Guida. She was still beautiful, but if she had always looked the part of Euridice’s older sister, she now appeared to be her much older sister. She had no make-up on and wore her hair up in a bun, clearly arranged to ensure the least amount of work possible. In one hand she held the suitcase that had disappeared with her from the Rua Almirante Alexandrino. In the other, a chubby little boy, more or less Cecilia’s age. She wore a beige coat over a green dress.
‘May I come in?’
Of all the hugs Euridice had received in her life, that was the strangest. It was a hug that seemed to say, ‘Let me touch you to see if you really exist, if you’re really standing here before me.’ It was true: that was Guida, but not the same Guida as before, a fact that became clear after hearing her sister’s story.
Marcos and Guida had met one Saturday afternoon outside the Cine Odeon. He had been standing in the doorway since the beginning of the show, reasoning that if the girl with the long eyelashes had gone inside, she’d also have to leave. Guida walked out two hours later with a group of friends. She kept on walking even after he tried to introduce himself, and she didn’t stop walking, not even after he followed her to Cavé Pastries, where she ordered a chocolate eclair and removed her white gloves to display her long fingers as she ate.
All that walking was Guida’s way of turning the boy into a sort of train for her dress. She wanted to stroll around just to watch Marcos following her every step. After all, wasn’t that love, according to the magazines, films, and the romantic novels from the Young Ladies’ Library series? It was the woman’s job to startle the man with her beauty, and it was the man’s job to fight for this woman after the first few moments of paralysis brought on by the startling beauty of The Chosen One.
Marcos played his role. For three Saturdays in a row, he waited for Guida to leave the cinema. Guida also played her part, ignoring the young man so that the next week he would return with even greater interest. After a month, she agreed to let Marcos sit with her as she ate her eclair. Guida nibbled at the confection with particular fervor, bringing her fingers to her lips when they became covered in chocolate, something that seemed to happen more frequently since her admirer showed up. Marcos’s eyes drifted between the eclair and the girl’s mouth.
The following week, Guida’s parents were informed of the courtship. Marcos paid a visit to the apartment in Santa Teresa, spent the afternoon holding on to his hat and responding to the couple’s questions in monosyllables. Senhor Manuel and Dona Ana were suspicious. Marcos was much too refined. Much too polite. Much too careful with his appearance. Those nails of this – were they manicured? Good Lord.
Marcos’s parents did not look favorably upon their son’s courtship either. In fact, in the beginning, they didn’t look upon it at all, because the boy, who wasn’t stupid, thought it better to delay the first meeting between his new love and his family. What they did notice, however, was that Marcos became much happier from one moment to the next, and they grew suspicious. He was the youngest of six children, and the only one who was still a bachelor. A good catch, whom his parents wished to see marry an equally good catch. That’s how it had been with their other children, and that’s how it had been with Marcos’s parents.
For three centuries, the members of that family had married among themselves. It was the only way to keep the entire set of English porcelain and silverware in the family and to serve, on that porcelain and with that silverware, a series of feasts that would no longer be possible were the children to marry outside of the family. Inside the mansion, Marcos wasn’t Marcos, but Marcos Godoy de Moraes. His father, Augusto Moraes, had married Mariana Godoy, both of them descendants of Moraes Godoy and Godoy Moraeses. Every now and then there would appear a Pádua, or a Castro, but the Moraeses and Godoys had reproduced sufficiently to make matrimonial decisions among cousins minimally exciting, such that variations on the same theme had remained a constant throughout the colonial, imperial, and republican eras.
This continual interfamilial fornication resulted in men and women who all looked rather alike. The men boasted enormous cheeks, and heads that went bald before thirty. The women were born and grew up without waistlines, acquiring a rectangular shape early in childhood. They had an abundance of body hair, and while some waxed their upper lips, others had no problem with allowing their mustaches to grow. And they all resembled one another, principally, in the bank accounts they held, the number of properties they owned, and in their vaults replete with gold coins and pink pearl necklaces.
Every now and then, one of the Godoys or the Moraeses cast off the curse of resemblance. For this they owed thanks to God and to their mothers, who, feeling a fire beneath the frills of their skirts, had arranged for it to be extinguished through the years by two priests, three doctors, an explorer lost among the mountains of Rio, and five young black men. This was the case with Marcos, who was larger and more fair-skinned at birth than he should have been, increasing the family’s belief in the evolution of the species, and his mother’s belief in the Brazilian theater. It had been in the Municipal Theater that she had met a svelte actor, who was responsible for bringing some excitement to her otherwise staid and middle-aged life.
Marcos’s father had grown up on one of the five coffee plantations his family maintained in the Paraiba Valley. After the 1929 crash, he sold four of his properties and moved his family closer to the seat of the federal government. He decorated their stately home with settees and loveseats brought from one of the plantations, made by the master carpenter to Emperor Dom Pedro II. He soon found that it was much easier and more lucrative to make a living from politics alone, instead of mixing politics and coffee production, as his parents and grandparents had done. Before running for the Brazilian senate, he made use of his many contacts to take his first bureaucratic measures as chief of staff to the city’s mayor.
Marcos shared the mansion in Botafogo with his parents, his three brothers, and their wives. Two of them had begun their political ascent, becoming hand in glove with the highest rung of the Vargas government, to later become the hand and the glove of the highest rung of the Vargas government: Francisco Godoy was named director of the National Department of Coffee and Armando Godoy became president of the Federal Council of Public Works, an institution so abstract in its conception that not even he knew its purpose. Paulo Godoy graduated from law school, where he made some friends, who had other friends, who said he ought not to spread the word but soon the government would create the Federal Workers’ Court. He soon became the youngest judge in Brazil.
Marcos’s sisters didn’t live in the mansion in Botafogo. One married a cousin who had an unshakable belief in coffee production and in his title of Baron of Itaimzim, which had been in the family since his great-great-grandfather’s time. The Baron and Baroness of Itaimzim would spend the next fifty years sitting in the drawing room of their mansion, watching the plaster fall from the walls. His other sister married a diplomat and was at that moment in a Paris cafe, ordering more champagne and discussing with strangers the meteoric liberation of Latina women.
Perhaps as a result of having been spared the incessant exchange of the same genes, Marcos didn’t want to marry a rectangular woman. He looked at his family with a mix of disdain and loathing. They were all peas from the same pod, and what a pod it was. The jokes, the antics, the tendency to stick their bogies beneath the table, the way of scratching their chins while making a face, the sense of superiority and scorn displayed when talking to anyone who wasn’t one of them – all of that made Marcos want to be only Marcos, instead of the Marcos with the important last names. Dinners were especially annoying, as his sisters-in-law competed to see who had the best husband, judging their qualities according to the number of jewels each wife wore to dinner.
Marcos felt a constant sense of suffocation. He was uncomfortable not only with what he saw, but with what he didn’t see. If he had invested in his talent as a medium, he would have heard spirits revealing their stories of power grabs within the family, about this or that Godoy murdered as a result, about love stories with mustache-less women and men with hair who’d never officially existed, about the many deformed children born throughout the centuries who were eliminated from official family history, literally and figuratively. All those cousins who had left this world for a better one weren’t in all that better a place. They still believed they had a right to the family’s fortune and remained in a sort of limbo, admiring the earrings of the women of the house and coveting the gold chains across their bosoms, the stress of their presence causing two of Marcos’s sisters-in-law to be secretly committed to a reformatory for those suffering from tuberculosis.
The resulting emotional burden weighed the house down to such a degree that the most sensitive among the family swore they gained a few inches in height as soon as they left the mansion. That’s how Marcos felt, too. He preferred to spend most of his time at medical school, in the bars of Lapa, and on the streets of the old city center. Unlike his friends, he had no desire to be a twenty-something reveler for all eternity. He didn’t want to close down the bars, to try out the latest rendezvous spots, or to attend the samba circles despised by high society but very much in vogue among the bohemian crowd.
The only thing that Marcos wanted was someone to talk to. Someone who would listen to everything that had been left unsaid during his two decades of existence. Someone who could further his sentimental education, interrupted so abruptly when he left the arms of his dearest nursemaid for the chairs of São Bento School, where he learned that to be a man with a capital M he could no longer cry for his nursemaid (No more hugs! No more kisses!) or feel sympathy for the cats that had their tails lopped off by the boys who one day would run the country.
On the day he met Guida, Marcos was out looking for this person he could talk to. When he saw the young girl with wavy hair, a knee-length skirt, and a felt hat, he understood that his search was over. He needed only to wait for her to walk back out of the cinema.
Guida did walk back out of the cinema, and the pursuit through the streets of the city center lasted four Saturdays. When they finally spoke, she learned in ten minutes everything that she needed to know: his name was Marcos, he was twenty-one years old, he studied medicine, and had a handsome smile.
Marcos didn’t bother explaining his list of important last names, and he was happy that Guida wasn’t worried about it. All she wanted was a good provider who had Gary Cooper’s looks. A degree in medicine was a guarantee of a middle-class life, the highest of Guida’s aspirations. And if Marcos turned his head a bit, his nose looked just like Gary Cooper’s.
As time passed, it was inevitable that Marcos would have to reveal the anomalies of his past. ‘Yes, sweetheart, I’ve been to Portugal a couple of times, on the way to Paris. During July vacations, I would go to the plantation in Valença. It was closer than the one in Resende. My father works in politics. But this is a very complicated matter for a girl as pretty as you are.’
Guida soon came to understand that Marcos wasn’t born with a silver spoon in his mouth but a golden one. She grew happy when she thought about their children who would have golden spoons, and worried when she considered the idea that his family wouldn’t like her. Later she began to think that Marcos only wanted to fool around with her before marrying someone with more of a right to this golden spoon. She decided to cut back on her contact with the boy. His hands were only permitted to touch her hands. Their lips could graze, but only once per week, and nothing behind those lips was allowed to leave other than words. The rest of her body was to be admired from afar, and Guida knew how to draw admiration. She framed her teeth between her half-open lips, showing off the gap in the middle, stretched her thighs as she crossed her legs, and tucked in her belly as she walked with perfect posture.
The couple went out regularly, with Guida orchestrating their every move. ‘Today we’ll see this film, and then we’ll walk to the Colombo for dessert.’ Or they’d stay at home, with her steering the conversation. ‘Look at this girl’s braids,’ she would say, flicking through a magazine. ‘Do you think my hair would look good like this?’
Yes. Marcos’s answer to everything was yes. And then, after three months of trips to the cinema and conversations in the living room (at this point Dona Ana had to take up needlepoint since there were no more socks to darn), Guida thought it was time to expand the limits of their relationship, and that this expansion ought to be made in the direction of Botafogo. She posed the question that Marcos most feared.
‘When am I going to meet your parents?’
‘Look, look here, sweetheart,’ Marcos said. ‘Look here. It’s just that my father is traveling.’
‘But why is he traveling if he works in the mayor’s office, and if his boss is the mayor of Rio de Janeiro?’
‘It’s because he has business in the countryside to take care of. Things you wouldn’t understand, my love. This is a very complex subject for a girl as pretty as you are.’
The following Saturday, Guida asked if Marcos’s father had finished his ‘business in the countryside.’
‘Not yet, sweetheart. Perhaps next week.’
The following Saturday, Guida asked again.
Looking at his girlfriend with her crossed arms and pouty lips, Marcos thought the time had come to resolve the ‘business in the countryside.’ But he still wasn’t ready to introduce Guida to his family.
‘My poor mother. She suffers from angina.’
Dona Mariana’s angina lasted another four weeks. Fearing he’d never again see his girlfriend without her arms crossed, or worse yet, fearing he’d never again see his girlfriend’s arms at all, Marcos relented.
‘Next Saturday we’ll have lunch with my family.’
Guida cut her story short when Maria arrived in the living room with a pot of coffee and a tray of biscuits. She accepted a cup and sat back against the sofa.
‘Do you remember the week I went to Marcos’s house for the first time?’
Euridice took a sip of her coffee, considering her reply.
‘It was shortly after our fight, wasn’t it? she asked. I’m not sure. You weren’t speaking to me then, Guida.’
‘I know. We stopped talking. But it was difficult for me, Euridice. I was so involved with Marcos, so worried about him not introducing me to his parents, and… Francisco?’
Guida turned around to see the boy at her side entertaining himself with a comic strip.
‘Why don’t you go play outside?’
‘I don’t wanna.’
‘It will be good for you, Francisco. Go play outside.’
‘I don’t wanna.’
‘Go play outside, Francisco,’ Guida ordered.
‘No.’
‘Go.’
‘No.’
Guida began to wring her hands. Euridice stepped in.
‘Perhaps you want to watch some television?’
The boy nodded his head. Euridice turned the television on and little Chico sat cross-legged on the floor. Guida felt a certain relief, but continued to wring her hands.
‘I never told you about this lunch. Oh, Euridice, it was during this lunch that my life began to unravel.’
That Saturday, Guida had arrived at Marcos’s house wearing a new dress with a floral brooch on the lapel, a blue felt hat and a purse across her shoulder. Hoop earrings that looked like gold, and a real gold necklace with an image of Our Lady. First she showed up at the gate, and after introducing herself to the doorman was permitted to walk up to the front door. There, she had to speak to the butler, and was directed to a small room on the right. There she spoke with a serving-maid, and after declining a coffee she could at last sit quietly and wait for Marcos to appear.
She heard the sound of far-off footsteps.
‘Hello, sweetheart.’
Marcos kissed Guida on the cheek and took her to the Blue Room, where his family sat together waiting for lunch to be served in the Yellow Room.
Guida learned many things that afternoon. She learned that a gold necklace with the image of Our Lady could be transformed into brass, if seen by the sinister eyes of three elegant young ladies. She learned that it was possible to speak to someone for half an hour without this person absorbing anything that was said, as was the case when she spoke to Marcos’s mother. Marcos’s mother only knew how to talk about herself; she couldn’t stop repeating that she had been The Most Sought After Woman in All the Soirées in Rio, at a time when Rio still had soirées, or that Rua Dona Mariana had been named in honor of her grandmother, Mariana Godoy Moraes, or that she had been a patron of the Brazilian theater for many years, but had recently become more interested in sponsoring these young boys of the national swim team. Guida also learned that Marcos’s father did not absorb what she said, but in this case it was because nothing she said was of any importance to him. This became clear to her as she stared at the strange man with his narrow eyes. She learned that eating a steak dinner could drag on for a long time, and that even a dessert as refined as profiteroles could lose its flavor. She learned a great deal about Marcos, who also seemed to be a stranger among those people, and about Marcos’s brothers, whose eyes bored into the medallion of Our Lady, and not because they were pious but because the medallion was in the only place they wished to rest their eyes.
When Guida was led from the Yellow Room to the Blue Room, from the Blue Room to the entry room, from the entry room to the hall, from the hall to the front door, and from the front door to the front entrance, she knew that she would never again step through the immense metal gate that closed behind her, and she felt relief.
Marcos accompanied her. They walked to the trolley stop hand-in-hand and without saying a word. The further away from the mansion they got, the greater the anger Guida felt in her chest. Anger at having been treated like a fatty cut of meat by those human aberrations. Marcos’s family embodied the cliché of those people who ask, ‘Do you know who you’re talking to?’ But it was they who didn’t know who they were talking to. She was Guida Gusmao, the woman who never lowered her head to anyone. Guida Gusmao, who had never known failure, who redoubled her strength when she encountered obstacles. Shortly before they reached the trolley, she squeezed her boyfriend’s hand.
‘Marcos, I’m going to take you away from this place.’
Two months later they were married, signing the papers in front of a justice of the peace. Guida wore a simple linen dress and held a bouquet of orange blossoms. After the ceremony, they returned to the small house they had rented in Vila Isabel, and only then was Marcos permitted to sleep in the same room as Guida.
Since Marcos’s family would never allow them to marry, and Guida’s family would never accept a groom without his parents’ permission – Guida thought they should marry on their own and live far from both Santa Teresa and Botafogo. Marcos had some savings and would be able to cover the rent until he graduated from medical school, which was only a matter of months away. Diploma in hand, he would open his own practice. As soon as they were settled – with a house, his practice, the sick coming for treatment and providing enough money to pay the bills – Guida would return home and explain that they’d married in secret. Marcos and Guida’s family would then expand to include Dona Ana, Senhor Manuel, and Euridice.
‘I never wanted to spend so much time without seeing all of you.’
Euridice stared at her sister, fascination in her eyes. It had been a long time since she’d been so interested in something, or in someone.
‘But Guida, you never returned.’
Guida cast her eyes to the floor and then began to clean the biscuit crumbs from the center table.
‘You know that game “Pin the Tail on the Donkey”?’
‘What?’
‘The game, “Pin the Tail on the Donkey.” When we blindfold the children and tell them to pin the tail on the donkey. That game we played at church parties.’
‘Yes…’
‘Life is like that game, Euridice. There are times we think we’re doing everything just right, but then we realize that we’re blindfolded and we can’t manage to do anything right at all.’