A Chapter of Hats: Selected Stories Read online

  ‘You can believe I thought about you an awful lot. Sinhá Ignacia’ll tell you how much I cried … But my heart’s changed … It’s changed … I’m telling you all this like I would to a priest,’ she ended with a smile.

  It wasn’t a mocking smile. The tone behind her words was a real mixture of candour and cynicism, simplicity and insolence, and I give up on defining it any better. In fact, I think cynicism and insolence are the wrong words. Genoveva wasn’t defending herself for some mistake, or for breaking an oath; she had no moral measure for her actions. What she was saying, summing it up, was that it would have been better not to have changed, she had been quite happy with Deolindo’s affection, and the proof of that is that she would have run away with him. But now that the peddler had won out over the sailor, the peddler was in the right, and it might as well be admitted. What do you think? The poor sailor cited the oath they’d sworn when they parted, as an eternal obligation, which had made him agree to not running away, and sent him back to his ship: ‘I swear by God in heaven; may the light fail me at the hour of death.’ If he’d gone on board, it was because she’d sworn that. With these words he’d departed, travelled, hoped and returned; they had given him the strength to go on living. I swear by God in heaven; may the light fail me at the hour of death …

  ‘Yes, Deolindo, it was true. When I swore it, it was true. It was so true, I wanted to run away with you into the back-lands. God alone knows it was the truth! But other things came along … This lad appeared, and I began to fall for him …’

  ‘But that’s just why people swear; so they don’t fall for anyone else …’

  ‘Give over, Deolindo. Did you never think of anyone else? Don’t be silly …’

  ‘What time does José Diogo get back?’

  ‘He’s not coming back today.’

  ‘Isn’t he?’

  ‘No; he’s over around Guaratiba with his wares; he should be back on Friday or Saturday … And why do you want to know? What harm’s he done you?’

  Other women might have spoken those words; not many would have expressed it so openly, and not out of guile, but quite unintentionally. Note that we’re very close to nature in this case. What harm had he done him? What harm’s that stone done, the one that’s just fallen on your head? Any physicist could explain the falling stone. Deolindo declared, with a gesture, that he wanted to kill him. Genoveva looked at him with contempt, gave a little smile, tossed her head and tutted; when he started talking about ingratitude and broken vows, she couldn’t disguise her amazement. What broken vows? What ingratitude? She’d already said over and over that when she swore it, it was true. Our Lady, there on the dresser, she knew if it was true or not. Was this a way to pay her for what she’d been through? And as for him, so full of talk about being faithful, had he remembered her where he’d been?

  His reply was to put his hand in his pocket and pull out the packet he’d brought for her. She opened it, looked at the trinkets one by one, and finally came across the earrings. They weren’t expensive, there was no chance of that; they were in bad taste, even, but they twinkled like nothing on earth. Genoveva picked them up, happy, dazzled, looked at them from both sides, close up and far off, and finally put them in her ears; then she went to the cheap mirror hanging on the wall between the door and the window, to see how they looked on her. She stood back, went closer, turned her head from left to right, and from right to left.

  ‘Yes, sir, very pretty,’ she said, curtseying to thank him. Where had he bought them?

  He said nothing in reply, I think – there was no time, because she fired two or three more questions, one after the other, so confused was she at receiving a gift in exchange for ditching someone. There was confusion for four or five minutes – two, maybe. She soon took the earrings off, looked at them again and put them in the little box on the round table in the middle of the room. He, for his part, began to think that, just as he’d lost her when he was away, now that his rival was away, maybe he too might lose her; probably, too, she’d sworn him nothing.

  ‘Here we are chatting, and it’ll soon be night,’ said Genoveva.

  It was true, night was falling fast. They could no longer see the Lepers’ Hospital and you could hardly make out Melon Island; the boats and canoes pulled out of the water opposite the house blended into the earth and mud of the beach. Genoveva lit a candle. Then she went to sit on the threshold and asked him to tell her something about the countries he’d seen. Deolindo refused at first; he said he was going, got up and took a few steps. But hope kept gnawing at him and flattering the poor devil’s heart, and he sat down to tell two or three stories about the voyage. Genoveva listened attentively. Interrupted by a woman from the neighbourhood who came round, Genoveva made her sit down to listen to ‘the lovely stories Senhor Deolindo’s telling’. That was all she said by way of introduction. The great lady who stays awake to finish her reading of a book or a chapter feels no closer to its characters than the sailor’s ex-lover who lived through the scenes he recounted, so freely interested she was, captivated as if there were nothing more between them than this narration of a few episodes from the past. What does the great lady care about the book’s author? What did the girl care about the person relating the events?

  Hope, meanwhile, was beginning to forsake him, and he got up finally to leave. Genoveva didn’t want him to go before her friend had seen the earrings, and showed them to her with much acclaim. The neighbour was enchanted, praised them to the skies, asked if he’d bought them in France and asked Genoveva to put them on.

  ‘They’re really lovely.’

  I’d like to think the sailor himself agreed with this opinion. He liked to look at them, thought they were made for her, and for a brief moment tasted the exclusive, delicious sensation of having given a welcome present; but it was just a few seconds.

  As he was going, Genoveva went to the door with him to thank him again for his gift, and probably to say a few sweet, useless words to him. Her friend, whom she’d left in the room, only heard these words: ‘Don’t be silly, Deolindo,’ and this from the sailor, ‘You’ll see.’ She couldn’t hear the rest, which was no more than a whisper.

  Deolindo went slowly along the beach, downcast, no longer the impetuous fellow he was that afternoon, but with a look that was aged, sad or, to use another nautical metaphor, of a man ‘who’s halfway back to land’. Genoveva soon went in, happy and boisterous. She told her friend the story of her maritime loves, praised Deolindo’s character and his agreeable manners; her friend said she thought he was very charming.

  ‘A really nice lad,’ Genoveva agreed. ‘D’you know what he said to me just now?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘That he’s going to kill himself.’

  ‘Good Jesus!’

  ‘Forget it! He’ll not kill himself. That’s Deolindo; he says things, but he doesn’t do them. You’ll see, he’ll not kill himself. It’s jealousy, poor lad. But the earrings are really gorgeous.’

  ‘I’ve never seen any like them here.’

  ‘Nor me,’ Genoveva agreed, looking at them in the light. Then she put them away and invited her friend to come in and sew. ‘Let’s sew for a little while, I want to finish my blue top …’

  The truth is that the seaman didn’t kill himself. The next day, some of his mates clapped him on the shoulder, congratulating him on his admiral’s night, and asked for news of Genoveva, if she was even prettier, if she’d cried a lot while he was away, etc. He answered everything with a discreet, satisfied smile, the smile of a person who’s had a great night. It seems he was ashamed of the truth, and preferred to lie.

  Evolution

  My name’s Ignacio; his is Benedito. I’ll not give the rest of our names, out of a sense of propriety, something every person of discretion will appreciate. Just Ignacio. Make do with Benedito. It’s not much, but it’s something, and it goes with Juliet’s philosophy: ‘What’s in a name?’ she asked her lover. ‘A rose, by any other name, would smell as sweet.’
Let’s see what kind of a scent Benedito had.

  First of all, let’s agree that he could hardly be less like Romeo. He was forty-five, when I first met him; I’ll not say when, because everything in this story will be mysterious and elliptical. Forty-five, then, and with a lot of black hair; for the ones that weren’t that colour, he used a chemical process so effective you couldn’t tell which were black and which weren’t – except when he got out of bed; but when he got out of bed there was no one to see him. Everything else was natural: legs, arms, head, eyes, clothes, shoes, watch chain and walking stick. Even the diamond pin he wore in his tie, one of the loveliest I’ve ever seen, was natural and genuine; it cost him a fair sum; I myself saw him buy it at … the jeweller’s name was on the tip of my tongue; let’s just say it was on the Rua do Ouvidor.

  Morally, he was what he was. No one can change their character, and Benedito’s was good – or, to put it another way, easy-going. Intellectually, however, he was less original. We might compare him to an inn with plenty of guests, where ideas of all kinds from all over the place resorted; they sat down at table with the innkeeper’s family. Sometimes two enemies, or just people who didn’t much like one another, met up; no one quarrelled, and mine host imposed a mutual forbearance. This was how he managed to combine a kind of vague atheism with two religious brotherhoods he founded, in Gávea, Tijuca or Engenho Velho, I can’t recall which. That’s how he managed to sport a mixture of devotion, irreligion and silk stockings. I never saw his stockings, be it said; but he had no secrets from his friends.

  We met on a journey to Vassouras. We’d got out of the train and into the coach taking us from the station to the town. We exchanged a few words, and in no time we were having a frank and free conversation, in tune with the circumstances that had brought us together, even before either of us knew who the other was.

  Naturally, our first topic was the progress brought by the railways. Benedito could still remember the time when the whole journey was made on mule-back. We recounted a few anecdotes, mentioned a few names, and agreed that railways were a condition of progress for the country. Those who don’t travel have no idea how useful one of these solid, serious banalities is to dispel the boredom of the journey. The mind gets a breath of fresh air, even the muscles get an agreeable message, the blood flows as it should, and we are at peace with God and our fellow men.

  ‘Our children won’t live to see the whole country crisscrossed with railways,’ he said.

  ‘No, certainly not. Have you any children?’

  ‘None.’

  ‘Nor I. It won’t happen in fifty years, but it’s our most urgent need. I compare Brazil to a child crawling on all fours; it’ll only begin to walk when it’s got lots of railways.’

  ‘A delightful idea!’ Benedito exclaimed, and his eyes sparkled.

  ‘I’m not worried whether it’s delightful, so long as it’s true.’

  ‘Delightful and true,’ he amiably replied. ‘Yes, sir, you’re right: Brazil is a child crawling on all fours; it’ll only begin to walk when it’s got lots of railways.’

  We got to Vassouras; I went to the house of the local judge, an old friend; he stayed for a day and went on, further inland. Eight days thereafter, I returned to Rio de Janeiro, but on my own. A week later, he came back to town; we met at the theatre, talked a lot and exchanged news. Benedito ended up asking me to lunch with him the next day. I went; he gave me a lunch fit for a king, with good cigars and lively talk. I noticed that his conversation had had more effect when we were travelling – airing the mind and leaving us at peace with God and our fellow men; but I should say that maybe the lunch got in the way. It really was magnificent; and it would be a historical solecism to set the table for Lucullus in Plato’s house. Between the coffee and the brandy, leaning his elbow on the edge of the table, and looking at his burning cigar, he said to me:

  ‘Just now, on my trip, I had occasion to see how right you were, with that idea about Brazil crawling on all fours.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘Oh, yes; it’s just what you were saying in the coach to Vassouras. We’ll only begin to walk when we’ve got lots of railways. You’ve no idea how true that is.’

  He told me lots of things, making observations on the customs of the interior of the country, the hard life they led, their backwardness, insisting, however, on the goodwill of the local population and their desire for progress. Unfortunately, the government didn’t respond to the country’s needs; it even seemed as if it wanted to keep us behind other American nations. But it was indispensable for us to realise that principles are everything, and men nothing. People are not made for governments, but governments for people: and abyssus abys-sum invocat.1 Then he showed me the other rooms. They were all tastefully furnished. He showed me his collections of pictures, coins, old books, seals, arms; he had swords and foils, but admitted he didn’t know how to fence. Among the pictures I saw a beautiful portrait of a woman; I asked him who it was. Benedito smiled.

  ‘I shall say no more,’ I said, smiling too.

  ‘No, there’s nothing to deny,’ he rejoined, ‘she was a girl I was very fond of. Pretty, isn’t she? You’ve no idea how lovely she was. Her lips were scarlet, her cheeks like roses; she had black eyes, the colour of night. And what teeth! Veritable pearls. A gift from nature.’

  We then passed into his study. It was vast, elegant, a little unoriginal, but nothing was missing. There were two bookcases, full of handsomely bound books, a world map and two maps of Brazil. The writing desk was ebony – beautiful workmanship; on top, casually open, was a Laemmert almanac.2 The inkstand was crystal – ‘rock crystal’, he said, explaining the inkstand as he explained the other things. In the room next door was an organ. He played the organ, and was very fond of music, speaking about it enthusiastically, quoting from the operas, all the best passages, and informed me that when he was a child he’d begun to learn the flute; he soon abandoned it – which was a pity, he concluded, for it is a truly poignant instrument. He showed me other rooms; we went into the garden, which was splendid, for art assisted nature, just as nature crowned art. Roses, for example – there’s no denying that the rose is the queen of flowers, he said – he had roses of all kinds and from every region.

  I was delighted with the visit. We met a few times, in the street, at the theatre, at the houses of mutual friends, and I was able to take the measure of him. Four months later I went to Europe, on business that meant I had to be away for a year. He stayed at home, involved in the election; he wanted to be a deputy. It was I who had led him to this, without the least political aim, only wishing to be agreeable to him; you could perhaps say it was like complimenting him on the cut of his waistcoat. He took the idea up, and put himself forward. One day, as I was crossing a street in Paris, I suddenly ran into him.

  ‘What’s this?’ I exclaimed.

  ‘I lost the election,’ Benedito said, ‘and I’ve come on a trip to Europe.’

  He stayed with me from then on; we travelled together. He confessed that losing the election hadn’t stopped him wanting to get into parliament. On the contrary, it had spurred him on. He spoke of a grand plan he had.

  ‘I’ll see you a minister yet,’ I said.

  Benedito hadn’t reckoned on these words, and his face lit up; but he disguised his feelings.

  ‘I wouldn’t go that far,’ he replied. ‘But if I were to be a minister, I would only be Minister for Industry. We are tired of political parties; we need to develop the nation’s true energies, its enormous resources. Do you remember what we were saying in the coach to Vassouras? Brazil is crawling on all fours; it’ll only walk when it’s got railways.’

  ‘You’re right,’ I agreed, a little astonished. ‘And why have I come to Europe myself? To lay plans for a railway. I’ve left it all set up in London.’

  ‘Have you?’

  ‘Certainly.’

  I showed him the papers; he looked at them, dazzled. Since I had gathered a few notes, statistical data, leafl
ets, reports, copies of contracts, all of this referring to industrial matters, I showed them to him, and Benedito said he too was going to collect some things like that. In fact, I watched as he went round ministries, banks, associations, asking for all kinds of notes and pamphlets, which he piled up in his cases; but his enthusiasm, while it was intense, was short; it was borrowed. Benedito collected political sayings and parliamentary formulae. He had a vast arsenal of them in his head. In conversations with me he often repeated them, as if trying them out; he thought them very impressive, of inestimable value. Many were of English origin, and he preferred them to the others, as if they had something of the House of Commons about them. He savoured them so much that I don’t know if he’d have accepted true liberty without these verbal trappings; I think not. I even think that, if he’d had to choose between the two, he’d have opted for these short phrases, so convenient, some beautiful, some sonorous, all of them axiomatically true, which don’t force one to think; they fill any gaps, and leave one at peace with God and our fellow men.

  We came back together; but I stayed in Pernambuco and later went back to London, returning to Rio de Janeiro from there, a year later. At this stage, Benedito was a deputy. I went to visit him; I found him preparing his maiden speech. He showed me some of the notes, passages from reports, books on political economy, some with the pages marked with strips of paper entitled: Exchange Rate, Land Tax, The Corn Law Problem in England, The Opinion of Stuart Mill, Adolphe Thiers Mistaken on Railways, etc. He was sincere, thorough and impassioned. He told me about these things as if he’d just discovered them, expounding everything, ab ovo; he was determined to show practical men in the Chamber that he was practical too. Then he asked about my company; I told him what was going on.

  ‘In two years I expect to open the first stretch of line.’