Selected Cronicas

THE PARTY

The imaginings which frighten me. I imagined a party — without food or drink — a party simply to be looked at. Even the chairs have been hired and transported to an empty third-floor apartment on the Rua da Alfândega, an ideal place for a party. I would invite all my former friends of both sexes, with whom I have now lost touch. Only former friends, excluding any of the mutual friends of friends. Individuals who shared my life and whose life I shared. But how could I climb those dark stairs to a rented room on my own? And how would I get back from the Rua da Alfândega at night? For I knew the pavements would be dry and hard.

I preferred another imagining. It began by mingling affection with gratitude and rage: only afterwards did the two wings of a bat unfold, like something coming from afar and getting closer; but those wings were also shining. Perhaps a tea-party this time — on a Sunday afternoon in the Rua do Lavradio — to which I would invite all the housemaids I had ever employed. Those whom I had forgotten would indicate their absence with an empty chair. just as they exist inside me. The others would be seated, their hands folded on their laps. Silent. Until each of them should open her mouth and, restored to life, a resuscitated corpse, should recite what I can remember of their conversation. Almost like a tea-party for society ladies, except that at — this tea-party there would be no talk about housemaids.

— I wish you every happiness — one of them gets to her feet — May you be blessed with what no one can give you.

— Whenever I ask for anything — another rises from her chair — I can’t stop laughing, so people never take me seriously.

— I like films with a gun fight. (And that was all I could remember about an entire person.)

— Plain, everyday home-cooking, madam. I only know how to cook for the poor.

— When I die, one or two people will miss me. But that’s all.

— My eyes fill with tears when I speak to a lady, it must be all this spiritualism.

— He was such a pretty child that I really felt like giving him a good thrashing.

— Early this morning — the Italian maid told me — when I was coming to work, the leaves started falling along with the first snow. A man on the street said to me: ‘It’s raining gold and silver.’ I pretended I hadn’t heard him because, if I’m not careful, men always get their way with me.

— Here comes Her Ladyship — the oldest of all my former house-maids gets up, the one who only managed to show soured affection and who taught me so early in life how to forgive love’s cruelty. — Did Your Ladyship sleep well? Being a lady means enjoying every luxury. She is full of whims: she wants this, she doesn’t want that. To be a lady means being white.

— I want three days off during the Carnival, madam, for I’m tired of playing Cinderella.

— Food is a question of salt. Food is a question of salt. Food is a question of salt. Here comes Her Ladyship: may you be blessed with what no one can give you, that’s all I ask when I die. Then the man said that the rain was gold, and no one can give you that. Unless you don’t mind standing in the dark, bathed in gold, but it has to be in the dark. Her ladyship has seen better days: leaves or the first snow. To taste the salt in what you are eating, not to give a pretty child a good thrashing, to avoid laughter when you are asking for something, never to pretend that you haven’t heard when someone says: It’s raining, my good woman, it’s raining gold and silver. It really is!