipers. A high-hatted priest chants the same song over and over. The verses drone on. “Try to sing,” she urges him. The room begins to sway in the heat and incense smoke. The throbbing of his face becomes a mask, he has the feeling of sinking, floating, below and above the swaying people. He tries to still the roaring in his ears. It seems to him as though they are lifting him, raising him up. He is passing over them, above their upraised hands, swaying with them as they rock to the chant. The dome high above him is lurching. He watches it turn slowly, gathering momentum, a huge wheel of a hundred spokes, swaying, turning. Through the opening at the apex of the dome, an eye, vast, pale, and empty of color is peering down at him.

• 26 •

I

n the dawn before the day pulls itself together, he has been thinking. He can see them shifting their weight, anxious to be done with him. “Often we find such conditions accompanied by some sensory deficit, but to what extent it’s too early to tell...” The surgeon pauses. “The prognosis, Gentlemen? Here our service is unclear. On the face of it (ah, the little joke, yes), on the face of it, Gentlemen, the state claims to subsidize complete rehabilitation, Gentlemen. But the facts, you will find, are quite otherwise. We can change the dressings, apply the salves, remove the sutures, sometimes (a pause for effect) we may even heal the wounds. Our record of public assistance is a generous one, sometimes too generous, in my opinion. But aesthetics go unsubsidized, at least for the moment. There are no funds for reconstruction, Gentlemen. Because the face, the face, Gentlemen, is a cosmetic matter, cosmetic at best...” (he can hear the voice rising, signaling the end of the presentation) “...and for the moment, we are without subsidies. No program exists now. And none may exist in the future. “Therefore we discharge such patients, often with a prosthesis to preserve the privacy of their deformities, and to spare the feelings of those near them, or who are forced to have dealings with them, as is often the case, with a mask, often of rubber, a practice we find dating from the First World War, following the first episodes of gassing. . . .”

• 27 •

T

hey are fitting him with a mask of rubber. It is neither brown nor orange, but the clinical color of ice bags, of hot water bottles. They pull at the eye holes till the rubber snaps into place under his chin. He can see the Big Irma interrupt her bed making to stare, her arms fallen idly at her side, her eyes empty, her breasts sagging now, undressed of laughter. “ Ai, Senhor, Senhor.” Her great head shakes from side to side. “Senhor.”

• 28 •

T

he shacks of the Whale Back have always appeared open somehow, row on row, along alleys that run straight or nearly straight. He never noticed, until now, how honeycombed they are, clustering like the nests of swallows – or wasps – clutching tightly at the hillside. He should have been prepared. Nearly three months it had been. The tramway leaves him with only a short distance of walking uphill. At that hour (it’s something after noon) and even in this season, the heat pounds overhead, his face throbs behind the mask. The dirt path is steep, steeper than he remembers. And the shacks! He never realized – before – how stacked they are against the slope, tumbling, scrambling, like clumsy, eyeless dwarves, their window openings dark against the fierce light of the noonday sun. Why had he never noticed how rutted the ground was, and powdery the earth except in those dank places the sun never reaches where rivulets of ghostly moisture cause moss to cushion the black slime of the gutters, so dark that even at noon a speck of crumpled foil winks deceivingly – like an eyeless sardine decaying in the wet. He should have been prepared. But trudging up the slope in his open shoes, through the faintness and the ache, his thoughts shut off, he struggles to place one foot before the other, intent only on this last stretch, ignoring the torment of sweat, unable to mop it, trapped as it is behind the mask. He has reached his threshold at last. For a moment he imagines the door gapes open in welcome. But what is the scatter of strange things over the ground – pieces of crumpled newspaper, a dented metal cup, a shaving brush? He stands in the doorway taking stock. His shadow travels across the room and comes to rest where the cupboard lies, knocked over and broken. And in the corner where his cot had stood, only the empty metal frame is left, its springs warped and sagging, the mattress, the blanket – gone. Quickly he skirts the pile of refuse on the ground. In the shed, through the opening in the wall opposite, he rips up the rotted floorboard. The box is there, its red and blue scrolls faded • 29 •

now. It is still there. He reaches below to pull it out. He slides the drawer open. Still there. Before he counts the coins, he glances over his shoulder. No one there to see. He spills the contents on the floor. They are his last cruzeiros. He counts them. He will have to work at once if he is to hold on to the little he has saved. He feels tired of a sudden. He lets the coins filter through his fingers and slide back into the box. He slips the cover in place before lowering it once more under the floorboards. They had not found it. It was safe.

• 30 •

H

e feels the stone stir under his foot. He feels the ground give way. With a sound like shattered glass, it takes on a life of its own. Waves the color of lead rise upward to take him. He throws his arm toward the beckoning grasses. Something, some rain-soaked refuse, lies half concealed in the grasses. He recognizes it by its color. He reaches for it. With a huge effort, he jerks himself awake. He lies sprawled on the empty bedsprings. His mouth throbs. The coils twang and thrum as he sits up. The dented cup, the shaving brush, all lie scattered as before. Yet he cannot remember lying down. He reaches to rub his eyes. The mask! He had forgotten it was there! Carefully he lifts the edge as it lies against his jaw. No pain. It lifts easily. Yet they had such trouble snapping it tight against his chin. He peels it upward. Can it be he has grown used to it already, like a second skin corseting his own bruised flesh? He tears it off. Exposed to air, his sweat turns cool. He is hungry. He has had nothing since morning. Nothing to drink. His throat is dry, scratchy with dust. In the shed he finds an oil can, empty now and rusted. He will have to try to get water. The pump is halfway down the slope. Could he carry it filled to brimming despite the faintness he feels? Perhaps a neighbor would let him have some – not so much to fill the can, but just enough to last until morning. He would knock. He would ask for water. They might even have some beans and rice, Ottavio and the woman. Or some polenta perhaps. Something to still the gnawing of his stomach. He starts across the alley. He pauses midway in the dusky light. He had left his face uncovered. Better go back. He struggles with the mask for some time before it finally snaps in place. He becomes dizzy with the effort. He slumps on the coils of the empty cot to rest.

• 31 •

W

ait outside.” The door shuts in his face. So it has been from that first knock, the first even-ing following his return to the Whale Back, without water, with nothing to eat. “Wait here.” And sometimes, much later, “She says we can’t,” or “Sorry. Nothing, today.” It perplexes him more and more in the days following. But the most curious thing is meeting them, in the dusty alleys, between the corrugated tin, the tar paper. They begin not to recognize him. At first he thinks it must be the mask. “It’s me, Helio.” He tries to say it: “It’s me. Helio.” But no matter how he says it, they answer less and less. Their grunts of fading recognition give way to silence. He becomes as one invisible. Finally it seems to him they no longer even see him. More and more, he takes refuge in the night, in darkness, or, in the early hours before dawn, before the sun is up.

• 32 •

H

e can feel himself churning through troubled dreams. Somewhere a window has been left open. In the storm, a curtain billows, a ghostly film fluttering in the cold. The night wind pelts the tin roofs with squalls of rain and hail. He is running. He can feel the hard pounding of his feet. He is running on the sodden ground. Grasses writhe in the wind’s grip. The ground heaves, he is falling, hurtling, he can see the rocks, barely beyond his reach, the grasses swaying, so near, yet so far. They tantalize, evade. He is plummeting. The surf roils black beneath him. The abyss runs to meet him. He is about to hit. He vaults, arcing backward, and wakes to the alarm of his own heart. In the warm darkness, he must have cried out. He had slept late into the morning. The shack swelters under the black tar paper and corrugated tin of the roof. His face still throbs when he sits up to reach for the water glass beside his cot. The pink appointment slip lies where he propped it to remind himself. He will have to hurry. He gropes for his clothes at the foot of the cot. He threads his arms through the sleeves of his only white shirt and draws on the sagging brown trousers. He sticks his bare feet into the waiting shoes. On the crate the mask lies shapeless, rust-brown, like a balloon, punctured and inert. He will have to struggle to stretch it into place. As he searches for his face in the piece of mirror propped against the wall, he becomes aware of a different sound, not the mid-morning singing of women at their washing, or the sharp high calls of urchins playing in the junk heap of abandoned oil drums – these sounds are known to him, public – but sound of another kind. Something moves in the powdery dust outside the shack. The sharp edge of a stone bites a sudden web into the glass. A pile of shards lies shining in the pool of sunlight. Down the alleyway, he can hear whoops of laughter and bare feet racing for cover in the dump. He slumps down on the blanket. He holds the water glass, stirring the lukewarm dregs. He watches it swirl around the edges. He bends down to sweep the pile of fragments. He lets • 33 •

them slide into the oil can already brimming over with discards. His face throbs. It is late. He studies the appointment slip. The center is far. He will have to ride there to keep to the time allotted him. He feels inside his pocket. Barely enough. He will have to ride. But like this? The mask is worse than useless. It offers no protection. Sealed inside its membrane, his face throbs and swelters. The silence, the averted gaze have become a condition of living in the Whale Back. The mask probably makes things worse. But without the mask? It was not possible. How then? With what could he cover it? He gropes inside the crate. The handkerchief! It is still there. He can tell by feel when he comes to it, soft, no longer new, or even white, as he sees when he withdraws it. The handkerchief, of course! He makes a triangle. He ties the corners in place. He is ready. He reaches for his fedora. On the way out, he drops the rubber mask in the oil can beside the door – where the mirror shards lie glinting in the sunlight.

• 34 •

I

t is not his face, this handkerchief. He knows it. And the ones with whom he has history, they know it, too. But the clerks at the windows, the armies of men standing in the endless lines of the rehabilitation center, none of them know it. For them, he has always been like this. It doesn’t matter at all that he wears the white handkerchief. It must not even occur to them to wonder, does he wear it against the heat perhaps? against sunburn? or perhaps to sop up sweat? The waiting room is like nothing he remembers. Row upon row of applicants stand lined up, waiting between the cordons. The uncertain incandescence, even at noon, of the electric bulbs held in their fluted glass sconces casts a milky obscurity on the dull grey marble of the alcoves, the faded portraits of police commissioners, the window grilles, the clerks behind the cages, the oak frames of the display boards where coded messages are posted. He is unsure to which window he must report. He peers over a shoulder comparing slips. But the man ahead of him gives no sign. His question goes unanswered as if he had not spoken. He moves to the next man. This one holds a green slip. “Is this the rehabilitation window?” As he tries to distinguish the words, the man feels him peering over his shoulder and contracts like a mollusk. “Lottery,” he snaps, turning away. “Where’s rehabilitation?” The man turns on him now in cold fury. “Lottery window. National lottery,” he shouts. People in the line turn to stare. A very old woman peers at him from behind thick glasses. “Ask information,” she rasps in her voice of an insect. She points a crooked finger in the distance, beyond the chain of alcoves. He notices a knot of figures, seemingly clustered around a kiosk of some sort. People appear to be gesturing with some animation. He can see heads nodding, people turning to stare; arms gesturing, fingers pointing. He begins to move down the corridor of people, but the lines of clients hinder his progress. • 35 •

“Get to the back of the line.” The voice is indignant. “You can’t pass here.” He skirts the cordons, tripping now over a stanchion which he sees too late. His face throbs. Sweat begins to seep through his hat band and under the handkerchief; already his undershirt is soaked. The room is stuffy, there is no air. The obscurity of the electric light seems to pass through a steam cloud. A halo forms around the tentative incandescence of the bulbs. “Why can’t you wait your turn like everyone else?” “Watch out! Can’t you see where you’re going?” Now skirting, now moving through the chorus of indignation, he hurls himself toward the green glow of the exit sign like one drowning, not caring whom he jostles in his flight to get free. He imagines the street outside, the noonday sun, a different heat. But when he reaches the door, he finds the entrance bricked over. A sign in red letters blocks his way: NO EXIT It is held in place by a length of hemp strung between the wooden molding of the jambs.

• 36 •

H

e reaches the corner just after sunrise. Already the shop attendants are at work, spreading soapy water over the store fronts, sweeping with their short brooms. The water forms puddles in the gutter, still carrying its traces of white foam, moving slowly at first, gathering speed as it finds its way toward the storm drain at the corner. He is later than usual. Too late to crank up the heavy metal awning which seals the shop front at night, too late even to bring in the soap bucket and rinse it in the utility sink at the back of the store, in the darkness behind the curtain. Already Luis, the junior apprentice, is seeing to the morning chores. He picks his way along the wet sidewalk, watching the sun etch the doorways and stone window frames across the street with its rosy light. All the way to the next corner, he can see clouds of vapor rising, following the spillage of the wash buckets on the sidewalk and into the street. The sweepers have already retreated into the cool of the stalls. In the glare beyond the far corner, he can see the depot, already shining in the early sunlight flooding the square. It is a good location. The bus depot gives on the marketplace, and the street continues past the square to the main post office. There are always plenty of customers, more than enough for the three chairs. They are almost always occupied – even at the siesta. As he reaches the stall, he can see the mirrors are already uncovered. Mario, the assistant, must have arrived early. Magazines and tabloids lie haphazardly on the empty wire-back chairs lining the wall. The boss is busy passing the duster over the ancient embossed till on the marble counter, readying it for the day’s cruzeiros. They both catch sight of him framed in the entrance. The feather duster clatters to the floor. The boss and the assistant put up their hands in mock terror. There is an awkward silence. Cara looks at them, baffled at first. “It’s me, Padrão!” No response. “Padrão, it’s me. Cara!” “Hey!” crows the boss. “Look who’s back. Get a load of the • 37 •

bandit!” he whinnies behind a fat, ringed hand. Luis, the apprentice, appears in the darkness brushing the curtain aside. “Mother of God!” Their guffaws are loud and sudden. “Too late for the stick-up,” croaks the boss. His tiny eyes blink with triumph. “All right. All right. It’s almost seven. No time to waste. Hurry up back there,” the boss shouts after the apprentice. He bends down behind the counter to retrieve the straying duster. Mario busies himself stacking folded white drapes on the shelf. “See you later. Gotta get to work.” Luis disappears once more in the darkness behind the curtain. The boss approaches. His tone is confidential. “How you been, hunh?” “As you see. And you?” “Busy.” The boss has trouble breathing. “We’ve been busy! Could be better” – his small eyes dart nervously over the stalls – “with Luis helping. Got lead in his pants, that one.” He rolls his eyes in the apprentice’s direction. His voice becomes tight with concern. “What they gonna do for you?” “You mean, now it’s over? Nothing.” “Nothing! You should find out. It’s for your good I’m telling you. Find out.” “I have.” “It’s no good for you, looking like that, know what I mean?” “What? The handkerchief?” “Yeah. It’s no good. Did you ask them?” “Sure.” “So what did they tell you?” “There’s nothing. Just programs.” “Programs!” The boss wheezes with indignation. “That’s no good. They can’t put you off like that. Find out.” He goes back to dusting the counter. “You don’t look good with that thing on. You don’t look confident. . . like you could get people’s confidence, know what I mean? You don’t mind if I tell you? It’s for your own good.” He is flicking the dust off the shelves. “You need confidence.” Now he busies himself with the register. “Damn!” he • 38 •

mutters under his breath. “Damn. These keys always stick!” There is a troubled silence, the sense of something coming. “OK, Helio! You take the back chair. Just for today. Away from the front. Just for today, see. Mario won’t mind, hunh, Mario? And you’ll feel better in back, know what I mean?” The silence stretches uneasily. Helio searches the coat rack for his white jacket. The boss stops him once more. “Say. Helio. . .Say. . .” “You’re wondering how I can work behind the handkerchief, is that it?” “Yes,” the boss’ voice cracks with relief. “I wonder, yes.” “It gets hot, but I see with no trouble.” He threads his arms in the jacket. “And that hat. I don’t like it. . . .” The padrão shakes his head disapprovingly. “Keeps it in place.” Helio hunches his shoulders, adjusting the coat. He takes up his place at the farther chair. “What if . . .” The boss lets the question hang in the uncertain air. Helio turns. “What if . . . ? What if what?” “Don’t get mad. I just want to know. How would it be if you . . .” “. . . took it off? Look.” He walks slowly to where the boss is standing. Deliberately, he removes the fedora and with his right hand reaches behind his head to grasp the knot. He lifts the handkerchief off his face. He watches the boss’ eyes narrow, sees them falter, hears the low whistle escape him. “God!” The boss turns away. “It’s not. . .” “Not what you thought?” “Shit.” Three men enter the store all at once. Each takes a seat. The boss catches sight of them in the mirror. “Get that thing back on!” Without turning around, Helio lifts the handkerchief once more over his face and clamps it in place under the fedora. He glances at the empty eyes of the customers. They make as if they • 39 •

had seen nothing. The boss is moving toward the window chair. “Mario,” he calls. “You take the middle chair today. Helio will work the back.” Mario’s eyes follow him as he takes his place, but under the handkerchief Helio gives no sign. The boss motions the first customer sitting in the row of hairpin chairs. The man rises, moving toward the boss’ chair. “What’ll it be?” “OK, OK. Where’s the fire?” Mario laughs as the next customer vaults into the middle chair. His own turn has come. He spins the farther chair around, inviting the last customer to sit. But the man feigns interest in a girlie magazine. “What can we do for you . . . ? Sir? Sir?” The man looks up. “Oh, sorry. Just waiting.” He tosses the magazine on the vacant chair next to him. “See you later.” He watches the man bolt into the street. Slowly, as he spins the chair back to its position, he meets the boss’ eyes in the mirror. Just then a new customer enters. Quickly the boss motions him into the empty chair at the front. Mario is dusting off his customer with the talc. He applies a small whisk broom to his neck and shoulders before removing the drape. Helio waits till Mario pockets his tip. “Mario,” he calls him over. “Listen, maybe you could give me a break.” “Like what?” “When you take care of one guy, let me have the next one. . . .” “Well . . . it’s just that . . .” He can see Mario’s Adam’s apple working. “OK. I get it. It’s my sweat, is that it?” “No. I didn’t exactly say that, man. It’s just. . .” He thinks fast. “OK. I’m going in back. Call me when there’s a customer waiting.” He gathers an armful of sports magazines. He lifts the curtain and passes into the darkness. Already the back of the shop seems to throb in the morning heat. A small barred window at the back, covered with soot, • 40 •

admits only the indirect light of the areaway, even at noon. There is a urinal and the utility sink. Below it sits the galvanized bucket, beside it the broom and a mop and wringer. A shelf stacked with cleaning powder completes the furnishings. He is alone. The apprentice is out on an errand. He sits down on the small chair, contemplating the darkness. It was a matter of chance. With a crush of customers, without giving them a chance to size him up long enough to want to bolt (not like the first fellow), then, perhaps . . . The room is hot. He wants to doze a little. He sits there with the magazines becoming heavy on his lap. Idly, he flips the pages, letting them fall whispering like a fan. A parade of trophy winners catches his eye. He studies the page more closely. If he could, would he like to look like this one? Or perhaps that one? – if he could have looks again. He looks at their faces one by one, as if with his eyes he could will himself to look like them, or if not like them, if not as attractive as they, at least unremarkable. He wills himself to look. His eyes sink into the smooth flesh, the color, the texture of skin, the black hair, a cap of dark waves, perfectly formed. Here a forehead is slightly lined, the complexion brown, shiny. The nose is short, the nostrils flare as though the skin were pulled tight. The sideburns reach to mid-ear. Or here the mouth is prominent, as if below the tissues the teeth must jut forward. There is a kind of swarthy look, and the highlights playing on forehead and cheekbone give a feeling of repose. But the eyes are black, like coals, burning, disquieting, deep within the sockets. He turns the page. Who are they, these men? He reads their names. But who are they really? Where did they come from? Did they have a mother – all to be so perfect? Where did they live? Did they sleep in a bed? Did they have to work to stay alive, or just play soccer? Did they ever beg for bread? Had they learned a trade? Or are they paid only to play on their teams, to pose for these pictures, dressed in sports shirts, open at the neck, displaying gold chains at their throats? Do they always wear those chains whenever they • 41 •

play? Or are they placed against their tanned skin by the people who carefully pose them against the photographer’s paper? Do they look like that every day – those same expressions, carefully set and held – or are they sometimes trapped by the unexpected, caught by joy or accident? No, not these. They are too clean, too well groomed in the latest hairstyles. Nothing could happen to them. They had always been perfect, never caught unawares. They are mannequins after all, without surprises, in lives where one pose succeeds another, trained to look perfect as though they float on floors of glass. He tries to imagine them animated but he cannot. He cannot see them breathe or blink. They are arrested in a state of perpetual well-being, in some perfect state, free of tears, or frowns, or catastrophe . . . She was lying beside him on the soft grass. The air was still. No birds sang in the noontime heat, no leaf stirred. A cicada rasped out its shrill note, then was still. Nothing moved, he felt the fire lick his loins. He could taste her salt. “Helio!” The boss is calling him. He awakens, startled. He lifts the curtain. Lula stands silhouetted against the noontime glare. He approaches her where she stands in the doorway. “I didn’t know you were coming.” She looks put out. “You know it’s my day off.” “Puxa! I forgot. I’ve been out too long.” She looks away from him. Two new patrons edge past her into the shop. He sees them eye the chairs. The boss is about to finish with his customer. “Look, it’s very busy now. Could you come back? Maybe tonight?” “Tonight?” He can hear her disappointment. “Tonight’ll be too late.” “Too late?” Already he is trapped. He knows it. The boss is • 42 •

draping one of the new customers. And Mario is just finishing. “Too late for what?” “There’s something I have to tell you.” “Can’t it wait?” She makes a face. “If it has to.” She reaches in her basket to hand him something wrapped in newspaper. “I brought you lunch.” She turns toward the door. Mario begins to lather his new customer. He watches her retreat without a word into the street, her back sullen with reproach. “Lula?” The siren blows to signal the hour for lunch, but not before the boss eyes him once again in the mirror.

• 43 •

L

ook, it hasn’t been easy, I know.” In the mid-afternoon lull between customers, the boss comes over. “But it’s not going to work like this. You know it. I know it. You can’t blame them. They don’t want a mystery man to shave them. Would you?” “Yes. If I needed a shave in a hurry and I was sure the guy could tell my neck from the strop!” “But like that they don’t know.” The boss’ voice goes hoarse. “Even if they’re in a hurry, they can always go to Pereira. He’s just across from the post office. They can’t even see your eyes, know what I mean? Does that get-up look like a joke to you?” “No. It doesn’t feel like one either.” “So, that’s it, I’m sorry.” And as an afterthought, “I’m not running a charity. I still have to come up with the rent. Maybe with four chairs. But not three.” “Give me a chance.” “Look, you’ve been out too long. Already over three months. . .” “Please. I’m asking it . . .” “OK, OK. We’ll talk tonight.” The boss breaks into a smile. “When I close the till.” So that was it. Barely three months. Against how many years? Ten, and nearly six as a journeyman. Five more months to the certificate. He had been part of this world almost before he could remember: the white enamel barber chairs, the drapes of white cloth, tufts of hair, some of it greying, scurrying over the floor, almost with a life of their own. The magazines scattered on the row of chairs lining the wall, with their smell of printer’s ink with their pictures of ships being loaded, of blond women with tightly coifed bobs. And Cardoso. When he was just a kid. Cardoso, his boss then. The Old One, they called him – no one knew exactly how old he was. Not a very promising example for a barber either, with his greying stubble of a beard, never quite clean-shaved, in his yellowing undershirt, always with his hat on, even at noon. Removing wens with his studied look, or extracting a rotted tooth, setting a fracture with builder’s plaster, or applying leeches • 44 •

sold to him by country folk. And that time, before Cardoso taught him how to read, coming early to open up the shop and leafing through the pages, examining the pictures, so intent – it was a face, but a face halfman, half-beast. And beside it the astonished look of someone apparently caught by surprise, the eyes too wide – so absorbed, he did not hear the footsteps of Cardoso arriving for the day, or even the opening door. “Does it interest you?” And passing the old man the tabloid, pointing with his stubby child’s finger at the legend. “What does it say? There.” And the Old One sitting with it open on his lap where he could make the letters out more clearly: “There? ‘Francisco Sebastião, so deformed at birth his mother was to disown him.’” “And here?” “‘The same Sebastião in his twenty-third year. Abandoned by his parents in the street, raised in an orphanage. Surgeons were sufficiently moved by his condition to reconstruct his face.’” And the Old One sensing something in him he must have taken for puzzlement at first. “It’s the same man: this one, and this one here.” And remembering now how he had answered. “Not the same. Not the same at all.”

• 45 •

H

e sits waiting in the barber chair, watching the boss counting the take. But already he has the sense of how it will go. The notes lie thin in the boss’ hands. The shallow piles of coins have already been tallied. A flock of dark hair clippings clusters in a corner where Luis shovels it into the wastebasket with a dustpan. He takes the basket out back. He re-emerges from behind the curtain, removing his jacket. “So long!” He hangs the jacket on the hook and rolls down his shirt cuffs. “Ciao!” The boss bends over his tally sheet. The apprentice passes out into the street, crowded now with shoppers venturing out into the cool of the evening. The boss closes the register. “Well.” He rolls his small eyes with concern, comes over to where Helio sits. “Look at the take.” The boss thrusts the paper at him. Cara gives the figures a perfunctory glance. “There’s no way. No way I can make it. You gotta be smart. Even if I give you back the middle. It’s the rent. I can’t make it. I figure things out. It’s almost the first today. Two more months like this . . .” The boss shakes his head. “No way.” Helio stands up. “You sound like you’ve made up your mind.” “I’m honest. I’d be lying if I said ‘No.’” “Yes. Well . . .” It was clear. He begins to remove his white jacket. “They couldn’t give you something? A mask, or something?” “They did.” “I don’t get it.” “I couldn’t wear it.” “Why not? “It was rubber.” He goes to hang up the white jacket. “So?” “So, I couldn’t breathe. Besides, it reminded me of something I must have been trying to forget.” He stands facing the boss now. “Even with this . . . I’m still the same . . . with this . . .” • 46 •

His gesture includes face, hat, handkerchief, all of it. He considers for a moment. “Or perhaps not the same.”

• 47 •

T

he setting sun casts its rays on him as he pauses in the doorway. He steps down into the street. He knows where he is headed. Her room is at the very end of the hallway, past the courtyard, overlooking an air shaft. The heat of the day still swelters under the roof. His key rings on the sill where he drops it just inside the door. “Who’s there? Helio?” As she draws back the curtain, he can see the mattress where she has been lying, scattered with the movie magazines and the romances she likes to read. She has kicked off her shoes. On the dresser lie the remains of a home permanent. Her waitress’ uniform is arranged on a hanger, propped above the wardrobe door. He slumps on the edge of the mattress, not speaking. “Why wouldn’t you talk to me?” He gives no answer. “Are you upset?” “Yes. A little.” “What’s wrong?” “I just got fired.” “Fired?” Her voice is alarmed. “How come?” “He’s the boss. He can do as he pleases.” “And while you were gone, every day he kept saying ‘Any day now, any day.’ What’ll you do?” “I don’t know.” He sits heavy in thought, his hat pushed low over his forehead. She watches him a moment before moving to the washbasin. She wets her face and arms. He watches her in the mirror as she dries herself off. “Come here,” he commands. She doesn’t answer. “Come here.” At last she moves toward where he sits, towel still in hand. She stands hesitating. “Come here.” He pats the mattress at his side. “Hang on.” She moves back to the washbasin to replace the towel on its nail. He watches her open the wardrobe. She removes • 48 •

the pink dress (the one with the ruffles) from its hanger and lifts it over her head. “You’re not in much of a hurry.” “What?” She is caught in the folds of the dress. Her head emerges. “What did you say?” “You don’t seem in a hurry.” “Give me a chance.” She zips the dress up at the side and stands smoothing it in the mirror. Satisfied, she comes toward him. “There’s a movie at the Leme we could see. . .” “Come here,” he motions to her. “Not now. It’s too hot in here. Let’s go out.” “Do you have any money?” “What for?” “You want to go to the Leme, don’t you?” “Well, don’t you?” “I’m trying to tell you. I don’t have the money. I haven’t worked for three months!” She slumps dejectedly in the chair. “Come on, Helio! First you want to get married, now we can’t even go to a shitty movie.” They sit in silence, not looking at each other. “Are you going to get work?” “If I can find it.” “What if you can’t?” “I don’t know.” He gets up. “Are you going?” “You didn’t ask me to stay.” He watches her hesitating. He moves closer to her. “We haven’t been together. Not once. Not since it happened.” He is talking very softly. It astonishes him how softly. She says nothing. “What’s happening? Is it all over with us? I want you. I need you. Now. More than before. More than ever. . .” He removes his hat. “Lula?” His voice is shaking. He looks away. The silence is thick between them. “Can’t you say something?” She stands up. She moves to the wardrobe. She swings open • 49 •

the mirrored door. He can see her bending, rummaging for something in the dark recess of the closet. She emerges finally, closing the door. She bundles the few shirts he left there from time to time when he used to spend the night. She spreads them out on the bed. “Helio, listen . . .” She begins to fold them carefully, methodically. “Listen. It’s just that . . . Please . . . I can’t.” She begins to cry softly. “Please.”

• 50 •

E

ach alcove of the room is vaulted, the marble deadly grey. The vaults section the ceiling in quarters. The lunettes, with their gilt medallions, decorate the corners. Oak-framed display cases line the south wall. Within their black grounds is an array of notices, announcements, census lists, administration offices listed by district, room numbers, street addresses, clinics, public assistance, social services, rehabilitation units. And to the left, the length of an entire city block, personnel windows line the oak-wood counter like tellers’ stations in a bank where the currency is always paper, pens scratch across an assembly line of pages, clerks at their windows cash in forms for other forms, issue directives, identification, permits. Next. . . . Next. They measure out their minutes, hours, days of clients. The lines grow longer. The clients shift their weight from one foot to another. They seem to sink deeper into their shoes. He watches the sway of hip now to one side, now another, bulging with identification in the frayed pockets. Next. . . . Next. The window cages with their grilles, and the scraping of metal on metal as the tellers lower them for the morning break. The lines of clients in their wilted white shirts in the column ahead of him, the battered straw hats, the army of mustered-out shoes, the hips shifting, back pockets bulging, the pink slips held in work-etched hands. The hour to report. And the hours of waiting. The marble of the alcoves, the lunettes, the floor of marble inlaid with circles, medallions, borders, and the electric lights casting their dismal obscurity, even at noon, on the marble, the tellers’ cages, the iron grilles, the oak-wood frames, the inventories under glass, the names, the addresses, the borders, the districts. “Cara, Helio!” The people in front of him press to the side, allowing him to pass. Again the voice intones: “Cara, Helio.” The voice is swept clean of any color. Has he found the right window at last? “Are you Helio Cara?” It is an ancient clerk. His look is disapproving. “Rehabilitation?” • 51 •

“Looking for rehabilitation, eh?” The voice is dry. His cloudy eyes narrow. “You are Helio Cara.” “The same.” He pushes the pink referral slip under the grille. “What?” “I said, ‘The same.’ Yes, I am Helio Cara.” “You didn’t hear me, did you? I said, ‘Let’s see your ID.’” Fumbling in his back pocket he produces his discharge card. He hands it to the clerk through the grille. The wrinkled hand reaches to lift it to myopic eyes. “Can you hold it up? Like this.” The clerk positions his hand by the wrist. “There. That’s better.” He squints. “Cara,” he reads. “Helio Cara.” He begins to write with some difficulty. “C-A-R-A,” he mutters under his breath. His pencil is without a point. Other than depressing, it makes no other mark. But this seems not to concern him. “Can you take that thing off?” The clerk throws him a desultory glance. “We gotta see you to clear you.” Clear me. Of what? My scars? My face perhaps? He removes the fedora and struggles to lift the handkerchief over his forehead. The clerk glances up. “OK, OK, you can put it back on now.” He replaces the still-knotted handkerchief, adjusting it back in place under the fedora. “Seems like they put you through the wringer, hunh? And I’ll bet you were a lady-killer once.” The clerk continues writing without looking up. “We see ‘em here all the time. Other day, guy comes in here. Got caught in a threshing machine or something. ‘Oh man, oh man,’ I say. ‘You get to date the gorilla of your dreams.’” He snickers at the memory, then catches himself. “Nothing personal, you know. Don’t think nothing of it.” The clerk returns the card to him through the window. “OK. We don’t need this anymore.” He slips the card back in his pocket. The clerk leans toward him familiarly. “Want to tell me how it happened?” But before he can respond, a siren shatters the quiet. Its • 52 •

shrill reverberates against the marble of the alcoves. It is time for the morning break. Without a word, the clerk lowers the grille. The metal whines and squeals in protest as he slams it to. He watches him reach below the counter for a worn length of butcher paper which he drapes over the window, cutting off his view.

• 53 •

T

he brown paper is swept away. A middle-aged Oriental, with skin like melted tallow, raises the grille once more. “Where’s your slip?” His jade-ringed hand reaches out. “The old man took it.” “Say again?” “Before the break. The old guy. Here. At the window. He took it.” “Ooooh.” A smile of enlightenment creases his face. He cups a pudgy hand over his mouth as he shakes with silent mirth. “Oooh, that’s Pasquino. I was on my morning break.” “He must have taken it with him.” “Don’t mind him. He just likes his little joke.” “Joke? Doesn’t he work here?” “Oh yeah. He works here all right. But not at the window. He sweeps, puts things in order. Empties out the trash . . .” An immense groan accompanies his efforts to grope below the counter. “Ah, here it is. I found it.” He straightens up with the pink slip in hand. He studies it for a moment before moving to a row of filing cabinets. After some minutes he appears to find what he is looking for. He returns to the window. “When they discharged you, you were issued a mask?” “Yes.” “A facial mask?” “Yes. Why?” “What happened to it?” “I don’t have it.” “You can’t be seen here without the mask.” “Why not?” The Oriental becomes impatient. “Everyone who joins the program has to have a mask.” “It didn’t let me breathe.” “What you do elsewhere is your own affair. But you have to wear it here.” “Even if it gives me serious pain?” “It’s not supposed to make you comfortable. It’s designed to give people seeing it immediate recognition that the wearer is. . • 54 •

.” (he lowers his voice) “. . .facially impaired. It doesn’t matter what the reason is. It could be from a tumor, an operation, a burn, a birth defect. . . . They don’t care. Just as long as you wear the mask. It lets everyone know right away there’s nothing wrong with you. You are an ordinary human being, only with a. . .” (again he lowers his tone) “. . . facial impairment.” He pauses for a moment to trumpet into a generous handkerchief. “The program already spent millions educating the public. Now it wouldn’t do, would it, if everyone wore what he liked? You’d see ski hats, bandannas, stocking caps, all kinds of junk. When did you have your operation?” “It was an accident.” “An accident? It says here an operation.” “No. I want an operation.” “For reconstruction?” “Yes.” “Out of the question. If you’re on a hospital card, you have to pay for it yourself.” “But it costs thousands.” “Millions, more like it. We can’t help you here with something like that. All we have here are programs.” He reaches under the counter for a rehabilitation leaflet. He flips the pages using his pencil eraser. “ ‘Getting a Job,’ ‘What to Tell Your Boss,’ etcetera.” He slides a ledger from where it lies out of view behind the counter. “I can put you down anytime you care to start. Just come back with the mask and your pink slip.” He hands the slip back to him through the window. The interview seems to be at an end. “Look. Isn’t there some kind of clinic?” “Clinic? Sure, there are hundreds of clinics, but not with just a discharge card.” “Where could I ask?” “Look. I just told you. You’re not eligible. We have lots of clinics, lists of them.” “Where could I get a copy?” “The list wouldn’t do you any good. I’m trying to explain to you.” • 55 •

“Could I just see it?” “Listen. You won’t let me explain. Public health doesn’t just give funds away for plastic surgery. Surgery can be approved only if you have public assistance, and if your impairment seriously interferes with your ability to earn a living. If you were a model, for instance, you might be eligible. If you were a machine operator and your hands were injured, you might be eligible. But you don’t use your face, do you? What’s your occupation, anyway?” “Barber.” “Barber. OK. So you’re a barber. You need your hands for that, right? And maybe you’re on your feet all day. OK? If it was your hands now, or your feet maybe, or something the matter with your legs that you couldn’t stand, then you might be eligible. But not your face. And even when someone is eligible, it’s very hard to prove. They have to get approval to go before a committee to present their case. They have to prove that the disfigurement actually interferes with their ability to earn a living. They need documents.” “What kind of documents?” “A letter from their boss telling us they are unemployable, or a letter from a union. We don’t take any chances. We’re not turning out beauty queens. Now, if you were a model. . .”

• 56 •

W

hy didn’t he ask the boss for a letter when he had the chance? Should he go back? And would the boss be willing to write one? It might be all he needed, a letter saying he had been fired. He could catch him just as he opened the shop. Or maybe at closing. But what if the take was poor?. . .Better in the morning, before the first customers arrived, before the day had a chance of turning sour. “Good morning, Padrão.” The boss is rolling up the metal awning. “I thought we’d seen the last of you. Here you’re back already.” “Can I talk to you a minute?” “Customers’ll be showing up any time now. But come in. We don’t have much time.” The boss puts aside the metal crank with a clatter. “What do you want?” “Could I get a letter from you?” “What kind of letter?” “Say that you can’t keep me . . . with a face like this. . . .” The boss is dusting the counter with the turkey feathers. Just then Luis arrives. “Nice morning.” “You’re late. Start with the front.” Luis retreats into the darkness to fill the water bucket. “What for? Who’d you need a letter for?” “For rehabilitation.” “You want me to give you a letter? Then what?” “They might decide I’m worth a face.” “I don’t know. . . .” His eyes take on a baleful expression. “If you could say . . . Just say . . .” “ . . . say I laid you off. How’d you think that makes me look, eh? If I say I laid you off?” “You could just say the customers didn’t want . . . you know . . . couldn’t take . . .” “I know, I know. OK.” The boss puts the duster away under the counter. “But don’t get the idea I’m taking you back.” • 57 •

“No, no, of course . . . Could I . . . Is it all right if I sit down here and wait?” “What? While I write a letter? You’re nuts. It’s already time to open. Anyway, I can’t write it now. There isn’t time. Come back tomorrow.” Mario breezes in, all smiles. “Ah, here’s Mario!” the boss exclaims. “What did you bring us this morning?” “Bom dia! Hey, Helio! It’s still too early for holdups! No cash in the till. Come back this evening – when it’s dark!” Mario grabs his white journeyman’s jacket off the hook. The boss watches him pass whistling behind the curtain.“OK?” he asks. And with a wave of the hand, “Come back tomorrow night.”

• 58 •

H

e threads his way along the side street, avoiding the clusters of men standing at the street corners. It is early enough for him to pass unnoticed. At this hour she must just be stirring in her sleep. In the dark of the courtyard, he passes the janitor’s hut. The metal shutters are still barred against the morning. If only he still had the keys. “Lula,” he calls. At first there is no sound. He stands at her door listening; at last he can hear her shuffle toward the door. “Yes?” “It’s me.” “Just a minute.” He feels lighter, even as he stands there waiting. After what seems a short time, she opens the door. She stands on the threshold, holding her cotton wrap fastened tightly around her waist. “Can I come in?” “It’s early. I was sleeping.” He moves into the darkened room. The shutters are still closed. The room has a slept-in smell. “Lula.” He reaches for her shoulder, but she moves too quickly in the darkness. She pulls aside the curtain above the mattress. Leaning out, she opens the metal shutters to let in the day. She stands there barefoot on the mattress, smoothing her hair. “Were you out late?” “Why? Because I’m still in a fog?” She giggles. “No, not very late. Why?” “Just wondering.” “I went to the movies.” “Lula.” He reaches across the bed for her. Quick as a lizard she darts beyond his grasp. “Lu.” He hears his own voice, sharp and high. “Let me be.” “Come here.” “I got to get ready for work.” “There’s plenty of time. Come on.” “Not now.” • 59 •

“What’s eating you? You never used to push me off. Come here.” He has her by the waist. “Not now. Let go.” Her voice is rising. She tries to pry his hands loose. He pulls her tighter. He can feel her round, tight little buttocks beneath the wrap. “I want you. Can’t you tell I want you?” “Let go! Just leave me alone.” She pushes against his chest to get free. He staggers backward. She stands there, breathing hard. The morning light catches fire in her hair. “Why?” his voice hisses. “Can’t you tell me? Is it someone else? Is that why you can’t tell me?” “Why? Because I can’t stand it,” she blurts. “I don’t want to look at you. I can’t stand to look. I don’t want to be close to you. I want to be far, far away. . . . Please. . . . Don’t ask me. I can’t. Please!” He tries to quiet her, but she screams even louder. “Everything, everything is spoiled now. I’m afraid to look at you. I can’t stand to kiss you. I don’t want to see. I can’t make love to a monster.” He can hear the sash tearing as he rips open her wrap. He pushes her onto the pile of rumpled bedclothes. His hands find the soft breasts. He tears off the handkerchief. His mouth seeks the brown nipples, the tiny turrets. He presses his knee up, spreading her legs open. He grasps at the tuft of hair, groping for her wetness. She pulls against his hair, thrusting his head away from her, scratching at his face, still raw, the scars barely healed. He fumbles with his belt, holding her down with his weight. She screams as he enters her, thrusting in and out, in, out, till with a rush he lets himself come inside her. His hands and arms become separated from the rest of him. He watches them hit her face, her neck, smashing at her cheekbones, whipping her head from this side to that. The bones crunch under his blows. Again and again. He feels nothing as the small white teeth shatter against his knuckles. She lies without moving, limp as a broken doll, crumpled on • 60 •

the bed. She has stopped crying and lies very still. He wonders at first why her lips are red. He snatches up the handkerchief. He wrenches open the door and races down the corridor, sobbing, down flight after flight. He stumbles through the courtyard and out into the street.

• 61 •

H

e was rowing in a lake which seemed endless, he was rowing very hard, with all his might. His arms, his entire body tightened with pain. Enough. But he did not stop. Or perhaps he could not. The lake was large, limitless. There was no shore, no matter where he looked, and yet, here and there were the familiar outcroppings, gulls in flight (although the lake was an inland sea), clouds, the straight road that stretched north into the desert, the one not yet taken. The water was color of mercury, the sky lead. His oars picked out concentric circles as they dipped in the water, color of mercury, weight of lead. With each stroke, new circles appeared. The circles widened, yet never grew. There was something there under the water – he could see it – something so familiar, it seemed as though he must have seen it every day of his life. But what was it? He could see the limp piece of torn newspaper, the letters floating on the water. It seemed once to have been folded in half, then opened, smoothed out beneath the surface. He tried to peer at it, but it tantalized, eluded. It retreated even as he reached for it. Ripples of water moved across the surface, eddies of light and shadow scurried across the face of it. Certain letters still stood out. It was as familiar as the inside of his eyelids shut against the noonday sun. What was it? Again he tried to form the image but it resisted decipherment. His whole name seemed to be disappearing beneath the waters. And he let it go. He had no feeling. There was nothing wrong, or fearful, or remotely uncomfortable. The words disappeared beneath the waves as they had appeared. A TERRIBLE ACCIDENT HAD HAPPENED TO HIM

Was he only imagining this crossing? Of an equal suddenness with this awareness, the sky burst its vault of lead, birds shielded themselves in upward flight. His oars dipped, released. Droplets formed. She was still sitting there opposite him, still working at the spot. He saw her as if for the first time. “Why are you looking at me like that? Did I say something • 62 •

wrong? Was it wrong what I said?” But he couldn’t remember. “What?” he asked dully. He lies there a long time thinking himself awake. He remembers her face, the look of surprise when he hit her, her childlike disbelief. Why her? he wonders, why her, when it was the boss he should have hit? Had he saved it for her because women are weak, their flesh softer? Because she wouldn’t hit back? Had he hit her like that because he wanted someone to share in his ugliness? Because the monster he had become wanted company? She had never hurt him. Never. She was always there with her sandwiches wrapped in newspaper, with one thing or another. The worst she had ever done was ask for attention. And he hit her. Why? Did a man’s face point to what he would become? Is he such a man now? He lies huddled on the thin blanket, trying to swallow his disgust, trying to close out the thought of her, the softness, and the smell. . .The taste of her salt. The touch of her breasts. The warm grass and the crickets. And her body opening up to him. “When I make love to you, I am all the men in the world making love to all the women.” “Do you like it this way?” She was smiling up at him. “Do you like it?” And the starburst’s slow spread from its point at the center, the shower of crystal, the dull thud of stone. He had tasted her salt. Her thighs had leaped to catch his. Why her, he wonders, why her?

• 63 •

H

e boards the streetcar to the general hospital. With the handkerchief held in place by the fedora, his hand on the brim, he vaults onto the outside runner as the car begins to move. Standing, pressed against the solid, sweating mass of passengers, he holds the picture wrapped in newspaper tight against his chest. Already at that hour the air is burdened with a vapor lifted from the night-chilled streets by the first rays of sunlight. He hangs there precariously from the strap as the streetcar picks up speed, now careening down hillsides, now whipping through a ninety-degree turn, sending the passengers all along his side arcing out over the abyss. The black yawns up, licking at him. The car rights itself. The straphangers to the right and left of him appear to look elsewhere. They are too busy with their thoughts to notice him. He looks straight ahead, turning neither right nor left. He catches a furtive movement deep in the left field of his vision. Turning, he trades a quick glance with the passenger at his elbow. On contact, the gaze is broken. The passenger now appears to focus on something at the far side of his view. The look passes quickly. Now looking, now turning away. The gesture repeats itself. It has become the coin of his personal marketplace. O’Gorman, Pereira, the stops seem to blur together as the tram takes him deeper into the inner city. At the hospital, he releases his grip and leaps to the sidewalk, setting the leather strap swinging. This old part of the complex must date from the time of horse-drawn traffic. To the left of him is the carriage entrance. At the heavy metal door he pauses to watch the porters hoist hampers of soiled hospital linen onto a waiting truck bed alongside the loading dock. With an effort, he swings open the heavy door on its hinges. As he passes along the dimly lit corridor, he can already see the waiting room at the far end, yellow, too bright somehow, in the early morning light. The room is without windows. Row upon row of plastic shell chairs are already occupied. People seem to sink down further under the oppressive light of the fluorescent panels. Their • 64 •

skin is grey, the women’s faces closed as if the light could lock them. Men, some of them, seem to smolder under their crunched-down hat brims. There is no movement, and hardly any sound of talking, only the white hum of the fluorescent lights, muffled by soundproofing. He might as well be dozing once again in his cocoon of bandages. Before seating himself, he reaches automatically for the newspaper someone has left discarded on the chair. He places the photograph on his lap before opening to the first page. Yesterday’s lottery winner smiles out at him. “I’m going to build my mother a house,” he promises. “She’ll have a sink to wash dishes, and an electric stove. Later we can even build a bathroom!” How much would he need to win to buy a face? He turns the page. The place hurts in the middle of his chest. At the entrance of the hallway a woman slides a utility table in place. Its protesting squeal galvanizes the entire room. There is a rush to get in line. Oblivious, the woman takes her time adjusting a tier of wire baskets, filling them with forms. Finally she takes a seat behind the table. The line moves slowly. He waits, idly flipping the pages of the newspaper, the photograph pressed tightly against his rib cage, held in place under his arm. When he reaches the head of the line, the woman dips into her file basket to hand him a set of forms. “Have you filled out one of these?” “No.” “Is this a repeat visit, or are you new?” “New.” “Then you’ll need one of these, too.” She pulls out a set of green sheets from a second wire basket lying to her left. “On this green form, fill out pages one, three, and four. Leave page two blank. And sign page four. On the first set, fill out pages one and two, but leave three blank. Sign each page at the bottom except page three. He feels bewildered. “Here.” Brusquely, she pulls the forms away from him. • 65 •

Leafing quickly through the pages, she marks them with an X to indicate where he is to sign. As he watches, she lines through each page he is not required to fill out. “Take a seat and wait your turn.” “Is there something I could use to write?” “On the counter against the wall,” she points. He puts the picture down on the counter top. Pen poised, he stands there, caught in his thoughts. Idly, he studies the people at the other counters, like himself, filling out forms. One man props his foot on the crossbar. For him, it might as well be a bar. Or the people in the chairs, some rigid, hands folded in their laps, some hunched over, studying the floor. Here and there a younger man, hair slicked down, legs crossed perhaps, one with shiny cowboy boots. He leans against the oak counter and begins printing in the blank spaces with a slow and steady hand. Date of birth, identification number, dates of employment, work registration. He is familiar with them all by now, stock answers, all of them. Complaint. The question finds him unprepared. He turns as if looking for someone to help him, someone familiar. My face, he begins. My face . . . What? Is . . . crushed. No. Maimed. Come on! Next you’ll say too ugly. But too ugly for what? For work? There is none. For love? There’s no one. . . . Then what? To live, to live perhaps. ‘You need a face to live?’ He can almost hear them laughing. Too ugly. How many of them even thought about it, even knew what it was. Too ugly for living. ‘No, not ugly,’ they would correct him. ‘Disfigured.’ Ah, that was better. Disfigured was a better word. It offended no one. But ugly. Really ugly. Not unattractive (they said that of women), but ugly. Sickening beyond imagining, so monstrous that were he to approach each of them as they sat there, stand in front of them one by one, and deliberately take off the handkerchief for each one of them to see, they would back away in horror, shield their eyes, cry out perhaps. I want my face to make a normal impression. But he hesitates. • 66 •

A normal impression on whom? His neighbors of the Whale Back district so they would remember knowing him once? His boss who had let him go? Or Lula perhaps? Why, why, when they were all gone? Even his mother – dead now. A normal impression. Wrong. It was wrong, what he had written, all wrong. What was he dreaming of? Who did he think he was? He would have to find some better way of saying it, a way to make someone hear him, someone who could help him, someone who would take his case. ‘Facial Disfigurement.’ Wasn’t that what the Oriental had said? All he needed to put down was Facial Disfigurement. They would know at once what he meant. He returns to the woman sitting at the desk. But it is useless trying to explain he wants to change something. She has run out of forms. “Why can’t you cross it out? Here, let me see.” She reaches for the paper. He draws back. “No. Never mind.” Quickly he returns to the table. Normal, Impression...; he blocks out all the words until there is no more trace of what he had first written there. He returns the forms with Facial Disfigurement carefully printed above the box. The woman takes them from him without comment and studies them for a moment. “You overlooked page four.” She hands him a pen to sign with. She watches the ink dry on his signature. “Helio Cara? Cara?” She glances up at him hurriedly as she tosses his application in the box. “Here, take a number.” A lottery! That was it! A lottery where a face would be assigned. A door would open. A number would be called. Someone would be standing there – holding a basket, perhaps, or a metal tray with a sterile face. Each would receive a face, each one waiting there. How would they know which was meant for which? Would his name be on it? Or would they be distributed at random, with no attempt to match the new face to the old? He sinks into the plastic chair under the bank of fluorescent lights. What if this were an earthly heaven? Moles, wens, scars, • 67 •

enlarged pores, blemishes, all would be done away with, banished. Here earthly ugliness would melt away. Perfect people only, the elect. And he? A movie star? A president? He tries to picture it. But no. It will not come. Above him the fluorescent lights hum. He is in a waiting room with scores of others, waiting, seated on a plastic shell. Paradise was somewhere else – in an autoclave, sterile, waiting to reshape someone, himself, perhaps – into more human form. He breaks his reverie abruptly. His photograph is missing! It is not inside the newspaper still resting on his lap. He returns to the receptionist. “Did I leave a package here?” “What kind of package?” she wants to know. “A photograph wrapped in newspaper.” “What’s that you’re carrying?” “It’s not here.” He opens the paper to show her. “Nothing here,” she lifts the wire baskets brimming now with application forms. “Did you leave it back there on the counter?” That must be it. But when he reaches the oak counter, he finds only two scraps of crumpled paper. Where can it have gone? He looks around. As he does so, he catches sight of a janitor’s back rounding the distant corner of the hallway, dragging a full burlap sack behind him. He catches up with him just as he reaches the door to the loading dock where there is an incinerator. “No problem, man. Here, take a look.” The janitor opens his bag. There, almost at the top, is his package. Something had worked out for him after all. Today might be the day he was hoping for. With luck he might even see a surgeon. He waits – the wall clock tells him two hours – listening for his number to be called, studying the people in the newspaper photographs. It does not matter that they are mine workers, or senators, or numbers kings. He begins to give his attention to their faces, or more exactly to part of them, a nose here, a forehead there; here a hairline that strikes him as remarkable, there • 68 •

the cut of a jaw in profile. He leafs forward and backward, in his mind assembling parts of faces, imagining alternative blends and mixes. Intent on his examination, rustling the pages, he begins to attract attention. When he looks up, finally aware of a kind of silence around him, a woman is eyeing him reprovingly. Has he committed some infraction? He rolls up the paper and stuffs it between the seats. He would wait like the others, resigned. To the lucky one would go a face. Any face, so long as it was unremarkable. But how would they know it was meant for him? Would his name be on it? Would he know? He feels for the cardboard under its newspaper wrapping. It is there, secure. Slowly he unwraps it, careful so as not to disrupt the quiet of the waiting room. It is a picture of him and Lula. It had been her idea. They sat facing each other, almost in profile. The Sunday photographer had posed them in a panorama, Sunday rowers painted behind them, paddling an idealized lagoon, sky blue, clean of debris and floating orange peels. They eyed one another gravely, their lower bodies hidden behind the cardboard cutout of an imaginary boat. In his hand, he held an oar. He shudders. It was the first and only time – as far as he could remember – that he had had a picture taken. “Helio Cara!” Hurriedly he returns the photograph to its protective newspaper. He will present it as evidence when the moment comes. The nurse ushers him behind the glass bulkhead. He is alone in the room. Above the examining table is a panel of diagrams. They are drawn with great care – the hatching lines mark the planes of light and shadow that play on the exposed tissue of the face. They show the skin being peeled away to reveal the underlying muscle. The muscle tissue in turn is peeled away to reveal an underground of nerve pathways and blood vessels. He stands examining these closely, absorbed in their design. Color brings the various elements into relief: arteries bright red, veins painted blue, and the nerve pathways bright yellow. The underlying muscle is colored a surprising vermilion. It is almost noon. A technician enters to take his blood • 69 •

pressure. “Will there be time to see the surgeon?” “You never see the surgeon on the first visit. We have to work you up first.” But the noontime siren cuts even the work-up short. He will have to return for it to be completed on another day.

• 70 •

H

e has become a creature of the night. He has learned to feel his way along the familiar ruts behind the Whale Back. The mercury arc lights of the embarcadero give him his bearings. He heads for the dark, bottle-strewn alleys, the mews behind the big tourist restaurants and hotels. He wears the brown fedora, discolored now, the ribbon stained with sweat. Over his face he wears the handkerchief, tied at the back, the knot held in place by the crown. It is the limbo hour when the last drunken tourists lurch back to their luxury hotels overlooking the bay, drunk on batidas, their steamy heads filled with the scent of negresses, their bodies glistening with promise. It is the hour before the first sweepers and vegetable carts make their way clattering along the paving stones of the back alleys, before the city begins to stir in its sleep. He has learned to scout the best locations, to find the garbage bins brimming with the evening’s most opulent discards: vegetables, fruits still waiting to be peeled, and the ungnawed bones of a clientele too well-bred or bored to have picked them clean. Sometimes, if he is lucky, he finds a steak intact, before the packs of stray dogs roaming the streets at night can get to it. He rounds the corner. The green glow of a mercury lamp spills his shadow far ahead of him into the darkness. Ahead lies a dumpster, its red paint battered by the garbage handlers, filled to overflowing. He sets his basket to rest on the cobblestones of the curb. Bending high over the edge he peers down at the boxes. He lifts them out onto the curb to uncover the evening’s leavings. The harvest is a thin one. He finds two mangoes black with age and a chayote. It will do for soup. And reaching still lower, he finds an onion already furry with mold. Below these are islands of moist leavings, cold and clammy in the obscurity – farofa perhaps, or some kind of polenta. He is satisfied with the fruits, the vegetables. These he places carefully in the basket. Then one by one he reloads the cartons back in place to cover all traces of his foraging, like the night predators he has come to know, who like himself prowl the same alleys of the same limbo as he. In the city at sleep, in the deserted alleys, or in the Whale Back, he had • 71 •

come to know them, the creatures that roamed the night, parasites that fed, like himself, on the leavings of the day, of those not afraid to show their faces in the back alleys, or even the streets. He had never imagined this underground when he had been one of them, the small mice and occasional rats he had come to discover, hunting like himself, some alone, or in packs, always on the move, some (like him) covering their traces, others leaving mounds of disorder to mark their passing. But of the other creatures, those of his own kind, he is less knowing: Indians from the Interior living on the outskirts, roaming like the night creatures, restless, always on the move, never even pausing to build a shelter. The mill hands locked out since the strikes, and the fugitives from the police squads, some of them, too, must roam the same streets, but in a night different from his. His night is of a separate kind. Either way, with the white handkerchief, or without its protection, he has learned to come and go unseen.

• 72 •

E

arly mornings were best. There are some two hours he can call his own when the world is empty of people, neighborsbecome-strangers, of barefoot children who come to stare, their eyes wide, speculative with sadness. There are no questions to answer, no forms to fill. The world belongs to him. Sleep will come later. It is then, as the sun rises, that sometimes he sits watching the bay, watching it change, the lead sky reflected in water the color of slate give way to the glow of a morning rosy with promise. Sometimes the sky is furrowed with the very high clouds that mark the shape of the wind, unquestioning, indifferent. He is returning from the port, the straw basket on his shoulder. He is climbing the steps. His white shirt is already translucent where it clings to his skin with sweat. A woman is standing at the top of the stairs. He stops, out of breath. He removes the handkerchief to mop his brow. The woman stands there watching, her basket of wash balanced on her head. She catches sight of his face under the hat. He is climbing more slowly now. He does not look up. She catches the first sounds of his breathing. She steadies her basket with both hands. Something, the sway of her basket, perhaps, catches his ear. He darts a glance upward. She can see his face plainly now. Instinctively, his free hand shoots up. Quickly he covers his face with his hat. He stands to one side, waiting for her to pass, his face shielded behind the fedora, the sweat stains spreading under the ribbon. She can hear his breathing plainly now. When she is certain he will move no farther, she grasps her basket with both hands. She clambers down the stairs keeping as far away from him as possible. As she passes him, he mumbles a “Good day.” His voice is muffled behind the hat. But she hears him. “Bom dia,” she stammers as she hurries past. He lowers the fedora. He can see her heading for the wash house, her wash bobbing down the stairs. “Thank you,” he whispers. But there is no one to hear but himself. In the Whale Back, the alleys are dusty, stirring now with sounds of waking, people beginning to talk softly, invisible still • 73 •

behind their crude partitions. Children whimper, or try out their morning voices. Chickens scratch the caked earth, clucking tentatively. He reaches his threshold. He stands there for a moment before pushing open the wooden door. He lets himself into the darkened shack, drops his scavenger’s basket on the cot, and shuts the door.

• 74 •

E

ach cluster of consultation rooms has a common waiting area. The chairs are made of wood with soft upholstery. People read magazines or carry on whispered conversations. Along the south wall, a row of pictures lines the passage – drawings illustrating various phases of facial reconstruction. They are the first he has ever seen. There are four groups of panels, nineteen drawings in all. He begins slowly to read the words alongside the arrows, forming the syllables with his lips silently, under his breath. His decipherment is careful, plodding. Some words he repeats again and again until he supposes he has them right. Slowly he moves along the wall. He glances at the clock on the wall by the reception area. An hour has passed. Have they called his name? Has he perhaps missed hearing them? Again he turns his attention to the panels. So this was how it was done! He remembers holding the basin for Cardoso once while he removed a cyst. This is much like what he remembers, only more complicated. Here they used shining instruments, clamps, retractors. But the Old One had only the razor, scissors, and the needle. An old-fashioned syringe for injecting novocaine – the kind you could use over and over again. His job was to boil it in the pot at the back of the shop – behind the curtain. He hears his name called. A nurse ushers him into the consultation room. He is to see the surgeon at last. He stands stiffly, the photograph wrapped in newspaper clamped to his ribs. The surgeon sits behind a massive glass-topped desk. His stocky frame strains against his starched laboratory jacket. His tie is yanked loose and hangs slack about his neck. He is scrawling some notes in a medical folder and does not look up. The nurse sees his confusion. “Have a seat here. He’ll be right with you.” He sits quietly, his hands folded over the photograph. He lets his eye be drawn to the solid bank of journals, bound identically, lining the wall. Even from this distance he can make out the title. They are called simply, Face. The surgeon continues to write. He pays him no attention, but by now his haughtiness does • 75 •

not surprise him. People like that had talent, all of them. And with it came the power to make people wait. It was natural. Finally he appears to be satisfied. He flips the folder shut, he opens a drawer, stuffs it inside, and slams it shut with a bang. “Teofilho Godoy,” he introduces himself, offering to shake hands, “and you are. . .?” “Helio Cara.” “Good. Tell me all about yourself. But first, let’s see the face.” He slides the photograph carefully onto the glass desk top. He removes the fedora, and placing it over the photograph, he grasps the knot, slips the handkerchief over his head. Godoy grunts. He says nothing. He rises and stands bending over him, studying him carefully, his face devoid of any expression. Gently he lifts Cara’s head to the light, rotating it so as to examine each facial plane intently. He can hear the surgeon’s breathing. After a time: “Not much pain?” “Less now. Sometimes at night, it throbs. . . or when I chew.” “Inevitably. . . . Um, hum.” Godoy clears his throat before resuming his seat. He appears to be thinking. “Is there anything to be done? Do you think?” “Yes, yes.” But he keeps to his silence for some time still. “And when did this happen?” “Almost a year now.” “Um, hum. Let’s see your discharge paper. Um, hum. And you tried the service clinic?” Reaching deep into his pocket, he draws out the list, tattered now, that he had copied out at the rehabilitation center. “All these.” He points to them. “Every one.” Godoy hands the paper back to him. “It’s a wonder you got this far – even here.” He sits in the chair, cupping the back of his head in his hands. He lets his weight tilt it backward until his elbows almost touch the shelves behind him. “I’d like to help you. With all honesty. You appear to be • 76 •

motivated, an excellent subject. . . . Let me talk about you with my staff. We’ll examine your chart, and study the findings. Can you come back in two weeks?” He has waited a long time. Another two weeks would hardly matter.

• 77 •

H

e is running, leaping across stagnant water collected in the gutters, vaulting deep curbstones left crumbling and powdery by street repair crews. He pushes through the masses of people pressing forward hurrying to work. He threads his way through the sea of straw Panamas, men with white shirts already open at the neck, past women in deep-cut blouses, their oily hair spilling about their shoulders. He pushes through them blindly, fixed only on his destination. At last he gains the cool of the courtyard. It is still empty but for the sound of women speaking softly, somewhere out of sight. Their voices murmur in his ear without his understanding what they say. He will avoid them if he can. Treading quietly, he reaches the top storey under the eaves. Along the gallery overlooking the courtyard, he can still hear the women’s murmured conversation. He had pictured this meeting again and again, without surprises, with the same calm predictability of the photographer’s panorama. She would look at him quietly, as quietly as she gazed at him sitting opposite her, still, but breathing gently, contemplating him with the same softness in the eyes as if she still savored the fruit ice he had bought for her long ago. She would be waiting for him to say to her what he had come to say. She would have opened in answer to his knock. She would stand in the shadow of her doorway, her hand on the knob. She would know why he had come. She would know without his saying anything. He would look at her with all the pull of asking locked in his eyes, his breath held. He would say nothing. His standing there would be enough. She would be there, he could see her clearly in the darkness of the doorway, her hand poised on the jamb, looking at him. When he knocks, no answer comes. All the same, it is the right door. He leans back to check the number. Again he knocks. “Lula?” he calls softly. “Lula?” He can hear the women, loud now in the silence of his waiting. He turns to see where their voices must be coming from. He sees them at the far end of the gallery. They are on the same floor as he. As he catches sight of them, • 78 •

they fall silent. He watches them observing him. He turns back to avoid their stare. Once more he knocks on the metal door. But before there is time to listen for the sound he knows now he will not hear, a voice comes to him clearly from across the courtyard: “She moved. You’re looking for Louisa? She moved.” He turns. The two women eye him warily. He hesitates. Would they know to recognize him? He makes his way toward them slowly along the gallery. As he rounds the corner, he can see them more closely. Again they fall silent. They stare at the handkerchief covering his face. Do they know something? “She moved,” the woman says finally. “When? Do you know when?” “Just after the incident.” The other looks to the first for reassurance. “She was scared. Her man beat her up. Terrible. Poor thing, you should have seen her face.” “Do you know where she went?” “She didn’t tell anyone. Nobody knows. She was scared he might come back.” She becomes quiet again. They are staring at the handkerchief, watching his eyes. .

Downstairs, the janitor takes a long time answering his ring, so long it appears he is out. “Number Forty-two? She left. Turned in the keys. You want to rent it?” He shudders. “Did she leave an address?” “Did Number Forty-two leave an address?” the janitor calls into another room, and to him, “Come in, come in for a moment.” The apartment is thick with heat. The metal shutters are shut tight over the windows but already the air is oppressive. A woman appears in the doorway, studying him, her hair pinned in curlers. Would she recognize him? “She left.” “Did she leave an address?” The woman stares at him. “When they had to take her to • 79 •

the hospital? That’s a good one! With the cops here? The whole place swarming with them?” The woman stares at him a long time without speaking. “Why do you want to know? Who are you anyway?” “Just a friend.” “How do I know? You might be the one who did it. What’s your name?” “Does it matter?” “In case her brother comes back,” the janitor explains. “Her brother?” “Yes. He came back to get her things.” In all this time, he had been unaware she had a brother. The janitor turns to the woman now. “She owe any rent?” The woman eyes him contemptuously. “Think I’d have let him take her stuff out if she did?” And to him, “She won’t be back. Don’t waste your time.” He follows the janitor out the door and across the courtyard. At the passageway, he leaves him to make his way alone into the street. Already the sun is pounding on the concrete of the pavements. Crowds of shoppers hurry to beat the noontime heat. Messengers ride through the crowds, bossa novas blaring on their radios. Lula. He is sure he sees her at the end of the alley where it meets the next artery, in the shade under the awning of a grocery stall, or later, drinking from a fountain, wiping her mouth on her arm, shaded by the trees of the boulevard, or in the lunchtime throngs that choke the downtown streets. Now that she is nowhere anymore, he finds her everywhere. He steps from the steaming sidewalk into the cool of the restaurant. She had warned him never to come here while she worked. Bentwood chairs crowd the white tile floor. Electric fans struggle against the dense heat. Above the walls, neon tubes blink through a thick coating of grease. Noontime customers elbow their way toward the white paper tablecloths; some, already seated, tilt back their chairs to catch the slight breeze of the ventilators, others fan themselves with their Panamas. A • 80 •

waitress in a black taffeta uniform edges her way between the tables taking orders, setting out thick water glasses. He takes a chair. Why had he gotten himself into this mess? Surely with the handkerchief he will be noticed, even recognized. It is too late. She must be there, behind the curtain, or somewhere in the kitchen. Any second she will emerge from the back, her tray held high above the heads of the noisy customers, ignoring their bursts of raucous laughter. But the seconds stretch to minutes. The room feels cold all of a sudden. The waitress in her taffeta uniform brings him water in a heavy glass and sets a knife and fork before him with a clatter. “Care to see the menu?” “Not now. Seen Lula?” “Who?” “Louisa. She works here.” “Nobody by that name. But I’m new here. Just got my uniform.” She primps coquettishly. “If you wait, I’ll go ask the boss.” He watches her take more orders on her way back toward the kitchen. His eye is half on her, half on the curtain. After a time, she comes back to the table. “He’ll be here in a minute.” The boss appears from behind the curtain, mopping his brow, edging his way between the tables. “Man, it’s so hot in there, the roaches have to do the samba! You her boyfriend?” “No,” he lies. “I just know her brother. Where is she?” The boss eyes him distrustfully. “Well, if you know her brother, go ask him. He must know where to find her. I don’t.” “She won’t be in next week?” “She quit on me! Had to. She’s scared. But ask her brother – he’ll know.” The waitress stands listening at some distance behind him. The room becomes quiet all of a sudden. They have stopped laughing to stare at him. The boss makes his way back to the kitchen. “Do you want anything?” It is the waitress, her pencil poised • 81 •

over her order pad. “No. I don’t think so.” Disappointed, she crams her order pad back in her pocket. She turns to leave. He stops her. “Miss. Listen. . . Could you find out?” “Senhor?” “Try to find out where she lives?”

• 82 •

W

e have decided.” Godoy is talking. They are all assembled, he, Godoy, the interns, residents, the nurse, the technicians. They crowd into the small examining room. He looks at each one of them. He is without words. He can only look at them. “We have gone over the reports, reviewed the tests. We think you are a good risk. You understand what we need to do. You’re motivated. We want more people like you. You will challenge our best skills. We have all talked it over carefully. We have decided to accept you.” So that was it. They would take his case. “Between procedures you’ll have time to rest. You’ll return home. You’ll visit the clinic – at first – once a day, so we can keep an eye on you. We’ll change the dressings, see how well things go. Then we’ll decide the right time for the next procedure.” Next. So there would be more than one. It might take a long time. Longer than he imagined. “Meantime you can go about your life, find work.” Godoy pauses, waiting for his reaction. “And now we need to hear from you.” He has imagined this moment from the time of his first visit. Carefully he slides the package off the desk surface.“Maybe you want to look at this – if you think it could be useful.” He unwraps the newspaper covering which he lets fall to the floor. “This is how I used to look – before. . .” He offers it up to their scrutiny. Godoy takes the photograph. “Ah, the boat basin photographer!” He passes it around to his assembled colleagues. “I recognize the trigger work!” “With a little foresight, he could have snapped a frontal view.” The room swells with laughter at the assistant’s joke. Godoy hands it back to him at last. “I’m sorry. I’m afraid like this it won’t be of much help to us. But thank you just the same.” Later, on his way home to the Whale Back, the photograph pressed close against his chest in the rush hour crush, he wonders • 83 •

why he had not thrown it away altogether. Back in his shack, he props it automatically on the wall strut opposite his cot.

• 84 •

H

e has never seen the Big Irma like this, idle, sitting. But he is not surprised. She is sitting on the edge of his cot. Her great head is crowned in a cotton bandanna. Patterns of flame seem to dance in the folds. She has placed a cardboard suitcase at the foot of his bed. It is not the white paint-chipped railing he remembers from the hospital. She is sitting on the thin sagging mattress of his shack, but her weight is lighter than air. She is flashing him her fourteen-karat smile, immensely pleased with herself. “Peel it,” she says. “The mask. Peel it.” But he can’t understand what she is saying. As if to show him, she unlocks the clasps of the suitcase. From within, the gigantic folds of a black drape seem to materialize as if by magic. She sets a large rectilinear box on a tripod before covering herself with the drape. He can see her feet very clearly perched on his mattress. She appears to lower the apparatus toward him, closer and closer, but as it looms gigantic above him, he sees it is not at all the camera he thought. He is staring into the baleful red eye of a parrot. He tries to protect his head, his face, but the Big Irma spreads the drape over him. She stretches out her full body over him. He can feel her breasts through the drape, engulfing, smothering him. She won‘t let him breathe. “Senhor, Senhor.” He hears her laughing as if from a very great distance. He feels the shudder of her great body. He wakes with a start. The sky is still dark. What could have roused him? Was it the sound of water emptying? He listens intently in the silence. Can there be somebody outside in the alley? And why? He hears a crackling sound. The darkness erupts all around him. The entire wall opposite his cot is a sudden sheet of light. On the strut where he has forgotten it, the photograph curls around the edges before exploding into flame. He watches himself calmly rowing in a sea of fire, but he smells nothing. He leaps from bed. In the shed, he pries up the rotting floorboard. He grabs the matchbox. From under the cot, he yanks out a cardboard suitcase. In it he throws shirt, shoes and trousers. He remembers the fedora and the handkerchief and, as an after• 85 •

thought, a plastic sheet. Already the wall is beginning to cave in. Kicking open the door, he hurls the suitcase clear. The corrugated roof begins to bend. As he darts out, the matchbox pressed tight against his stomach, the entire shack goes up in flames. The roof collapses behind him with a roar. He stands outside, watching it. The suitcase lies near him, somewhere in the darkness. Those of his neighbors whose shacks lie close to his come out into the night to douse the corrugated cardboard and burlap of their lean-tos with water dipped from their oil drums. They appear not to notice him at all. He watches as the fire lights the darkness until there is almost nothing left to burn. The flames have become tame as votive candles. The chill night air has long since sent the neighbors back inside their shacks. The ashes glow red, sending wisps of bluish smoke into the slate-grey dawn.

• 86 •

H

e picks his way over the rain puddles which have made islands of the cobblestones. He carries the cardboard suitcase with those few possessions he has been able to salvage. The handle of braided hemp cuts deep into his palm. From time to time he pauses to change hands. He has made his way on foot from the Whale Back, starting from before sunup. There are no tramways running at that hour. He has been able to save the fare. Even now the bus depot is already crowded. Throngs mill on the sidewalks outside the terminal. The bus stalls team with travelers lined up in the runways behind the steel stanchions. He circles the block searching for the platform to Piracicaba. He will just check the schedule, only that. Or perhaps if a bus were leaving shortly, he would board it after all. He touches his hand to his pocket. He can feel the reassuring bulge of coins, enough at least for now. The fare would not cost much. He circles the block searching for the platform as he remembers it, with its schedules of departures, in vain. Back at the entrance to the terminal he stops to think. Perhaps in the side street where there are additional platforms. He hesitates, uncertain now. His stomach feels hollow. He enters the station where there is a breakfast stand. He chooses a sweet bun. For ten cruzeiros more he could buy an orange. He considers. Better not. He has little to spare. He could use the public water fountain instead. He lets the coins roll on the counter. He stands in a corner facing the wall. He has to lift the handkerchief before he can sink his teeth into the soft bread. Burdened once more with the suitcase, he makes his way into the side street. He walks the length of it, looking for the platform. But no, it is not here either. The twine cuts deeper. He changes hands, unsure now. He stops to ponder. Better to return to the depot. Once inside, he finds the information line. People crowd around him, some staring. Already he is sweltering behind the handkerchief. Suburban lines disgorge their passengers. Crowds push through the steel barriers, hurrying to work. Someone hurtles against his suitcase. His palm burns with • 87 •

the rub of hemp. Should he perhaps pay the clinic one parting visit after all? But no. He decides against it. He glances at the station clock. Should he try to get there? There is a bus, but even so, the trip from here would take an hour. Already now it is too late. And the fare is four cruzeiros. But what will Godoy think? After almost a year, a year since that day – the flash of lightning reflected over the bay, the first raindrops, icy on the skin – a year. Even now he shudders to remember. And they were offering to help, to rebuild his face. He had found where to get help. After almost a year. His hand is shaking. He reaches the counter. “What’s the schedule to Piracicaba?” The clerk throws him a troubled look. “Piracicaba?” He runs a finger along the timetable. “Early one left already. None now till tonight.” “Tonight?” He pauses to think. “What time?” “The night bus? Leaves at ten. A local. Gets there fivethirty in the morning.” He keeps studying the schedule. There had been six, even seven trips a day, now only two. “What gate?” “Twenty-one.” “Where’s that?” “In back. Behind the annex.” So that was it. Even farther than he supposed. He picks up the suitcase. He would have nearly a day of waiting. He sits down in the waiting area. He watches the station clock creep toward the half-hour. To have come so far – after haunting the rehabilitation lines, after going from clinic to clinic to be told over and over again there was nothing for it – nothing to be done. Should he be happy this way? Would he have to accept this face like raw meat, grotesque, his own mask, but one he could never remove, stuck to him like a childhood nightmare, never to be taken off? To be reminded again and again there was no way, no hope of ever getting it changed? Not even for a price. And not for anyone like him. And now at last, finding someone willing to help him change all that, but no way for him to accept it. • 88 •

Yet how could he? With no place to live, no one to turn to, and no one to hire him, with barely enough money left to return to the Interior to his mother’s house. Empty now. The only place left to him. What was he thinking to sit waiting here like this? He would have to tell Godoy. About the Whale Back. Of having no place to go back to between treatments. Of being smoked out. Like vermin. Even animals had a burrow, a nest of one kind or other. But he? Nothing anymore to call home. Just a cardboard suitcase. He would explain to him why he could not stay. Godoy’s face might darken. After all the testing, the repeat visits to hear the reports, being seen by the assistants. His face mapped. The pathways of his dead nerves plotted. But for himself, for one like him, with nothing, with nothing more than could fit in this cardboard suitcase – tied with twine because it had no handle anymore – what hope could he have now? He casts around for the baggage claim. Fifteen cruzeiros they wanted for half a day, twenty-five for the day. Too much. He would have to take the suitcase with him. And he would walk to save the fare. He had the time, after all. The bus didn’t leave until ten.

• 89 •

T

he door opens. The nurse motions him inside. He lets the suitcase drop beside the chair. And sits, slumped, waiting. Godoy is not long in coming. He seems somehow distracted. “We weren’t expecting you. Did you want a new clinic time?” “It’s not that.” “You have some problem?” “Yes. A problem. Yes. I’m sorry. My house . . . where I lived. . .It’s gone.” Godoy seems displeased. “It burned.” Consternation lines his face. “It burned? What happened?” “Someone must have thought it was in the way.” “Someone torched it? Do you know who?” “No. But it doesn’t matter. I have no place to stay.” “No friends who could help?” Friends. He tries to think. Friends. “My mother’s house.” “And could you live there while you come here for treatment?” “You don’t understand. I’m from the Interior – not here.” “Ah.” It was beginning to be clear to Godoy at last. “There’s nowhere here for you.” “No. Nothing.” Godoy looks tired all of a sudden. “You can’t stay then?” “There’s no way for me here.” Godoy notices the suitcase. “And you’re on your way to the depot?” “Yes. There’s a bus leaving at ten.” They sit quietly, him slumped on the chair, the surgeon behind his desk. Godoy interrupts his thoughts. He rises to search the shelves behind his desk. At last finding the volume he wants, he pulls it from its resting place. He moves with it back to his desk. He leafs through the pages. He slides the open volume toward him across the glass surface. “This is what we could have done for you here. A step-bystep reconstruction, starting with the mouth. Here, you see.” He • 90 •

points. “And here, moving to the nose. Building a plastic armature, then lowering the skin, like this, to flap over it. And here, you see it covered. Then the forehead and eyelids...,” he turns the page, “...to get a look like this.” He sees the tissues as if they were moving back in place, frame by frame, made whole at last. So it could be, after all, it could be done. Echoing his thought, Godoy speaks. “Difficult, yes. But not impossible. But you must stay in the Capital. Isn’t there some way?” “I’ve tried to think how. I’ve searched, believe me. I see nothing now, nothing.” Godoy closes the book. “And where exactly is this place you’re going?” “Rio das Pedras? It’s a little town on the east slope of the hills as they rise toward São Pedro. In the Piracicaba District.” “And they grow coffee there.” “Coffee. Yes. How did you know?” “Oh, I know well enough. My grandfather, when I was little, had his fazenda near Santa Barbara. A cousin still lives near there. Figueroa, another branch of the family. I spent the summers of my boyhood there.” He appears to muse for some time. “And is there an address there where we can find you?” “In Rua do Grito?” He laughs. “Well, more or less.” “Good, then. Leave it with the nurse at the desk as you go out. That way we’ll know how to find you. When we think of something.” Godoy has risen. There is something in his look. He wants to embrace him. But he picks up the suitcase and walks into the hallway. At the desk he stands waiting for the nurse. He would have to explain to her about Rua do Grito, or, more exactly, the name of that street which stretches up from the Praça, until it becomes a dirt alley lined with shacks, hundreds of them, without name or number, up from the point where the neatness of the pavement ends and the alley begins its tortured curving up the slope. • 91 •

The Street of the Scream. It was called that from before anyone remembered. There was some story behind it, but the people said it was because a woman gave birth there once. And when everyone thought it was over with her, another one came, and then another. Everyone thought it was over at last, but she kept on giving birth, day and night, fourteen days of it, screaming without cease, to black ones and brown ones, and even some white ones, so many, all the races of the world were represented, hatching them like a sad moth laying its eggs, millions of them, piled up like the houses of the alley, knowing that when her days of laying were at an end, exhausted, barely breathing, her gorgeous lavender wings tattered now – in shreds – she would have to die. But he would have no name or number to leave the nurse. He would have to describe it to her as best he could.

• 92 •

T

he district close to the terminal is dimly lit. Here and there neon signs proclaim a garage or an all-night hotel. He keeps close to the arcades, now and again ducking under an awning. A few late stragglers make their way through the half-empty streets, too huddled against the wet to take much notice of him. Even at such a late hour, long lines of travelers wait at the depot, clutching their bundles as they queue up at the ticket counters. He takes his place before the window. He is last in line behind a woman with three small children. The youngest sees him and begins to cry. The woman looks at him briefly. She clutches the boy’s head tightly against her thigh, hiding his face in her skirt. Another man (in the line for Oriente) glances, turns away. And then a family hurries past, burdened with boxes and packages tied with twine. They are running to board a departing bus. The woman’s voice screams hysterically. “Will you be quiet?” her husband growls. Abruptly, she falls silent as she catches sight of him. The crowd around him, pressed almost shoulder to shoulder when he first arrived, has thinned. An invisible white silence gathers around him like a zone. “Round trip, Senhor?” the agent asks. “One way.” The white zone shadows him in the waiting room. He finds a place on the bench of polished slats. He can feel the movement of heads, first turning just enough to look, then fast away, the waves of passengers, standing first in their private limbos of waiting, sitting now, their place defined by how far or near they find themselves to him. “Mama, look! Why does he have a handkerchief?”asks a tiny boy before a hissing woman yanks his arm. The white zone has its particular density: whispers, furtive glances, the panicked cries of children, all exile him. Each movement, gesture, sound is known to him. Now that man will hunch a little deeper into himself, now another will blow his nose. Now a woman will take reassurance from it: he has a nose at least, let alone a face. A mother will quiet a balky child with a sweet saved • 93 •

for just such an occasion, and in the slow deliberate way she unwraps it, seek to divert her child’s attention. Like the pipers pecking for mollusks in the surf, sensing the imminent threat of each encroaching wave, hurrying to stay just clear of it, so the waiting room adjusts to the huge intrusion of his handkerchief, his hat. At last the loudspeaker announces his departure. He gets up now, lifts the suitcase wearily. If they could (if custom did not prevent it), they would scatter before him like sea-birds, like retreating waves. He finds the platform in the darkened street outside, mounts the ridged metal steps, hands the driver his crumpled ticket. Then, carefully, he threads his way through the narrow aisle to the last seats where he will be of no dismay to anyone – if he is fortunate.

• 94 •

II HINTERLAND

T

he bus climbs the steeply winding road into the mountains, seven hundred kilometers distant from the Capital. On the rare occasions when he could afford the trip home, his mother lay there, not saying anything. He remembers her hair, once jet, toward the end became a tangle of stark white, yanked upward from the temples as though she dreamed of horsemen in the night. He remembers the last time. The neighbor woman has made her a bed of linen sheets, and she lies there, barely moving, her hands clasped together, empty now of work, warding off the night. She wakes only rarely, her eyelids flutter, her eyes inside their sockets seem not to focus at all, or hardly. Yet, when she opens them, she lifts her arms, thin and transparent as chicken wings, to embrace and cradle him. It is then she begins a kind of song, a rhythmic sighing, more like a moan. She is a long time dying, as if before she could break the habit of her living, she must shake her life free of all its grief, must pour it out in the soft moans of an ancient child. He sits by the bedside, touching the transparent parchment of her hands, the veins so thin they must adhere together. Yet she breathes. The lungs do their work, perversely running away with the bit of her life still in their teeth. She is barely sixty. She appears not to hear him speaking to her. He places his mouth against her bones so she can hear him: “Ai, what songs you sing.” He thinks he catches the ghost of a smile. But already the bones under the coverlet are curled like a skeleton’s hugging its mouthfuls of earth. Will he ever say of her that she is dead? Or does she carry the seeds of her death, even now, in the pinched, white nostrils that struggle for breath? The road levels out between two ranges of hills, then abruptly shuts tight as it winds still higher, once more to narrow between the muddy unpaved streets, the shacks of corrugated tin and tar paper at the edge of the town, the rush fences, the varicolored washlines of rags that flap in the sun, the mangy dogs, the barefoot children scampering about the grease tins with their choked geraniums struggling against the dust. • 96 •

His mother is dying. He remembers the light, the sound of adhesive ripping, the gauze pads lifted from the skin. No smell. No sensation of smell at all.

• 97 •

T

he bus shudders to a stop, the doors sigh as they open to let him off onto a vast stretch of mud. Here in the back country, there is no depot as such. Along the entire roadway, double trailers are pulled over, two rows deep, the drivers probably still asleep in their cabs. It is the yawning hour of the morning before the dew evaporates, when the air is still cool. He shivers. The driver opens the luggage hatch with his key shaft, and helps him unload the suitcase. At that hour, neither feels like talking much. The driver vaults back up onto his seat, swings the doors shut. The motor squeals, then fires up. The tires skid briefly in the mudbed, and the bus moves, slowly at first, gathering speed until it is finally lost to view. Returning here was always mixed with surprise, from the time he left at eighteen, surprise that the houses are so small, smaller than he remembers; surprise that the paint is peeling, more than before; surprise that the vast expanse of mud of the roadbed acquires ever more defined limits. Momentarily, he is at a loss. He stands by the roadside in the rosy first light, uncertain in the chill, still groggy from the night and his cramped seat in the bus, puzzling at finding himself here. The telegram, the rain, his mother dying, but no, he had not come then. It was the wall of fire, the crackling like rats scurrying that brought him here. Now he has sorted it out, he begins to walk. For him there is nowhere anymore but here. He picks his way over the surly chunks of gravel edging the roadbed. Behind him the sun is just rising over the hilltops beyond the town. Opposite, still shrouded in low-lying fog, the blue hills bound the valley. The town itself squats in this gorgeous bowl, ugly, rimmed on all sides by hills. He crosses the thoroughfare, picking his way through the ruts. Food stalls catering to night truckers line the roadway. Behind their lowered awnings their owners are probably still asleep. The canvas flaps now and again in the wind. In the cluttered side streets, houses cluster, mint green, salmon, brown, all painted in remaindered colors. Above the • 98 •

doorways, red hand-drawn letters respond to simple needs: “Keys,” “Nails,” “Plate Glass,” “Sheet Metal.” Here and there in a doorway someone sleeps. A woman doubled over searches for fleas. A child huddles against the chill. Someone spills water onto the sidewalk. A sleeping cat springs to life, heading for drier ground. Many shops are boarded up. Notices on pasteboard or corrugated cardboard haltingly spell out “Closed,” “Moved,” “Business for Sale,” and one sign, simply, “Deceased.” The suitcase is heavy. The improvised handle begins to cut into his palm. He stops briefly to change hands. Behind closed shutters, he can hear people stirring. Above him a window opens. He can sense someone lean out over the balcony rail. A gob of spit splatters in the gutter. Upstairs, a window slams shut. He picks up his pace. At the corner he turns to the right, past the post office. He crosses to avoid the sweeper on the other side. He remembers the feeling that long before had made him want to leave. It crowds in on him again to pin him down. He has come back. There is no doubt about it. Still heading south, changing hands when the rope handle cuts too deep, he walks briskly past the Praça, past the Bomfim with its white stone steps and double campaniles. Already hammers are at work high above, ringing their syncopation on the stone. In the church courtyard, a mason is dragging a paper sack of cement along the flagstones, raising up the dust. Even the sounds are unchanged. While it was still being built, masons were probably already restoring it. No doubt about it. He has come back. A little farther now and he will be there. His mother’s shack lies virtually at the end, far past the point where the street becomes an alley and the cobblestones give way to dirt. Makeshift structures line the alleyway – collections of half-rotted beams, corrugated tin, roofing tiles. Rusting oil drums catch what rain water runs off improvised gutters. To the side, an open sewer runs. In the dust of the Whale Back, vegetation had long given up. If there is any difference here, it is the small patches of green: tufts of grass escaping between the stones, here and there a dusty fig tree. And everywhere the suet cans • 99 •

with their scraggly geraniums. Somewhere someone beats a mattress. Sounds of fat frying are everywhere. He is hesitant to stop, but already sweat beads his brow from effort and the rising heat of the morning. He knows these people, has known them. He remembers grace was not their strong point. But he has already walked too far. He lets the suitcase drop, lifts the fedora, takes off the handkerchief – his only one – to mop his head and brow. Too late, a door creaks open on its hinges. A man, unknown to him, stands watching him. A woman comes up from behind to join him. He would have preferred to pass without notice. They look while he fumbles with the knot, trying to hide his face, not quite succeeding, as he masks himself again. Still they stare as he replaces the fedora, retrieves the suitcase, and continues up the alley. Already he can hear, thinks he can hear, their whispering.

• 100 •

T

he door is closed now. On it, the relics, long dry, of the undertaker’s wreath. He stands poised on the raised threshold. He tries the doorknob. The door is fast. Someone has come up beside him. The neighbor woman. She stands by the door, a little to the side of him. “She called for you. When you didn’t come...” She shrugs. By way of apology, he takes off his hat. Something clumsy in it, he realizes, too late. The handkerchief falls away. He sees her hands fly to her mouth. She extends her hand without looking at him, He does not remember seeing the key ever before. The door, now padlocked, was always open while she lived. She is already gone without wanting his acknowledgment. He introduces the key, turns it to the right. The lock remains fast. He must turn the key to the left and to the left again before it gives. He lifts it off the hasp. He is standing in the darkened room. The shades, torn and yellowed now, are lowered against the morning glare. The room smells of dead grasses and of dust. He places his cardboard suitcase on the floor. He moves toward the window to let in the day. She has not left very much behind to signal her passing. The iron cot is narrow, the husks burst through the mattress ticking. At its foot, a wooden packing crate on which the words (now faded) “Carvalho, SA.” can be faintly seen, contains some bedclothes, a set of threadbare blankets. There is a wire-back hairpin chair whose provenance dates from a time before he can remember. On the worm-eaten floorboards is a faded rug of her making. The peripheral bands must have been added more recently; their colors have not yet begun to fade. The dresser, however, is the piece he best remembers. It is nearly neck high, of pale oak, its relief ornaments applied with cabinetmaker’s glue. Its condition, in comparison with the other furnishings, is still fairly new. There is a series of six drawers which take up most of the height. Surmounting these are two narrow compartments, placed horizontally, one next to the other, in all forming seven levels. • 101 •

On the surface under the hurricane lamp, half-filled with greenish oil, is a washbasin of white enamel, rimmed in dark blue, and a still-white hand towel, bordered with one narrow and one wide band of red. Scattered here and there, traces of her sickroom are still to be found: an old-fashioned hypodermic, the sterno burner and the ring, the dented pot. And on the dresser, beside the clutter of stale and dusty medicine bottles, a corroded spoon. In the end, someone had nursed her, given her needles to still the pain, the neighbor woman perhaps. Perhaps it was she who watched to ensure her poor things were left undisturbed by thieves and strangers more poor still than she, to be carried out into the night. In the adjacent room is a wood stove, a table, a small wooden chair, and by the opening to the outside, two shelves on which there is a collection of cookpots, utensils, and a box of matches. A design in red and blue decorates its yellowed surface. The design represents scrolls or banners. Some words, no longer legible, are contained within the borders. He drags the suitcase closer to the dresser. He removes the few articles of clothing salvaged from the fire. These he places inside the drawers. The plastic sheet lies crumpled at the bottom. He smoothes it absently before hanging it on the nail in the corner behind the door, He slams the lid down with one foot, and slides the suitcase beneath the bed. He takes the enamel basin into the other room. For a moment he stands there. Apparently satisfied with his preparations, he bends under the table. He reaches for the galvanized bucket resting on the earthen floor. He lifts it out by the handle. Straightening up, he carries it to the front door. Before opening it, he pauses a moment to adjust the handerkerchief. The morning sunlight floods the alleyway. A sudden breeze stirs up the dust. He makes his way toward the paved main street, and down it to the courtyard in the square. A child stands in a doorway as he passes, one bare foot pigeon-toed above the other, watching impassively. As he passes, a hand reaches out to pull the child indoors. He can still hear his squeals of protest as he reach• 102 •

es the corner. A truck has stopped in the middle of the roadway. Two men lie under it, straining at something. The hat of one of them flips off, and rolls into the gutter. “Jesus,” he curses. High up in the truck, he can see a man sitting on a load of burlap sacks, his head sunk on his chest. He appears to sleep. A fat pig is tethered to the tailgate. Its snout snuffles along the floor of the truck bed. He makes his way to the pump at the center of the courtyard. Within its shade he is shielded from the sun and wind. He positions the bucket and turns the faucet. With a false start, the water growls in the pipe and bubbles to the mouth of the spigot. He stands there anxiously waiting for the bucket to fill. But no one is about just now. Only a dusty sparrow searches for seeds in the dirt. As he makes his way back home, he leaves a trail of water drops which turn to stains in the dusty alley. A gang of urchins swoops down toward him. Their shout is a kind of chant: “Yaya, yaya, yaya,” they whoop with laughter as they zigzag down the alley, kicking up the dust. The last one to streak past him splashes him with water from the bucket. He shuts the door against the glare. In the dark beyond the threshold he tears off the handkerchief. He sets the bucket down. Still dripping, it leaves a ring on the floor beside the cot. He lifts it onto the wooden table. On the shelf, he finds a thick glass. Sinking it into the water, he fills it and drinks. He drops his shirt onto the chair. Tipping the bucket, he lets water spill into the washbasin. He cups his hands in the water. He splashes his face, his neck.

• 103 •

T

he room seemed larger then, perhaps because he saw it from the blanket she used to spread for him in the corner, on the ground. He sits there now, his back propped against the wall, testing the truth of this. In the lazy afternoon, he watches as the dust particles catch the light until the room is alive with them, hundreds of them. The silence pulses, the stillness swells with her presence, until the room itself breathes, as though the motes of dust floating might still be settling in the pregnant air, the momentum of her last breath even now propelling them. He remembers very clearly. She has stopped raising the dust with her broom to listen to Julião. “The zoo’s in Rio.” “What’s that?” “A zoo? It’s where the animals live. . . . Lions, tigers . . . giraffes tall like trees.” (He had pictured alley roosters, halfstarved cats.) Julião is laughing as his eyes go wide. “Could we go once? Could we take him?” And Julião’s face turns dark. He glares at her. “It’s too far. And anyway, he has no shoes.” The day she brought Julião home, he must have been five. “This is your new father.” She must have known his father was bigger, smelled of earth. His hands were rough. This one smelled of toilet water. “Julião.” He didn’t care what his name was. He wasn’t going to call him anything. Not Papai, not Julião. Not anything. It wasn’t his small feet in their black, polished leather shoes, or even the pointed toes. Or that his shoulder blades stuck out under his shirt. It wasn’t his way of loosening his tie, or sending his snapbrim skimming from the front door onto the cot whenever he returned there. It was his smell. It didn’t belong there. He knew it. Or the absences. He remembers her straightening up, brushing the wisps of black hair from her eyes with her forearm. “Julião’s in Rio.” “Rio? What’s Rio?” This was Rio, River of Stones. That • 104 •

other Rio, it could be anywhere. It made no difference. It could be Africa. He could be a lion tamer. It didn’t matter. Even if he came up from a gold mine in Peru, he didn’t care. “Where’s Papai?” And her straightening up. “Julião is your papai now.” “Where is he?” “He’s gone to Rio.” And her face. Something sad in the eyes, their lids lowered, her mouth drawn thin as the line of a balance sheet, marking a final payment. He wanted to cling to her. He wanted to bury his face in the dampness of her skirts. “He’s not my papai. He’s not my anything. My papai’s dead.” He was never going back there, ever. “Helio.” He could hear her calling, her voice getting fainter with the distance. By the river near the ferry crossing, he found a willow reed. He was a cowboy driving horses, racing barefoot up the slope. From the hill, he could see the whole town. That’s where they came to spy on everybody. Once they even saw Fat Oreste, the butcher, jump up and down on La Mariquita – right on the roof. He lay in the coolness of the cave, swatting at the flies climbing up his legs. The cave was his house now, cool in the noontime heat. The flies buzzed lazily. Behind his eyelids, the light glowed red. The damp floor dropped away from him. He was floating on the air. The Bat King was back, towering over him. A parade of giants crowded behind, puppets, all wigs and lace, carrying cabbages and corn. The Turk in his yellow satin turban brandished a glittering scimitar. They were snarling and shouting at the Bat King. The Turk • 105 •

slashed the air. “Thwack.” The Bat King’s head went flying. Sprays of red candy drops burst from the stump of the Bat King’s severed neck. Then they all swooped like magpies, all of them filling their hands, their mouths with candy. “Where were you?” She gathered him up. “Where were you all day?” “Put him down.” Julião stood in the doorway in his shiny shoes. “Let him go without supper. Put him to sleep.” He was at the zoo in Rio. Wires swung like half-mad parabolas. Empty cages shivered in the birdhouse, there was chirping on naked branches. Fat red, green, and blue feathers fell lazily to earth. Locks rattled in the tiny doors, gaping open in the sunlight. Huge black padlocks creaked, keys swung, nervously switching back and forth like the tails of restless tigers, hungry and unsatisfied. Huge circus wagons yawned empty, their traces resting in the straw. The beasts had packed up. They were gone. Much later in the night, she woke him with her bowl of hot beans and her bread – when Julião was asleep.

• 106 •

I

n the twenty some years since his leaving there have been changes. Of the stalls once straddling both sides the length of the market street, or bounding the church square, most are vacant, some are boarded up. Each morning he rises early to look for work. Each day he is refused. At last, he visits the barber shop. Cardoso is long gone, but its look is still familiar, ingrained in the eyes, the brown leather chairs, the footrests with their filigree are the same ones he remembers, the fly-specked mirrors home. On the hairpin chairs, the sprawl of magazines might still be the same. But there is no Old One left to return an embrace, only this stranger with his hollow eyes, yellow, is it with too much living? or perhaps from too much sun. “Yes?” “Cara is the name. I apprenticed here as a boy.” “Don’t say! Why don’t I know you?” “Left for the Capital. Some years back. Cut hair in the old town – near the port.” “And what brings you back?” The tone is one of disbelief. “The need to look for other work, with this . . . accident.” His gesture takes in handkerchief and hat. “I see.” But the owner appears distracted. A mangy cat creeps in from the street. It cowers between the empty barber chairs. “Work like sweeping. Or I could carry water. . . .” The sound of his voice seems to float. It might as well be coming from the peeling plaster in one corner of the ceiling. The owner is waiting for his moment to seize the cat. “I’m sorry. Bad times. No customers.” He hurls the cat into the street. “I do everything myself. Sorry” “Would you know of anything else? Another place, perhaps?” “Maybe. Try the white house. Up there on the hill – where the street ends. They sometimes need a coffee boy.”

• 107 •

C

arefully he props the piece of mirror against the wall. ln it he studies what he sees there. Calmly, for the first time, he forces his eyes to take the measure of his mangled face. Have the traces of his mother’s dying come back to shape his dreams: the dusty bottles? the matches? the syringe? Where has it come from, this idea? has it hovered for some time, like the dust particles suspended in the sickroom air? He would make himself a face. He did not have to wait. He would make it here, where he knew no one anymore, where no one could tell him how he had to look, what he had to be – now that he had fallen – now he no longer belonged, even to himself. There was no one here to say it, to say it could not be done. Or that he might not do it, that he had no right. No one at all.

• 108 •

T

he apothecary is still where he remembers, on the corner of the street which lies to the east of the Praça, a street he remembers always as shaded. Already then, buying medicines for his mother, it gave him a feeling of going toward some kind of death. He passes into the darkness of the shop. The desk is as he remembers – dustier even. A white dog lies sprawled, panting beneath it, tongue lolling in the heat. He rings the bell. The druggist emerges from the alleyway out back. “Yes?” “Novocaine, please.” “You mean procaine.” Why was he insisting on procaine, he wonders. He remembers Cardoso. He always called it novocaine. “Novocaine is the trade name. There is procaine or lidocaine.” “How much?” “How much do you want?” “How do you sell it?” “Ten centiliters, thirty. For lidocaine, fifty.” “Give me procaine.” “Lidocaine lasts longer.” “No. Give me procaine.” He loosens thirty cruzeiros from the rag he carries in his pocket. The druggist hands him the clear glass bottle. “Is that all?” Back in the side street, even in the shade, he has to squint at the flood of light. Uncertainly, he glances in the direction of the Bomfim. His eye fastens on the placard, faded now, in the druggist’s fly-specked window. The bow shape, the red and white letters are still familiar, remembered from childhood. But its words surprise him today: “Want a close shave?” Curious, he cannot remember ever having read them before.

• 109 •

H

e pulls the bell rope in the ornate doorway. He can hear the shuffle of soft slippers advancing in the courtyard. The door opens tentatively. In the recess, an ancient stands squinting at him. He wears a woolen blanket against the chill, a worn straw hat such as farmers still wear in these parts. “Sim?” he lisps through broken teeth. “Let me see the owner.” The door opens only slightly wider. The hallway he enters is dark. To the left is a low window. The old man motions him to wait. He stands in the darkness for some time before a light is turned on. The low window opposite him is thrust open. A very aged woman, more antique even than the doorkeeper, peers at him through thick lenses. A crocheted shawl hugs her shoulders, warding off the cold. A puff of white hair like spun sugar crowns her face. She addresses him in the voice of an ancient puppet. “Sim?” Behind her, on every spare shelf in the room, in the antique curio cabinets, on the green velvet upholstery of chairs and sofa, a host of dolls crowds the room, each one dressed in the way of the countryside: gentry, children, farmers, all untouched and shiny, their cheeks rosy, all with the same smiles, their eyes wide, expressionless. She has observed his hesitation. “What do you want?” “The barber – the one down in the square – thought you might have work sweeping, carrying water for the coffee trees, or the kitchen, perhaps . . .” She laughs a dry laugh. “Work! Ha! We haven’t had work since the last guest left!” “Guest?” He is puzzled. This mansion once housed gentry. “You don’t know? Yes. They came here for business, when they held the district auctions here.” Her voice drifts off. “Before my time. . . . It must have been. . .” “Now . . . now, we do all the work ourselves, my man, there, and myself. Come inside.” She motions him toward the courtyard with a patrician sweep. He is surprised to see that the courtyard is carefully tended. • 110 •

Bananas grow in profusion around an outsized fountain. She points to the sitting room. “Here we watch television.” She evidently shares her doll quarters with the ancient, whom she refers to as her man. A faded velvet portiere breaks the harshness of the bare staircase. In an alcove beneath is a square grand piano, closed now, gathering dust. She leads him along the courtyard, past the kitchen with its antiseptic white, and the dining room. In the far corner, she invites him to peer through closed glass doors at the salon. Nine antique chairs upholstered in faded plush line the walls between evenly spaced windows. But the room has the hermetic look of disuse, sealed, like her past perhaps. “We were eight sisters once,” she remarks to his unasked question. “All dead now,” she smiles, “but me.” For a moment he pictures them young, in their starched lace, eternally propped in their straight-backed chairs, waiting there for a suitor who perhaps had never come. They reach the last room before completing the round of the courtyard. “This is the office.” She urges him to enter. She presses a wall switch. An incandescent bulb casts its baleful light over the oak desk which occupies the center of the room. Bentwood oak chairs, the kind one still finds in the offices of country lawyers, line the wall. She motions to the ancient, who slides the desk chair out for him. “Sit, please.” “Here,” she says, opening a ledger powdery with dust. “Look.” He can feel the pages are made of no ordinary paper. She points to the names on the register. Idly, he flips the great pages until he comes to the last entry: August 24, 1951. “Coffee?” The old man enters the office with an antique silver tray. He sets it on the desk with unsteady hands. The three shell-thin china cups rattle briefly. He pours the boiling coffee from a tarnished silver pot. “Sugar?” the old woman asks, pushing the bowl toward him. He nods, embarrassed. He will have to lift the handkerchief to drink. But the old woman and her man affect not to notice. For a while they sit silently, stirring the steamy brew. The • 111 •

delicate silver spoons ring in the hollow of the cups. The old man slurps noisily through sparse teeth. “This entry here . . .” (he is studying the ledger page) “. . . this name here. . . . Did you know him?” “Who?” “Here.” He points to the ledger. “Julião Cara.” She comes over to peer over his shoulder. She adjusts her glasses. “Julião Cara?” She pauses for breath. She seems to be searching her memory. “No. No, I don’t remember. Why?” “My . . . father.” The trace of an expression brushes over her face, irony perhaps, or perhaps he just imagines it. “No, I don’t remember any Cara.” She utters the name with exterminating scorn. “Not our class, in any case.” Her spoon rings in the cup as she drums it against the lip. She sips without speaking. She pauses for a long time, seeming to reflect. Again she stirs and drops the spoon noisily into the saucer. “Eulalio, why don’t you take this man outside?” She waves to the Indian with the gesture of a shabby archduchess. “It might be a good idea to show him the pump, give him the water buckets. Let him irrigate the new planting – if he has the time.” And to him, “Remember, it’s to be done at night. Always at night. Now go.” He stands in the doorway of the office before following the old man out. Her spoon is poised midair. She is waiting for him to be gone. “How will I be paid?” “My man here will pay you. Every morning. Fifty cruzeiros a night. Not much perhaps, but more than you’ll get anywhere else.” Her spoon hits the saucer with a final clatter. Fifty cruzeiros. As the Indian shows him the pump, he is thinking, fifty cruzeiros. “Here, try to work it.” He positions himself behind the handle. The spigot is of the old kind, cast iron. It squeaks and groans before water comes gurgling from the spout. The old man places a galvanized tin • 112 •

bucket where it will catch the flow. They watch it silently as the water rises. When the two buckets are full, the old man leads him past a kitchen garden across a terraced area which slopes gently down toward the orchard. Young coffee bushes are planted among the fruit trees almost as far as the eye can see. They stretch to the place where the hills surrounding the town begin to rise toward the dark blue outlines of distant slopes. “Each bush gets a full bucket. Here. Like this.” The old man takes a bucket from him and slowly pours the water out in a puddle around the roots. “That way they get the most to drink. They’re young and thirsty, even with the spring rains to help. Coffee. The Senhora loves coffee.” “How many trees?” “More than a hundred. A hundred hundred. I don’t know exactly. The Senhora could tell you, but me. . . . In the school we only got to a hundred.” He laughs apologetically. “But the Senhora knows. The old trees give the young ones shade. The orchard was planted by her grandfather, the general. Some famous general he was. All the land in this district belonged to him. They say most of the children come down from him, even the black and the Indian ones – like me.” The old man gives a toothless bray. “Come back tomorrow. You can start at sundown. If you just ring the bell, I’ll let you in.” They walk in silence back up the slope, past the pump, and into the kitchen with its antiseptic white. “Do you always wear the handkerchief?” the old man wants to know, “or only sometimes?” “Always. Always now, since the accident.” “What happened? “A fall.” “On your face?” “It was raining.” The Indian nods as if he understood the connection. “Too bad you couldn’t land on your ass like anyone else!”

• 113 •

Fifty cruzeiros. He is walking down the jagged paving stones back toward the center. Fifty cruzeiros. Barely enough even for one day. He would have to look elsewhere for the rest. For his face, he would barely have time.

• 114 •

U

nder the white sacking of the market awnings, the momentary brightness of the sun declares a truce. It softens the faces of the passersby, and the countryfolk who sit patiently on the ground, their blankets spread with beans and rice, or cumin, with a gentle glow. The spring wind ruffles the awnings and makes them flutter in the breeze, gently flapping them from time to time. And he, it is as if he wears their reflection on his face: a small handkerchief, no longer white, sometimes fluttering – like the awnings – when the wind blows. Searching in the marketplace, he finds it at last, the very thin thread, thinner than the ordinary cotton thread he is used to, not quite so thin as the spider gossamer his mother used to stem the bleeding when he cut himself. “How much?” The countryman gazes at him through milky eyes. A weathered hand reaches up from under his blanket to grasp the spool. He brings it almost to within an inch of his eyes. “Five.” “Five?” It seems too cheap. “Five.” He pulls a ten-cruzeiro coin from his pocket lining and hands it to the seller. The old man drops it somewhere in the depths of his overalls. His hand emerges at last with the change, which he tenders with the spool. In the side street under the arcades, a scissor vendor displays his wares. In the recess, dark even at noon, his assistant, a boy of no more than ten, works the grindstone. Sparks fly. The sound travels on this day of sun and wind, as if filtered through an accordion. He stands before the stall, fumbling in his pocket. The scissors he brings up are worn, nicked and, here and there, discolored. He shows them to the vendor. “How much to sharpen?” The man considers, scratches his stubbly jaw. “Like this? Ten. Now if they weren’t so worried . . .” “Five,” he counters. “No. No, friend.” The vendor hands them back. “Listen, my • 115 •

assistant alone costs me ten a day. . . . Make it eight.” “Eight,” he agrees. Inside the shop, the boy has stopped the wheel. “Jacinto . . . here.” He hands the boy the scissors.

• 116 •

T

he room is ready. He slides the crate which will serve him as a counter against the wall adjacent to the dresser. The water pot is there now, standing half-full on the ring over the burner, the box of matches next to it. He takes up the matchbox, slips open the drawer with his left thumb. He removes one match which he holds between his right thumb and index finger. He snaps the box closed with his left middle finger before tilting it to the side. He strikes the match against the upturned edge. Angling the match downward, he allows the shaft to become combustible. He turns the cock one half turn. He watches the blue flame belch to life. He brings the match close to his face to extinguish it. Absently, he holds it to his nostrils to check for smell. There is none. He discards it. He lowers the tall blue flame under the pot. He places the matchbox with its faded design, illegible now, inside the crate. The needles lie alongside the matches. They are stainless steel, in the kind of package sold at curbsides by blind street peddlers. He opens the paper flap. There, threaded in the red felt are three needles. He pulls out the smallest. He closes the packet and places it back inside the crate. On the dresser top alongside the mirror he finds the spool of very fine thread. Holding it fast with his three free fingers, he unravels a length and breaks it with his left hand. He places the spool back on the dresser before inserting the thread in the needle’s eye. He drops thread and needle in the water. He listens for the faint sound as the neele strikes the metal bottom. In the crate he gropes for a cartridge of razor blades. He removes one, replacing the cartridge. This, too, he drops in the water. The last item on the dresser, the scissors, he lets slide into the water. Small bubbles begin to form at the edges of the pot. He props the mirror, balancing it carefully on the dresser top. He stands leaning his weight against the dresser, adjusting the mirror’s angle against the wall. There are specks and veins of streaking where the silver has come detached from the reverse side. The glass is thick. At the top a flower is etched. He passes his right hand in front of it, checking for distortion perhaps, or • 117 •

to remove a speck of dirt from its surface. He places the enamel basin on the wireback chair. He tips the galvanized tin bucket over it, filling it with the last of the water. From the crate he pulls out the linen towel. He lifts it carefully between thumb and index finger and flicks it open, waving it, now back, now forward till he can arrange it like a drape over the chair back. He returns to the crate where he searches in its recesses for a faded plastic soap dish. This he places on the chair beside the water bowl. Then, kneeling before the chair, he removes the brown soap from the dish and drops it in the water. He lathers both hands, then returns it to the dish. Raising hands to face, he lathers his temples, and working downward, pressing his eyes shut against the sting, he covers the skin below his eye sockets, moving downward to his chin. Still pressing his eyes shut tight, he lowers his hands into the water once more, rinsing them until the lather is dissolved in the water. Then, cupping water in both hands and inclining his face forward to meet them, he buries his face in his palms. The water overflows into the washbowl. He repeats this gesture until at last he is able to open both eyes. He lifts the towel off the chair back, pats it to his face, then brusquely towels his hands. He replaces the towel, now wrinkled and somewhat damp, on the chair back. He moves back to the dresser. Craning his face forward, he examines it in the mirror. He touches his right cheek, then moves his hand downward toward his mouth, spreading the skin, smoothing it out with his fingers. The water is boiling now. Judging by the bell clock of the Bomfim, some twenty minutes have elapsed. He turns the cock until the blue jet sinks down lifeless; he takes a needle from the water and fits it to the syringe. Extracting the plunger, he fills it with procaine. Then spreading the skin just above his mouth, he infuses procaine under the surface. Almost immediately, he feels the area go numb. With the needle still below the skin, he rotates it slightly, changing its angle. Again, he injects a small amount of procaine into the adjacent area until it, too, is numb. He repeats the process until the tissues surrounding his mouth are entirely numb before finally extracting the needle. With his finger he • 118 •

taps the area to assure himself that there is no sensation anywhere. Using tweezers, he removes the razor blade from the water. With his fingers he grasps the raised white tissue above and to the right of his mouth. Carefully bending the blade with the constant pressure of thumb and forefinger he lifts off the scar tissue. With his fingers he applies pressure to stem the bleeding. Placing the blade aside, he lifts the needle and thread from the boiling water with the tweezers. He stitches the incision closed as best he can with the needle and the very fine thread, tying the knots one at a time the way he remembers seeing Cardoso do it when, as a boy, he was first apprenticed. At last, he lets the needle drop. The sterile water is becoming cold. The red has long diffused, tinting it to rust. He lies down on the cot. The washbasin is still on the chair. He lacks the strength to empty it. He will not need it now. Let it sit. It will still be there tomorrow. He shuts his eyes. He can hear a ringing in his ears.

• 119 •

H

e is wandering the streets outside. It is dark, no moon, only the kerosene lights glow red in the doorways. The windows are shut tight against the night air. Something is different, uncanny. No trace now of cobblestones, only the lightness of this feeling, his feet barely touching, effortless, like riding a bus, or flying, skimming over the surface quickly – like a dragonfly over water, yes, and feeling what? Some kind of freedom. And then panic. Touching. Touching to make sure. Why isn’t the handkerchief there? Why is his face exposed? Someone has died. And, sharp with that knowing, row upon row of dimly powered lamps swing naked from wires overhead, bright streets (dark only a moment ago) fill with walkers, all solemn, hatted, in a ceremony closed to him, all with handkerchiefs over their faces. And the signs painted red over the doorways: “Moved,” “Closed,” “For Sale,” “Deceased.” He was about to enter the picture show, a room plush, velvety, wine-dark like the soul, and there to take his seat. He was supposed to be there. He had been called. Something there, a welling cloud, a balloon of blue air, now bulging, now concave: eyes, brows, cheekbones, a vast blue Madonna with sad eyes, pulsating, breathing mercy at him, her sad smile, blue lips, skin now pulsing, throbbing with light, each cell opening like a pore, and in each pore, each cell, a face, hundreds of faces, each throbbing, pulsing with its own light.

• 120 •

T

he kerosene is smoking in the lamp. Before the mirror he is examining his unbandaged face. The first cotton stitches have turned dark, stained with blood. A look comes over him, perhaps of satisfaction. Carefully he avoids a smile. If he were to smile – too early. Cautiously, he fingers the lip. Nothing. He remembers touching it, his mouth, yet he remembers feeling nothing. What could have happened? He tries to think. He had worked quickly as Cardoso had showed him, boiling the needle, immersing the thread in the boiling water before use. The razor, sterile. The incisions, clean. The knots, the matching of skin to skin – closing the wound, the gauze, the tape. Could it be the procaine? He tries to think. It is after all his first attempt. What could have gone wrong? Over the basin, he tries to remember. He feels the nausea rising, the faintness, and much later, a kind of numbness beyond just his mouth.

• 121 •

A

cyclops moon breathes its light of pewter on the slope. The night wind sighs, and the tall grass weaves with the sway of a somnambulist. Even with the light to ease his task, he moves slowly down the row. He bends beside a young tree, letting the water flow over the bucket’s rim, gradually soaking the base, letting the furrowed area contain the water all around, preventing its overflow. What could have gone wrong? He had bent his whole effort. He had given it thought, gathered the tools he would need. He had not foreseen this deadening. He imagined rather some coming back to life, some traveling from very far to get it back, not just his face, but his whole life – work he could count on, a place to call his, cronies, a woman perhaps. But not this numbing. He goes over it again from beginning to end. It must be the nerves, a numbing of the nerves. Could there have been something he overlooked? Could he have bruised one by mistake, or severed it without realizing? It was possible. But it was not possible to go on like this without knowing better, without knowing what he must do. Back at the pump, he lets the pails drop with a clatter. He turns the spigot. The water drums against the bottom of the bucket. It casts a chilly spray against his hand. He withdraws it absently. He is thinking of the pictures in the waiting area, nineteen in all. He barely hears the rush of water as the bucket fills. He is reviewing the pictures, trying to remember the words he once labored to pronounce, and the colors – red for arteries, blue for veins, and for the nerves, yellow. He tries to remember. The water flows over the edge before he has time to switch buckets. He spills some of the overflow into its twin and moves it under the tap. He must find more pictures, ones he can study. But where? Not here, certainly. Perhaps in a place where they had hospitals, libraries, a medical center. In the district capital. He had only one day free of carrying water. And most of his small savings were spent. A trip to the Capital was out of the question. It would require time and money. He had neither. But to the • 122 •

provincial capital, that was another matter. At last the bucket is full.

• 123 •

Y

ou say you are interested in the way the face is formed – anatomy?” He considers. “Yes. Anatomy. The veins, the blood vessels, the nerves.” The man wears sleeve protectors, fastened over his shirtsleeves with elastic bands. He lets himself out from behind the counter through a swinging half-door. He leads him up a narrow flight of stairs to an open mezzanine. He had imagined himself reading one book. He had not imagined so many, hundreds of them, their dark bindings embossed in gold, words he has never seen before, titles he can only make out by forming the sounds with his numb lips, one syllable at a time. The afternoon light lengthens along the vast table. He closes the atlas he has been reading. On his way toward the staircase, he replaces it on the shelf. He passes quietly down the carpeted stairs. He crosses the crowded vestibule and very softly pushes open the door to let himself out into the courtyard. Only in the bus does he feel safe at last to remove the book pressed tightly against his abdomen from its hiding place inside his shirt. He is studying it now: Basics of Dermatologic Surgery. It is a good trade for the lunch left, still uneaten, to spoil behind the library counter where he has had to leave it. He would be long gone before they began to notice it.

• 124 •

H

e is reading in the flickering light of the oil lamp. Seated on the wireback chair, the book propped on the work table. He is studying the diagrams. Carefully he reads the captions while pointing to each word, forming the syllables with his lips. He searches the paragraph to match it to the captions. Satisfied, he repeats aloud. Simple; Running (quick to do); Half-Buried; Subcuticular (good results – leaves no skin mark); Vertical (good for thick or thin skin); and Horizontal (looks bad early, but good later). On the dresser he finds needle and thread. He brings these and the remnants of foam rubber salvaged from a packing crate. He threads the needle. He has no needle holders as the book illustrates. He must learn to tie the knots by hand. Down, out the side, in the opposite side, up. And tie. He repeats. Down, out the side, in opposite, up, tie. He pulls out the thread. He will use it again to run simple sutures through the foam: bite down, around, up and through; down, around, up and through. Almost every night he practices under the oil lamp. The marker rests two-thirds into the thickness of the pages. But he never counts their number or measures their length, or adds the paragraphs to a page, or the words to a line. The examination he prepares for will be a private one, the subject his own face. He studies the skin diagram of the basal layer: two thicknesses of cells, one permeable to light, the other opaque, together no bigger than a grain of sand, where millions of cells are born, eventually to travel outward to the surface, multiplying by dividing, their shape and purpose set by a code passed from one generation of cells to the next: beard, nose, forehead, and the vermilion stuff of lips; never varying, always true to kind, migrating, born to be differentiated, displaced, then shed like dust. Why, if this is so, why does his scar tissue persist? Shouldn’t it be replaced by an entirely new and shining surface, one that no longer bunches in rigid ropes and knots, patterned by hard ridges that glare an angry white? Why couldn’t the cells of his face pass from birth to death without attracting notice, unremarkable, like the army of normal cells moving slowly to the surface every fourteen days, then shed? What made his different, • 125 •

unlike the skin of normal people, fixed and unmoving? Why did his skin betray its nature of a quagmire – shifting, chaotic, moving with whim and wound, torn by its own weight, crumbling here to be built up elsewhere – a living thing, growing, even while his body slept? What pain would he have to accept to remake it? Was his pain enough to make that pain less? Everywhere he went, he had been searched out, found out, smoked out like vermin in rotting wood. How could his hat and the handkerchief have gathered such importance now, these very commonplace things? Without them, he was naked, without protection in an alien world. They had become his skin. He would grow a face back, a skin – with time. He would be just like everyone else once more. He would walk in the sunlight again, strut on the patterned pavement of the Capital, his hat cocked at a raffish angle, appraising the women in their tangas, their breasts bobbling, their bodies glistening with salt water, their looks inviting, appraising his dark body and his face alive with wanting, and the knowledge he could have them. Like anyone.

• 126 •

T

he butane burner sputters beneath the white enamel pot. He struggles to fix the needle, fastening it to the syringe. He pulls the plunger back, completely filling the shaft. With ink pencil he has outlined the oblong section of skin covering his breastbone above the nipple line. Carefully he injects the area, infusing procaine under the skin until it feels uniformly numb before withdrawing the needle. Smoothing the corresponding outlined area alongside his mouth, he injects it where the old suture marks still glow an angry white. Repeatedly he rotates the needle under the skin until at last the syringe is empty. He withdraws it. With a pin he tests both areas to assure himself of their numbness. He will have to work fast if he is to excise the area of the scar and to lift the graft from his chest before the numbness begins to wear thin. Arcing the razor, he carefully excises the scar tissue, keeping exactly to the ink pen outlines. Satisfied, he turns his attention to his chest. Bowing the blade, he slides it with extreme care, keeping to the ink lines, undermining the superficial layer of skin. At last he has freed the entire flap without mishap. Using the tweezers, he lifts it and frees the last strip of skin with a single cut of the razor. He positions it alongside his mouth over the raw area. Its outer limits match the outline perfectly. He has given the needle a slight bend to reduce the danger of tearing the skin. Carefully, stitch by stitch, as if it were another face (not his own), he matches the edge with the markings. He ties the knots carefully by hand. All the while he is remembering the first time, his mouth, healed but without sensation. And now this. But this will work. It has to. He knows it. In the sterile water, he mixes a batch of builder’s plaster. He spreads it over the raw patch, just over his heart.

• 127 •

W

inter rains pound the countryside into muddy submission. On the hill, the orchard lies flooded. “Come back when it dries,” the Senhora decides as she gives him his last cruzeiros. But it will never dry, or if it does, he will need to find work long before. Brusquely the door shuts in his face. He stands in the darkened street in the not-quite-dawn. Always at dawn before the streets and alleys fill, three weeks he has searched. “Work? Do you have work?” And the refrain, “We do everything ourselves.” “We used to have three men. Now only one.” “It’s dying, the whole town. No one comes here anymore. One bus a day. And often empty.” “When our mother died, there wasn’t even any money for the priest. We buried her ourselves.” He waits outside the tanner’s house. A baby cries. He can just see him through the half-open window. His sobs give way to wails. Hunger, rage, despair. No one comes to feed him. The child lies on a mattress without sheets. He has no diaper. The newspapers under him are soiled. On the bureau a votive candle flickers, warm and inviting beneath the face of an indifferent saint. The door opens. A barefoot youth stands there shivering in his ragged trousers, torn off at the knees. “The owner says come back tomorrow.” “At this hour?” “Yes. Come at this hour.”

• 128 •

R

ain splits open the unpaved roads. On the slopes ruts gape. Water rises to the surface, turning the soil yellow, leaching it. In the outlying countryside, trucks sink up to their axles. The country people walk or ride to town on the backs of their animals. They come for the Saturday market, huddled beneath blankets, some of them in coats of corn husks. They carry their heavy loads of grain or vegetables to the square below the white stone steps of the Bomfim. He watches them, their faces impassive, set with the struggle to wrest a livelihood from overworked ground. He too is plowing, but soil of a different kind. Dust thou art, to dust return, he can hear the priest chanting through the open door of the Bomfim. But dust that sweats, that bleeds, that yields under the knife, that mends with the needle, with the very fine thread. I believe in the resurrection of the body. . . . He smiles wryly to himself. Rounding the corner, he comes to the druggist’s musty doorway, with its placard in the window. He pauses before opening the flaking door. He spreads his change out on his palm the better to gauge what to allow himself. Procaine would give him one-half hour. Lidocaine would last nearly two. The procaine costs thirty cruzeiros, lidocaine fifty. With five for the thread, eight for the sharpener, thirteen. And fifty, sixty-three. Too much. Fifty left from carrying water, thirteen and thirty, fortythree. Seven left. Enough to buy bread and a handful of rice. Not enough for lidocaine. He would have to revise his plan. It might be better this way. There might be less pain in the morning when he picked his way at four through the fresh ruts outside his door, down the alley with its jarring cobblestones to the courtyard to draw water for the tanner. Perhaps. As he enters the store, two women turn from the counter where they have made a purchase to look at him. They exchange quick looks with the druggist as they bury their parcels in baskets already overstuffed from the market. In the doorway they turn once more to look at him before they hurry out into the street. He thinks he recognizes them. “Weren’t they here last time?” he asks. “When I got the • 129 •

procaine?” The druggist eyes him speculatively. “Maybe. They might have.” The druggist avoids his eyes. “Not everyone knows how to mind his own business.” The druggist busies himself tidying up a shelf. “Give me procaine. Thirty cruzeiros’ worth.” “That all?” “For today. Yes.” The druggist wraps the bottle in newspaper. “How’s it coming?” “All right.” He finds his way into the street again. Why the questions, he wonders. What kind of interest is it anyway that wants to probe his secrets? And why? They were saying things about him when he entered. He is sure. But what? What is there to say about a man without a face? He picks his way, leaping the gaping ruts of the alley. He reaches the high ocher wall opposite. In the shelter of his threshold he threads his key in the padlock. Through the motionless air he can hear the sounds of people everywhere, voices, the din of hammering in the far distance. He hears the rustle of footsteps behind the wall, then silence. The lock springs open. As he pushes open the door, a brick narrowly misses hitting him as it thuds against the jamb. Quickly he shuts the door and bolts it from inside. So that was it. And he had felt safe here for some time. Wearily he drops his package on the cot. Here, too. Was it only a matter of time before they smoked him out here, too?

• 130 •

R

ighting the yoke he whittled from scrap wood, he swings the water buckets free of the ground. The spill of water chills his sandaled feet. The morning’s work has begun. Rising long before four o’clock, before the women line up at the pumps to draw their morning water, he is already laboring up the narrow streets. Each dawn finds him with a gathering sureness of what the day will bring. In the still-dark he will carry this water for the tanner. In the morning, when the work is done, when he has been given his pay, he will rest, perhaps eat something from the market. When five days have passed, he will remove the stitches, change the bandages. In the afternoon, he sleeps. In the evening, he sits at the wooden table, reading the words, the sentences, and the paragraphs. He will repeat them word by word, over and over, until his understanding is clear. Could someone ordinary like himself remake his face? Was it even possible? And what sort of face? Not the one he was born with, surely, or one like some hero or movie star. At best, one with just the minimum: a recognizable nose, a mouth with identifiable teeth, eyes whose expression would at the least be reassuring, a kind of utility face. And skin, skin free of the thousand little black particles still embedded in it, where the rocks had stamped him with the place-name of his calamity – skin that would glow normally, or if not glow, at least be free of distinguishing marks, a slate wiped clean. He would clean the needles and the scissors, he would coat them with a thin layer of oil to keep the rust from forming on their surface. He would wait. He would carry water for the tanner, and he would sleep.

• 131 •

T

he spring wind stirring the branches shakes out the last raindrops of winter. Small shoots burgeon at the elbows of slumbering trees. Birds feast noisily on the new crop of spring worms. And the tanner’s son returns from the assembly line. He examines the last cruzeiros he will receive from the tanner. Enough for two days – three if he makes a meal of last night’s leftovers. In the light of early morning, he pulls once more on the familiar bell rope in the ornate doorway. He listens for the shuffle of the Indian’s broken-down slippers. But there is only silence. About to turn back down the hill, he hears the shutters overhead squeal open. Eulalio leans out. “The birds come south with the spring! We thought it might be you.” He disappears inside once more. Waiting before the entrance, he stands, uncertain whether to leave or stay. He is on the point of turning away when Eulalio reappears. “The Senhora says, if you’re looking for work, you can help with the clearing. And she’ll pay fifteen cruzeiros for each new tree planted!” “When do I start?” “Just a minute, I’ll ask her.” Again he waits. The sunlight breaches the crest of the outlying hills, sharpening the green of the valley until it hurts the eyes. At length Eulalio reappears. “She says when the new trees are ready. Sunday. Start at four. I’ll let you in.” The shutter squeals shut. He is alone once more with the morning. Wednesday, Thursday, Friday. . . . He would spend two days without eating. Fifteen cruzeiros a tree. He could plant two, maybe three a morning, from four to sunup. He would head homeward immediately afterward – before the streets filled. And after that? There might be weeding and, when the ground dried, watering. Two days would not matter very much.

• 132 •

T

he earth crumbles under the thrust of his shovel. The clods fly as he swings them onto the pile to the side of him. Soon the hole will be large enough to accept the root ball. For a long time now he has been thinking. That he will eventually rebuild his nose he has no doubt. It was a matter of finding the right material. But where? If they could make new breasts out of silicone, chins out of Silastic, there must be something he can use. But what? He lowers the crabbed little shrub into the ground. With his fingers he loosens and spreads open the cramped young roots. Armed once more with the shovel, he scatters the dirt clods over them, filling in the hole all around. Last, he builds a shallow dam to contain the water he will spread around its base – later in the spring, when the ground dries. In the half-light of early dawn, he stoops to see what oddcolored object lies amid the earth clods. It is a child’s ball. It appears to be made of plastic. It is hard and yields barely to the touch. He puts it in his pocket.

• 133 •

H

e is surprised to find that on washing and boiling, his find acquires a different color, translucent, almost pearlescent against the light. He looks to heat to give it a degree of plasticity, but it is as firm and nonmalleable hot as it was when he picked it out among the dirt clods. Holding it firmly in his grasp, he touches it with a lighted match. It is as he fears. The plastic merely bubbles, taking on an irregular, blackened surface. He is on the point of rejecting it altogether when it occurs to him: what if he were to try to cut it with a hot knife? He touches a match to the burner. In the wavering light of the blue jet, he holds the knife blade. He must test the temperature first. Too hot, the plastic will surely bubble. Not hot enough, the knife will not cut. As he steadies the blade in the flame, he counts. At the count of ten, he withdraws the it. Holding the ball firmly in his left hand, he attempts to nick it. But the substance will not yield. He dips the knife in water to cool it. Again he heats the blade. His count takes him to twenty. The blade successfully carves a small nick into the surface of the ball. Again he holds the knife to the flame momentarily. He cuts into the ball, deepening the nick. He continues this way until he has removed a segment. He examines the surface. The cut is fairly clean. The flattened segment allows him to stand the ball on the table. It is stable now and ready for carving. In the mirror, he carefully examines the natural creases of what is left of his nose. He puzzles what path to use to build a flap. A rotation will take too long to cover the insert and, originating from the cheek, it will leave bad scars. What if he cut along the natural crease around the wings of his nostrils, then continued under, keeping to the natural fold, and up the other wing? Then he could raise the flap and place the insert in the cavity, replacing his own shattered cartilage and septum. But how would he know exactly what shape to make it? and for what result? He tried to remember what his own nose had felt like. He would carve several, he decides, of slightly different sizes and shapes. He would insert the most likely between the tissues • 134 •

of the mucosal lining as the diagram showed. He would have a number of others to fall back on immediately if the need arose. Tomorrow, he would cut strips out of cardboard to help him get the distances right between his eyebrows and the roots of his incisors. Then he would know better, and within very minute tolerances, the length he ought to carve his pieces. For this he would have to change to lidocaine. He would need the longer time. But at thirty, maybe forty-five cruzeiros a day, six days a week, he would need nearly a month until he had enough saved up. For now, he would transplant the young bushes; he would measure the distance between brow and teeth; he would fill his spare time carving the inserts just so. The days would pass easily almost without notice. The ground would dry. It would be summer at last.

• 135 •

I

t is as he had supposed. The light at four o’clock is barely enough, but he has learned to weed with the help of touch. He almost never makes use of the weeding stick. At last he has enough saved up, and a two-day break, the time the Senhora will need in the company of her man to make the trip to the district capital and back for their summer supplies. He pushes open the druggist’s door. The shop appears deserted. He makes his way to the counter. Only the druggist’s antiseptic white dog sprawled under the desk raises a sleepy snout to sniff the air. Satisfied, he wags his tail half-heartedly and collapses with a sigh. “Bom dia?” He squeezes the bell on the counter. He can hear a faint stirring at the back. The druggist emerges from behind the curtain. His eyes are red with rubbing them. “What’ll it be today?” he yawns. In spite of himself, he takes a moment to answer. “Lidocaine!” The druggist’s bushy eyebrows leap to sudden life. But he allows him little time to be impressed: he lets the coins roll out on the counter one by one. Fifty cruzeiros. He is on schedule. He has saved them, mostly by eating rice.

• 136 •

H

e lifts the stitches and carefully cuts them one by one. The line under his reshaped nose curls like an archer’s bow. It glows an angry red now, but it is symmetrical, and the red, he knows, will disappear in time to free him of the handkerchief at last. The ground dries under the baking noonday sun. Weeding gives way to irrigation once again. At first, stooping makes his face throb, even in the night when the summer heat yields to welcome cool. He finds a way to keep his face vertical by bending deeper at the knees.

• 137 •

H

e listens. The night is dark and sultry. There is no moon, no wind, not even a breeze. Fog covers the valley, blanketing the groves. He has stopped beneath a tree to rest. In the darkness he can hear something moving, faintly at first, brushing against the dry grass between the rows. Could he have imagined it? Yet, there is no wind, not even an air current. The brambles covering the barbed wire, even the grasses beyond in the empty field make no sound. He straightens up. With one hand braced against the trunk he strains to listen. Darkness closes in on him more tightly. He can hear nothing but his own breath. About to pick up the bucket, something stops his hand, the faint brush of something in the neighboring grasses. What is it? What can it be in the darkness? An animal perhaps, he can’t be sure exactly. Carefully he lowers the handle, letting it come to rest. As he releases it, it clatters faintly against the rim. Something rasps against the tall grass. It must be an animal. He can hear distinctly now: it sounds like a footfall, then another. Someone or something is moving in the dry grass, moving toward him down the row, two or three rows away. He is not alone. He stands perfectly still, listening. Closer now, it comes to a stop. His muscles quiver with cramp. Quietly, he shifts his weight to relieve the strain. What is it? He hears the hollow click of metal on metal. A hammer! That’s it! Someone has released a hammer, someone out there between the trees, in the same row perhaps, someone stalking him, someone about to shoot him. He begins to run, to streak toward the white house for cover, racing in the darkness, taking care not to trip against a root, not to stumble in the grass. A gun blast rocks the night. The bullet whips past him and smacks into the tree trunk just ahead of him, splintering the bark. He ducks low, crouching to listen. How can it be? In the darkness of the orchard, how can his stalker take such deadly aim? The handkerchief! The white target! Perfect in the darkness! His hand shoots up. As he tears it off, his hat goes sailing into the blackness. Before he can jam the handkerchief inside his pocket, another flash rips the darkness. He is running blindly • 138 •

now. He feels himself falling, clawing at the ground beneath him. Cramp gnaws at his muscles. Softly he tries to edge around the base of the tree close to where he has fallen. He can make out the raised ground separating the orchard from the kitchen garden. It will give him no cover, only open ground. He turns. He is trapped. There is no safety for him in the house. Only the orchard can shield him, the maze of trees; he is trapped in it, along with someone who is trying his best to kill him. Another blast rocks the darkness. A bullet splinters the bark of the tree next but one to him on the row. Evade him, but how? Disappear into the maze of protecting trees, into the baited trap of the orchard. He moves quickly, zigzagging from one tree to the next, across one row, down another, moving straight now, then crisscrossing, guessing, moving quickly. Where is he? Again he stops to listen. The sound of his breathing fills his head. He can see the distant lights of the town reflected purple against the low-lying clouds, throwing ghostly tree limbs into black relief against the sky. Between the rows the dried grasses float milky over the dark earth. Crack. The whine of a bullet echoes some little distance off. He feels safer now. His plan is working. Crouching, he heads deeper into the heart of the orchard. He feels his shoe catch against a stone. Before he can break his fall, a shot echoes in the darkness. A bullet finds its target somewhere, farther away. He is moving more freely now. The handkerchief, of course! The mask that protected him by day betrayed his presence in the night. Sheltered behind a tree, once more he stops to steady his breathing. He feels safe enough now to relieve the pressure in his bladder. He lets his water flow soundlessly down the trunk. The stream seems endless. He doesn’t care if it soaks his shoes. Silently he closes his zipper tooth by tooth. His breathing comes steadier now. He listens. No sound. Had the gunman run short of bullets? Would he call it a night? Go home to bed? To a wife and children, perhaps? Were they even now stirring in their sleep, moaning faintly as he stepped over them to sink back wearily • 139 •

between the covers, tired after a hard night’s work? Or would he wait until morning when first light could find him an easier target? And what of the trees? Who would water them? Where had he left the buckets? He had been interrupted somewhere alongside the outer limits of the orchard. But where? In what row? How far from the edge? Should he risk his cover now trying to find them? Should he try to refill them at the pump alongside the house? Or should he wait until morning? Around him all is darkness. Had he fallen momentarily asleep? Had he perhaps been dreaming . . . remembering some shadowy form he might once have inhabited, a room such as one he might perhaps have stayed in once, in a transient hotel, yes, red, dark, yes, but at the same time, in some curious way, full of light, etched, graven somewhere, not so much in the eyes, yet now he tries to remember he gets no hint. Not in the Hinterland, or even in the Capital, would there have been one night of his life as he reconstructs it, not one spent in such a place. With Lula? He shuts his eyes. Then he knows what room it is he has been dreaming of: even now it hums. It is of the color inside his skull. An air current brushes his uncovered face. He had forgotten the feel of its freshness. He has worn the handkerchief too long. He stands letting the wind visit his skin, letting it rush past his uncovered ears. He hears it again as if for the very first time. He can tell what trees, what grasses it combs to play out its rustlings. And the lulls seem to him like the breaths he waited to hear when he lay listening for Lula sleeping beside him. Even now he remembers its sharp intake filling the darkness, speaking to him. He can remember now, now that he feels the wind. It was a face – unremarkable, the forehead lined already with furrows, the eyebrows protruding over the sockets, the lids just so, the nose, its cartilages prominent, the openings always wide – all, all, as he knew it before remembering, or having to remember. He knows it, even without a photograph. He can feel the skin, his skin, alive now, like an animal of its very own kind, animated by some scent, a map unfolding, not in the dark red of that room under his eye• 140 •

lids, but whispered into being. He closes his eyes, and stands straining at attention, breathing in the cold. The darkness does nothing to weaken his want to stand there, letting the wind call up his face. And the gunman? Is it the handkerchief perhaps that first drew his attention? He remembers the brick that morning on his threshold as, fresh from his errand, he pushed open the door. Perhaps it was someone like that, the same one perhaps. The air is very still. Is he alone again? Or is the gunman still there, perhaps, waiting for some signal from him? Quietly he begins to walk down the row, heading for the edge of the orchard. Far ahead the clatter of galvanized metal roots him. No need to search for the buckets now. He can hear the growl of a curse. Two explosions follow close together. Then two more. He waits. The wind comes up again among the trees, rustling the leaves, and beyond the brambles the summer grasses sigh in the empty field. Soon it will be morning. In the milky half-light he can make out someone running toward him. He recognizes the Indian. He approaches, breathless. “The Senhora sent me. What happened?” “Nothing much.” He smiles. “Someone tried to shoot me, someone hiding in the orchard. With a gun.” “But why? Why would they?” He shrugs. “Things happen. Little things at first: laughter, rocks, broken bottles. Then little by little they get braver. It’s been going on like this for some time already . . . ever since . . . this.” He remembers the handkerchief where he has pushed it. He reaches for it deep inside his pocket. He fumbles to undo the knot. The Indian is looking at his face. “Puxa!” He gives up and stuffs the handkerchief back in his pocket. “Where I came from, they even set my house on fire.” “Because of your face?” “All because I didn’t have a face.” They are walking two abreast down the rows toward the fringe of the orchard. They come upon the buckets lying kicked over where the gunman left them. He bends to pick them up. • 141 •

“What are you going to do?” “Water. What else can I do?” They continue toward the house. “And if it happens again?” They stand together by the pump, listening for the water to gurgle upward into the standpipe. The stream clatters against the bottom as the bucket begins to fill. Then, as they watch, jets of water burst through its sides, first through one hole, then another. They watch without moving. The jets spring through fresh bullet holes, collecting in streams, and puddling the ground. He begins to cry soundlessly. The Indian closes the tap. They watch the water soak into the earth. The Indian says nothing. “What are you standing there for?” It is the Senhora. Together they move toward the kitchen door where she waits for them. “What happened?” “There was someone in the orchard,” the Indian replies. “Someone he knows?” The men exchange a look. “No. Someone with a gun.” “It wasn’t someone poaching rabbits, was it?” “No.” The Indian gives her the empty bucket to examine. She appears to study the bullet holes for a moment. “I’m getting too old for such entertainment. I want quiet nights now, without excitement.” She hands Eulalio the bucket. “How far did he get?” “Maybe not quite two rows . . . before it . . . before he . . .” “Take this sieve away and let him have his pay. Twenty-five cruzeiros.” The Indian says nothing. She turns to Helio. “I’m paying you for half the night. And that’s giving it away. You’ll not be coming back. Good morning.” The senhora gives him a nod. Shuffling past her, the Indian leads him through the courtyard with its jungle of exotic foliage. Even at that hour, the fountain gurgles, splashing water into the marble basin. At the street door the Indian signs for him to wait while he fumbles in his pocket. He drops fifty cruzeiros into his waiting palm. • 142 •

A

nother March creeps over him with its odor of bad memories. How else to explain this bleakness? The ferry crossing the river is a modern one now, not the flaking raft he remembers from childhood. He lowers his shovel first before stepping down onto the wooden planks of the deck. He takes his seat on the slatted bench, sheltered from the weather by the overhang. He would work with the day workers in the vegetable fields, bringing in the last of the tuber crop. It has not yet begun to rain, but the clouds hang low and menacing. The metal plate of the dock grates against the sides of the boat. The motor revs up. The crossing begins. He will meet the work gang on the other side. His hand, clasped on the shovel’s shaft, feels small of a sudden, as if it nestled once again hidden in the much larger palm of someone. . .he remembers now. . .the only time his father took him across the river. The day was golden with the sunlight playing mirror games on the surface of the water. “Helio, don’t squint like that.” “The sun hurts my eyes.” He hardly remembers his father now. He must have been too young. His father dropped his hoe “Put your hand up like this. That’s something a man has to know. Never look directly at the sun.” His father grew quiet all of a sudden. They waited in silence for the raft to come back. “Why does it take so long?” “It’s an old raft. And the man is very old.” “The man who runs it?” “Very old. He was here already when I was a boy. People say he came here once trying to cross the river. But he never made it across. He just became the boatman.” “Doesn’t he live anywhere?” “He just stays on the raft.” “All the time?” “All day and half the night. As long as there are people who • 143 •

need to go across.” At last the raft settled on the edge of the bank. He tugged impatiently at his father’s hand. “Wait for the people to get off.” There were so many people pressed together, standing on the raft, their baskets balanced on their heads, reed baskets creaking with huge loads of corn and sweet potatoes. They struggled up the slope one by one, heading for the Saturday market. At last the raft was empty. The boatman looked older than anyone he had ever seen. His white beard and wisps of hair stirred in the breeze. He worked barefoot. His arms were tanned and bared to the weather. The barge pole stood idle as he waited to see if more passengers would appear. His father stepped down first, and rested his hoe. His arms reached out to help him down the steep embankment. They were the only ones at first. His father paid the fare. “How much is it?” The boatman overheard. “Sometimes it’s five cruzeiros. At night ten. And on holidays it’s free. But today is what you want to pay.” “And what if someone doesn’t want to pay?” “He’ll pay another time. They have to come back if they want to cross the river. They come and they go. But they always come back.” Two more men clambered down the bank. He could tell they were going to work the fields, too, from the tools they carried. They were the only other passengers. The boatman began poling them across. The raft moved slowly at first, but taken by the current, it gathered speed. The water was swift and choppy. The boatman labored to keep the raft on course. He hummed to himself. Only when the current required his greatest effort, he burst into snatches of song. “Why does he sing like that?” “To keep her on course,” his father answered. When the raft reached the other side, they stumbled up the • 144 •

sandy bank. He took his father’s hand. “Maybe he just stays there on purpose because he doesn’t know which side is better.” His father laughed. “Some people come and some people go. But some like him like staying in one place.” As they breached the crest, he turned once more. The boatman was leaning on the barge pole, waiting for his next passengers. He waved to him. But the boatman only watched the river.

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H

e was bending down, examining what he had found. When he heard his father’s gasp, he did not look up at once. When he saw him, he was sprawled along the row where he had fallen. Someone had cut his throat. Someone with thin shoulder blades that stuck out under his shirt, someone with black, polished leather shoes, disappearing in the softly swaying rows of corn.

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H

e stands in the shadow of his doorway. The oblique cast of the sun’s setting rays stipples the surface of the ocher wall, etching its jaggedness into sharp relief. A procession picks its way back down the hillside toward the town square. He can see the priest in his black biretta and his surplice of fine lacework, his hands clasped more out of habit, he thinks, than prayer. Alongside him walks a surpliced altar boy, miniature of the priest. He carries a water vessel and an aspergillum. The clothing of the faithful appears somber in the parting rays of sunlight, but for the young girls wearing white veils and scarves. In their midst, a statue of the Virgin rides on a platform supported on the shoulders of the faithful, a small statue, no bigger than a doll. The priest reaches for the water. He waves the aspergillum from side to side, blessing the alleyway. If he catches sight of the man standing in the doorway, his new face unconcealed by a handkerchief, he gives no sign. “Senhor.” Standing in the corner of the doorway is the neighbor’s boy, his child’s smock bulging over his round belly, his dusty feet turned slightly inward, caked with mud. In both his hands he holds a galvanized pail. “From Mamae.” He strains to lift it toward him. In it are some beans and rice. He takes it from the boy and shuts the door. He sits slumped on the cot staring at the contents of the bucket. He wonders what hunger feels like. He finds he has forgotten. He stands up with some difficulty and grasps the bucket handle. He moves with it into the now-obscurity of the cook place. He places it on the table. He is running his hand over the shelf by the back window searching for a spoon in the darkness. At first he supposes the dull thud is caused by something he dislodged falling to the ground. But the sound comes again. Someone is knocking. He crosses the earthen floor and up one step into the shack itself. In the gathering darkness he can no longer make out anything in the corners of the room. He makes for the door. Standing in the powdery light is the Indian. “Eulalio!” • 147 •

“Good evening.” The Indian bows gravely. He seems to hesitate. “What is it? Come in.” He remembers the fifty cruzeiros. “I don’t have much. The neighbor’s boy just now brought some rice.” The Indian flashes him a toothless grin at last. “I’m not hungry.” He stands waiting, as he has always remembered him, perhaps unwilling or too timid to accept his offer of a seat. He only stares at the cot. “What brings you?” “Oh, yes.” Only now he removes his familiar farmer’s hat. Inside he finds a crumpled piece of paper and hands it to him.“It’s from the Senhora.” It is too dark to read now. He joins Eulalio at the still-open door. In the last light he makes out the words. ‘Please come at once. Dona Inez Barbuda de Figueroa.’” “I thought she was through with me. What does she want? Any idea?” “No. . . .” The Indian smiles vaguely. “No more shooting in the orchard?” The Indian laughs. “We sleep quietly now.” He reflects for a moment. “She has a letter for you.” “For me?” “From her cousin.” “What cousin?” “The one who’s a doctor.” “A doctor?” He remembers Godoy. “Where?” “Rio. Not here. The Capital.” Godoy. It must be Godoy. He can make no sense of it. Why look for him, and why through the Senhora? Could Godoy have remembered? His heart begins to pound. “Come on.” The hoarseness of his voice surprises him. “Come on. Let’s go.”

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F

rom where he stands, the evening seems to him to have a kind of milky quality as if moisture had been gathering in the air. And perhaps, because it gives the sky a kind of density, he feels as if he could see farther, higher than ever before. It seems to him as if the air contained all colors within it, not just the blue of the east horizon, or the rosy glow left by daylight passing, but all colors merged into one. A flight of birds shoots upward. Their bodies catch the setting rays from beyond the horizon, but their wings show black. He watches them riding the air currents for a long time. From where he stands, it is already night. He imagines himself getting up at dawn, dressing in the grey light, emptying the wash bucket for the last time, retrieving the cardboard suitcase from under the bed where he had kicked it many months ago. Would it be himself making his way to the highway, threading a pathway in the first light through the rows of double trailers parked by the roadway? Would the bus that ground to a halt by the roadside stand, its canvas awning still shut at that early hour against the night, would that bus be the one to return him to the Capital? It seems to him unreal. As his footsteps turn him homeward, he remembers the leftover rice. He could wrap it in newspaper stuffed deep inside his pocket. It might serve to still the gnawing of his stomach. He would take it with him. He would complete the journey. He would see Godoy after all. Even now, he can remember his desk clearly, with its glass top and the shelves lining the wall with their rows of books. He smiles. He would have come full circle. He can still see himself sitting there – without feeling, without hope, certainly, sitting there facing Godoy. He forces himself to remember, to hear the voice. “Now, my man, let’s see.” It was so long ago. He feels nothing now. Not surprise, not expectation, not even relief. Nothing. As he reaches the dust of his doorway, he turns to look once more. The sky is live with an inky glow. Above the horizon, the first stars pulse a cold white light. Inside, in the obscurity, he can • 149 •

make out the dresser. He strikes a match. In its shaft, the wick glows green as it catches. The burner stands idly by, the ring, the spool of thread, the needle, all are as he left them. His gaze reaches upward. There in the mirror, suffused in the greenish glow, he examines his face. The forehead has smoothed out almost remarkably since he grafted it; the eyes have regained some semblance of symmetry. The skin is free now of all the dark traces of dust once tattooed there, and the mouth has lost its lopsided pull. Alongside the nose, at the crease of his nostrils, tracks of suture scars still glare white, as relentlessly regular as railroad ties. He examines them carefully. Another graft to either side, and these, too, might be obliterated. He squints. Details recede; the telltale signs become less explicit. It is a face; it is not particularly striking, certainly not attractive or handsome. It evokes neither origins nor class. It is unremarkable – like anyone else’s. But no. Not like anyone. It is his, his alone. He has built it, alone, sewn it stitch by stitch, with the very thin needle and the thread of gossamer. It has not been given casually by birth, but made by him, by the wearer of it. A sigh eases from him. He is tired now, nothing more. He lets himself slump down on the cot. He would awake in the morning feeling rested. Then he could decide. The suitcase lies still open, empty on the floor. He can always pack it in the morning, or, if not tomorrow, the next day. Godoy would wait. He sits up to lift the shirt over his head. Its shadow flutters up the wall like a nightrider. He shivers. The lamp calls him once more to the dresser. Lifting the chimney, he finds his own eyes in the mirror over the flame. “Tomorrow,” he promises. To go? To stay? He could always decide. “Tomorrow” echoes like a word unspoken. He shuts his eyes. He imagines he can see it: the Capital, the buses belching, plying their routes through the tunnels, the tramcars straining up the hillsides. The vision freezes under his eyelids. Opening them, he stands examining the tracks once more. Two more grafts to either side might cover them. He blows out the flame. The wick glows briefly and gives out. He smells nothing. • 150 •

H

e has imagined this meeting over and over, has elaborated its circumstances. But when it actually happens to him, it is unlike anything he could have foreseen. He presses his way onto the moving tramway through the rear door. He is surprised to find a seat. He is tired from the day’s work. He sits, hands folded in his lap, thinking of nothing, ducking away his head as the crowd presses by him, steadily moving toward the front of the car. There is no reason for him to notice, yet when he finally looks up, there she is. He is sure it is she. She sits in front, in the first row of seats. The hair, the look, even from behind, even at this distance. There can be no mistaking. It is Lula. His heart begins to thud despite himself. Within a moment he is up, advancing as the crowd parts to let him pass. Finally he stands hanging on the strap, looking down at her directly. She is talking to a man sitting next to her. At some point, in the middle of what she is saying, the man reaches a finger to her face to brush a strand of hair or some foreign object, perhaps, away from her cheek. It is all in the gesture, a kind of secret thing he is not meant to see. At last she looks up. She sees him clearly, looks right at him. But there is no recognition. Of course not, he reflects. How could there be? But he. As he looks at her – curious – as he looks at her – and he was so sure, absolutely certain – but now, all of a sudden, he is no longer sure. Is it she? Is it really Lula, or someone else, a stranger? He hesitates. “Lula?” But she doesn’t hear. She has turned around again. She is laughing at something the man next to her is whispering. Then they both look up at him.

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About the cover artist

K

athy Vargas is an internationally praised artist/photographer whose numerous exhibitions include one-person shows at Sala Uno in Rome and the Galeria San Martín in Mexico City. A major retrospective of Vargas’ photography was mounted in 2000 by the McNay Museum in San Antonio, Texas. Her work was featured in “Hospice: A Photographic Inquiry” for the Corcoran gallery and “Chicano Art: Resistance and Affirmation (CARA).” Photographs by Vargas hang in the Smithsonian American Art Museum, the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston, and the Southwestern Bell Collection. She was the director of the visual arts program at the Guadalupe Cultural Arts Center for many years. She currently is the Chair of the Art and Music Department at the University of the Incarnate Word in San Antonio, Texas, her hometown. Vargas is a longtime admirer of Cecile Pineda’s writing.

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About the Author

C

ecile Pineda’s first novel, Face, was originally published to enthusiastic reviews in 1985. She was the first contemporary Latina writer to break into the New York publishing world (the novel was originally issued in hardcover by Viking, paperback by Penguin) and certainly the first to garner rave reviews in newspapers like the New York Times and the Los Angeles Times. Coming from a background in experimental theater, her fiction focused on defining various concepts of identity in a postmodern world. In fact, scholars almost immediately deemed Face an existential masterpiece. Face received the Gold Medal from the Commonwealth Club of California, the Sue Kaufman Prize, awarded by the American Academy and Institute of Arts & Letters, and was nominated for the American Book Award for first fiction. Screen rights for Face have been optioned by Rubicon Films, Ltd. Pineda’s published novels include Frieze (Viking, 1986) set in Ninth Century India and Java; The Love Queen of the Amazon (Little Brown, 1992; Wings, 2001), a comic novel that spoofs the male “magical realists” of the Boom era, written with the support of a NEA Fiction Fellowship and named Notable Book of the Year by the New York Times; Fishlight: A Dream of Childhood (Wings, 2001); and Bardo99 (Wings, 2002), a “mononovel” which presents the 20th century as a character. Redoubt, a meditation on gender, will be published by Wings Press in 2004, along with a new edition of Frieze. Pineda lives in the San Francisco-Bay Area, where, prior to teaching creative writing, she created and produced experimental theater pieces with her own ensemble company. She has also, by her own admission, “worked in factories, taught literature, edited medical manuscripts, been asked if I typed.” She has “always written: plays, short stories, satire, poems, essays, and broadsides from early childhood.” For more information on Cecile Pineda, visit her webpage at http://www.home.earthlink.net/~cecilep/





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All of Cecile Pineda’s novels are now – or will be shortly – available from Wings Press in a uniform edition, each featuring a different cover photograph by internationally acclaimed photographer Kathy Vargas. Face (Viking, 1985; Wings 2003), ISBN: 0-930324-90-0, $16 Written with sparse prose, stark drama and pointed symbolism, the novel is an intensely moving tale of catastrophe and redemption, of the fall and unyielding will of the human spirit. The prose of this novel cuts like a surgeon’s scalpel; not a word is wasted or out of place. – Nashville Banner Frieze (Viking, 1986; Wings, 2004), ISBN: 0-930324-91-9, $16 As delicately phrased as a prose poem. . . . A parable that opposes the pride and power of the state to the slow resistance of human life. – Los Angeles Times Book Review The Love Queen of the Amazon (Little Brown, 1992; Wings, 2001) ISBN: 0-930324-69-2, $17.95 • Notable Book of the Year, New York Times Ana Magdalena Figueroa . . . is one of the few great Latin heroines not created by the male imagination, and [her] amorous history provides a unique vehicle for the U.S.born Pineda to look with a satirically feminine eye at the manners, mores, and literature of all the Americas . . . Love Queen is a noteworthy addition. – Chicago Tribune Fishlight: A Dream of Childhood (Wings, 2001), ISBN: 0-930324-67-6, $16 Fishlight is a gentle, beautiful book, a rare and poetic song from an exquisitely melancholy childhood, written with heartbreaking innocence and a great love of life. It is original, poignant, profoundly simple and unforgettable. Cecile Pineda creates wonderful magic. – John Nichols, author of The Milagro Beanfield War Bardo99: A Mononovel (Wings, 2002), ISBN: 0-930324-83-8, $14 “Cecile Pineda is without doubt one of the most innovative and daring Latina/o writers. With consummate skill and precision Pineda presents in Bardo99 a story unique in US literature, a voice of the twentieth century that is not confined by either social realism or identity politics.” – Marcus Embry, University of Northern Colorado Redoubt: A Mononovel (Wings, 2004), ISBN: 0-930324-86-2, $16 Structured like a jazz riff, Redoubt is a meditation on Luce Irigaray’s speculation (from The Sex Which Is Not One): “If a woman were to hear the sound of her own voice, she would fail to recognize it.”

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W

ings Press was founded in 1975 by Joanie Whitebird and Joseph F. Lomax, both deceased, as “an informal association of artists and cultural mythologists dedicated to the preservation of the literature of the nation of Texas.” Publisher, editor and designer since 1995, Bryce Milligan is honored to carry on and expand that mission to include the finest in American writing—meaning all of the Americas, without commercial considerations clouding the choice to publish or not to publish. Wings Press attempts to produce multicultural books, chapbooks, CDs, DVDs and broadsides that, we hope, enlighten the human spirit and enliven the mind. Everyone ever associated with Wings has been or is a writer, and we know well that writing is a transformational art form capable of changing the world, primarily by allowing us to glimpse something of each other’s souls. Good writing is innovative, insightful, openminded and interesting. But most of all it is honest. Likewise, Wings Press is committed to treating the planet itself as a partner. Thus the press uses as much recycled material as possible, from the paper on which the books are printed to the boxes in which they are shipped. As Robert Dana wrote in Against the Grain, “Small press publishing is personal publishing. In essence, it’s a matter of personal vision, personal taste and courage, and personal friendships.” Welcome to our world.

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Colophon This ebook edition of FACE by Cecile Pineda, has been redesigned using Colonna MT type for the titles and Adobe Caslon Pro for the text. All Wings Press books are designed and produced by Bryce Milligan.

On-line catalogue and ordering: www.wingspress.com Wings Press titles are distributed to the trade by the Independent Publishers Group www.ipgbook.com and in Europe by www.gazellebookservices.co.uk

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