–22–

Sorry? You’re going to terminate our sessions if I don’t admit … Fine, I admit it: everything I said in the last session was made up. I didn’t go to a psychologist, much less accuse my father of molesting me. Nor did I have sex with any girlfriend of his. What made you think I was lying? You’re right: such defiance wasn’t in keeping with the weakness I always demonstrated in my relationship with my father, especially after my mother’s death … Go on … If I had confronted him as a teenager, even if contumeliously, our story — my father’s and mine — most probably wouldn’t have taken the fatal turn it did. Right …

I’m sorry, I only wanted … Truth be told, even though the things I told you didn’t take place objectively, they did subjectively. My father only said that he was going to take me to see a psychologist, but he soon abandoned the idea. To do it would have shown some kind of concern for me. But, after he considered taking me for psychological counselling, I imagined avenging myself in the way I told you … The girlfriend? You want to know about the girlfriend? … Yes, she existed. I wanted her, like I wanted several of my father’s girlfriends. They were beautiful young women, provocative in the way they dressed and undressed. We had a swimming pool, as I mentioned before, and they were always parading through the back yard in bikinis.

This brunette, in particular, drove me crazy. From time to time, she’d ask me to rub sunscreen on her back … I’d do it, then run to my room, trying to hide my erection, which continued even after I’d masturbated. When my father dumped her, I thought about going to her, to declare how I felt about her. I fantasised about consoling her in my arms, while I kissed her neck, her mouth, her breasts … You know, one of the things I remember about my adolescence was hovering outside my father’s bedroom door when he was in there with a girlfriend, trying to hear some kind of sound that would indicate they were having sex. A moan, a whisper, a muffled cry — anything. But I never heard a thing, I think, although sometimes my memory suggests I did …

Go ahead and ask … What’s the first image that comes to mind when I think about my father having sex with a girlfriend? A scene of sodomy, perhaps … Of a man with an enormous phallus tearing a woman who dared to offer herself to him … That’s the kind of thing you wanted to hear, right? I know your lot. But enough. I’m not interested in interpretations. Indulge in them far away from me, and without my collaboration. What purpose do they serve, for God’s sake? Above all, I agreed to tell my story in order to organise it in my own mind, full stop. You’re no more than a supporting actor here; do you understand? So don’t try to become a protagonist with your interpretations.

Would you like me to go on? Fine. But let’s stick to the story, because we’re close to the denouement.

My wife returned to Paris after a month’s absence. Our reunion was marked by a certain coldness. Not that there wasn’t hugging and kissing, but it was as if we were performing a ritual required by a hypothetical protocol. While we were still at the airport, she justified her delay, saying that, because of the extra time she’d had, she’d managed to clear up all outstanding matters with the lawyers handling her uncle’s inheritance and, as a result, a considerable amount of money was already in her bank account. During the week that followed, we gradually got back into our Parisian routine. The joy the city had once inspired in us, however, was no longer there. Everything had lost its magic. My wife had already graduated from her cooking course, and I was about to finish my Master’s, without a distinction. After it was completed, we travelled in Europe a little, wandered through a few South-East Asian countries in search of some exoticism, and returned to Paris. We spent another year in this limbo, putting off a decision that we knew had already been made: to come back to Brazil.

Why did we come back? It’s hard to say. I think that when we have no reason to stay away, we’re obliged to content ourselves with the reasonlessness of staying close to our roots. This is, in my opinion, an impulse common to everyone who has gone through the experience of an inexplicable return. I’m speaking for myself, not my wife. But you know what? Maybe she was also seeking a higher reason for this return to our homeland, above and beyond the other reason that made her push a lot for us to come back. I’ll get to that later.

The fact is, we came back. We spent the first few months in a rented flat while we renovated and decorated the house that my father had given us as a present, in a neighbourhood near his. My wife, as was to be expected, took great care with every detail, with the help of an architect/interior decorator who pocketed a fortune in commissions from the purchase of materials, furniture, and accessories. The result, of course, was very good. It combined the right proportions of personal touch and design.

When the house was ready, I was surprised by a request from my wife: she wanted us to make our marriage legal. There was, in this, a yearning for social recognition, a need to use the front door in the world of the rich and powerful that was my family’s habitat — I mean, my father’s. My wife was fascinated by my father’s network of friends and contacts. I was dragged off to parties and dinners every night, and was always impressed by her self-assuredness on these occasions. It’s true that my wife had never been shy, but her behaviour was a source of constant astonishment to me.

I did and I didn’t like it. I’ll try to explain: I liked it, because having a wife like mine could be considered irrefutable evidence that I wasn’t the weirdo my father made me out to be. If I’d managed to seduce her, it was because I was an interesting man. But, at the same time, I didn’t like it, because exposing myself like this might reveal that, contrary to what seducing such a woman indicated, I really wasn’t such an interesting man, and maybe was even a weirdo.

Our wedding was a grand occasion, with about one thousand guests, a sumptuous dinner, and photographs in the social columns. My father felt it was incumbent on him to spend an incredible sum on this demonstration of power and prestige. My wife looked stunning in her bridal gown. When she walked into the church, to be given away by my father, who was especially handsome that night, a murmur of admiration ran through the audience. Even I was impressed … How did I feel about the wedding? Anaesthetised. I took part in it all, as if none of it had anything to do with me. It’s not that I didn’t love my wife; but, at that moment, I was hollow, with nothing inside me. I didn’t have good or bad feelings, an intellectual repertoire, nothing. I moved like a robot, responding to outside stimuli with the minimum expenditure of energy — not least because I had none.

This sensation continued through our honeymoon, although I did my best to pretend to be happy. We went to a paradisiacal island, and I spent hours staring at the sea. The sea from which I’d been saved by my father, and in which I now imagined I was dissolving. It wasn’t a death wish, because even wishes require some kind of desire. I just thought about being taken away by the water, like a defenceless child. Defenceless — and motherless. I’d never thought so much about my mother as on my honeymoon. I’d never missed my mother as much as I did on my honeymoon. It is curious that, right when a man is most required to prove his manhood, I had become so childlike. I cried in secret, and these tears were so much bitterer because it was more and more difficult to remember the contours of her face, the timbre of her voice.

My wife was too caught up in herself to worry about me. She wasn’t even bothered by the fact that we didn’t have sex on the occasion specifically made for it. To be honest, I think she felt relieved, since our sex life was no longer (or perhaps never had been) a big deal for her. It may sound paradoxical, but our honeymoon was the moment in which our emotional separation became explicit. We began, there, a marriage of convenience — much more for her than for me.