Skylight Read online

  The sound of the doorbell interrupted her thoughts. She ran on tiptoe to the door. She paid the milkman and returned to the kitchen. Her husband had still not woken up.

  The situation was clear to her now. It was a choice between pleasure and power. If she kept silent, she would be accepting defeat in exchange for other such moments, always assuming her husband was prepared to grant them to her. If she spoke, she ran the risk of having him throw her impassioned response back in her face. It was easy enough to set out those two alternatives, but rather harder to choose between them. Shortly before, she had felt nausea and disgust, but now those moments of sexual ecstasy roared inside her like the sea inside a shell. Speaking out would mean that last night’s experience would never be repeated. Saying nothing would mean subjecting herself to whatever conditions her husband chose to impose on her. Justina moved between those two poles—newly awoken desire and the desire to be in control. One excluded the other. Which to choose? And what scope did she have to make such a choice? If she chose control, how could she resist desire now that she had experienced it? If she chose submission, how could she bear submitting to a man she despised?

  The Sunday-morning sun flooded in through the window like a river of light. From where she was sitting, Justina could see the small, raggedy white clouds chasing across the blue sky. Good weather. Bright skies. Spring.

  From the bedroom came a mumbling sound. The bed creaked. Justina shuddered and felt her face flush scarlet. The line of thought she had been carefully drawing snapped. She sat paralyzed, waiting. The creaking continued. She went to the bedroom and peered around the door: her husband was sitting there, eyes open. He saw her. There was no going back. She entered in silence. Caetano looked at her in silence. Justina didn’t know what to say. All her powers of reasoning had abandoned her. Her husband smiled. She did not have time to find out what that smile meant. Almost without realizing she was speaking, she said:

  “Just pretend that nothing happened last night, and I’ll do the same.”

  The smile vanished from Caetano’s lips. A deep frown line appeared between his eyebrows.

  “Perhaps that won’t be possible,” he answered.

  “You know plenty of other women. You can amuse yourself with them.”

  “And what if I demand my conjugal rights?”

  “I couldn’t refuse you, but you’d soon grow weary of that.”

  “I see—at least I think I do. How do you explain your behavior last night, then?”

  “If you had an ounce of dignity, you wouldn’t ask such a question! Have you forgotten that I spat in your face?”

  The expression on Caetano’s face hardened. His hands, resting on the mattress, clenched. He seemed about to stand up, but stayed where he was. In a slow, sarcastic voice, he said:

  “Ah, yes, I’d forgotten about that. I remember now, though, but I also remember that you only spat in my face once . . .”

  Justina saw what he was driving at and said nothing.

  “Come on, answer!”

  “No, I feel ashamed for you and for me.”

  “What about me? I’ve had to suffer years of being despised by you.”

  “You deserve it.”

  “Who are you to despise me?”

  “No one, but I do.”

  “Why?”

  “I began to despise you as soon as I knew you, and I only really knew you once we were married. You’re depraved, you are.”

  Caetano shrugged impatiently:

  “You’re just jealous.”

  “Jealous? Me? Don’t make me laugh! You can only feel jealous of someone you love, and I don’t love you. I may have once, but it didn’t last. When my daughter was ill, did you care? You spent all your time with your fancy women!”

  “Now you’re talking nonsense!”

  “If that’s what you think, fine. I just want you to know that what happened last night won’t happen again.”

  “We’ll see about that.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You called me depraved. Maybe I am, but what if, for some reason, I should start taking an interest in you again?”

  “Don’t bother. Besides, it’s been years since you thought of me as a woman.”

  “You sound almost sorry.”

  Justina did not respond. Her husband was eyeing her malevolently:

  “Are you sorry?”

  “No! If I was, I’d be sinking as low as all those other women you know!”

  “Going with them, of course, is less convenient. With you, I just have to reach out and grab you. I am your husband after all.”

  “Unfortunately for me.”

  “Now you’re being nasty. Just because I didn’t react when you spat at me doesn’t mean I’m prepared to put up with all your back talk.”

  “You don’t frighten me. You threatened to beat me to a pulp once, and I didn’t so much as turn a hair.”

  “Don’t provoke me.”

  “Like I said, you don’t frighten me!”

  “Justina!”

  She had moved closer as she spoke. She was standing by the bed, looking down at her husband. He reached out his right arm and caught her by the wrist. He didn’t pull her toward him, but held her firm. Justina felt a tremor run through her whole body. Her knees were shaking as if they were about to buckle beneath her. Caetano said in a hoarse voice:

  “You’re right . . . I am depraved. I know you don’t love me, but ever since I saw you naked the other night, I’ve been mad for you, do you hear, mad. If I hadn’t come home last night, I would have died!”

  It wasn’t so much his words as the tone in which he said them that troubled Justina. Feeling her husband drawing her toward him, she desperately tried to free herself from his grip:

  “Let me go!”

  What little strength she had was ebbing away. She could feel herself being drawn downward, feel her own pulse pounding in her ears. Then her eyes fell on the photograph of her daughter and her stubbornly sweet smile. She pushed hard against the edge of the bed, resisting his efforts to pull her down, and when she saw that he was about to grab her with his other hand, she squirmed around and bit the fingers gripping her. Caetano let out a scream and released his grip.

  She ran into the kitchen. She understood now, understood why he had acted as he did. If she hadn’t given in to that impulse to reveal herself naked to her husband, none of this would have happened. The Justina she was today would be the same Justina she had been yesterday. She had spoken out, but what had she gained? Only the certain knowledge that everything had changed. It was pure chance that she hadn’t given in this time. The photo of her daughter would have been of little help if the conversation with her husband earlier hadn’t given her the strength to resist; that, of course, and what had happened only a few hours before . . . “Which means that if, instead of trying to have sex with me so soon afterward, he’d allowed a day or two to pass and then tried again, I probably wouldn’t have resisted . . .”

  Justina was busy making lunch, her thoughts elsewhere. And what she was thinking was this: “He’s depraved, a lecher, which is why I’ve always despised him. He’s still depraved, which is why I still despise him. And yet, even though I despise him, I gave in to him, and I know that, given the opportunity, I’d do the same again. Is that a marriage? Must I conclude, then, that after all these years I am just as depraved as he? If I loved him, I wouldn’t use a word like ‘depraved.’ I would find it all perfectly natural and would always give myself to him as I did last night. But is it possible not to love a man and still feel what I felt? I don’t love him and yet he drove me mad with pleasure. Is it the same for other people? Do they feel nothing but loathing and pleasure? And what about love? Can pure animal lust give you the kind of pleasure you should only get from love? Or is love just lust in disguise?”

  “Justina! I’m getting up. Where are my pajamas?”

  Getting up? Already? Was he planning to spend all morning with her? Perhaps he was going out . . . She
went into the bedroom, opened the wardrobe and handed him his pajamas. He took them from her without a word. Justina didn’t even look at him. Deep down, she still despised him, despised him more and more, but she lacked the courage to look him in the face. She was trembling when she returned to the kitchen. “I’m afraid, afraid of him! Me! If someone had told me yesterday that one day I would feel afraid of him, I would have laughed.”

  Hands in his pockets, slippers flapping, Caetano slouched through the kitchen on his way to the bathroom. His wife breathed again: she had feared he might speak to her and she was not prepared for that.

  In the bathroom, Caetano was whistling a tuneful fado. He stood in front of the mirror and interrupted his whistling in order to run his hand over his rough beard. Then, while he was preparing his razor, he began again. He lathered up his face and again stopped whistling to concentrate on his shaving. He had nearly finished when he heard his wife’s voice outside the closed door:

  “Your coffee’s ready.”

  “All right, coming.”

  Caetano didn’t care two hoots about the conversation he’d had with his wife. He knew he had won. A bit of resistance on her part would just make things all the more interesting. Dona Justina was going to have to pay, however reluctantly, for the shabby way she’d treated him. He had caught her out. Why had it never occurred to him before that sex would be the best way to humiliate her? Her scorn and pride lay shattered and broken! And the slut had enjoyed it too! True, she’d spat in his face, but he’d make her pay for that as well. He’d do the same to her one day, possibly more than once. Yes, next time she began moaning and writhing around, he’d give her a taste of her own medicine—take that! How would she react, he wondered. She might get angry . . . but only afterward.

  Caetano felt very pleased with himself. Even the pimples on his neck didn’t burst when he ran the razor over them. He was feeling calmer now. She may have had him under her thumb before, but now he had her in the palm of his hand. Even if his old feelings of repugnance returned, as they were bound to, he would not deny her his services as a husband.

  The word “services” made him smile: “Services, eh? What a joke!”

  He washed, using a lavish amount of soap and water. While he was combing his hair, he was thinking: “What a fool I’ve been. Anyone could have seen that the anonymous letter wasn’t going to work . . .”

  He stopped, slowly opened the window and peered out. It came as no surprise to him to see Lídia; in fact, that’s why he’d stopped what he was doing. Lídia was looking down at something and smiling. Caetano followed her gaze, and in the yard belonging to the ground-floor apartment where the cobbler and his wife lived, he saw their lodger chasing after a chicken while Silvestre, leaning against the wall with a cigarette in his mouth, was slapping his thighs and laughing:

  “If you don’t catch her, Abel, it means no soup for lunch!”

  Lídia laughed too. Abel looked up and smiled:

  “Oh, sorry, I didn’t see you there. Would you like to give me a hand?”

  “No, I’d only make matters worse.”

  “Well, it’s not very kind of you to laugh at my misfortunes!”

  “I’m not laughing at you. I’m laughing at the chicken—” She broke off to greet both men. “Good morning, Senhor Silvestre! Good morning, Senhor . . .”

  “Abel,” said the young man. “No need to bother with surnames, you’re too far away for formal introductions.”

  Safe in a corner, the chicken was ruffling its feathers and clucking.

  “She’s making fun of you,” said Silvestre.

  “Really? Well, I’m going to make her give that lady up there another good laugh.”

  Caetano preferred not to hear any more. He closed the window. The chicken resumed its agitated clucking. Smiling, Caetano sat down on the toilet seat while he put his thoughts in order: “That first letter may not have worked, but this one will . . .” He wagged his finger at the window in Lídia’s direction and murmured:

  “I’m going to have my revenge on you too, or my name’s not Caetano.”

  30

  All of Amélia’s endeavors bumped up against her nieces’ obstinate defenses. She tried to make the girls confess outright, reminding them of the harmony and perfect understanding that had once reigned in the family. Isaura and Adriana responded with laughter. They tried to demonstrate, in every way possible, that they were not angry with each other, that it was only because Amélia was used to seeing them constantly happy that she had now started imagining things that simply did not exist.

  “We all get annoyed sometimes,” Adriana would say.

  “I know, I’m the same, but don’t think you can deceive me. You still talk and smile, but Isaura doesn’t. You’d have to be blind not to see it.”

  She gave up trying to coax from them the reason behind the coldness between them. She could see they had made a kind of pact to delude both her and her sister. However, while Cândida might be taken in by appearances, Amélia would only be satisfied with hard facts. She began, quite openly, to observe her nieces. She forced them into a state of tension verging on panic. They only had to make some slightly obscure comment for Amélia to come out with an insinuating riposte. Adriana made light of the matter, and Isaura took refuge in silence, as if afraid her aunt might draw unwarranted conclusions from even the most innocent of words.

  “Cat got your tongue, Isaura?” Amélia would ask.

  “No, I simply have nothing to say.”

  “We all used to get on so well here. Everyone talked and everyone had something to say. We’ve gotten to the point where we don’t even listen to the radio anymore!”

  “That’s because you don’t want to, Auntie.”

  “What’s the point when our minds are all on something else!”

  If it hadn’t been for Isaura’s behavior, she might have abandoned her idea, but her niece still seemed cowed and tormented by some hidden thought. Amélia decided not to bother with Adriana and to focus all her efforts on Isaura. Whenever Isaura went out, Amélia would follow her. She would return disappointed. Isaura spoke to no one and never once diverged from the path that led her to the shop she worked for, and she neither wrote letters nor received them. She no longer went to the library from which she used to borrow books:

  “You’ve stopped reading, Isaura.”

  “I don’t have time.”

  “You have just as much time as you had before. Was someone at the library unpleasant to you?”

  “Of course not!”

  When her aunt asked Isaura about her sudden indifference to books, Isaura blushed. She bowed her head and avoided her aunt’s eyes. Amélia noticed her embarrassment and thought that therein lay the root of the problem. She went to the library on the pretext of inquiring about its opening hours, but what she really wanted was to see who worked there. She left no wiser than she had entered, for the staff consisted of two bald, toothless old gentlemen and a young woman. Her suspicions vanished into the air like smoke. Feeling all doors closing on her, she turned to her sister, but Cândida pretended not to understand.

  “There you go again, you and your ideas!”

  “Yes, and I won’t give up either. I know you’re acting as a cover for your daughters. When you’re with them, you’re all sweetness and light, but you don’t fool me. I’ve heard you sighing at night.”

  “I’m thinking about other things, old things.”

  “The time for sighing over those ‘old things’ is long gone. You have the same griefs as me, but I put them away, as did you. Now you’re sighing over new things, over the girls . . .”

  “You’re obsessed, woman! You and I have fallen out time and again and made up time and again too! Why, only the other day—”

  “Exactly. We fell out with each other and we made up. They haven’t fallen out, you’re right, but you won’t convince me that there isn’t something wrong.”

  “I’m not trying to convince you of anything. If you enjoy making a com
plete idiot of yourself, then go on, but you’re ruining our lives. We were all getting along so nicely . . .”

  “It’s not my fault everything’s gone wrong. I’m doing my best to make everything go right again, but”—she blew her nose hard to disguise her emotion—“what I can’t bear is to see the girls like this!”

  “Adriana seems cheerful enough. Why, only the other day, when she was telling us about how her boss tripped on the carpet—”

  “Pure pretense. Would you say Isaura was cheerful too?”

  “We all have our off days . . .”

  “Yes, but she has an awful lot of them. You’ve come to some agreement, haven’t you? You know what’s going on!”

  “Me?!”

  “Yes, you. If you didn’t, you would be just as worried as I am.”

  “But only a moment ago you said you’d heard me sighing at night.”

  “Aha, caught you!”

  “Oh, very clever. But you’re quite wrong if you think I know anything. You and your silly ideas.”

  Amélia was indignant. Silly ideas indeed! When the bomb went off, then she’d see how silly—or not—they were. She changed tactics. She stopped tormenting her nieces with questions and insinuations. She pretended to have lost interest, to have forgotten about the whole business. She noticed at once that the tensions eased. Even Isaura began to smile at her sister’s tall tales of the office, but Isaura’s attitude only convinced Amélia that there was still some hidden mystery. Free from the pressure of suspicion and persecution, Isaura was able to relax a little; she seemed to want to help her aunt to forget. But Amélia did not forget. She merely took a few steps back in order to be able to jump still farther.

  While maintaining her pose of indifference, she listened out for every word, but without reacting to them, however strange they were. She believed that, bit by bit, she would untangle the whole sorry plot. She began to rummage around in the past for anything that might help her. She tried to remember when “it” had all begun. Her memory had grown weak and vague, but helped by the calendar, she battled on until she found the source. “It” had begun on the night when she’d heard her nieces talking and Isaura crying. Just a bad dream, Adriana had said. So the bad dream must have been Isaura’s. What could they have said to each other? She knew that girls tell each other everything, at least that’s how it was in her day. There were two possibilities: either Isaura was crying about something Adriana had told her, in which case the problem lay with Adriana, or she was crying about something she herself had said, which would explain why Adriana had tried to cover it all up. And if it was Adriana’s problem, how had she managed to stay so cool and collected?