Skylight

34

At last the day had come when all secrets would be revealed. After performing veritable miracles of diplomacy, Amélia had finally persuaded her sister to accompany Isaura to the shop for which Isaura made shirts, declaring that it was a lovely day and a bit of sunshine and fresh air would do her good, that it was a crime to stay indoors when, outside, the spring seemed quite mad with joy. She waxed positively lyrical in her praise of spring, so eloquent, in fact, that her sister and her niece made gentle fun of her. Since she was so inspired, they said, why didn’t she come too? She declined, however, saying that she had supper to prepare, and, with that, propelled them toward the front door. Fearing that one of them might come back for something, she watched from the window. Cândida had grown forgetful and almost always left something behind.

She was now alone in the apartment: her sister and niece would be gone for a good two hours, and Adriana wouldn’t be home until later on. She went to fetch the keys she had hidden away and returned to her nieces’ bedroom. The dresser had three small drawers; the one in the middle belonged to Adriana.

As she approached the drawer, Amélia felt a sudden wave of shame. She knew that what she was about to do was wrong. It might help her find out what it was that her nieces were so carefully concealing from her, but if forced to confess, how could she admit that she had shown such a lack of respect? Once they knew, they would all fear further raids on their privacy, and they would hate her for that. Discovering their secret by chance or by some more dignified means would not, of course, have damaged her moral authority, but using a fraudulently acquired key and tricking those people — who might get in her way — into leaving the house, well, one really couldn’t sink much lower.

With the keys in her hand, Amélia wrestled with her desire to know and the undignified nature of what she was about to do. And what guarantee was there that she wouldn’t find something she would prefer not to know at all? Isaura seemed fine now, Adriana was as cheerful as ever, and Cândida, as always, had total confidence in her daughters, regardless of what might be going on in their heads. The lives of all four seemed set to return to calm, tranquil, serene ways. Would violating Adriana’s secrets make such a return impossible? Once those secrets were unveiled, would there be no going back? Would they all turn against her? And even if her niece had committed some grave fault, would Amélia’s good intentions be enough to justify her infringing the right we all have to keep our secrets secret?

These same scruples had troubled Amélia before and been successfully repelled. However, now that it would require just one small movement to open the drawer, they returned in force, like the last, desperate burst of energy from a dying man. She looked at the keys in her open hand. And while she was thinking, she noticed, unconsciously, that the smaller key would not fit. The opening in the lock was too wide.

Scruples continued to rush in upon her, each trying to appear more urgent and more convincing than the others, and yet already they were growing less forceful, less confident. Amélia took one of the larger keys and put it in the lock. The clink of metal, the creak as the key turned, banished all scruples. It was the wrong key. Forgetting that she had one more key to try, she persisted and was alarmed when it seemed to stick. Tiny beads of sweat appeared on her brow. In the grip of an irrational panic, she tugged hard at the key, then tugged harder still and finally managed to pull it out. The other key was clearly the right one. But after that physical effort, Amélia felt so weak and tired she had to sit down on the edge of her nieces’ bed, her legs shaking. After a few minutes, feeling calmer, she got up. She tried the other key, and slowly turned it in the lock. Her heart began to pound so loudly that her head throbbed. The key worked. There was no going back.

The first thing she noticed when she opened the drawer was the intense smell of lavender soap. Before moving any of the objects in the drawer, she made a point of noting their various positions. At the front were two monogrammed handkerchiefs, which she recognized at once as having belonged to her brother-in-law, Adriana’s father. To the left, a bundle of old photographs, bound together with an elastic band. To the right, a black box embossed in silver, but with no lock. Inside were some loose beads from a necklace, a brooch with two stones missing, a sprig of orange blossom (a souvenir from a friend’s wedding) and little else. At the back was a larger box, this time with a lock. She ignored the photographs: they were too old to be of any interest. Carefully, so as not to displace any of the other objects, she removed the larger box. She opened it with the smallest key and found what she was looking for: the diary, as well as a bundle of letters tied up with a faded green ribbon. She did not bother to untie the knot: she already knew about those letters, which dated from between 1941 and 1942. They were all that remained of a failed romance, Adriana’s first and only one. It seemed ridiculous to Amélia to hang on to those letters ten years after the breakup.

She thought all this while she was removing the diary from the box. From the outside, it looked utterly banal and prosaic. It was an ordinary school exercise book. On the cover, in her best handwriting, Adriana had obediently written her name in the space provided, along with the word DIARY in capital letters that had a slightly Gothic look to them, at once childish and earnest. She must have been really concentrating when she wrote that word, her tongue between her teeth, like someone marshaling all her calligraphic skills. The first page was dated January 10, 1950, more than two years ago.

Amélia began to read, but soon realized that there was nothing of interest. She jumped over dozens of pages, all written in the same upright, angular writing, and stopped at the final entry. When she read the first few lines, she thought perhaps she had found the source of the problem. Adriana was writing about some man. She didn’t give his name, referring to him only as he or him. He was a colleague at work, that much was clear, but nothing led Amélia to suspect the grave fault she had feared. She read the preceding pages. Complaints about his indifference, disdainful outbursts about how foolish it was to love someone who proved unworthy of that love, all mixed up with minor domestic events, comments about the music she had heard on the radio — in short, nothing definitive, nothing that might justify Amélia’s suspicions. Until she came to the entry where Adriana talked about the visit her mother and aunt had made on March 23 to the cousins in Campolide. Amélia read the passage attentively: the tedium of the day… the embroidered sheet… the acknowledgment of her own ugliness… her pride… the comparison with Beethoven, who was also ugly and unloved… If I’d been alive in his day, I would have kissed his feet, and I bet none of those pretty women would have done that. (Poor Adriana! Yes, she would have loved Beethoven, and she would have kissed his feet as if he were a god!) The book Isaura was reading… Isaura’s face, at once happy and as if contorted in pain… the pain that caused pleasure and the pleasure that caused pain…

Amélia read and reread. She had a vague feeling that the answer to the mystery lay somewhere there. She no longer suspected Adriana of having committed any grave fault. Adriana obviously liked that man, but he didn’t love her. Why would he want to make me jealous when he doesn’t even know I like him? Even if Adriana had spoken of her love to her sister, she couldn’t have said any more than she’d written in the diary. And even if she was afraid of being indiscreet and hadn’t confided to her diary everything that had happened, she wouldn’t have written that he didn’t love her! However insincere she was when writing the diary, she wouldn’t conceal the whole truth. If she did, what then would be the point of keeping a diary? A diary is made for unburdening oneself. The only thing she had to unburden herself about was the pain of an unrequited, indeed totally unsuspected love. So why were the two sisters so cold and distant with each other?

Amélia continued to read, going back in time. Always the same complaints, problems at work, some mistake she had made adding up a column of figures, music, the names of musicians, her mother’s and her aunt’s occasional tantrums, her own tantrum over the matter of her wages… She blushed when she read what her niece had to say about her: Aunt Amélia is very grumpy today. But immediately after that, she was touched to read: I love my aunt. I love my mother. I love Isaura. Then back to Beethoven again, the mask of Beethoven, Adriana’s god. And always that ever-futile he. She went further back in time: days, weeks, months. The complaints vanished. Now it was love newborn and full of uncertainty, but still at too early a stage to doubt him. Before the page on which he appeared for the first time, there were only banalities.

Sitting with the notebook open on her lap, Amélia felt cheated and, at the same time, pleased. There was nothing terrible, only a secret love turned in upon itself, a failed love like the one recorded in that bundle of letters tied up with green ribbon. So where was the secret? Where was the reason behind Isaura’s tears and Adriana’s pretended good humor?

She leafed through the diary again to find the entry for March 23: Isaura’s eyes were red… as if she had been crying… she was in a nervous state… the book… the pleasurable pain or the painful pleasure…

Was that the explanation? She put the diary back in the box. She locked it. She locked the drawer. She could get no further information from it. Adriana, it seemed, had no secrets, and yet there clearly was a secret, but where?

All paths were blocked. There was that book, of course… Now what was the last book Isaura had read? Amélia’s memory resisted and closed all doors. Then suddenly it opened them again to reveal the names of authors and the titles of novels, although not the one she was looking for. Her memory kept one door shut, a door to which she could not find the key. Amélia could remember it all. The small package on the table next to the radio. Isaura had told her what it was and the name of the author. Then (she remembered this clearly) they had listened to Honegger’s The Dance of the Dead. And she recalled the ragtime music coming from the neighbors’ apartment and the argument with her sister.

Perhaps Adriana had written about that in her diary. She opened the drawer again and looked for Adriana’s entry for that day. Honegger and him were there, but that was all.

Having closed the drawer again, she looked at the keys in the palm of her hand. She felt ashamed. She was certainly guilty of having committed a grave fault. She knew something she was not supposed to know: Adriana’s thwarted love.

She left the room, crossed the kitchen and opened the window of the enclosed balcony. The sun was still high and bright. The sky and the river were bright too. Far off, the hills on the other side were blue with distance. Her throat tightened with sadness. That was what life, her life, was like — sad and dull. Now she, too, had a secret to keep. She clutched the keys more tightly in her hand. The buildings opposite were not as tall as theirs. On one of the rooftops, two cats were lazing in the sun. With a sure, determined hand, she threw the keys down at them one by one.

The cats scattered beneath this unexpected onslaught. The keys rolled down the roof and into the gutter. And that was that. And it was then that it occurred to Amélia that one other possibility remained: she could open Isaura’s drawer. But no, what would be the point? Isaura didn’t keep a diary, and even if she did… Amélia felt suddenly weary. She went back into the kitchen, sat down on a bench and wept. She had been defeated. She had tried and she had lost. Just as well. She hadn’t discovered her nieces’ secret and now she didn’t want to. Even if she could remember the title of that book, she wouldn’t go to the library to find it. She would make every effort to forget, and if that closed door in her memory should ever open, she would lock it again with every key she could find, apart from the “stolen” ones she had just thrown out of the window. Stolen keys… violated secrets… No more! She was too ashamed ever to repeat what she had done.

She dried her eyes and stood up. She had to get the supper ready. Isaura and her mother would soon be back and would wonder what had delayed her. She went into the dining room to fetch a utensil she needed. There was a copy of Rádio-Nacional on the radio set. It had been such a long time since she had listened properly to any music. She picked up the magazine, opened it and looked for that day’s program. News, talks, music… then her eyes were drawn irresistibly to one particular line. She read and reread the three words. Just three words — a whole world. She slowly put the magazine down again. Her eyes remained fixed on some point in space. She appeared to be waiting for a revelation. And the revelation duly came.

She quickly untied her apron and put on her shoes and coat. She opened her own private drawer, took out a small piece of jewelry: an old gold brooch in the form of a fleur-de-lis. She scribbled a note on a scrap of paper: Had to go out. Make your own supper. Don’t worry, it’s nothing grave. Amélia.

It was almost dark by the time she returned, and she was so tired she could barely walk. With her she had brought a parcel, which she took to her room. She refused to say why she had gone out.

“But you’re exhausted!” cried Cândida.

“I certainly am.”

“Has something happened?”

“It’s a secret — for now anyway.”

Sitting down, she looked at her sister and smiled. Then she looked at Isaura and Adriana and continued to smile. And her gaze was so gentle, her smile so affectionate, that her nieces were touched. They asked more questions, but she silently shook her head, still maintaining that same gaze and that same smile.

They ate supper, then settled down for the evening. Trifling tasks filled the long, slow minutes. A woodworm could be heard gnawing away somewhere. The radio was silent.

At around ten o’clock, Amélia suddenly got up.

“Are you going to bed?” asked her sister.

Without responding, Amélia turned on the radio. The apartment filled with sounds as an inexhaustible torrent of chords burst forth from an organ. Cândida and her daughters looked up, surprised. The expression on Amélia’s face intrigued them. The same smile, the same gaze. Then, after one last phrase of baroque eloquence, the organ fell silent, like a cathedral collapsing in on itself. The silence lasted only a few seconds, then the presenter announced the next piece of music.

“Beethoven’s Ninth! Oh, how wonderful, Auntie!” exclaimed Adriana, clapping her hands like a child.

They all settled back in their chairs. Amélia left the room and returned a moment later, when the first movement had already begun. She had brought the parcel with her and placed it on the table. Her sister shot her an inquiring look. Amélia took down from the wall two of the portraits decorating it. Slowly, as if performing a special ritual, she unwrapped the package. Relegated to the background, the music continued to play. The rustle of paper drowned it out. Then the paper slipped to the floor and the mask of Beethoven appeared.

It was like the end of the final act of a play, except that the curtain did not fall. Amélia looked at Adriana and said, as she fixed the mask to the wall:

“Ages ago, I remember hearing you say that you’d like to have a mask of his face. I wanted to surprise you!”

“Oh, Auntie, that’s so sweet of you!”

“But how could you afford it?” asked Cândida.

“That doesn’t matter,” said her sister. “It’s a secret.”

When they heard that word, Adriana and Isaura glanced furtively at their aunt, but there was not a hint of suspicion in her eyes. There was only great tenderness, a tenderness that shone through what would have resembled tears — if Aunt Amélia had been the crying type.