Now of all times she had no reason to be shy and afraid of committing a
gaffe
. She was waiting for someone, she answered. He eyed her a moment. “Do I look so forlorn that I couldn’t possibly be waiting for someone?” she told him:
“I’m waiting for a friend.”
And now she knew that her voice would come out perfectly: calm and casual. (Well it wasn’t the first time she was waiting for someone.) He rubbed at a nonexistent stain on the corner of the small marble table and, after a calculated pause, replied, without so much as looking at her:
“Yes, ma’am.”
She settles into the narrow chair. She crosses her legs with a certain elegance that, Cristiano himself had said, comes naturally to her. She holds her purse with both hands, lets out a relaxed sigh. There. All she has to do is wait.
Flora enjoys living very much. Very much indeed. This afternoon, for instance, despite her dress pinching at the waist and her waiting in horror for the moment she’ll have to stand and cross the long, narrow room in her too-tight skirt, despite all this she thinks it’s nice to be sitting there, among all those people, to have coffee with little cakes, like everybody else. She feels just like when she was little and her mother would give her “real” little pans to fill with food and play “housewife.”
All the little tables in the café are full. The men smoke fat cigars and the young men, stuffed into big, loose jackets, offer each other cigarettes. The women drink sodas and nibble at sweets with the daintiness of rodents, to avoid smearing their “lipstick.” The heat is sweltering and the fans drone on the walls. If she hadn’t been dressed in black she could have imagined herself in an African café, in Dakar or Cairo, amid handheld fans and dark men discussing illicit business dealings, for example. Amid spies even, who knows? stuffed into those Arabian sheets.
Naturally it was somewhat absurd to be playing at thinking on that afternoon of all days. Precisely when Cristiano had promised her the biggest day in the world and precisely, oh! Precisely when she was afraid nothing would happen . . . simply due to Cristiano’s absence . . . It was absurd, but whenever “things” happened to her she would intersperse these things with perfectly pointless and meaningless thoughts. Back when Nenê was about to be born and she was in the hospital, lying down, white and scared to death, she doggedly accompanied the buzzing of a fly around a teacup and came to think, in a general way about the tumultuous lives of flies. And in fact, she’d concluded, there are great studies to be done on these tiny beings. For instance: why is it that they, with those beautiful wings, don’t fly higher? Could it be that those wings were powerless or did flies lack ideals? Another question: what is the mental attitude of flies toward us? And toward the teacup, that big lake, sweetened and warm? Indeed, those problems were not unworthy of attention. We’re the ones still not worthy of them.
A couple entered. The man stopped in the doorway, at length chose a spot, then made his way over there with his wife under his arm, looking fierce like someone getting ready to defend a right: “I’m paying just as much as everyone else.” He sat, cast a defiant look around the room. The girl was shy and smiled at Flora, a smile of class solidarity.
Well, time is flying by. A waiter with a blond mustache heads toward Flora, acrobatically balancing a tray with a dark soda in a perspiring glass. Without asking a thing, he sets down the tray, puts the glass near her hands and moves off. But who ordered a drink, she thinks distraught. She stays still, without moving. Ah! Cristiano, come quick. It’s everyone against me . . . I don’t want soda, I want Cristiano! I feel like crying, because today’s a big day, because today’s the biggest day of my life. But I’m going to stuff into some corner hidden from me (behind the door? how
gaffe
. She was waiting for someone, she answered. He eyed her a moment. “Do I look so forlorn that I couldn’t possibly be waiting for someone?” she told him:
“I’m waiting for a friend.”
And now she knew that her voice would come out perfectly: calm and casual. (Well it wasn’t the first time she was waiting for someone.) He rubbed at a nonexistent stain on the corner of the small marble table and, after a calculated pause, replied, without so much as looking at her:
“Yes, ma’am.”
She settles into the narrow chair. She crosses her legs with a certain elegance that, Cristiano himself had said, comes naturally to her. She holds her purse with both hands, lets out a relaxed sigh. There. All she has to do is wait.
Flora enjoys living very much. Very much indeed. This afternoon, for instance, despite her dress pinching at the waist and her waiting in horror for the moment she’ll have to stand and cross the long, narrow room in her too-tight skirt, despite all this she thinks it’s nice to be sitting there, among all those people, to have coffee with little cakes, like everybody else. She feels just like when she was little and her mother would give her “real” little pans to fill with food and play “housewife.”
All the little tables in the café are full. The men smoke fat cigars and the young men, stuffed into big, loose jackets, offer each other cigarettes. The women drink sodas and nibble at sweets with the daintiness of rodents, to avoid smearing their “lipstick.” The heat is sweltering and the fans drone on the walls. If she hadn’t been dressed in black she could have imagined herself in an African café, in Dakar or Cairo, amid handheld fans and dark men discussing illicit business dealings, for example. Amid spies even, who knows? stuffed into those Arabian sheets.
Naturally it was somewhat absurd to be playing at thinking on that afternoon of all days. Precisely when Cristiano had promised her the biggest day in the world and precisely, oh! Precisely when she was afraid nothing would happen . . . simply due to Cristiano’s absence . . . It was absurd, but whenever “things” happened to her she would intersperse these things with perfectly pointless and meaningless thoughts. Back when Nenê was about to be born and she was in the hospital, lying down, white and scared to death, she doggedly accompanied the buzzing of a fly around a teacup and came to think, in a general way about the tumultuous lives of flies. And in fact, she’d concluded, there are great studies to be done on these tiny beings. For instance: why is it that they, with those beautiful wings, don’t fly higher? Could it be that those wings were powerless or did flies lack ideals? Another question: what is the mental attitude of flies toward us? And toward the teacup, that big lake, sweetened and warm? Indeed, those problems were not unworthy of attention. We’re the ones still not worthy of them.
A couple entered. The man stopped in the doorway, at length chose a spot, then made his way over there with his wife under his arm, looking fierce like someone getting ready to defend a right: “I’m paying just as much as everyone else.” He sat, cast a defiant look around the room. The girl was shy and smiled at Flora, a smile of class solidarity.
Well, time is flying by. A waiter with a blond mustache heads toward Flora, acrobatically balancing a tray with a dark soda in a perspiring glass. Without asking a thing, he sets down the tray, puts the glass near her hands and moves off. But who ordered a drink, she thinks distraught. She stays still, without moving. Ah! Cristiano, come quick. It’s everyone against me . . . I don’t want soda, I want Cristiano! I feel like crying, because today’s a big day, because today’s the biggest day of my life. But I’m going to stuff into some corner hidden from me (behind the door? how
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