3:AM Magazine

By Clarah Averbuck.
Trans. Francisco Araujo da Costa.

I got nine lives, baby, I just keep a-comin’ back
I got nine lives, I nearly lost them all
But each and every time I really had a ball
– The Stray Cats

I woke up late again, sun shining through the gaps in the window of my friend’s apartment. The sheets were wet, the pillow was wet, I was alone and soaking wet. My friend was gone. Unlike me, he was the kind of person who works and has to get up in the morning. I shoulda been gone too, I shoulda woken up with him and packed my stuff and gone back home, back to my town, but I couldn’t. Actually, I shoulda gone home two days before, but I was broke. Flat out. And I needed money for a ticket. I must confess I wasn’t really trying to leave. I wanted to stay in Rio for as long as I could, like anyone with a heart. Marvelous Rio, beautiful Rio, seductive Rio, mulatta hypnotizing tourists like me, you’re an eyeful, Rio, you make me sigh and long and miss you. Marvelous city. Rio is fucking great, but I had to get out of the apartment. The centennial Landlady and the real state company didn’t want me anymore. The old lady kept terrorizing me and staring at me at the store every time I ran into her. I had to hide behind the coffee maker or keep to Mrs. Gemma’s left. She couldn’t see anything on her left side, because she was one-eyed. Mrs. Gemma had a gift for collecting: when I had money, she always called at the beginning of the month to check if I would pay on time. I never did. I’m a writer, y’know. Writers don’t pay their bills on time. I tried to explain it to Mrs. Gemma, see, Mrs. Gemma, you have to understand, I don’t get a salary, It’s not up to me, didn’t you see my piece in the paper? Don’t you want an autographed copy of my next book, Mrs. Gemma? It’s gonna be out soon, pretty soon, I’ll send you an invite. Don’t you think it’s great that a famous writer lives in your apartment? No, she didn’t want the book and she didn’t think it was great that famous writer lived in her apartment. She wouldn’t believe me. She asked what the hell kind of famous writer can’t make any money, as if any good writer on planet Earth ever made any money from books. She just didn’t get it, poor old Mrs. Gemma. She just cursed at me and told me to get a job or get out. I decided to get out. Putting up with an old lady cussing at me on the phone and staring me with her single eye at the store wasn’t on the list of plans I had for my life. Packing my stuff and and my cats and getting a place before she sent nasty brutish men to kick me out was. Fuck. Leaving that apartment hurt so bad. I loved that place, I really did love it, every nook, every cranny, every movie poster on the living room walls, every toy, every window, every crack on the walls. On the other hand, I was getting rid of the noise, of the leaks that flooded my room every time it rained, of the god damned stink that invaded my house from the Lebanese restaurant slash pizza place downstairs. I’ll tell ya, waking up at seven AM to smell of garlic and oil in your bedroom ain’t fun.

I had another reason for going back, besides my cat and the packing. Antonio. Antonio, the most perfect man in all Creation, the man made to fit into my body and into my soul, the perfect man, more perfect that I could have ever dreamed of, because I was taught there is no such thing as prince charming, that there is no such thing as perfection, there is no not being restricted, but ever since I read the first line he wrote for me, before the first letter, because on top of all that he also wrote better than I do, I knew he was the one. Just like that. Bing. He couldn’t be more perfect. The first time we met, we spooned. Tightly. He held my hand and our bodies fit in an S. That sealed the deal: he was the one. He didn’t let go of my hand even while we slept. He didn’t run away. The room was a mess. There were wine bottles, beer cans and fallen ashtrays as far as the I could see. Our clothes were everywhere, but nobody cared about them anyway. The first thing I thought that morning was This is how I want to wake up for the rest of my life till I can’t take it anymore. We hugged and we rubbed and we smeared and we sighed and when we opened our eyes all I could do was smile till it hurt. So we kissed again and we hugged and we rubbed and it wouldn’t have ended if we didn’t desperately have to eat something after everything we had done. A shower. Antonio first, while I tried to fix the place up. I could hear him singing in my pink bathroom. I loved my pink bathroom. I loved hearing him sing in my pink bathroom. It was the first time he did it, but I loved hearing him sing in my pink bathroom. I smiled as I piled up the trash and listened to the same album from last night, BRMC, so many fresh memories in that room. I already knew where we were going to eat: my bar. My bar was only two blocks from my house. There you could have (cheap) beer, rent (good) movies, eat a (great) sandwich, buy (discount) books and take home sponges, electrical outlets, soap and a dustpan after talking to owner for hour about nineteenth century Portuguese literature to boot.

But I had to get back to São Paulo. I lit up a cigarette and went to the window. Ladies and gentlemen, to your left, the ocean. Holy fucking shit, the ocean. Rio, you seductive slut you, you won’t let me go. I gotta go, honey, kiss me, look me in the eye with the waves crashing pure white on the sand, let the sun get to my bones, give strength to my fucked-up body, give strength to this old lady of twenty-two. My fucked-up body was totally fucked-up, it’s done, my liver was giving up on me after all the rides we had. My skin was turning yellow, my stomach couldn’t take certain foods, so I decided to only drink wine from then on. The doctor said no. No, Camila, not even wine. No alcohol whatsoever. Right, right, doc, but don’t you want to saw my legs off and maybe pierce my eyes? Whaddaya mean, no alcohol? He was out of his mind. I was sure of it when he also cut my uppers and my Tenuate, my faithful companions since adolescence that kept me fitting into my jeans. Look, Doc, I’m sorry, I can’t do that. I really can’t. No, I can’t not drink. I need it to think, Doc. No, I need it to not think. Actually, I need it to work it all out, to sort my thoughts into a single line so they can come to me one at a time. I either do that or my head turns into a fish market, two hundred people screaming at the same time. You get that, right, Doc? No, no, I don’t think I should be committed. Really. No, I don’t think I have to. NO. Here’s the deal,: either you get me a drug that won’t kill me or I will keep with the booze and the pills until I die. Yes, it’s my loss, of course it is. But aren’t you trying to come up with something. I’ve told you what I think. Oh, no, fuck you. If the insurance wasn’t paying this, I’d ask for my money back. Goodbye.

I got my backpack, my sunglasses and my CD player and went out. I still lived in Rio, in Lido, in Copacabana. Eating shrimp and walking barefoot. Writing and staring at the sea. Taking a deep breath and feeling salty Rio air instead of São Paulo ash in my lungs. São Paulo had nothing to offer me, but something kept me there. São Paulo is like a woman you can’t dump, an old and ugly woman with bobs in her hair and cream on her face who yells and listens to opera and uses cheap perfume and you can’t take anymore you can’t look at or listen to for another second anymore but that you can’t really get rid of because you still like her deep down inside. The children are gone, they’re married, a divorce would be easy, but you just can’t do it. Must be karma or something.

I sat in the back of the bus and fell asleep watching the old buildings, the pale tourist legs and the caps on the street salesmen. I woke up with the collector stepping on my foot and telling me we had reached the end of the line. I got up, got out, bought a ticket on a fifties bus shaking like it was speeding on a dirt road and that had light switches for the toilet and the faucet. Light switches. What a piece of crap. Goodbye, my love. So long. I need to go see my wife, the bitch. Hell, here I come.

***

Antonio, Antonio, my sweet Antonio. I’ve had so many men in my life, a few loves, several passions, countless disappointments, but I was always alone. I was locked in a tiny room with musty old books and vinyl records and no key. I’d get some guests, I liked guests, some even tried opening the door, but it was all in vain. Always alone. I had made my peace with it when Antonio came, busted everything open to let in the light and fresh air and hug me and tell me and show me that he couldn’t stand another love, that he didn’t wanna suffer anymore, that his girlfriend, The One, was leaving for France. That he needed to be alone, that he couldn’t take it, that he was leaving it all behind. Antonio wanted to be a Knight Templar. But he couldn’t.

Antonio, darling, look at me, look deep into my eyes and tell me I am not the one for you. Give me your hand, touch my chest and listen to my ragged and fucked-up heart pound away. We have no choice. Our hearts won’t stop. The sons of bitches never stop beating up against our breasts, dying to jump into somebody else’s hands. Our hearts are like some unshakable curse, motherfuckers won’t quit. So don’t even try, it only hurts even more. Don’t try and stop it and come suffer with me, darling. Because I get you. All the time, in sickness and in health, to have and to hold, I get you. I know about the thornball trying to rip out of your chest, about the pain and the confusion and the shortness of breath and the vertigo and not knowing where you’re going, about the sobbing and the tears burning your boyish face down to your neck. I know about things ceasing to matter, about the world getting smaller and meaningless. Been there, survived that. Alone, nobody to hold my hand. You’ll survive too. You’re strong like me, nothing can get you down. And if something can, I’m here you pull you up and hug you and help you and dress your wounds. I’ll be there for anything. The world might fall apart, blow away, flood, threaten me. The earth might shake and bitch and moan and do what it damn well pleases – nothing will get me out of your side. I didn’t think there was anything like it outside movies I hadn’t watched and books I hadn’t read. Now I know, and nothing else matters. You might leave one day, you never know where this motherfucking life might lead us. It doesn’t matter, not really. There is you. So come, darling. Come suffer with me. Come and find out there is nobody left but you and me. We’re all alone.

I’m home. Quiet. The cats celebrate. Hello, my sweeties. I missed you too. I see myself in the bathroom mirror, the only one in the apartment. So different from what I used to be. It’s like I was getting older without the wrinkles. My skin is white and smooth, but the pain makes me look like an old lady. It’s not like the pain of the destitute in those photography books that insist on portraying Brazil. Their pain is dry and hard, the pain of thirst and hunger and working so much you can’t think of anything else. My pain is within, it preserves my skin. But my eyes are telltales. The pain is all there. My eyes are too dark, too deep. It’s the pain of having seen it all and expecting nothing more. Of being alone your whole life, locked inside of yourself. Of having seen the void, the colorless painless coldness, the absolute lack of music and feeling, of having been swallowed whole and spit out by nothingness again and again, and of knowing you will be again and again until you’re nothing but a dead shell, a lifeless husk. After you’ve seen nothingness, nothing surprises you anymore. Not that you get numb, not at all. You get even hungrier for feelings, the intensity increases, because you know it can come at any moment, like a cloud or plague, and finish it. Pain saves you from nothingness. Nothing else can. Twenty-two years of pain. Older people think I’m overreacting, that I haven’t lived enough. They barely know I’ve lived more than both my grandmothers put together. They repressed themselves, they hid their passions and their libido. They swallowed hurt feelings, accepted decisions, they let themselves be tamed and caged. They suffered, yes, but they suffered in silence. They got married to nothingness. I scream. I scream inside and outside, I dive headfirst into troubled water, I climb mountains, I swim across the most dangerous channels. I have to live on the edge. I’ve been screwed. I’ve been kicked. They’ve stepped on my toes. But I survived. I always do. All black and blue, scarred for life, but it’s all worth it when it’s not in vain. Go ahead and hit me, motherfuckers, go ahead and break all my teeth for all I care. I can take it. And I’ll answer with a gap-toothed smile in the end.

The last few weeks in my dear old house. I walk around the living room with my hands on the walls and start feeling like a child of the eighties. All I need is some Smiths. There, then I could dance with the walls and say goodbye. God forbid. I even put on a Hole album to exorcise the decade. And long live Courtney Love. People who diss Courtney are all a bunch of dimwits. I’m sorry, but she’s a great fucking lady. Or used to be, before Hollywood and the fake boobs. She’s got balls and personality, and she doesn’t have to become a porcelain doll to look pretty. Courtney is a Hellcat. She lived through a lot of crap. She lost the man of her life and she’s still standing. In high heels. Looking down on everybody and telling them to go fuck themselves. Yeah, Courtney. Show them who’s boss around this shitty world. Men are so weak, they can’t take a pounding. They can’t get up after being beaten up. They bitch and moan about pain even when you’re popping some lousy zit off their backs, buncha pussies. Women have always ruled the world. Oh, God, there you go. I’m gonna miss this place. Just ’cause I’m going away it already seems less noisy. Or maybe the stereo is too loud. I need a wine bottle. My friend Miranda told me I should only drink good wine if I wanna help my liver. Problem is, who says I got money for good wine? I’ll have to go with the cheap stuff. Sorry, liver old buddy, you’re nice and all, but you’re shit out of luck. I need to say goodbye to my little old home on Glitter street. My first real home. I lie on the couch legs up alone alone alone. The window is wide open, the rain hits the pavement hard alone alone alone me and my cats, me and my love, me and my wine, me and my home. And he’s elsewhere. I close my eyes and drink some more wine. I think of Antonio, his mouth, that lovely mouth I loved to bite, his words, his talent for making me come without coming just by reading to me. But his talent wasn’t limited to words, oh no. I could spend the rest of my life kissing his body. I’d start with the mouth (oh, that mouth) and go down his neck. I’d nibble on his nipples and lick his stomach and keep going down and down. It was so perfect, it fit right in my mouth. It was so g… Holy shit. Cold water falls on my face. Right. Daydreaming, interrupted by a drop of water on my forehead. Oh, new leak. Right over the couch. Great. That makes it, let’s see, six leaks. Welcome home, new leak. Watch out, the landlady here is an old one-eyed hag that hates writers who can’t make rent.

Well, I’ve never had problems moving out. Moving out is cool. Especially if it’s out of some stupid watering can instead of a house. Fucking leaks. If Mrs. Gemma won’t do something about them, the place will become a self-watering winter garden. Good luck, Mrs. Gemma. I hope a band of vikings rents this place and finishes the job of tearing it apart.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
This is an extract from the new English translation of Vida de Gato (Planeta, 2007/2004). Clarah Averbuck is the author of three novels, the vocalist for Jazzie & Os Vendidos and has adapted her work for theatre and film in Brazil.

First published in 3:AM Magazine: Wednesday, August 15th, 2007.