The Girl in the Photograph. Lygia Fagundes Telles

hesitated: “That music, do you hear? An angel playing. I can’t listen to it because I start to cry like a fool, my eyes are already watering…”

      “You’re just like Michelangelo’s David.”

      “Where did you see Michelangelo’s David, where?” he asked, laughing. He grabbed the bottle from the floor. “Where, where?”

      “My friend, you dummy. Loreninha has a huge poster of him. She’s been all over Europe, you’re not the only one, see? Dummy. She’s very rich. You used to be. You’re not any more, but never mind. It doesn’t matter. I think it was Milan. Her brother, the diplomat. I think it was there.”

      He swirled the glass of whiskey with ice. He took a large gulp and dried his sparse beard with his hand.

      “We’re going to travel, hanh? Oh, Bunny, we’re going to get all kinds of money, okay? Mama used to love to travel, so many ships. Even in hotels we used to read those books, you know the ones with maps? Hanh? Lots of maps. My little sister was there in that school so we used to travel all the time, the visiting bit.” He sat down on the bed and smiled. “I used to collect postcards.”

      “Lorena collects bells. Ding-a-ling-a-ling. Little bells.”

      “But my wee-wee is bigger than his.”

      “Than whose? Bigger than whose wee-wee?”

      “David’s isn’t that the statue you were? Hanh?”

      Next year my love. You were rich, you’ve seen everything. And me. That’s just the thing. Shit, I’ll become a virgin. I’ll marry the scaly one, open my registration and do my course. Brilliant. At vacation time I’ll travel to buy things, he said once he adores traveling. Ah what a coincidence so do I. The operation is easy Lorena will lend it to me. She’s generous Lena. So. She always gets me out of the tight spots. And if I am. It would be an absolute disaster eeeh I said the word Lena says if you say things backwards it’s good luck. Wait calm down. There’s the r. Then the e. What’s the next letter? The next one. Oh never mind that, enough. I am not pregnant. What I am is sober scratch scratch. My head rotten sober.

      “I drink and nothing happens. Nothing. That music is crummy.”

      He stretched his hand toward the pile of records which leaned dangerously sideways, some of them sliding gently to the floor.

      “A string quartet. True angels, hanh? You want this one, Bunny? I’m going to put it on, fabulous, A Certain Sympathy for the Devil, hanh?”

      Miserable howling. God, aggressive music. I’m sick of aggression I’ve seen more of it than I want. Now I want presents, favors. Someday I’ll buy a whole truckload of presents all silly things throw money around on silly stuff I want to be silly. She’s crazy that one with her demands. And she even—. She must think I’m a whore. So what. I’ll bury myself in money take my courses buy a laboratory just like that one. The colored water dripping and me green yellow blue ah I’ll dye myself in an ocean. An ocean, love. I’m floating off and the green tongues of the fish are licking my feet. I laugh because the green tongues are licking me my legs no! I cry covering myself because the biggest tongue licks my abdomen and penetrates me so warm ah love. I love you. As happy as.

      “We could go live someplace stupid like Ireland. Why Ireland? I don’t know either, just Ireland. Hanh? There’s money coming.”

      She opened her eyes and focused them gradually on the young man. He was smoking and smiling vaguely.

      “What time is it? What time is it, Max?”

      “We didn’t come here to get up-tight. Throw everything to the wind, fabulous. An island.”

      She grabbed the cigarette from his mouth and smoked.

      The shorter coat would look great with velvet slacks. She could pay for it in five installments. Ten. Bastard. Queer. He couldn’t forgive her because she was beautiful and had breasts. “Flatten down that chest, flatten it!” he yelled at the showing and everybody laughed. Hatred, he was hateful because he wished he had breasts and didn’t. It doesn’t matter. The scaly one will give me a shipload of coats. Three factories. He’ll want a virgin. So what? I’ll stuff myself full of baby oil and he’ll find one when we go to bed. I could model for Marcil too and he’d give me the little black suit or—. Brando will go crazy but I’ll tell him give me the coat then.

      “Quick, Bunny! Give me your mouth!”

      I give him my mouth give him everything. But tense scratch scratch. And if I am. Lena will pay for plastic surgery but she doesn’t have a bag of gold does she? I need yenom yenom Mother Alix said she’d pay. Take money from a saint and give it to the Turk, group analysis for godssake. Stupidity. Next year I start over. And I can pay for individual treatment thank you sir. Thinking I wanted to go to bed. Pretentious Turk. “I’m married, very happily married. My wife is a geisha.” Geisha geisha. I’ll bet she puts horns on him twenty-four hours a day. Well done. It wouldn’t be any good anyway because one loses respect for them, look what happened with that dumbass. Crazier than me that one there. Psychiatrist, shit. How could he help me? Even a baby. You’ll see, I am again. That’s just it, not to feel any pleasure and on top of it all, What day is today? The twenty-sixth? Twenty-six, twenty-seven, twenty-eight, twenty-nine … does this month have thirty-one days?

      “Max, does this month have thirty-one days?”

      “Come here, Bunny, I want your mouth.”

      I open my arms. He falls onto my chest. Yes I love you. So. To get rich. Get rich. You were once and nha-nha was too. I’d like to try it may I? Lena said she’d loan it to me she’s sweet Lena. Generous. She offered to come with me and hold my hand. The scaly one wants a virgin. He’s had his fun with every whore in town but when it comes to. Bastard. All right. If you really insist, I’ll become a virgin. What if I asked him to loan me the yenom? Why not. Doesn’t a girl have the right to ask her fiancé for a little loan? I’ll tell him it’s for an urgent operation and he’ll ask me what operation there’s nobody in the world who can ask more questions. He’ll ask me and I’ll say I need to have my tonsils out my tonsils are rotten my appendix is rotten ah how depressing. And this one here who doesn’t resolve anything.

      “I’m cold, Max, cover me. Cover me, love,” she said. She shivered beneath the young man’s body. “It’s freezing.”

      He found the woolen blanket among the tangled bedclothes and pulled it up, covering his head. The ends of the fringe reached Ana Clara’s shoulders. He closed the opening of the tent in up-and-down movements that grew faster and faster, reaching a sharp rhythmic pitch. He poised himself above her, then fell downward in a series of convulsions that made the cover slide off them in shallow folds. From underneath him came a fragmented sob, almost a wail.

      “Bunny, Bunny, I love you.”

      She pushed back the fringe of the blanket and turned her face to the wall, rolling her hair around her finger.

      “So good, love.”

      “Let’s get married. Bunny? Let’s? I want to get married immediately, hanh? What about it? A great idea, right, Bunny?”

      “Yeah, yeah, let’s.”

      He kissed Ana Clara repeatedly on the mouth, tenderly straightened her disheveled hair, and rolled off her body as if he were rolling off a sand dune. He lay down on his belly, his face buried in the pillow, one arm hanging down. His hand touched the rug, searching as cautiously as a spider, with two blind fingers stretched out like wiggling antennae. They went around the ashtray where the cigarette still burned; then, inspired, they drew back and found the glass. As he took a gulp, whiskey ran down his chin.

      “Eeeh, Bunny, I’m all wet, quick, wipe me, I’m all wet.”

      “I’m the one that’s wet. What time is it?”

      “Have to look. You remind me of Mademoiselle Germaine after us with her little gold watch, time for this, time for that. ‘Maximiliano, tu es en