There came another sudden voice, this time a man’s:
“Are you playing at staring each other out?”
It was Capitu’s father, who was at the back door, beside his wife. We quickly let go our hands, and stood there flustered. Capitu went to the wall, and furtively scratched out our names with the nail.
“Capitu!”
“Papa!”
“You’ll ruin the plaster.”
Capitu was scratching over again, to be sure to efface what she had written completely. Pádua came out into the yard to see what it was, but his daughter had already begun something else, a profile, which she said was a portrait of him, and could equally well have been her mother’s; it made him laugh, which was all that mattered. In any case, he was not angry, in fact quite affable, in spite of the suspect, or more than suspect attitude he had caught us in. He was a small, stocky man, with short arms and legs, and a rounded back, which is where the “Turtleback” nickname that José Dias had given him came from. No one else in the house called him that: only the dependent.
“Were you playing at staring one another out?” he asked.
I looked at a nearby elder tree; Capitu answered for both of us:
“Yes, that’s what were doing, but Bento laughs in no time, he can’t keep a straight face.”
“He wasn’t laughing when I came to the door.”
“He’d laughed before; he can’t help it. Do you want to see?”
With a serious face she stared at me, to make me join the game. A fright, however, makes one serious: I was still under the effect of the shock brought on by Pádua’s entry on the scene, and I was incapable of laughing, however much I should have done so to corroborate Capitu. Tired of waiting, she turned her face away, saying that I couldn’t laugh that time because he was there. Even then I didn’t laugh. There are things which can only be learned late in life; to do them early on you have to be born with the talent. Even then, it is better to learn naturally early on, rather than late and artificially. Capitu, after two attempts, went to her mother, who was still at the back door, leaving me and her father full of admiration; looking at her and at me, he said, tenderly:
“Who would think she was only fourteen? She seems more like seventeen. Is Mamma well?” he went on turning round to face me.
“Yes.”
“I haven’t seen her for some days. I’ve been meaning to lick your uncle at cards, but I’ve not been able to: I’ve had to bring work home from the office; every night I’m there writing like a madman; a report I have to do. Have you seen my tanager? He’s there at the back of the house. I was just going to get his cage; come and have a look.”
There is no need for me to swear to it, for it to be believed that I had no desire to go. My desire was to go after Capitu, and tell her about the danger awaiting us, but her father was her father, and moreover he was particularly fond of birds. He had them of several species, colors, and sizes. The courtyard in the middle of the house was surrounded by cages with canaries in, and when they sang they made an infernal racket. He exchanged birds with other amateurs, bought some, and caught others in his own yard, setting traps for them. If they fell ill, he looked after them just as if they were human.