Skylight

16

Abel paused on the landing to light a cigarette. At that moment, the stairwell lit up. He heard a door open on the floor above and the muffled sound of voices, followed immediately by heavy footsteps that made the stairs creak. He took his key out of his pocket and pretended to be fumbling with the lock. He only “found” it when he felt the person coming down the stairs walk right past him. He turned and saw Paulino Morais, who murmured a polite “Good evening,” to which Abel — who had now opened the front door — responded in the same manner.

As he walked along the corridor inside the apartment, he heard light footsteps above heading in the same direction. When he went into his room, the footsteps sounded farther off. He turned on the light and looked at his wristwatch: five past two.

The room was stuffy. He opened the window. The night was overcast. Slow, heavy clouds drifted across the sky, lit by the lights of the city. It had grown hotter, and the atmosphere was warm and humid. The sleeping buildings surrounding the back yards were like the wall around a deep, dark well. The only light was the glow emanating from his room. It flooded out of his open window and spilled into the yard below, revealing the stalks of the shrunken, useless cabbages that, plunged in darkness up until then, now had the startled look of people torn abruptly from sleep.

Another light went on, illuminating the backs of the buildings opposite. Abel could see clothes hung out to dry, flowerpots, and windows glinting. He decided to finish his cigarette sitting on the garden wall, and so as not to have to go through the kitchen, he jumped down from the window. He could hear the chicks piping in the chicken run. He walked through the cabbages bathed in light. Then he turned and looked up. Through the panes of the glazed balcony, he could see Lídia making her way to the bathroom. He smiled a sad, disenchanted smile. At that hour, hundreds of women would be doing the same as Lídia. He was tired, he had walked many streets, seen many faces, followed many nameless shapes. And now there he was in Silvestre’s back yard, smoking a cigarette and shrugging his shoulders at life. “I’m like Romeo in the Capulets’ garden,” he thought. “All that’s missing is the moon. Instead of innocent Juliet, we have the highly experienced Lídia. Instead of a delicate balcony, a bathroom window. A fire escape instead of a ‘tackled stair.’” He lit another cigarette. “Any moment now, she’ll say: ‘What man art thou that, thus bescreen’d in night, so stumblest on my counsel?’”

He smiled smugly, rather pleased with his ability to quote Shakespeare. Carefully avoiding the abandoned cabbages, he went and sat on the wall. He felt strangely sad. Doubtless the influence of the weather. It was very close and there was a hint of thunder in the air. He looked up again: Lídia was coming out of the bathroom. Perhaps because she, too, felt hot, she opened the window and leaned on the sill.

“Juliet saw Romeo,” thought Abel. “What will happen next?” He jumped down from the wall and walked into the middle of the yard. Lídia was still at the window. “Now it’s my turn to say: ‘But, soft! what light through yonder window breaks? It is the east, and Juliet is the sun.’”

“Good evening,” said Abel, smiling.

There was a pause, then he heard Lídia’s voice say “Good evening” and she promptly vanished. Abel threw down his cigarette and, much amused, mumbled to himself as he returned to his room:

“There’s an ending Shakespeare didn’t think of.”