Selected Cronicas

THE REMNANTS OF CARNIVAL

No, not of this latest carnival. Yet for some strange reason the last few days have taken me back to my childhood and those Ash Wednesdays in deserted streets where the debris of streamers and confetti was being blown around. Now and then, some old woman heading for church with a veil over her head, could be seen crossing the road which always looked so empty after carnival. Until the following year. And as the festivities approached, how can I describe my excitement? As if the world, like some great bud, were about to blossom into a huge red rose. As if the streets and squares of Recife were finally coming into their own. As if human voices were chanting at long last my secret capacity for pleasure. Carnival was mine, all mine.

But in reality I took little part in carnival. I had never been to a children’s ball, I had never worn a costume and mask. In recompense, I was allowed to stay up until eleven at night and to stand at the entrance on the ground floor of the two-storey building in which we lived, avidly watching others enjoying themselves. I was given two precious gifts which I used sparingly so that they would last for three days: one was an ether spray, the other a bag of confetti. Oh, how difficult to write about such moments. To this day I can remember how my heart would sink upon realizing that, even without taking part in the festivities, I was so excited that any little thing was enough to make me a happy little girl.

And those carnival masks? They frightened me but that fear was inevitable and necessary because it confirmed my deep suspicion that the human face is not unlike a mask. Standing there in the doorway, if a masquerader happened to speak to me, I would suddenly enter into vital contact with my inner world which consisted not only of dwarfs and enchanted princes, but of human beings with their own mystery. So even that fear of masqueraders was something I needed.

No one at home offered to make me a fancy dress. With so much worry because of my mother’s illness, my sisters were too busy to think about carnival and the children’s ball. But I persuaded one of my sisters to put my depressingly straight hair into curlers so that I might have the satisfaction of seeing my hair in curls, at least for carnival. During those three days my sister also gave in to my earnest pleas to be allowed to wear make-up like teenage girls, for I could scarcely wait to be rid of my vulnerable childhood. Wearing lipstick and rouge, I felt pretty and feminine and I was no longer a child.

But there was one carnival that was different from the others. So miraculous that I could scarcely believe my good fortune, for I had become accustomed to asking for so little. A friend’s mother had decided to make her a costume and the theme was to be a rose. She had bought endless sheets of pink crepe-paper, presumably hoping to create the impression of layers and layers of rose-petals. I watched in amazement as the costume gradually took shape. The finished product bore no resemblance to rose-petals but I honestly believed it was one of the loveliest costumes I had ever seen.

Then the unexpected happened: there were still sheets of crepe-paper left over, lots of them. Perhaps in answer to my silent prayer, or sensing my envy and despair, or simply out of kindness, my friend’s mother offered to make me a rose costume, too, with the remnants of the crepe-paper. So for the first time in my life, I was to have what I had always wanted. During those three days of carnival I would pretend to be someone else.

Even the preparations made me dizzy with excitement. I had never been kept so busy as my friend and I made careful plans. Beneath our costumes we would wear underslips so that if it started to rain and our costumes disintegrated, at least we would be respectable. The very thought of a sudden downpour of rain leaving two eight-year-old girls standing there in the street, dressed in nothing but flimsy underslips, caused us acute embarrassment before carnival had even started. But God would come to our assistance! There would be no rain! When I remembered that I only possessed a costume because enough crepe-paper had been left over, I swallowed my pride (which had always been ferocious) with some resentment, and humbly accepted what fate had charitably given me.

Yet why did that year’s carnival, the only carnival when I possessed a costume, have to be so sad? Early on Sunday morning, I was already in my curlers so that my hair would be nicely set by the afternoon. The minutes dragged on, I was becoming so impatient. At last, at long last! Three o’clock in the afternoon. Taking care not to tear the paper, I dressed up as a rose.

Many worse things have happened to me and I have shrugged them off. But this particular set-back haunts me to this day. Why does the game of fate seem so irrational? So implacable and cruel? No sooner was I dressed in my crepe-paper costume with my hair still in curlers and waiting to have my face made up with lipstick and rouge, than my mother’s condition suddenly deteriorated. The house was in a panic and I was sent in haste to a near-by chemist to buy medicine. I ran all the way dressed as a rose — my face bereft of make-up and so unmistakably that of a child. Bewildered and in a daze, I kept on running among streamers, confetti and the cries of carnival. The happiness of those revellers terrified me.

Hours later, when things had calmed down at home, my sister combed my hair and made up my face. But something had died inside me. As in those tales I used to read about fairies who bewitched people and then broke the spell, I felt my spell had been broken: I was no longer a rose and had turned back into a little girl. I went down on to the street and as I stood there I was no longer a flower, but a pensive clown with scarlet lips. In my desire to experience ecstasy I would start to feel happy, only to remember with remorse that my mother was seriously ill and once again something died inside me.

Salvation only came hours later. And how I clung to it, so great was my need to be saved. A handsome, twelve-year-old boy, who in my eyes seemed much older, came up to me and with a gesture of affection, daring, mischief and sensuality, covered my hair, no longer curly, with confetti. For a second we stood there, staring at each other, smiling in silence. And so this little eight-year-old woman was able to convince herself for the rest of the evening that someone had finally acknowledged her. I had become a rose after all.