A SLAVE CAME into the room to say that someone wished to speak to
the schoolmaster.
“Who is it?”
“He says you don’t know him, sir,” answered the slave.
“Ask him to come in.”
I don’t know exactly how many of us children there were at the school then, but there was a general turning of heads toward the door through which the stranger would enter. Shortly afterward, a rough, weather-beaten figure arrived; his long hair had clearly never seen a comb, his clothes were all creased and crumpled, and I can’t now even recall what color they were or what fabric they were made from, but they were probably some sort of dun-colored cotton. We all waited to hear what the man had come to say, especially me, because he happened to be my uncle, and lived in Guaratiba. His name was Uncle Zeca.
He went over to the teacher and spoke to him very quietly. The teacher asked him to sit down, then glanced across at me, and I think he must have asked my uncle something, because Uncle Zeca then launched into a long explanation. The teacher questioned him further, and my uncle answered, and, finally, the teacher turned to me and said:
“Senhor José Martins, you may leave.”
My sense of pleasure overcame any feelings of fear and confusion. I was only ten years old and I loved having fun and loathed school. Being summoned home by my uncle, my father’s brother, who had arrived the previous day from Guaratiba, must indicate some celebration or outing, or something of the sort. I ran to fetch my hat, stuffed my exercise book into my pocket, and went down the steps of the school—a two-story building in Rua do Senado. In the corridor, I kissed Uncle Zeca’s hand, and once we were out in the street, I trotted along beside him, looking up at his face. He still said nothing, and I didn’t dare ask any questions. Shortly afterward, we reached my sister Felícia’s school; my uncle told me to wait, went up the school steps, and eventually they both emerged, and the three of us set off home. I was feeling even more excited now. I was sure some celebration awaited us, because both of us were there, walking ahead of my uncle, exchanging questions and conjectures. Perhaps it was Uncle Zeca’s birthday. I turned to look at him; he had his eyes fixed on the ground, probably so that he wouldn’t stumble.
On we walked. Felícia was a year older than me. She was wearing flat shoes tied on with ribbons that crisscrossed her instep and ended in a bow around her ankles. I was wearing a pair of very worn cheap leather boots. Her bloomers just reached the ribbons on her ankles, whereas my baggy cotton pants reached down to my feet. Once or twice we stopped, she to admire the dolls displayed outside the notions stores, while I paused anywhere that had a parrot bobbing up and down on a perch to which it would be attached by a metal chain. It was usually a parrot I’d met before, but, to a ten-year-old, parrots are always of unfailing interest. Uncle Zeca would drag us away from all these commercial or natural spectacles. “Come on,” he would say in a gruff voice. And we would continue walking, until some other curiosity made us stop. The main thing was the party awaiting us at home.
“I don’t think it can be Uncle Zeca’s birthday,” Felícia said.
“Why not?”
“He seems rather sad.”
“No, he’s not sad, he’s just a bit grumpy.”
“All right, grumpy, but if it was his birthday, you’d expect him to look really cheerful.”
“Perhaps it’s my godfather’s birthday, then . . .”
“Or my godmother’s . . .”
“But in that case, why did Mama send us to school today?”
“Perhaps she didn’t know.”
“There’s bound to be a big supper. . . .”
“And puddings . . .”
“And maybe dancing . . .”
We finally agreed that it could be a party even if it wasn’t anyone’s birthday. A big lottery win, for example. It occurred to me, too, that it could be election time. My godfather was a candidate for alderman, and although I didn’t really know what “candidate” or “alderman” meant, I’d heard so much talk about his imminent victory that I assumed it was already done and dusted. I didn’t know that elections were always held on a Sunday, and today was Friday. I imagined music bands and cheering and people clapping, with us kids leaping about and laughing and eating coconut candy. There might be some sort of performance later on. I felt positively dizzy with excitement. I had been to the theater just once and had fallen asleep on the way home, but the following day I was so happy that I longed to go again, even though I hadn’t understood a word of what I’d heard, because I’d seen a lot of things: fancy chairs, thrones, long spears, scenes that changed before your eyes, going from parlor to forest and from forest to street. And all the characters were princes. At least that’s what we called the ones wearing silk breeches, buckled shoes or boots, swords, velvet capes, and plumed caps. There was dancing too. The dancers, male and female, spoke with their feet and hands, changing position all the time and with a permanent smile on their lips. Then the audience started shouting and clapping . . .
That’s the second time I’ve mentioned “clapping” now, but that’s because I knew about clapping. When I told Felícia about the possibility of some kind of performance, she didn’t seem so keen, nor did she reject it entirely, either. She wouldn’t mind going to the theater. Or perhaps the performance would be at home, maybe a puppet show. We were still engaged in these conjectures, when Uncle Zeca told us to stop while he talked to someone.
We waited. The idea of a party, of whatever kind, still excited us; well, more me than her. Myriad possibilities sprang up in my imagination, all of them incomplete, because they came into my head so quickly and in such confusion that I couldn’t actually grasp them; some may even have appeared more than once. Felícia pointed out two houseboys wearing scarlet skullcaps, who were walking past carrying canes, and that reminded us of the feast nights of Saint Anthony and Saint John, which were both long gone. Then I told her about the bonfires we lit in the playground, about the Roman candles and Catherine wheels and firecrackers we set off, and how we boys danced together. Perhaps it would be something like that . . . Then I suddenly remembered that you were supposed to throw your schoolbook on the fire; she could throw hers, too, the one containing all the different stitches she was learning.
“I’m not burning my book,” said Felícia.
“Oh, I’d happily burn mine.”
“Papa would just buy you another one.”
“Before he did, though, I could stay at home and play. School is so boring!”
We were still talking about this when Uncle Zeca and the stranger came over to join us. The stranger gently raised our faces to him and regarded us gravely, then he left, saying:
“Nine o’clock, is it? I’ll be there.”
“Come along,” Uncle Zeca told us, when the man had gone.
I wanted to ask him who the man was; he seemed vaguely familiar. Felícia thought the same, but neither of us could put a name to his face; however, his promise to be there at nine o’clock struck home. It must be a party or a dance, because we were usually sent to bed at nine o’clock. Given the exceptional circumstances, though, we would still be awake. When we reached a muddy puddle, I grabbed Felícia’s hand, and we both leapt over it, so energetically that my schoolbook almost fell out of my pocket. I glanced at Uncle Zeca to gauge his reaction; he was shaking his head disapprovingly. I laughed and Felicia smiled and we continued on down the sidewalk.
It was a day for meeting strangers. The next two strangers were riding donkeys, and one of them was a woman. They had come from the fields. Uncle Zeca went out into the street to talk to them, having first told us to wait. The donkeys stopped, and I said that they had done so of their own accord because they knew Uncle Zeca, too, an idea that Felícia hotly rejected, and which I defended, laughing. I wasn’t really serious; it was all in good fun. Anyway, we waited, studying those two country folk. They were both very thin, the woman even more so than the man, and she was younger too; he had gray hair. We didn’t hear what they said, the man or Uncle Zeca, but we saw the husband eyeing us curiously and saying something to his wife, who then also looked at us, this time with something like pity in her eyes. Then they moved on, Uncle Zeca rejoined us, and we set off again for the house.
Our house was in the next street, near the corner. As we turned that corner, we were horrified to see that all the doors on our house were draped in black cloth. We instinctively stopped and turned to Uncle Zeca. He came over to us, took us each by the hand, and was about to say something, but the words stuck in his throat. He walked on, taking us with him. When we arrived, the doors were both ajar. I don’t know if I mentioned before that the house was a notions store. Inquisitive onlookers were standing in the street. The windows opposite and on either side were filled with heads. There was a sudden buzz of voices as we approached. Needless to say, Felícia and I could not believe what we were seeing. Uncle Zeca pushed open one of the doors, we all went in, and then he shut the door behind us, and led us down the hallway to the dining room and the bedroom. Inside, next to the bed, sat my mother, her head in her hands. When she realized we were there, she leapt to her feet and came to embrace us, weeping and crying:
“My children, your father is dead!”
The shock was enormous, even though confusion and uncertainty partially numbed my ability to grasp this news. I couldn’t move; indeed, I felt afraid to do so. Dead? How? Why? I ask those questions now in order to move the action along, because, at the time, I asked nothing of myself or of anyone else. I could hear my mother’s words echoing inside my head, along with her loud sobbing. She clung to us and dragged us over to the bed, where her husband’s body lay, and she made us kiss his hand. I felt so removed from it all that, despite everything, I did not, at first, understand, although the sadness and silence of the people around the bed helped make it clear that my father really had died. It wasn’t a saint’s day, full of fun and play, it wasn’t a party, we wouldn’t be allowed to idle away the hours, long or short, far from the torments of school. I cannot honestly say whether that fall from such a delightful dream increased my childish grief or not; best not think about it. My father was lying there dead, with no leaping, no dancing, no laughter, no music bands, all of which were also dead. If I had been told when Uncle Zeca came to the school why they had come looking for me, joy would never have entered my heart, from which it was now being soundly beaten out.
The funeral took place the next day at nine o’clock in the morning, and the friend my Uncle Zeca had met in the street was probably there, too, the one who had said goodbye with a promise to be there at nine. I didn’t see the ceremony; I remember only a few figures, not many, all dressed in black. My godfather, who owned an import-export business, was also present, as was his wife, and she took me to a room at the back of the church to show me some engravings. When we left, I heard my mother’s cries, the muffled sound of footsteps, a few murmured words from the people taking hold of the coffin handles, something like: “turn to the side . . . slightly more to the left . . . that’s it, hold on tight . . .” Then, in the distance, I saw the hearse followed by the closed carriages . . .
There went my father and the holiday! A day off from school, but no rest! It wasn’t just one day, either, it was eight, eight days of grief, during which I occasionally thought about school. My mother would weep as she made our mourning clothes, in between visits from people offering their condolences. I cried too; I didn’t see my father when I would usually see him, didn’t hear his voice at the table or at the counter, or the tender words he addressed to the birds, for he was a great lover of birds, and kept three or four of them in cages. My mother barely spoke, or, when she did, it was only to outsiders. That is how I learned that my father had died of apoplexy. I heard this over and over, because visitors always asked how he had died, and she would tell them everything, the hour, the expression on his face, the circumstances; he had gone to get a drink of water, and was just filling his glass and standing at the window that looked out onto the courtyard. I learned the story by heart just from hearing her tell it so often.
And yet, even so, my schoolfellows still came to peer inside my mind. One of them even asked when I would be back.
“On Saturday, my dear,” said my mother, when I repeated this imagined question. “Although, since the mass will be on Friday, perhaps it would be best if you went back on the Monday.”
“I’d prefer Saturday,” I said.
“As you wish,” she said.
She didn’t smile, but if she’d been able to, she would have smiled with pleasure to see that I actually wanted to return to school earlier. And since she knew how I hated school, I wonder what she made of this sudden eagerness on my part. She probably attributed some loftier meaning to it, a message from heaven or from her husband. And if you’re reading this with a smile on your face, I certainly wasn’t idle during that time. No, I had no rest, because my mother made me study, and I not only hated studying, I hated having to be seated, with the book in my hands, in a corner or at the table. I cursed the book, the table, and the chair. I resorted to something that I heartily recommend to other idle boys: I left my eyes on the page and opened the door to my imagination. I ran to snatch up skyrockets, to listen to hurdy-gurdies, to dance with girls, to sing, to laugh, to have fights, whether pretend or in play, whichever is the more appropriate term.
Once, when my mother found me in the parlor without my book, she told me off, but I explained that I’d been thinking about my father. This explanation made her cry, and it wasn’t a complete lie on my part, either, for I had been remembering the last little gift he gave me, and I could see him with it in his hand.
Felícia lived as sadly as I did, but, I must confess, the main cause of her sadness was not the same as mine. She liked to play, too, but she didn’t really miss playing, she spent all her time with our mother, sewing with her, and, once, I even saw her wiping away her tears. Slightly annoyed, I considered imitating her, and put my hand in my pocket to take out my handkerchief. My hand entered my pocket with no real feeling and, finding no handkerchief there, withdrew with no real regret. I think that my gesture lacked not only originality, but sincerity too.
Don’t think badly of me. I was genuinely sad during those long, silent, reclusive days. Once, I decided to go into the store, which had opened again immediately after the funeral, and where the clerk continued to work. I could talk to him, watch him selling cotton and needles, measuring out ribbons, or I could go to the door, out onto the sidewalk, even as far as the street corner . . . My mother smothered that dream soon after it was born, sending the slave-woman to fetch me and bring me back into the house to study. I tore at my hair, clenched my fists like someone about to land a punch, and, possibly, even wept with rage.
The book I was studying reminded me of school, and the image of school consoled me. I was really missing it by then. I could see from afar the faces of the other boys, the silly expressions we all put on as we sat at our desks, and our sheer glee as we gamboled home. I felt on my face one of those little paper pellets we used to provoke each other with, and I made one of my own and threw it at my imaginary provoker. As often happened, the pellet hit someone else’s head, and he soon took his revenge, although when it hit one of the shyer boys, he would merely pull a face. It wasn’t proper fun, but it was enough. The exile I had so blithely abandoned when Uncle Zeca came to fetch me seemed to me now like a remote heaven, and I was afraid of losing it. There was no gaiety at home, hardly a word spoken, barely a movement made. It was around this time that I started drawing endless cats in the margins of my schoolbook, cats and pigs. They didn’t exactly cheer me up, but they were a distraction.
The seventh-day mass restored me to the street. As it happened, I didn’t go back to school on the Saturday, I went to my godfather’s house, where I was free to talk a little more, and on the Sunday, I was allowed to stand outside the shop door. This wasn’t complete happiness, though. Complete happiness came on Monday, at school. I arrived all dressed in black and the other boys eyed me curiously, but it felt so different to be back beside my schoolfellows that I forgot that joyless holiday and discovered instead a different joy, with not a holiday in sight.